Martian Toolz
Corporate Profile

Company Overview

Founded in 2000, Martian Toolz was formed to create a new level of software tools previously unavailable to the 3D animation industry for use in film and television production. The company has two divisions, one focused on service contract work and the other on branded software development.

Martian Toolz has a highly gifted, unique brain trust, whose principals bring decades of experience not as programmers, but as actual real-world users who later became programmers. Having this special insider perspective, in which the company knows what tools real-world production pipelines need to operate more efficiently, has earned Martian Toolz respect from some of the industry’s top visual effects and post-production houses.

Service Contract Division

As a service contractor, Martian Toolz is hired by visual effects companies to develop customized software tools for production environments. In such cases, Martian Toolz is able to provide them with unique solutions to their problems, freeing their staff to focus on other tasks. Clients include Digital Domain, Rhthym & Hues, Asylum and Method Studios.

In addition, Martian Toolz has done extensive consulting work for Side Effects Software, makers of the award-winning 3D animation software, Houdini, used industry-wide in high-end productions. During this time, Martian Toolz worked extensively with Disney, Sony, PDI and Vision Art.

Products (Software Division)

Martian Toolz’ branded software division is an outgrowth of its service contract work and consulting for Side Effects. Martian Toolz’ CEO, Ivan DeWolf, had long wanted to create a series of Houdini plug-ins to make production easier and less time-consuming for users. The result is a unique set of new tools available in a palette of effects.

The company has recently developed Hydrous Tools, a special ocean surface simulator, which was used in numerous films and commercials, including Flags of Our Fathers, Stealth, Peter Pan, X-Men 2 and The Cat in the Hat.

The company is currently developing a full suite of 3D animation tools and plug-ins. Martian Glue, introduced in early 2002, is the company’s first product. Martian Glue is an easy-to-use conversion plug-in allowing Houdini users to quickly import their scene description data from virtually any other software package into Houdini - literally at the push of a button.