Uncharted Territory: The Road from Research Subject to In-game Feature

Rune Vendler, Lionhead Studios

Rune Vendler is head of R&D at Lionhead Studios. He has worked with real-time rendering and simulation for over ten years. The last couple of years, he has been focusing on research and development of 3D engines and simulation code for Lionhead's next generation of games.

Computer graphics research at academic institutions and commercial R&D facilitie s is becoming more and more important to the games industry: this is the birthplace for many of the ideas and insights that drive new game features. However, the task of taking a new graphics technique and making it work in a game isn't always trivial, and ease of integration, robustness and flexibility is put to the test. Using the concept of precomputed radiance transfer and spherical harmonics as a case study, this talk will examine the opportunities discovered and challenges encountered on the way to game engine implementation.