Nvidia has announced that its texture modding tool, RTX Remix, is now fully released. The announcement comes alongside a demonstration video that showcases Nvidia RTX Remix being used to change the visuals of seminal first-person shooter Half-Life 2. Check it out below.
The showcased Half-Life 2 RTX demo will be available for free for anyone that already owns Half-Life 2 on Steam from March 18 onwards. The Half-Life 2 RTX demo will feature levels like Ravenholm and Nova Prospekt. A remix of the full Half-Life 2 through RTX Remix will be released at a later date.
Among the features showcased in Half-Life 2 RTX are DLSS 4 with multi frame generation, the Neural Radiance Cache to accelerate ray-traced lighting, RTX Skin that enhances Father Grigori, as well as enemies like headcrabs and zombies, and RTX Volumetrics for realistic for and smoke effects. Interestingly, Half-Life 2 RTX will also be one of the first implementations of subsurface scattering in a ray-traced game.
Nvidia RTX Remix was originally released as a beta back in 2023. Since then, according to the company, more than 30,000 modders have used the tool to bring ray tracing technology to several classic titles. The full release of RTX Remix features modern AI tools, including DLSS 4, RTX Neural Radiance Cache, and a the community-published AI model PBRFusion 3.
The built-in texture generative AI texture tools in RTX Remix can automatically analyse low-resolution textures from old games to then generate accurate texture materials, while also upscaling the textures to 4K resolutions. These new materials can then be used for realistic lighting effects through ray tracing.
PBRFusion 3 features two models: a PBR model and an upscaler based on diffusion. It acts as a plug-and-play package, allowing users to easily remaster classic titles by picking a number of textures through the RTX Remix Viewport and ComfyUI’s graphs and nodes.
RTX Remix can also be used through other software thanks to its REST API, allowing the use of tools like 3D modelling software Blender and modding tools like Hammer. The example provided reveals that modders can use the REST API integration to export game textures from RTX Remix to ComfyUI, and then seamlessly bring them back to the game after the textures have been enhanced in a big batch.
Since the beta release of Nvidia RTX Remix, several games have been modded to feature modern rendering technologies, high-resolution textures, and even ray-traced lighting. Several of these mods can be spotted at ModDB, which includes mods for games like classic shooter Painkiller, and even cult-classic RPG Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.
Nvidia had first unveiled RTX Remix all the way back in September 2022. At the time, the company used RPG The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind to showcase the tool’s powerful modding capabilities. In the showcase, Nvidia was able to easily add a new lighting system to the classic game, while also updating its textures to be of higher resolutions.
The beta release of RTX Remix was accompanied by the release of Portal RTX, which was also developed using the tool.
