New NVIDIA Software Tools Help Developers Create Breakthrough Games in Less Time
Cutting-edge PC games are complex projects that require teams of programmers, artists and designers.
Since development delays can have a drastic impact on a game's budget, NVIDIA has developed a complete suite of applications that helps developers save time and money creating and optimizing their games.
"Today's big-budget PC games are enormously complicated to create and tune for maximum performance," said Niklas Westberg, Technical Director at Massive Entertainment. "The NVIDIA Developer Toolkit is a lifesaver ¨C there's a wide variety of tools that help us accomplish more with less effort. The NVIDIA tools help us spend more time focusing on gameplay in World in Conflict, so that we can deliver the best possible experience for gamers."
Today's release of new versions of NVIDIA FX Composer 2 and NVIDIA PerfKit 5 gives developers powerful new tools to create groundbreaking game content in less time. These two widely used tools permit rapid, low-cost development of visual effects as well as performance tuning for games and other real-time applications.
The first of these new tools, FX Composer 2, is an integrated development environment for shader authoring, enabling fast creation of real-time visual effects. It can be used to create shaders for HLSL, COLLADA FX Cg, and CgFX in DirectX and OpenGL. FX Composer 2 features Shader Library integration, ShaderPerf analysis, animation support, COLLADA support, scripting, effect and project wizards, customizable toolbars and layouts, Microsoft XNA support, and much more. FX Composer 2 has evolved into the de facto industry standard for shader authoring across multiple target platforms, including Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s PLAYSTATION 3 and Microsoft Windows.
"FX Composer 2 facilitates and simplifies 'look development' for my team as we explore next-generation rendering techniques," said George Borshukov, a CG Supervisor at Electronic Arts who received an Academy Scientific and Technical Achievement Award for the image-based rendering technology used in The Matrix. "FX Composer 2 allows us to prototype complex rendering techniques with stunning results. Nothing else out there provides the capability, scriptability, and ease of use that FX Composer gives us."
The release also bundles mental mill Artist Edition from mental images, which allows users to create shaders visually by connecting nodes. Users can export shaders from mental mill Artist Edition to FX Composer, where they can be applied to real-world geometry and used for more complex operations.
