Bunkspeed Gets the Boot. Hypershot Heads to Luxion à la Wann Jensen *Updated*

This just outta the Develop3D crew. Oh, and you may want to grab hold of your spastic colon. If you’ve bought the ever so easy-to-use HyperShot rendering program from Bunkspeed in the past, as of this January 1st, the program (as it were) will no longer exist.

I’m not even going to repeat all the drama… it’s… just…too much to… take. However, here are some tidbits you can take away that put it all in perspective and answer the obvious question. Is HyperShot still going to be available??

From Develop3D:

Essentially, Bunkspeed doesn’t have the license for the ray tracing components that HyperShot is based on. Meaning they can’t sell it anymore.What’s more, the HyperShot product is now in the hands of Luxion who will continue to develop and sell it (likely under a different name and with a new direction.)

Who’s Luxion?
Luxion is the company that licensed the technology behind Hypershot to Bunkspeed. On their product page, you’ll see their VELUX daylight visualizer and right below it Hypershot with this in the paragraph next to it… “Luxion is currently finalizing the second generation of our HyperShot software. We expect to release a beta version in January 2010.”

To sum it up, here’s what Henrik Wann Jensen, Chief Scientist and Cofounder of Luxion ApS, had to say to Develop3D:

HyperShot was sold by Bunkspeed under a license agreement until last year. We ended the license agreement, since Bunkspeed did not pay us the license fees, that we had agreed to, for more than a year. Instead, Luxion will market and sell the HyperShot software. We expect to make a release shortly.”

Here’s the next question?
What’s going to happen to the relationships Bunkspeed had with companies like SpaceClaim, Alibre and others?

Now to figure out what to do with the Hypershot 10 post I had ready for next week…

Update…
Philip Lunn, Bunkspeed’s Founder and CEO, followed up with a post on the Bunkspeed blog that explains what’s going on from their side…

“First I can assure you that Bunkspeed lives on. I can also assure you that there are two sides to every story…I do want to set the record straight as to the development of HyperShot and alleviate your concerns about the future…” Read the rest here.

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