When you've got a big event coming up, it's important to have your agenda well thought out beforehand. Fortunately, the organizers of the ION Game Conference have already finalized the schedule. They've also announced a new set of speakers, to boot. More event details come your way in the full article, after the jump.

"So what does this news item mean? We get prettier trees?" Yes, that and more realistic plants, wind effects, and marine models.

What's happening? Basically, SpeedTreeRT, the winner of the 2005 Front Line Award for middleware, is a development tool used to make very realistic plants and trees swaying in the wind. It allows developers to very quickly edit animated trees and plants in real-time. The company behind SpeedTree is Interactive Data Visualization Inc. (IDV), and it has released three press releases dated January 30, 2007, to announce that more companies have licensed the technology of SpeedTree for their games.

Is this news important? Well, if you're a gamer, it depends on how much you value realistic scenery; if you're a developer, it depends on how much you want to streamline the development process; if you're a consumer, it depends on how much you think technological changes affect the quality of the end product.

More details. In case you want to know, the recent press releases from IDV say the following companies have now licensed SpeedTree: Cryptic Studios (known for City of Heroes), Cheyenne Mountain Studios (they will use SpeedTree for Stargate Worlds MMORPG), Artplant AS, Namco Bandai, Epiphany Games, and LucasArts.

They join Sony Computer Entertainment, Microsoft, Ubisoft, Volition / THQ, NCSoft, Bethesda Softworks (for Elder Scrolls Oblivion), Flying Lab, Insomniac Games, Mythic Entertainment, and a whole slew of other studios in taking advantage of SpeedTree technology. You've seen SpeedTree trees before in Call of Duty 3, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and Resistance: Fall of Man.

A clarification. There was some confusion before that the SpeedTree tech is just for PC games. This should clarify any such confusion. SpeedTree is being used for games for many platforms and is a licensed middleware partner for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. We expect to see more SpeedTree trees in future games for our handhelds and next-gen consoles.