Next Generation Gaming Engines Part 1 "HYDROENGINE"

Will the Next generation of gaming is upon us. Wiith the cost of building a new game climbing into the 10+ million dollor range we will start to see some pretty interesting game engine to take advantage of the raw horse power the Sony PS3 and Microsoft 360 has to offer.

A game engine is the core software component of a computer or video game or other interactive application with real-time graphics. It provides the underlying technologies, simplifies development, and often enables the game to run on multiple platforms such as game consoles and desktop operating systems such as Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. The core functionality typically provided by a game engine includes a rendering engine (“renderer”) for 2D or 3D graphics, a physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence, networking, streaming, memory management, threading, and a scene graph. The process of game development is frequently economized by in large part reusing the same game engine to create multiple different games.

Another name for game engines are "Middleware" because these systems are felxible and reusable which in terms help reduce the cost, complexities, and time-to-market. They are a few Game Engines out there that are pretty well known. Such as: Havok for physics, FMOD for sound, SpeedTree for rendering. A few full features 3D game engines are: RealmForge, Ogre, Power Render, Crystal Space, Genesis3D, and JMonkey Engine.

Today we will take a look at: HydroEngine

Blade's HydroEngine technology is the result of years of intensive development work, and is only possible on next-generation systems. HydroEngine allows us to model flowing water and other liquids, which behave exactly as you would expect in real life. Water can flow down corridors and stairs, and is entirely dynamic, which means you never get the same behviour twice.
What's more, HydroEngine can interface with solid body physics engines such as Havok, so that objects and debris can be carried with the flow, and interact with dynamic environments and characters in countless ways.
HydroEngine is the centrepiece of Blade's new survival adventure title Hydrophobia, which uses this revolutionary new technology to deliver a game experience beyond anything which has been seen before.

For more information and screenshots of Hydrophobia, check back soon. Meanwhile, watch the video below for a detailed overview of HydroEngine.





Does this mean that a new WAVE RACE is only just around the corner. I can see some very interesting ways that a creative devolper can use a water engine. Can we imagine a Virtual world where you can skip a pebble across a pond.

Next: Euphoria