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Crytek has announced the first Educational Institution of Art and Design supporting CryENGINE 2 which today has become the first highest education institution in the world to acquire their license. More information is included about College President Dr. Larry Thompson and much, much more about their excellence and amazingly gifted young artists.
Frankfurt, Germany / Sarasota, Florida, September 17 – Ringling College of Art and Design and Crytek today announced the College has become the first higher education institution in the world to acquire a license to use Crytek’s award-winning CryENGINE 2® middleware for educational purposes.

Remarking on the agreement, College President Dr. Larry Thompson said, “We are thrilled Crytek has chosen Ringling College as its inaugural partner for educational licensing. We view this CryENGINE 2® agreement as a validation of the exceptional and innovative academic program we have created here and feel privileged to have Crytek as one of our newest business partners.”

The addition of CryENGINE 2® to the learning environment is tremendous according to the College’s Computer Animation Department Head Jim McCampbell: “Our student body is a uniquely talented group which consists of some of the most amazingly gifted young artists, animators and designers to be found anywhere in the world, and our job as an institution is to prepare them to take their place in a future where computer games, 3D graphics and computer animations may well become the overwhelmingly dominant commercial and creative art form. They deserve to work with only the very best visual tools currently available, and no other real-time technology can compare to the CryENGINE 2® in either animation or scene rendering quality, and nothing else comes close to the ease of use and power of the new Sandbox 2TM level editor.”

“No other game engine comes close to offering the visual fidelity of the CryENGINE 2®, which can produce the kind of high quality near-photorealistic output in real time that until now required expensive render farms days, or even weeks, to generate,” McCampbell said. “With the CryENGINE 2®, Crytek has clearly created a product that is a full generation ahead of anything else, and truly defined what next generation means today. Licensing the CryENGINE 2® will ensure our graduates are prepared and experienced in working with a technology that is rapidly becoming a new industry standard, while allowing them the possibility to create virtually anything their imaginations can conceive,” he concluded.

“We are extremely proud to have been chosen by such a highly regarded school as Ringling College of Art and Design as their game engine provider, and very pleased to have the school many regard as the best computer animation school in the USA become the first to join our new educational licensing program.” said Faruk Yerli, managing director of Crytek, “The ranks of the Ringling alumni reads like a who’s who of the computer graphics world, as do the companies they work for. Our own director of animation is an alumnus, which shows you how highly we regard their graduates. Now that Ringling will be training their students using our engine and tools, we look forward in the coming years to welcoming even more future graduate game designers and animators to our employ, as will the ever growing list of companies who have chosen to license the CryENGINE 2® for their own productions.”



About Ringling College of Art and Design

Ringling College of Art and Design is a private, not-for-profit, fully accredited college offering the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree [BFA] in eight disciplines: Computer Animation, Digital Film, Game Art & Design, Fine Arts, Graphic & Interactive Communication, Illustration, Interior Design and Photography & Digital Imaging. A member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design [AICAD www.aicad.org], the College is recognized as being among the best and most innovative visual arts colleges in the United States as well as a leader in the use of technology in the arts. In 2006, it was ranked by BusinessWeek as one of the top 60 design schools in the world and one of only 10 in the U.S.