The Technology of Dragon Age II, Part One

Hard not to get overwhelmed by the amount of Dragon Age II coverage hovering around, but this one is worth highlighting, as the BioWare blog takes a screenshot-laden look at upgrades to tech/graphics, in lighting, outdoor environment, characters.

Interesting terrain variation, dramatic vistas, impactful skies, a grand overall sense of scale are all important points for our level artists when laying out the outdoor areas of the game. We worked on more advanced terrain editing capabilities that allow more creative freedom when creating our exterior levels.

To complement the new terrain engine, our redesigned sky editing tools allow artists to easily create lit, moving layers of clouds that contribute a lot to the visual appearance of exterior levels. The team also worked on improving the water rendering technology. It now allows for physically lit water and realistic, accurate reflections from all objects in the scene.

Finally, our new fog technology now supports vertical height fog and adds an extra level of detail to many environments.