Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Age of Conan - To be "Enlightened"

Funcom purchases new technology for use in Age of Conan and The Secret World.

The new technology, called Enlighten, will shape a new visual look for Age of Conan and will be in the new expansion, Rise of the Godslayer.

The new look of "Age of Conan", with Enlighten technology incorporated, was first demonstrated publicly at GDC Europe and Gamescom in Cologne. The demo drew crowds of admiring attendees at both exhibitions who were amazed by the visual quality of the demonstration.

Gary Lewis, CEO Geomerics commented, “To work with a partner of the calibre of Funcom has been a real privilege. We will continue to work closely with them to support their ambition and vision and give their artists the exceptional tools they need to create some of the most visually compelling games ever seen – certainly the reaction from both consumers and press is confirming our conviction that Enlighten is achieving this.”

Rui Caisas, CTO Funcom added, “Working with Geomerics has been a pleasure for us. Their technology is unique in the industry and with their help and support we have been able to integrate it into our tools and pipeline. It’s truly exciting to use Enlighten and keep on pushing the envelope of graphical immersion in MMO-gaming by creating heart-pounding and stunningly realistic experiences for our gamers. Enlighten is now part of our core proprietary engine Dreamworld, and we look forward to further utilizing its possibilities with our next title “The Secret World”.

Hopefully we will see some screenshots soon for the differences in the tech. The fact Funcom continues to purchase new code shows a commitment to Age of Conan as well as their upcoming title "The Secret World".

More news as it happens

1 comment:

Unknown said...

From what I understood by watching their GDC 2008 demo, Enlighten is a real-time lighting engine (kind of like Doom 3) coupled with HDR (which Valve introduced in HL2: Lost Coast). In other words, real-time shadows combined with being able to be temporarily blinded when moving from light to dark or vice versa. WoTLK had some real-time shadows, but without the rest of the graphics being at par the result looks kind of silly, reminding me of Tenebrae Quake. A full dungeon designed from ground up to support it will look much better.