Hitman Absolution developer, IO Interactive, have developed a proprietary engine, Glacier 2, to enable them to include extremely dense crowds in the game, which the player can interact and mingle with. Here’s what one of these crowds looks like:
That’s a screenshot (click to enlarge) of the engine at work, and IO claim that crowds in Absolution will consist of as many as 1,200 individual characters, while maintaining a framerate of 30fps on consoles. Additionally, the player will be able to influence and interact with these individual characters in some fashion.
Lead physics programmer, Kasper Fauerby, will be discussing the technology behind this at the Game Developers Conference this week. IO say that Glacier 2 was built specifically with Hitman in mind.
Food for thought:
Looking at the screenshot closely, you can tell that characters are being reused, but nevertheless, it’s still an impressive feat.
