I had a meeting w/ Alias this morning, so they could show off some upcoming enhancements to one of their core products - can't say which one, but I'm sure you can guess. Many are game-related, and all are, I must say, very, very cool.

While I was there, one of their other product managers showed off Alias Sketchbook Pro to those of us sort of milling around after the previous demo, and - wow - this is a seriously awesom program for the traditional artist w/ either a Wacom or Tablet PC, concept artists for games, and I can even see it being used to create very painter-like textures, for a reasonable price.

Check out the time-limited (but full-featured) trial version at http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services/sketchbook_pro/index.shtml, where you can also see some work that's been done w/ the application. Also, they've promised to send along a full version of the app, which I'll review for gamedev in the upcoming months.

As for the original reason I was meeting w/ Alias, well, you'll just have to wait until April 18th, 8:00PM to see what they've been cooking up these past few months, and it truly is some stuff that those doing 3D for games won't know how they've lived without them until now, and that's the highest praise I can give a company.

Sorry John, you've lost your bet. I've posted.