mental images and Industrial Light & Magic Announce Licensing, Custom Support and Development Agreement

Berlin and San Rafael, CA. - mental images, the global leader inrendering software for filmmakers, today announced it has signed asoftware licensing and custom support and development agreement withIndustrial Light & Magic (ILM), a division of Lucas Digital Ltd.LLC, to use mental images's mental ray rendering software for futureILM productions.

ILM has utilized mental ray rendering tools increasingly within itsproductions since 1995 and under the new terms of the agreement mentalimages will develop new functionality of the mental ray softwarespecifically to meet ILM's most advanced production needs. mentalimages will also provide 24-hour turn-around support and on-sitedevelopment support. In addition, ILM will have access to mental ray'sdeveloper versions of the mental ray rendering and mental mattermodeling libraries for integration into ILM's proprietary, nextgeneration interactive modeling and rendering tools.

"We have had a long and successful relationship with mental images,"said Cliff Plumer, Chief Technology Officer, ILM. "Since incorporatingmental ray into our pipeline, the team at mental images has beenreceptive to our needs and suggestions helping us increase the realismand complexity of our imagery. This new agreement has the potential fortrue innovation and we are looking forward to taking the next step inthat direction."

The strategic partnership between ILM and mental images representsthe future of the rendering industry. Studios increasingly demand thelevel of virtual photo-realism that can be achieved with mental raysoftware. This technology permits the line between virtual and real tocompletely disappear, allowing for experimentation with innovativeeffects that promise to revolutionize the motion picture industry.

"We feel greatly honored by ILM's decision to enter into thisexciting agreement with far-reaching opportunities," said Rolf Herken,CEO of mental images. "The combination of ILM's exceptional artistictalent and outstanding technological experience, sophistication andvision with mental images' world class engineering and unsurpassedrendering research and development capabilities will shape the futureevolution of rendering technology for visual effects and true virtualcinematography. We expect to see numerous Academy Awards and awardnominations to accompany with this evolution,"

ILM has played a key role in 7 of the top 10 worldwide box officehits of all time, winning 14 Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and16 Technical Achievement Awards. mental images has received its secondAcademy nomination this year for technical achievement.

About mental images

mental images, founded in 1986, is the recognized internationalleader in providing rendering technology to the entertainment,computer-aided design, scientific visualization, architecture, andindustrial fields that require sophisticated images.

The main product of the company is the high performance, photorealistic, rendering software mental ray which is capable of running ona wide variety of platforms ranging from workstations and networks ofworkstations to parallel supercomputers. mental ray produces images ofunsurpassed realism by relying on proprietary ray tracing algorithms.It is the first rendering software that combines the physically correctsimulation of the behavior of light with full programmability for thecreation of any imaginable visual phenomenon.

Customers of mental images include original software developers suchas Alias|Wavefront, Autodesk, Inc., Avid Technology/Softimage, Inc.,Dassault Systèmes S.A., as well as major industrial end-users suchas Mercedes-Benz, a division of DaimlerChrysler AG. Users of mental rayinclude most of the leading special effects and digital film studios,game developing companies, and companies in the automotive andaerospace industries.

mental images GmbH & Co. KG is a privately held company based inBerlin, Germany, with a subsidiary in San Francisco, California. mentalimages is a registered trademark of mental images in the United Statesand/or other countries. mental ray is a registered trademark of mentalimages exclusively used mental images. See www.mentalimages for moreinformation.

About Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a division of LucasDigital Ltd. LLC

ILM has created special effects for eight of the top 15 box officehits of all time, winning 14 Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects andsix Technical Achievement Awards. ILM has pioneered and is at theforefront of the digital revolution. ILM is the largest digitalproduction facility in the world. It has three times the number ofcomputer graphic work stations as the next largest visual effectsfacility.