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About Judy

As WP's managing editor, I edit review and preview articles, attempt to keep up with the frantic pace of Rainier's news posts, and keep our reviewers on deadline, which is akin to herding cats. When I have a moment to myself and don't have my nose in a book, I like to play action/RPG, adventure and platforming games.

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KDV Games Reveals Its 'Vista Engine' - Screens

by Judy on Jan. 26, 2005 @ 8:37 a.m. PST

Vista Engine is an integrated system for the creation of modern high-quality RTS & RPG games. The system unites the latest technological innovations, multi-purpose tools for creation and assembling of game content and the most important part - full visual control over general structure, content and game logic without additional programming or scripting. Read more for details and screens...

Map Editor - development method of high detailed landscapes (gaming worlds);

  • Large set of tools for landscape surface editing, effective technique of texture mixing and well-thought-out and understandable interface. With the help of this technology the designer can create unique maps various difficulty levels fast and secure.
  • Tons of different parameters organized in a well-defined structure and opened for editing and experimenting. The designer can change many features - from world's illumination at dawn, dusk, in the day-time and in the night to the color, transparency and density of falling drops of rain and their tracks on the water.
  • Large set of map dimensions. We managed to free a considerable part of computer resources due to improved technology of map storage. The designer decides the best way to use these free resources - to enlarge maps or to raise the quality of in-game models.

A powerful 3D core that uses the latest developments of the graphical accelerators manufacturers;

  • Dynamic day and night cycle - morning, day, evening and night. The sun changes its position, therefore changes illumination/dimming of objects and their shadows.
  • Dynamic liquids with different properties, for example water and lava. Properties include volume, stream velocity, transparency and other features that define the look of the liquid and it?s interaction with hard surface and objects on the map.
  • Possibility of assigning properties of various materials (like ice or stone) to separate parts of landscape.
  • Most of modern features like skeleton animation, bump-mapping, fixed LODs and others are available for 3D objects.
  • Fog of war hiding both objects on the map and landscape transformations.
  • Vista Engine supports only "shader hardware" graphic cards from GeForce3/Radeon8500 and higher, which allows us to concentrate on the latest technological innovations.

Visual control over the entire game content.

  • Unit Editor manages base with all in-game objects - from definition of faction types (unlimited number of races) to the last object of every faction.
  • Trigger Editor manages the general logic on various difficulty levels in the game. Unitized interface of the editor performed very well in previous projects as an effective and reliable tool for creating and testing of game logic.
  • Interface Editor manages the creation of all windows and controls in the game interface and their connection with game logic, including the main menu, in-game interface, options and others.
  • Visual effects Editor allows the creation of different types of visual effects - from smoke and waves on the water to "nuclear explosion".
  • Formula editor allows to define functionality between different in-game parameters.

Key features of technology:

  • Terraforming - real-time modification of high detailed landscape. Large toolset for landscape modification and texture editing.
  • «Living Water» - dynamic liquids with different properties. Liquids have their origins, volume, stream velocity, transparency and many more. The liquids affect the landscape, changing it, and also the in-game objects ? destroying them or taking them with the stream.
  • Wind - dynamic air masses with defined origin, volume, velocity and other parameters. Wind affects the physical objects and processes on the map.
  • Particle system - rainsnow visualization, interacting with wind, water and in-game objects.
  • Day and night cycle - full day and night cycle visualization, including sun/moon movement and smooth illumination alteration - from early morning to noon and forward to dusk, which transforms smoothly into night.
  • Unit topology - large set of different physical objects types with various topology. Living organisms with different amount of limbs, mechanical units with different parts and many more.
  • Movement Zones - large set of different types of zones with various properties. Zones affect the properties of objects within them. For example, there are zones that affect the units? velocity or zone that drain estore units hit points or other parameters.
  • Objects destruction - physical destruction of in-game objects (buildings, units) with debris movement in dependence on parameters of the explosion center.

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