The firm that set the standard for digital photo editing intends to do the same for video game making with the Tuesday release of Adobe Director 11 upgraded multimedia software.
Director 11 made its public debut at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and will begin an international roll-out in March.
The software is designed to make it simple for people to manipulate video and audio and create three-dimensional graphics for video games, virtual worlds, and even interactive store kiosks.
"It really is about digital literacy," Adobe senior product manager Rick Jones told AFP.
"In the growing world of user-generated content, more and more people trying to take control of their video. We are giving those creators the same kind of tool Adobe Photoshop gave picture takers."
Photoshop software became the premier tool for editing photographs after the California company released the first version in 1990.
Adobe Director is the descendent of multimedia software released 20 years ago and was last updated in 2004.
Director 11 is revamped to let programmers write code any language and customize video creations by simply "dragging and dropping" icons.
"Publishing is really a matter of one button click and away you go," Adobe Director "evangelist" Allen Partridge told AFP.
"From greeting cards or wedding albums to corporate presentations or folks that want to make interactive media or go all the way deep into it and create video games."
Ageia PhysX software engine gives video three-dimensional playback and lets characters or vehicles in games move realistically, a demonstration showed.
"In the gaming world, if you create a race car that careens off a wall it will look like the real world," Jones said. "It's an opportunity for people to take their games to the next level."
Jones added that Adobe wants to make inroads with makers of serious games, those designed to improve health or for training or education.
Game makers can combine Director 11 with Adobe Flash software to craft online games.
"Director takes advantage of the vast group of Flash users that may not have development skills," Jones said. "Entry-level users can create content of their choice and it is natively 3-D."
The price of Director 11 will be 999 dollars (US), a drop from the previous generation. There will be a 99-dollar version for classroom use.
Source: AFP