Once again we are pleased to share with you the happenings in the Illuminate Labs world, everything from business news and events to whatever we happen to find cool or interesting at this particular point of the journey. In addition, the newsletter is also designed to share some of the links and information that our designers and staff happen to find interesting at the moment. Everything from conspiracy theories to pointless robotics and other, more normal stuff in between.
So read and enjoy and let us know if you have any input for future issues.
Happy reading!
As the gaming world calls for more and more spectacular and realistic lighting effects, we are more than happy to oblige and the number of Beast titles signed is now up to 15! More are under way, but their titles are still super secret, and any bragging rights have to get through a veritable maze of legal and IDA obstacles first, so mums still the word for a while. We could tell you, of course, but then we'd have to kill you, so all in all, waiting is still the best choice. More to come when we can safely divulge.
Among the Beast users we can name are found Gearbox Software, Yager and EA DICE. Owen O'Brian, Senior Producer at EA DICE, had the following to say:
“In Mirror's Edge we went for a very unique and clean art direction. This look required a system that allowed us to bounce not only light but colors too. The Beast lighting solution we have been working with Illuminate Labs to develop has helped us to achieve these goals and helped bring our vision to life,” says O'Brian.
The killer results are easy to see in the new trailer for Mirror's Edge. You can check it out here
Still not convinced? Then read more on our website or send an email to sales@illuminatelabs.com to set up your own Beast evaluation account.
At Gamefest in Seattle in July, our lead programmer David Larsson will introduce Illuminate Labs' Beast for Unreal Engine 3 and the Global Illumination it is used for, along with Kyle Davis, Lead Programmer, Gearbox Software.
David will show how moving from the Unreal engine’s static lighting solution to a global illumination based system will not only affect your game’s visual quality, but your artists' workflow as well. Kyle Davis will also share his experiences as to how Beast affected the workflow on Gearbox Software.
We’re all aware that using global illumination gives much better end results, but that it is not without its own set of problems. David will tackle these issues as well, such as how to get your artists to take advantage of the new opportunities presented to them and how to tackle longer render times and dynamic actors? He and Kyle will also demonstrate examples which highlight the visual difference between Global Illumination and standard ray tracing.
Keep an eye out for a more detailed program on the Gamefest site at:
A new patch for Turtle 4.1 has just been released. Among the improvements in this release is a much faster path tracing pass, which has been possible by optimizing the shading part of the path tracer. Another nice improvement is the handling of user written LUA shader scripts. If something goes wrong you will now get a report of the error, the line number in the script and a possible cause of the error. Hence, debugging you scripts during development is now much easier. There is also a new feature in the Occlusion Sampler for selecting how self-shadowing should be handled. A part from the improvements there is also a bunch of fixes for bugs reported since the previous release. See the release notes for a complete list of the changes.
Make sure to check out this new improved Turtle! The new version and release notes are available here.
BEAST FOR UNREAL - SAMPLE IMAGES:
On our website you can read more about all the advantages you gain from using Beast light maps and the integration with the Unreal Engine. We have also uploaded a number of sample images so you can see for yourself just how fantastic the results really are. Check it out here.
ILLUMINATE LABS IN MIRROR’S EDGE AND GRAN TURISMO: HOT GAMES AND COOL TECHNOLOGY OR OH, HOW WE FEEL USED (IN A GOOD WAY)
As some of you may already know, our technology is being used in a number of AAA game titles. In our online gallery you can check out images from some of these titles. We’ve recently added images from Gran Turismo and some even newer and fresher ones from the upcoming Mirror’s Edge. Be sure to check them out!
NORDIC GAME AND GDC SESSIONS
We would like to thank all those who came by and listened to our joint session with Nvidia at the Nordic Game convention. We have also, due to popular demand, uploaded all the presentations from our sessions at GDC earlier this year. So feel free to log on and enjoy!
NEW TEAM MEMBERS
We would also like to take this opportunity to welcome three new members to our growing family, Ragnar Cederlund and Ola Benson on the development team and Helena Hansson in the finance/marketing department. ”We are very happy to have Ragnar, Ola and Helena here with us, and their respective expertise will be the perfect complement to our growing team,” says Magnus Wennerholm, our CEO.
- http://kesen.huang.googlepages.com/sig2008.html
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJBNSDIOBXo
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icsDptr7Umw
- http://research.microsoft.com/~johnsny/
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCXlCkY4Y5g
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn4ZLk2Iolo
The Turtle website features a host of really cool tutorials that will help you get the most from your Turtle experience. In addition to being extremely hot looking, they’re also quite useful, explaining in easy terms how to squeeze every last drop from your Turtle. And by the way, Turtle uses the same technology that is found in Beast!
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