Dark Drakan
Well-known Member
Ubisoft have released a development video showcasing their new engine (being used in upcoming title The Division) and it is looking rather impressive I have to say. Also looks really user friendly and easy to tweak things with which is a bonus for gamers and developers. It has also been announced that this engine will not be used in any games that are developed for the Wii U unfortunately.
Development on game engine Snowdrop started about five years ago before The Division was in development and before the specifications were known for either the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox One. Initially it was an engine built on PC for PC and next-gen development by Massive Entertainment. We decided to not develop for current gen, Ubisoft has many good current gen engines. We started very early on to predict what the next generation consoles would be and we were lucky on the specs. We were fairly close to what they became. We're super happy they're so close to each other.
AAA game development projects are growing in scope exponentially, so we wanted to be smart and not rely on brute force," he said. "We needed an engine that would support how we work in the studio, promote creativity, and allow the freedom to experiment and prototype. The core of the game engine is powered by a "node-based system" which simplifies the process of connecting different systems like rendering, AI, mission scripting and the user interface.
Snowdrop is a dynamic, interconnected and flexible system where developers can create their assets quickly and interact with them in ways that have never been done before, The game and the editor are unified, and everything in the engine runs in real time, which means that the ongoing project is always playable. This is extremely useful and allows for the implementation of new ideas and creations instantly; providing the ability to check the consistency of the game world at any time.
The engine also supports procedurally generated environments. For instance, in the video below, the forest scene was created with a single tree, rock and fern that was then automatically replicated and placed by the engine. Everything you run in one platform can just be checked in any other platform. The build can be spit out too all three platforms.
The forest shots, turrets and giant flies that you saw in the trailer are not part of The Division. This video is a technical demonstration, to display Snowdrop's full capacities as a new generation engine. Snowdrop is capable of creating a large range of varied universes, procedurally, and in an unprecedented level of detail. Also Wii U is not a console we are developing Snowdrop on. It would have been possible if we wanted to, but we would have been ruling out things we didn't want to take out.
Also here is a gameplay trailer from GDC 2013 for their upcoming title The Division.
AAA game development projects are growing in scope exponentially, so we wanted to be smart and not rely on brute force," he said. "We needed an engine that would support how we work in the studio, promote creativity, and allow the freedom to experiment and prototype. The core of the game engine is powered by a "node-based system" which simplifies the process of connecting different systems like rendering, AI, mission scripting and the user interface.
Snowdrop is a dynamic, interconnected and flexible system where developers can create their assets quickly and interact with them in ways that have never been done before, The game and the editor are unified, and everything in the engine runs in real time, which means that the ongoing project is always playable. This is extremely useful and allows for the implementation of new ideas and creations instantly; providing the ability to check the consistency of the game world at any time.
The engine also supports procedurally generated environments. For instance, in the video below, the forest scene was created with a single tree, rock and fern that was then automatically replicated and placed by the engine. Everything you run in one platform can just be checked in any other platform. The build can be spit out too all three platforms.
The forest shots, turrets and giant flies that you saw in the trailer are not part of The Division. This video is a technical demonstration, to display Snowdrop's full capacities as a new generation engine. Snowdrop is capable of creating a large range of varied universes, procedurally, and in an unprecedented level of detail. Also Wii U is not a console we are developing Snowdrop on. It would have been possible if we wanted to, but we would have been ruling out things we didn't want to take out.
Also here is a gameplay trailer from GDC 2013 for their upcoming title The Division.