When building the ultimate game engine for open world RPGs, CD Projekt Red chose SpeedTree for Games to incorporate into REDengine 3. Their goal was to create a toolkit that would enable them to handle the challenges of building an expansive open world that allowed for a compelling narrative, balancing freedom with story line, complexity with focus. The sheer size and scope of what they accomplished is staggering and is one of the most extensive integrations of SpeedTree that we have seen.
With 52 square miles of a densely populated game world, integration of our SpeedTree for Games SDK into REDengine 3 allowed the developers to take full advantage of our tools. We like to think of SpeedTree as a well made paintbrush. It’s a tool that both streamlines workflow while increasing artistic freedom. In “The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt” we see it being used masterfully.
The war-torn countryside utilizes different levels of foliage to create a sense of scale and depth in the world, the foliage is varied not just by species but by size. This leaves the player feeling dwarfed by enormous pine trees or lost in a field of high grass and flower. Using custom tools to determine the placement of foliage based on factors such as water accumulation and light distribution, they’ve managed to create and incredibly natural feeling landscape. The grasses, brush, and tall grass blend together to form one landscape. The lighting and dynamic weather accentuates the mood of the terrain with the grass rustling in the wind as a storm approaches and dying down as the clouds break and the sun returns. The result is a world that strikes a balance of feeling unstaged but compelling. Inviting you to go off course and explore while at the same time enhancing the mood of quests and creating a framework to immerse you in the story. The era of open world games is upon us and “The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt” elevates the modern open world game from a concept to an art form.
Learn more about what we offer with SpeedTree for Games and check out the screenshots from our first few hours in the world of “The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt”.
Also, be sure to check out our Witcher 3 Asset Sale!
