RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (August 07, 2007) – Virtual Heroes Inc. (VHI), the leader in advanced learning technologies, today announced the hiring of Takayoshi Sato as Director of Visual Development. Sato brings more than 10 years of international experience working in commercial visual arts and the video game industry, including knowledge of the entire game production cycle gained from developing four commercially released AAA games and leading large development teams in Japan and the United States. Most recently, Sato was a producer with Electronic Arts (EA) in Los Angeles.
“We are thrilled to have an industry veteran like Sato as part of our team,” said Jerry Heneghan, Virtual Heroes founder and CEO. “Sato’s artistic vision and leadership will play an integral role as we continue to create collaborative interactive learning solutions for the federal systems, healthcare and commercial training markets. The addition of this high caliber of talent helps take both Virtual Heroes and serious games to the next level of realism and intensity.”
“Serious games may sound rigid, but in fact there are more creative outlets within this segment of the game industry because there is no set format to follow and less dependency on the ‘cool’ factor,” explained Sato. “Serious games can be really interesting because you know the purpose of the project – it’s to save lives, to train for an emergency, inspire and educate.”
“It is especially exciting for me because the field of serious games is still in its infant stage, and leaders like Virtual Heroes will drive innovation in the industry. It is also gives me the opportunity to deliver a portfolio of art that provides real learning experiences and powerful messages, combined with Hollywood-quality entertainment appeal,” he added.
As director of visual development, Sato will work with all VHI artists, engineers and game designers to create new and innovative designs for VHI projects. This will include the creation of photorealistic, “Dynamic Virtual Human Characters.” Sato will also provide his artistic vision to ensure continuity and quality of design across all projects from conceptualization to completion.
Sato began his career working in oil painting and fine art at Tama Art University in Tokyo and later decided to get into the gaming industry. Sato joined Japanese company Konami where he began 2D art with Sexy Parodius exposing him to animation, drawing the user interface and characters and later mastered 3D animation and managed production for all computer graphics for Silent Hill, which sold two million copies worldwide and spawned four sequels.
Sato later joined Konami’s US office as CGI director where he oversaw computer graphics and story development and led the team on Silent Hill 2. After joining EA, Sato led various gaming projects including GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.
Sato is the recipient of the Electronic Arts, EA ACTION Award; the Extraordinary Talent in Art, US Visa Award; and was awarded excellence in Digital Art, Japan Media Arts Festival. He received a Bachelor of Fine Art, Oil Painting and Contemporary Art from Tama Art University, Tokyo, Japan. To see examples of Sato’s art, visit www.virtualheroes.com or http://www.satoworks.com.
About Virtual Heroes Inc.
Founded in January 2004, and located in Research Triangle Park, NC, Virtual Heroes Inc. (VHI), the “Advanced Learning Technology Company,” creates collaborative interactive learning solutions for the federal systems, healthcare and commercial markets. Advanced Learning Technologies leverage simulation learning and digital games-based learning paradigms to accelerate learning, increase proficiency and reduce training costs for next generation workforce development. As a global market leader in this field, VHI applications facilitate highly interactive, self-paced learning and instructor-led, distributed team training on the Virtual Heroes Advanced Learning Technology (A.L.T.) platform using the Unreal® Engine 3 by Epic Games. In both 2005 and 2006, VHI was honored by Military Training and Technology magazine as one of the industry’s Top 100 companies. Virtual Heroes is expanding its experience and success in the defense sector into the healthcare market with the development of HumanSim™, and into the commercial market with custom solutions.
For more information about Virtual Heroes, its products and services, please visit www.virtualheroes.com. You can also visit Virtual Heroes at the SIGGRAPH 2007 Job Fair, this week in San Diego. The company will welcome job seekers and other interested parties at booth 25. For more information on SIGGRAPH, visit http://www.siggraph.org/s2007.
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