Press Release

YAHOO! AND CALIGARI CORPORATION ANNOUNCE YAHOO! 3D

A New 3D World Opened for 3D Enthusiasts and Mainstream Web Users

Mountain View, CA -- October 28, 1996 -- Caligari Corporation, a pioneer in 3D graphics and VRML tools, and Yahoo! Inc., creator of the world's most popular guide to the Internet, today announced the release of the debut version of Yahoo! 3D, a jointly created 3D version of the Yahoo! guide. Yahoo! 3D is the virtual world's largest 3D Web-site which features hundreds of VRML elements. It was authored entirely with Caligari's Pioneer, a new VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) software tool that lets anyone easily create unique 3D Web worlds. Yahoo! 3D does not require special software to experience its fun and functional 3D capabilities.

By clicking on the Yahoo! 3D link on the Yahoo! main site, users can now travel through 3D worlds while searching for information on the Web. One click brings the cyber traveler to an expansive 3D courtyard of buildings. Each building represents a familiar Yahoo! category, such as Arts, Sciences, or Recreation and Sports. Viewers choose to be guided by pre-defined camera views or roam freely to any building. Each main category building contains 3D objects representing subcategories, such as a ballerina for "Dance" and rain clouds and lightening for "Weather." The site contains a total of 450 separate VRML objects.

"We're honored that Yahoo! chose Caligari to take it into the third-dimension. We set out to create the best VRML site on the planet, and I believe that we've done it! It's a fun place to explore, but underlying its entertaining facade is a great example of the awesome capabilities of VRML." says Roman Ormandy, president of Caligari Corporation. "The fact that a Web site of this scope can be designed with a $99 software product, shows that VRML is becoming a tool for the everyday user. With the new crop of low-cost 3D accelerator cards now available, the experience will be even more realistic."

"Yahoo! is continuing to work with leading edge technology companies to develop new methods of delivering Yahoo! programming to our users," said Jeff Mallett, Senior Vice President of Business Operations at Yahoo!. "We believe there are current and future 3D enthusiasts who will enjoy surfing Yahoo! 3D for the information they need."

A word from the creators behind the site: "The goal was to take something familiar and functional and make it 3D. This has some very real implications regarding the creation of the site. We were in effect guided by the Yahoo! directory," said Roman Ormandy, President of Caligari Corporation. "This is where the functionality comes in. Looking around at the examples of VRML sites today, most are demonstrations of the different aspects of VRML rather than functional uses of the technology, we wanted to change that."

"One of the greatest creative challenges of this project was, 'How do you create objects that will symbolize the very broad concepts, such as religion, politics etc.," said Jeff Hancock, 3D artist, "I've worked with converting art to objects before, when creativity is the only barrier, but when you have stringent limitations on bandwidth, content and design, your creativity is really put to the test. The site as it is today, is a major accomplishment, but I look forward to its evolution as we continue to update it to keep pace with newer versions of Live3D and other backbone technologies."

Pricing and Availability
Yahoo! 3D can be accessed for free at http://3d.yahoo.com/3d or on Caligari's home page at http://www.caligari.com. All that is required to view Yahoo! 3D is a fully configured Windows version of Netscape Navigator 3.0 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0. Pioneer has a suggested retail price of $129 and is available in the retail channel and on Caligari's secure web site for about $100. Visitors from the Yahoo! site will also be entitled to obtain Pioneer Pro for a special price of $199, instead of the $495 SRP - the first time the product has been made available for less than its Suggested Retail Price. Users are also encouraged to make use of a free 14 day "trialware" version of Pioneer downloadable from Caligari's home page.

About Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. offers a globally-branded Internet navigational guide to information and entertainment on the Web. As the first online guide to the Web, Yahoo! is one of the most visible and recognizable names associated with the Internet. Yahoo! provides a context-based directory structure for Internet resources, as well as integrated AltaVista Web-wide search capabilities. The Company is continuing to develop a global family of Yahoo!- branded media properties in targeted geographic (Yahoo! Japan, Canada, UK, Germany, France, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York, Chicago), subject matter (Yahoo! Internet Life magazine and Web site) and demographic areas (Yahooligans!, a Web guide for kids). Yahoo! can be found on the Web at http://www.yahoo.com. Yahoo! Inc. headquarters are in Santa Clara, California.

About Caligari Corporation
Founded in 1986, Caligari's mission is to develop and market software for collaborative 3D worlds where people can learn, play and work. This mission is based on a paradigm shift from seeing the PC as a machine serving existing communication media (such as press or video) to seeing PC networks as a new communication medium in themselves. In addition to moving aggressively into VRML, Caligari's retail product line consists of trueSpace/SE, the entry-level standard for 3D graphics and animation for Windows, and trueSpace2 for Windows, a professional-level software program which combines workstation-class modeling, rendering and animation with the manipulation of texture-mapped 3D objects in real time. Communications Week called Caligari Pioneer "by far the best choice available for low-end VRML developers", and Windows Magazine gave it 4 out of 5 stars in October 1996. trueSpace2 was chosen as the highest-rated 3D illustration software by InfoWorld and awarded the 1996 Digital Video Magazine Award of Excellence, a five-star rating in Multimedia World and a Highly Recommended rating from PC Graphics & Video.

Caligari Corporation is headquartered at 1959 Landings Dr., Mountain View, California, 94043. Phone: 800-351-7620 or 415-390-9600. Fax: 415-390-9755. Web site: http://www.caligari.com.

Yahoo! and Yahoo! 3D are trademarks of Yahoo! Inc. Caligari and Caligari Pioneer are trademarks of Caligari Corporation. Other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

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For more information, contact:

Montrese Etienne
McLean PR/Caligari
415-513-8800
montrese_etienne@mcleanpr.com

Blaise Simpson
Niehaus Ryan Group PR/Yahoo!
415-827-7065
blaise@nrgpr.com

Jennifer Hwang
Yahoo!
408-731-3362
jenhwang@yahoo-inc.com