In a new video from Sony, Andrea Pessino, the co-founder and CTO of Ready at Dawn Studios; Nathan Phail-Liff, the art director; Matt Pettineo, the lead engine and graphics programmer; and Garrett Foster, the technology director, discuss the game engine and processes responsible for The Order: 1886‘s graphical fidelity.
Ready at Dawn Studios have always created their own game engines for each of their games. Pettineo says “it’s always been important to have our own technology at Ready at Dawn because […] we have a vision of where we want the technology to go.”
Foster explains that the game engine for The Order: 1886 is actually based on an engine they used for the PSP. “On the PSP it’s ‘How do we make it smaller? How do we […] condense it? How do we streamline it?’ On the PS4, everything is ‘How do we make it bigger? How do we make it faster? How do I make it more in-your-face?'”
“Everything that is moving in the game interacts volumetrically and correctly with the air,” says Pessino, which makes things appear more real. Players may not understand why the game looks better than others, but the visual fidelity nevertheless registers.
The studio was so determined to provide visuals that are as realistic as possible that they researched period-accurate materials, and 3D-scanned them for use in the game. “Using a 3D scanning process, we took reams and reams of these […] historically accurate textiles and digitized them, down to sub-millimeter precision,” explains Phail-Liff. “That’s just really hard to simulate from scratch.”
Pettineo says the studio has specialized cloth-shading technology that makes cloth “look right” and “sit well in the scene, and make it so that […] it doesn’t look like a plastic tarp wrapped around a guy.”
Games used to use fog to clip out draw distances, but that’s no longer necessary with today’s technology. However, because The Order: 1886 is set in an alternate-universe Victorian London, the game makes liberal use of volumetric lighting and mist to evoke a specific mood and atmosphere, says Pettineo. (This is not just a convenient excuse on Ready at Dawn’s part. Previous footage has shown an entire cityscape rendered in detail and real-time. If fog is in the game, it’s there for reasons other than draw distance.)
“Any one thing seems inconsequential, but as you see the meticulous research, all those little details add up.”
In a previous behind-the-scenes video, the studio explained the music behind the game. Click through for a free track from the game.
For the latest story trailer for 1886, you can go here.
The Order: 1886 releases on February 20, and will be exclusive to the Playstation 4. As the above video reveals, the title has an 18+ age rating.
