Agenda

As a builder game, Anno 117: Pax Romana faces a unique set of technical challenges when it comes to rendering its highly dynamic world. Visuals range from overlooking entire cities with giant amphitheaters and aqueducts to observing tiny details in the daily activities of residents in small settlements near foggy marshes. This session provides an overview of some key engine improvements that were made during the development of Anno 117 and the most important graphic features that helped shape the look of the game. In particular, it will cover a scalable raytracing implementation that is based on gathering hit feedback on the GPU to manage acceleration structures. This algorithm allows for large and highly dynamic scenes with many deformable meshes, even on consoles.

Takeaway

Attendees will gain insights into the rendering technology behind Anno 117: Pax Romana. They will learn about methods that facilitate scalable rendering of large player-built scenes, in particular some strategies for efficiently implementing raytracing that can be applied to similar genres.

Intended Audience

The target audience is mainly graphics and engine programmers. Basic knowledge of graphics and engine technology is required.