Fantasy Lab Interview

There will always be a big gap between real-time and pre-rendered graphics, but from time to time, technology evolves to new heights, allowing what was only possible as pre-calculated graphics to be performed in real-time. Who would have thought ten years ago that a graphics chip would be able to run RenderMan-class shaders in real time?

One aspect that still imposes a noticeable difference between real time and pre-calculated graphics is lighting as a result of the different rendering algorithms used depending on the application and hardware resources. Traditionally, video games have used directional lights, taking into account only the direct effects of light and assuming there are no inter-reflections. The only way that the light bouncing off the surfaces could be included into the scene is to pre-compute the lighting and shadowing, which resulted in lighting environments that cannot be altered.

But once again the rules of real-time graphics are about to change. Fantasy Lab, a privately-held, independent video game developer headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, has developed a global illumination system that is fast enough to run in real-time, and one that will allow video games to have completely dynamic environments with deformable geometry that look as good as those seen in CGI films.