In the game Black State, players experience seamless transitions between diverse environments, such as moving from a mansion’s interior to a bustling city street, all in real-time. This dynamic approach to level design is the brainchild of Motion Blur, a Turkish studio that is developing a game where each location is uniquely crafted, eliminating the reuse of assets common in many other games.
Innovative Game Design
Ömer Faruk Güngör, the studio director at Motion Blur, explains the studio’s dedication to rendering a broader range of environments than typically required. “We’re making assets for maybe three games’ worth of environments, but it’s all going into one,” he notes, indicating the high standards set for Black State’s creation.
Technical Advancements
In the earlier stages of development, the Motion Blur team faced significant delays due to lengthy lighting renders. A fortuitous connection made at NVIDIA’s GTC event led to a collaboration with Dell, resulting in the acquisition of the Dell Precision 7960 Tower, powered by NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada GPUs. This new technology allows the team to drastically reduce rendering times, turning days of waiting into mere hours. Güngör emphasizes, “We can experiment with more complex lighting instead of compromising,” highlighting the impact this has on refining the game’s visuals.
Streamlined Motion Capture Process
Every aspect of game development at Motion Blur is hands-on, with team members performing their own motion capture. This process is essential for achieving realistic animations, as Güngör shares, “Most of the kill animations? That’s me.” The raw data gathered from these sessions is now processed more efficiently, enabling real-time previews of animations rather than waiting for lengthy computation times.
Realistic Lighting Techniques
Black State utilizes Unreal Engine 5.4, which has undergone modifications to support its unique level transitions. Each environment boasts its own lighting dynamics, essential for maintaining a cohesive experience as players navigate through various settings. The enhancements made possible by the Dell workstation allow for the use of high-quality lighting maps, adding realism to visual effects, especially how particles interact with ray-traced surfaces. Güngör notes, “You can see it in how the particles react to ray-traced surfaces, how the environments shift. It makes the transitions feel real.”
Future Directions for Motion Blur
With improved hardware and quicker iteration capabilities, Motion Blur is set on maximizing immersion in Black State. The team is actively refining their custom modifications to Unreal Engine to enhance smoothness of transitions and interactivity within the game’s environments. While a release date has yet to be announced, Güngör teases that the narrative intricacies will reveal the significance of the game’s unique spaces, promising a deep connection for players as they explore.
For further insights into the tools used in the development of Black State, visit the official website.