A few members of our development team recently took part in a roundtable discussion with NVIDIA and several media outlets to shed some light on how NVIDIA’s PhysX is used in our upcoming FPS, Darkest of Days.
One feature definitely worth mentioning is NVIDIA’s GPU acceleration for PhysX. The ability to compute PhysX on the GPU has been incredible for us, and truly has taken the level of naturalism in our environments to a much higher level. With that feature enabled, we are able to fill our battlefield’s with thousands more physically-active particles — everything ranging from leaves blowing through the fields with each gust of wind to the billowing smoke clouds and dirt clods thrown up by every artillery strike.
Screenshots and videos of the effects in action will be coming, but in the meantime:
Find out more by visiting the latest headlines at NVIDIA’s nZone.
Aquaspank represents a fun little excursion from our regular work here at 8monkey. It has been a chance for some members of our team to try a new platform, solve some new problems, and just generally do something completely different. We were all surprised by how fast the iPhone actually is; it’s been a while since we looked at any mobile platforms and the difference from just a few years ago is striking. Aquaspank is able to draw up to about a thousand blended, textured, particles on screen at once in addition to a refraction effect and a basic physics sim on each bubble. We hit the limit on pixel fill long before the CPU became a factor, so there’s probably even more room to play with there. This should be an interesting platform to keep an eye on to be sure.
You can view screenshots and details on Aquaspank at our games page here.
If you’re already sold and just want to get the game, then head on over to the store:
NVIDIA is doing a bit of work publicizing titles using its PhysX technology, including Darkest of Days. A press release sent out today contains some info about the game, a few new screen shots, and of course plenty about PhysX. You can read it here.
PhysX is part of an interesting trend toward moving more non-graphics computation onto the GPU. 8monkey is currently conducting some research into adding some GPU simulated particles and fluids to Darkest of Days with PhysX. Expect more developments in this area soon.
Enough with the interviewing and talking — let’s show you what the game is!
We are happy to announce that our first gameplay trailer was unleashed to the public through IGN.com this week. It highlights in-game action of each time period you’ll be exploring in Darkest of Days. We hope you enjoy what you see. There is plenty more to come throughout the summer, so stay tuned!
Gaming Nexus dives deeper into the inspiration and technology that stand behind our debut FPS, Darkest of Days. You’ll find out a bit more on the “who, what, why and how”, and the balancing act and decision making that goes into time travel, historical battles, and of course…future weaponry.
Bill Wadleigh, Producer of Darkest of Days, and Aaron Schurman, Designer, talk with PCGames.de and shed light on what our international audience can be looking forward to.
