Avalanche Studios is working on some of the most technically impressive upcoming games at the moment – the highly anticipated Just Cause 3, and the intriguing Mad Max game based on the movie reboot are both highly impressive from a graphics and engine tech standpoint, and both are being developed by them – and are apparently experimenting with the technology to do justice to their vision.
Recently, they talked about just what that entailed to The Dark Side of Gaming. Alvar Jansson, Lead Graphics Programmer, stated that Avalanche is currently developing a new volumetric landscape system in the Avalanche Engine that will result in more organic, unpredictable layouts in open world games.
Speaking about DirectX 12, he also noted that a post launch DX12 patch for Just Cause 3 is highly likely, and mentioned what their work with the new API so far has been like.
“The Avalanche Engine is definitely evolving. We’re developing a new volumetric landscape system that will change what type of layouts we can have in open-world games. A DX12 pipeline is also in the works, and we are researching different types of cluster-based shading. We are always aiming to support freedom and destructibility on a level that I think makes our games unique.”
DirectX 12 is not the only new and exciting tech being added into Avalanche Engine, either. Dynamic tessellation is something that they are looking into as well.
“Dynamic tessellation is a very interesting tech. There has been some good looking examples of it being used to do detail in close-up meshes. We have a prototype of it running on our upcoming landscape technology.”
It is truly exciting to see a developer attempt to be ambitious in this market of safe and cookie cutter sequels with bloated budgets. Whether or not the technology driving is driving some worthwhile games remains to be seen, but the technology itself is, at the very least, commendably impressive.