Microsoft buys Simplygon

Microsoft has acquired Donya Labs, developer of Simplygon, the automated polygon reduction system used on games including The Witcher 3, Paragon and Ninja Theory’s upcoming Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

An intelligent LOD-generation system used in a range of AAA games
Since its foundation in 2006, Donya Labs has notched up a pretty impressive list of clients, including, by its own estimate, over 80% of the world’s top games publishers.

An intelligent poly reduction system for creating custom LOD assets, Simplygon is integrated with both the Unreal Engine and Unity engines.

In 2016, both UE4 and Unity integrations were made available free for non-commercial use.

Donya Labs had also previously launched a cloud service with integrations to 3ds Max and Maya, which again, was free for non-commercial use.

Part of Microsoft’s ‘3D for Everyone’ strategy
In its blog post announcing the deal, Microsoft says that the acquisition accelerates its 3D For Everyone strategy, embodied in the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update and Paint 3D, its 3D version of MS Paint.

What it means for the existing Simplygon offerings is less clear: at the time of posting, all of the ‘Get Simplygon now’ links on the website are either dead or redirect to the news of the buyout, although downloads are still available, and it looks as though existing users can still log into their accounts.

Read Microsoft’s announcement of its acquisition of Simplygon