Our truly cross-platform runtime code provides all hardware
specific and common code for the game titles supporting PC,
PSP™, Xbox 360®, PlayStation®3, Wii™ and
now Mac OS X, Browser, PlayStation®Vita, iOS, Android
and emerging platforms. Highly integrated with BlitzTech
Tools, it facilitates rapid prototyping and development by
providing a common code framework right out of the box and
frees the game team to concentrate on the game.
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Broad Feature Set
As well as providing a rich set of visual and
audio capabilities, BlitzTech Engine covers all
of the core functionality required for game
development, areas which are often ignored by third
party solutions. Automatic resource management and
background data streaming technology are built in.
Submission requirements are well covered by support
for controllers, storage and other devices as
standard.
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Real Time Physics
Integrated custom physics code for simulating rigid
body physics in real-time, including
vehicles with wheels, friction and suspension, and
character physics as well as systems to scale to
multicore and GPU-processing.
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Immersive Audio
Complex layered sound effects authored using our
tools can be played back with Dolby surround sound.
Also supports multiple audio streams for voice-over
and music playback with support for interactive
music that reacts to the on-screen action and
sounds that dynamically change in timbre and
reverberation according to proximity and position.
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Online Play
Facilities for LAN and Internet gaming are
provided by the Engine so that game teams can get on
with creating the multiplayer experiences straight
away. The system is fully configurable for bandwidth
management and plug-in lobby support for third party
community servers. Our systems fully support
Xbox Live and Live Arcade,
PlayStation Network and Steam
multiplayer. Technology to allow paid
downloadable content via integrated in-game commerce
is also implemented.
User generated content and integration with web
services including game centric communities as well
as the social web. The importance of metrics is not
overlooked with support for server side analytics
capture plus development database for logging game
crashes, logs and data across multiple platforms.
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Motion Control
BlitzTech has powered several Microsoft Kinect and
PlayStation Move titles and features an integrated
toolkit for motion control gaming which directly
analyses motion data to extend the capabilities of
these exciting devices to recognise a wider array of
player movements and drive forward a new category of
game designs.
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AI
Fully automatic generation of entity pathing data
directly from level assets in integrated into the
BlitzTech engine. The real-time generation of AI
routing supports both static and dynamic avoidance.
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3DTV
Stereo 3D has exciting possibilities for presenting
content with higher realism and sense of immersion,
BlitzTech was at the forefront of rising interest in
S-3D displays for the home and was used to create
the World's first S-3D console game "Invincible
Tiger". Whatever 3D format of the display, BlitzTech
has custom modes to cater for all of them, including
HDMI 1.4, where a 3DTV is detected and format can be
changed automatically. It´s still early days for
S-3D in the home, with debates about formats mostly
in the past, the debate has moved to types of 3D
glasses and glasses free viewing, BlitzTech will be
there first to support it.
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Multi-Core
The continuing focus of engine development is to
extract maximum performance from multiprocessor
platforms such as Xbox 360®,
PlayStation®3 and Windows PC. Technologies to
despatch and synchronise engine and game processing
in parallel are integrated into the BlitzTech
Engine, as well as dynamic load balancing and
leveraging multi-core CPU and GPU-based processing
where appropriate.
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Material Effects and Lighting
BlitzTech supports multiple lighting techniques from
pre-calculated vertex and static lightmaps, through
global illumination volume textures to complete
real-time dynamic per-pixel lighting and shadows
including stencil, projected and shadow buffer
(parallel split, cascade, PCF and exponential)
methods. Both forward and deferred lighting models
are supported, allowing massive flexibility of
real-time light sources.
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Normal Mapping
Normal map shaders are a key technology,
allowing fine surface lighting detail to be
added to game meshes, making them appear
many times more complex than they are.
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Parallax Mapping
A virtual displacement map technique that
can greatly enhance the three dimensional
appearance of surfaces.
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Cube Mapping
The included cube map shader utilises a
technique for rendering environmental
reflections using separate reflection
textures for each axis.
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Refraction Mapping
Full pixel control over refraction is
provided using the refraction shader
supplied with the Editor library for effects
such as textured glass and water surfaces.
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Fur
Our latest fur shader moves well beyond the
previous state of the art multiple shell
technique to develop an entirely new process
allowing much greater artist control of hair
length, movement and direction.
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Sub-Surface Scattering
This technique models the transmission of
light through an object as well as the usual
direct lighting model. Materials such as
marble, plastic and wax show this property
clearly. It is also just one building block
of a full skin shader.
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Skin Shader
The skin shader included in BlitzTech uses
many layers in subtle combination to produce
convincing skin lighting.
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Eye Shader
Much of a character's realism comes from the
appearance of the eyes. The library includes
a specific shader for eyes to simulate the
specular highlights seen on the iris and
cornea.
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Wii™ Effects
The Wii™ graphics hardware is incredibly
flexible and fully supported by our engine and tools
to create highly configurable effects such as:
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Embossing
A bump mapping technique similar to normal
mapping this effect provides a surface
relief appearance that increases perceived
detail.
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Variable environment mapping
A powerful technique using multiple channels
to control how environment maps are blended
enables a wealth of visual and lighting
effects to be recreated with much more
subtlety than traditional uniform shiny
surface.
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Distort mapping
Use of multiple texture channels to offset
textures on a per-texel basis allowing
impression warp and displacement effects to
be created such as liquid surfaces,
shockwaves and magical effects.
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Cinematic Effects
Just as in pre-rendered and film footage, image
post-processing is now becoming very important to
the final appearance. The engine provides stock
effects that adjust and composite over the image in
real-time.
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High Dynamic Range (HDR)
HDR gives an essential vibrancy to current
generation titles. It allows a wider range
of light and dark to be rendered without
loss of detail. The HDR image is converted
down to a standard image in real-time every
frame. The parameters of this process are
controlled by tone mapping a process that
simulates how the eyes adjust to light and
dark situations over time. A frequently-seen
visual effect combined with HDR is bloom
where very bright areas bleed light over the
surrounding area. HDR can also be combined
with image-based lighting that uses light
reflected in the scene to create more
complex lighting.
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Depth of Field
To simulate the focus range and length
effects seen through a camera lens, a depth
of field shader effect is included as a
post-process effect which operates in
real-time. It allows, for example, objects
closer to the view to be in focus and
distant ones to be blurred.
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SSAO
Screen space ambient occlusion is a cutting
edge post-process effect to simulate ambient
lighting in real-time. It adds a huge degree
of realism and depth to a scene and can be
combined seamlessly with other lighting and
shadowing techniques. It has no pre-computed
element so is highly suited to dynamic
objects where shading will be updated to
reflect the scene in real-time. It also
means no need for costly rendering of
ambient occlusion texture maps. Our pipeline
fully supports this effect and allows for a
high degree of adjustment to suit the scene.
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3DTV
BlitzTech is at the forefront of rising
interest in 3D displays for the home with
exciting possibilities for presenting
content with higher realism and sense of
player immersion in breathtaking 3D. In a
complex market with competing technologies
the key to increasing adoption is to ensure
compatibility with the widest possible range
of displays to unlock the potential of
amazing 3D display hardware out there. The
engine provides a highly flexible stock
solution that supports all current suitable
formats including active and passive glasses
as well as newer auto-stereoscopic displays
not only on PC but uniquely also on high
definition console - an industry first.
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Motion Blur
Although motion blur originates as a side
effect of camera exposure in film, it is an
effect that is frequently recreated in
graphics, to give an impression of speed or
realistic filmic quality. Two principle
classes of post-process effect are
supported - full screen blur and localized
blurring based on the velocity of individual
objects in the scene
