Virtway

Infobox Company
company_name = Virtway
company_
company_type = Game development
foundation = 1999
location = flagicon|Spain Oviedo, Spain
key_people =
industry = Computer and video game industry
products = Educational (serious) games
slogan = "Your way to anticipate"
homepage = [http://www.virtway.com/ Official Virtway website]

Virtway is a serious game developer located in Oviedo, Spain. It was founded in 1999 as a general IT consulting firm, but in 2006 it spun-off from its parent company to focus on 3D development and serious gaming as an independent branch of the Indigo Group holding.

eLearning platform

The main focus of the company has been developing an advanced simulation system to empower learning through gaming, called VTS (Virtual Training System). The platform was presented at the 2008 Games+Learning+Society [http://glsconference.org/2008/session.html?id=119 Perspective-Based Feedback in a Virtual World Training Simulation and the Effects on Learning] by [http://glsconference.org/2008/person.html?id=260 Robb Lindgren] , [http://glsconference.org/2008/person.html?id=261 Emmanuel Fournier] and [http://glsconference.org/2008/person.html?id=262 José Carlos López] ] conference in partnership with Robb Lindgren from Stanford University.

VTS is built on top of the Gamebryo game engine [http://www.emergent.net/Global/Documents/Emergent/Visual%20Simulation%20hires.pdf Gamebryo Top Choice for Simulation & Training Industries] , by Emergent Game Technologies technologies (July, 2008)] [http://www.emergent.net/en/Products/Clients--Titles/Visual-Simulation-and-Serious-Games/Firefighter-Simulation/ Emergent Game Engine Products: Firefighter Simulation] ] and uses NVIDIA PhysX for the physics simulation (Formerly known as Ageia).

Apparently VTS is being applied to several areas of training, such as Firefighting (a teaser video depicting firefighters appeared on the company's youtube channel) or Iron/Steel Industry.

3D Simulation

Virtway has an extensive experience in developing 3D simulations/recreations of realistic scenarios distributed by several means (such as web pages).

"Molina Digital" was the first large scale 3D project developed by Virtway. It was the recreation of a Spanish town (Molina de Segura, Murcia) where users could chat, drive cars and play Pétanque, all in 3D and through an Internet browser, leveraging the Quest3D technology.

Part of the Molina Digital project was the development of an "Interactive Theatre", a pioneer application where users could take a role in a virtual play. Each user handles an avatar on stage, and controls its body language and facial expression while he talks with his mates. Everything is recorded by another user -the director- who edits the footage later, in a way similar to a machinima production.

Virtway has also been contracted by the regional government of Asturias to develop a 3D virtual visit of the city of Llanes. The result of this contract is a website where users can visit said town in 3D using x3d technology and a port of the landmarks to Google Earth KML models.

Videogames

Virtway started the development of a project called "Born To Run" in 2004, and presented it in late 2006 [http://www.meristation.com/v3/des_noticia.php?id=cw4549f8e22195f&pic=360&idj=cw4549f4c23ee1d Born to Run, el primer videojuego internacional desde Asturias] (in Spanish, translates roughly as "Born to Run, the first international videogame from Asturias")] . It was aimed to be one of the first First Person Shooters with photo-realistic levels of quality made in Spain, and slated to hit "next-gen" systems (PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox360). There has been no more information about the game since its announcement, so it is probably cancelled by now.

References

External links

* [http://www.virtway.com/ Official Virtway website]
* [http://es.youtube.com/user/VirtwayTech Virtway's youtube channel]
* [http://cultura.molinadigital.es/web/?cambia_idioma=1 Molina Digital 3D]
* [http://teatro.molinadigital.es/index.php Molina Digital 3D: Teatro Digital] (in Spanish only)
* [http://www.asturias.es/Llanes3D Llanes3D website] (uncredited)
* [http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=3b4b07f091f40a302b25d81a4894b801 Llanes3D models for Google Sketchup]
* [http://borntorun.indigo.es/ Born to Run website] (discontinued)