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By: Joe Topolnisky Nov 30, 2007

Deus Ex 3 Q&A; Engine Details Revealed

Keeping things interesting today, DevelopMag.com has fired-up a quick Q&A with Eidos Montreal's Stephane D'Astous regarding their newly formed studio and upcoming FPS-RPG, Deus Ex 3. They chat about the challenges of taking over a classic franchise, recruiting talented staff members and more! Here's an interesting bit on what engine they will be using:

On the technology front - I understand you're using Eidos in-house technology, specifically the Crystal Dynamics Tomb Raider [next-gen] engine, for the new game. Is that correct?

Yes, this is a very important factor for us. In former positions where i worked technology was always a grey zone, a question mark. I'm relieved that here at Eidos we have two great internal engines - one from IO Interactive and one from Crystal. We chose the Crystal engine because we plan to help develop this engine more and then share it back with the rest of the company, the other Eidos studios. Having that technology from the start gives us a great advantage and foundation for our coders - there are no doubts about the approach, and we have few uncertainties. We just want to all work together on improving the same technology as we develop our game.

This is a departure from the previous Deus Ex titles, which both used Epic's Unreal Engine. So what do you folks think? Is this a good or bad move?

Thanks ShackNews!

Comments

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Eiridan	2007-11-30 #1
I am glad they are actually developing it with both feet forward instead of announcing it and keeping the fans in the dark.

JSDonald	2007-12-01 #2
Anyone know what the main benefits and limitations of this engine are? I just hope it can accommodate BIG spaces like the original DX could!

NukemNazi

2007-12-01 #3

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSDonald

Anyone know what the main benefits and limitations of this engine are?

I just hope it can accommodate BIG spaces like the original DX could!

I assume it an additive engine more than likely (looking are the recent tomb raiders), which means outdoors are doable but tough to do on the fly (in most cases), don't quote me on this one but I am pretty positive its addtive.

Static lighting hopefully they change that but this could also drastically change how big they could make levels if its implemented poorly. Seems to be ok at BSP, work but I am not sure if static models from a 3D modeling program are hard to implement or not because Tomb Raider seems to use them sparely, which means the game would stand to lose a lot of detail in the levels. Static models are cheaper on processing power. They are instanced. One reason Unreal has so much detail in many of their level because they use about uses 50 zillion per level. Takes tons of good environmental artists but makes for some beautiful details in the levels.