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More On Forterra's Olive: An Attractive Platform for Serious Gaming


Via: Forterra Systems Inc

Forterra recently issued the enclosed press release that the Serious Games Institute in Coventry, UK has licensed their On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment (OLIVE) software platform to develop virtual training and collaboration applications.

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Forterra Systems, the market and technology leader in private virtual worlds, announced last week that Forterra’s OLIVE™ (On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment) software platform has been purchased by Coventry University’s Serious Games Institute (SGI) in the United Kingdom to support the development and application of virtual world applications, game-based learning and interactive digital media resources for a range of uses and industries.

Located in the Coventry University Technology Park, SGI is the first institute of its kind in the U.K., created to serve as a center of excellence for the regional development of serious games by bringing together subject matter experts, applied research and dedicated facilities for demonstrating and showcasing serious games and immersive environments.

Using Forterra’s OLIVE platform and industry standard PC hardware, SGI will now be able to rapidly generate realistic, collaborative, 3D Internet solutions for training, planning, rehearsing, and collaborating in ways unprecedented for the gaming industry.

“We selected Forterra’s OLIVE platform given their market leadership in providing private, secure virtual worlds used for solving real problems such as group collaboration,” said David Wortley, Director of the SGI. “OLIVE provides the opportunity to apply game technologies for all kinds of non-gaming enterprises in the corporate, healthcare, government, and entertainment industries. Virtual worlds, with their online, multiplayer environments, offer unique opportunities to take traditional models of learning, simulation and entertainment to a whole new level of innovation.”

The breakthrough technology of Forterra’s OLIVE platform offers serious game developers the opportunity to develop and tailor applications to be more realistic, usable and immersive. The OLIVE SDK provides a suite of tools and interfaces that allow developers and 3D media artists to rapidly create application specific content and scenarios – the key to agile game development.

“SGI has become a leading "Serious Games" developer in the U.K. and Europe … and worldwide, for that matter. It leverages the rich pool of skills and abilities of local companies working across the digital media sector, and has already attracted a lot of international interest in its activities,” said Dave Rolston, Forterra’s CEO. “The institute has emerged as an international hub for e-games technologies with their novel approach of integrating technology, applied research and development. We are thrilled that SGI will be harnessing the power of virtual worlds with our OLIVE platform.”

OLIVE’s proven distributed client-server architecture enables simulations to easily scale from single user applications to large scale simulated environments supporting many thousands of concurrent users. Working with the OLIVE platform, customers like SGI can create realistic virtual world content and plug-in functionality to meet a wide range of simulation needs. An API layer enables customers to reuse existing content, integrate with third party applications, and leverage third party tools. The open nature of the OLIVE platform allows customers to create powerful multi-resolution and multi-fidelity federated simulation environments.

About Forterra Systems

Forterra Systems is a leader in providing online distributed virtual world technology for the corporate, healthcare, government, and entertainment industries. Forterra’s software and services enable organizations to build their own virtual worlds to train, plan, rehearse, and collaborate in ways previously considered impossible or impractical. Using the OLIVE (On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment) platform and industry standard PC hardware, customers can rapidly generate realistic, collaborative, 3D Internet solutions that easily scale from single user applications to large scale simulated environments supporting many thousands of concurrent users.