Geomerics Unveils a Step Change in Dynamic Games
Lighting
11th July 2006. Cambridge, UK. Geomerics today unveiled the
first glimpse of their revolutionary new technology allowing
real-time radiosity in videogames utilising commodity graphics
processing hardware. Radiosity, fully modeling the subtle
effects arising from the inter-reflections of light between
surfaces, dominates many real-world situations: shadows in
exterior scenes are filled in by light reflecting from bright
areas; the 'mood' of a room is heavily influenced by the
colours of the walls, a red wall makes the room feel warm and
welcoming, a blue wall makes it feel cold and menacing. Current
state-of-the-art lighting technology used in games involves
either pre-computing the entire global illumination off-line or
assuming there are no inter-reflections and computing only the
direct effects of lights on what they are illuminating.
Pre-computing the lighting results in lighting environments
that cannot be altered. Considering only direct illumination
results in 'flat' unrealistic scenes; if a torch is shone on a
wall in a game only the wall is lit whereas in reality the
reflected light from this wall will reveal much more of the
environment. With Geomerics' dynamic radiosity solution the
full lighting, including inter-reflections, is updated in
real-time providing significantly greater realism and impact.
Until now such effects were considered well beyond the reach of
real-time techniques. Geomerics has applied its core
technology, based around geometric algebra, to produce this
radical new radiosity solution. The solution is real time,
achieving frame rates of up to 100Hz on common graphics
hardware, and allows for fully dynamic lighting including point
spot-lights, area lights, texture-based lighting, glowing
objects and the projection of video onto geometry. The full
indirect lighting calculation includes the soft-shadows that
characterise real-world scenes. Geomerics' technology also
integrates smoothly with classic techniques such as normal and
gloss mapping, and fully supports HDR (high dynamic range)
lighting effects. In addition to all this, Geomerics' technique
is a so-called 'infinite bounce' solution; surfaces which
themselves are illuminated indirectly can illuminate other
surfaces. This leads to impressive effects, for example if one
end of a white corridor is lit strongly then the light bounces
around the corridor eventually emerging at the other end. Chris
Doran, CEO and founder of Geomerics commented, "This
revolutionary lighting technique is another demonstration of
the amazing potential of Geomerics' technology and our unique
approach to games middleware and technology licensing.
Geometric algebra provides opportunities for totally new
solutions in a huge range of games problems, from lighting to
path physics and beyond." Julian Davis, CTO, further commented,
"I have been amazed by the impact of this technique. When we
switch on our radiosity pass the scene is transformed.
Real-time radiosity is the holy grail of lighting models, and I
am truly excited by what the top developers will be able to do
with it." Demo can be found here:
http://www.geomerics.com/index.php?page=lighting Chris Doran
will be providing the first live demonstration of Geomerics'
revolutionary lighting solution during his talk at the Develop
Conference in Brighton on the 13th July at the Metropole Hotel.
For further information please contact: Alison Beasley, Lincoln
Beasley PR T: +44 (0) 1608 645756 M: +44 (0) 7966 449130 E:
Alison@lincolnbeasley.co.uk About Geomerics Geomerics, a
Cambridge based games start-up, is focused on bringing a range
of new solutions to the games industry based on their recent
developments in the field of geometric algebra. Applications
for this technology include lighting, physics, animation,
surface modeling and path finding. More information can be
found at www.geomerics.com or by e-mailing info@geomerics.com.
Geomerics are actively recruiting. We are seeking technical
programmers keen to join an intensely focused research team,
dedicated to converting the latest mathematical advances into
practical games technology. Geomerics Ltd is an ANGLE plc
venture ( www.angleplc.com).
