e frontier and Curious Labs have merged in an effort to "create greater synergy of products and business models." "e frontier has the reputation as one of the top selling 3D tools in Asia," said Curious Labs' ceo Marc Keohane. "Curious Labs has the well established Poser product. Combined, we will now offer a worldwide solution for the creative 3D artist community."
The new company will retain the separate names of each entity making e frontier the parent company of Curious Labs in the U.S.
"This merge of professional 3D tools will bring together one company focused on further development of Shade and Poser, which will most certainly give significant advantages," said Hiroshi Sato of e frontier. "As we focus Shade for the U.S. and European markets and with the continued development on Poser with focus on increasing Poser's content variety for support for the Asian market, our work together will deliver what matters most to the 3D artist."
Keohane will lead Curious Labs. With the two business units in place, e frontier will focus on the continued development of the Shade product line and in expanding the Asian market for Poser. Curious Labs will focus on the continued development of the Poser product line and bringing the e frontier product Shade to market in the U.S. and European region. e frontier's digital design subsidiary in Japan is already well established in generating digital content such as their famous character, Japanese Digital Beauty, Fai Fai.
e frontier Inc. (www.e-frontier.co.jp) was founded in July of 1999 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. e frontier's business focus is on developing and marketing PC software packages, digital content, content for mobile devices and publications such as the DIGITAL BEAUTY publication series. e frontier's powerful 3D modeling product line featuring Shade Spirit, Shade Advance and Shade Professional delivers essential geometric modeling tools for all levels of 3D artists. With rendering and animation features included, Shade's intuitive user interface makes it easy to master for both the expert and beginner. Shade's robust and easy-to-use modeling options with Bezier Curves and Surfaces, various life-like environmental settings, and photorealistic ray-traced rendering enable quick and easy creation of any 3D shape imaginable.
Curious Labs Inc. (www.curiouslabs.com) delivers 3D character animation, figure design and essential 3D character solutions that are accessible and affordable. Founded in April 2000, Curious Labs is committed to extending the legacy of its flagship product, Poser. Poser 5 for Windows was released in fall 2002 and Poser 5 for Mac OS X in summer 2003, with new facial mapping, hair and cloth technologies. In January 2001, Curious Labs added the Pro Pack solution for Poser 4 to its range of products, enabling Poser users to integrate with their favorite 3D tools. In November 2001, Avatar Lab was released to provide animated avatars for Adobe Atmosphere.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
