It turns out that FromSoftware, developer of the PS4 exclusive hit Bloodborne, had a little help in creating those awesome visuals that scared the hell out of us when it was released. In fact, with the help of Simplygon, they were able to employ state-of-the-art technology to make Bloodborne one of the most advanced titles up to that point.
Simplygon, a provider of automatic 3D optimization solutions for digital content creation, and From Software, have announced that Simplygon was used in the creation of the PS4 exclusive title, Bloodborne. Over the course of production, Simplygon was used to process around 10,000 models, including test data while delivering Level of Detail (LoD) models that optimized the polygon counts to help deliver a stunning visual experience.
“Simplygon saved the labor equivalent of 20 man months, or in other words, an entire dedicated production team member for the duration of the production,” said the development team of FromSoftware. “The benefits are clear as we used the tool to reduce polygons in about 10,000 models ranging from 1,000 to 200,000 polygons. The best result is that players can’t see the reduction because the models keep their fidelity at all distances which keeps the players immersed.”
“FromSoftware are legends in the games industry and over the past three decades have been at the forefront of high quality games that truly excite players through their gameplay and visuals,” said Martin Ekdal, Co-founder and Vice President of Business Development at Simplygon. “With Simplygon we’re enabling creators to focus more on the creative parts of development while we automate multiple production processes and improve the performance.”
Simplygon has been working with developers of mobile games, AAA PC and console games, and large MMOs, and according to the company, is applicable to any medium where 3D art assets are created or utilized. By automatically generating lower-polygon models that are required for different levels of detail (LoD), an optimization process for making games and visual scenes run smoother, at higher frame-rates, and requiring less data, Simplygon helps digital content creators save important resources where artists would otherwise need to manually re-create large amounts of content.
SOURCE: FromSoftware, Simplygon Press Release