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The Technical Director of Programming for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora‘s recently divulged that each version of the title will support ray tracing. Though it is relatively new, ray tracing technology has already taken the world of gaming by storm on console and PC.
Essentially, this rendering technique allows for the enhancement of reflections, shadows, and lighting, giving the quality of an image a more true-to-life appearance. The technology boasts different levels of functionality, though. In Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, for example, ray-traced reflections on mirror-like buildings don’t always reflect the scene in the background accurately due to the limitations of cross-gen releases. Yet, Insomniac managed to step up its game with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, a PS5 exclusive that even features detailed ray-traced reflections on helmets and in the eyeballs of characters. Who can say for sure how else the technique will be used to enhance visuals as this console generation proceeds?
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In an interview with German publication GameStar (via GamingBolt), Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora’s Technical Director of Programming, Nikolay Stefanov, shared Ubisoft Massive’s intention of equipping every version of the game with ray tracing support. And, yes, that even includes PCs that don’t boast baked-in ray tracing hardware capabilities; in this regard, Ubisoft Massive will accomplish ray tracing by utilizing “classic compute shaders,” Stefanov said. According to a translation of the discussion, the developer told Gamestar that Avatar “will only appear with ray tracing.” In pursuit of such a feat, the development crew is working on ways to ensure “quality and performance will be scalable.”
Of course, Stefanov couldn’t offer much in the way of specifics, but it’s still interesting to learn of Ubisoft Massive’s technical ambitions for its Avatar game. And based on the announcement trailer alone, it seems safe to assume that the team will find myriad ways to implement ray tracing support in the open-world.
Though Ubisoft originally teased the project in 2017, this past E3 constituted the first time the publisher showed off Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The first-person adventure will take place in a vast open-world and provide players with a new story to explore in the James Cameron-created universe.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora comes to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on an unspecified date in 2022.
Source: GameStar via GamingBolt
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