Terminal Reality's New Game Engine

Probably best known for games like Terminal Velocity, Microsoft's Fury3 and Hellbender, and more recently Microsoft's CART: Precision Racing, Dallas-based Terminal Reality is giving gamers a preview of its beautiful new game engine, Photex2.

Specifications for the engine are pretty minimal, a Pentium 133. And although software rendering is supported, TRI recommends a 3Dfx or other 3D accelerator card as both Direct3D and AGP are supported. AGP will give much deeper tones to the overall look of the game and should lend more eye candy to any title running the engine. TRI said that it would be using the engine for all of its "ground-based games." Other titles will use the company's other two engines in development: Demon and Kage. Screenshots for these two engines look equally as amazing as Photex2.

TRI also stated that if there were enough interest in the engine, it would be willing to license the engine to other game developers.

The enclosed screenshots were rendered on a P150 with a 3Dfx card at 25-30fps on a game that Terminal Reality wouldn't name, but it stated that the shots are from gameplay and not from a prerendered FMV or promotion shot. The title is set to be announced within the next six months.

The new game engine is composed of two components: the Photex2 rendering engine and the Terrain5 geometry engine.

The Photex2 rendering engine features the ability to plot true color texture maps to polygons. Although the concept is a fairly simplistic one, other gaming engines don't allow it. Since the scenery is acquired from photographic sources, it will give the user a highly realistic view. TRI says that although the engine was created with simulations in mind, it can be used in other applications as well.

The Terrain5 geometry engine is the fifth generation of TRI's fractal graphic engine and goes one step higher by making scenery photographic by use of true color images. Other features supported include true reflections, animations of textures, and water.

So take a look at these great shots. We'll keep an eye out for the announcement of the unnamed title that will use the engine at its core.