The document provides an overview of the technical details and effects used in a platform demo created in GDC 2011. It describes the automatic and interactive camera modes that orbit and follow characters around the platform. It also provides statistics on triangle counts and frame rates achieved on different hardware configurations. Key effects highlighted include HDR tonemapping, bloom, depth of field, deferred shading, sky rendering, day/night cycles, water simulation, soft particles, pathfinding, terrain generation, and screen-space ambient occlusion. Lights, shadows, depth of field, and other effects are configurable directly in the editor.

1. GDC 2011 : Platform Insider Guide Romain SIDIDRIS

2. Automatic mode starts after 30 seconds without user inputs or using Y Automatic mode Camera Follow the helicopter from the island to the platform ( 1 m 50) Camera orbits around the platform then follow the current operator ( 40 s ) Pressing the Y button , will skip to the next step Camera switches between different fixed point of view with a text highlighting the different effects ( 10s per effect x 5 ) Pressing the Y button , will skip to the next step

4. If the Gamepad is manipulated the automatic mode stops to switch to the current cameraFREE Flying camera Character Follow each character on the platform

5. Orbit Camera Controls Zoom IN / OUT ( Page Up / page Down) Orbit the Camera Back to automatic Mode (Backspace ) Help ( H) Next Camera Mode ( C ) Day / Night Cycle ( N)

6. Free Camera Controls Turbo Move UP/Down ( Page Up / Page Down ) Forward/Strafe Back to automatic mode Help ( H) Next Camera Mode (C ) Day / Night Cycle ( N) Look around

7. Characters Camera Controls Back to automatic mode Help ( H) Next Camera Mode (C ) Next/Previous characters

8. Data / Stats

9. Triangles stats On average Between 3 – 4 Millions triangles drawn per frame Reflection / refractioninduce multiple rendering Platform 800 K triangles Opertors 10 K Triangle Terrain Between 65K – 1 M triangles depending on LOD Water 500 K Triangles ( Projective Gridcomputed on CPU )

10. Profiling stats on different configuration 1920x1200 resolution Z800 + 2x Quadro 6000 SLI mode : Stable 60 fpswhensynced ( 70-90 ) Z800 + single NVIDIA GTX 460 : Stable 30 fpswhensynced ( 30–40 ) 1280x1024 resolution DELL T3500 + 2xQuadro 5800 SLI mode : Stable 45 fpswhensynced ( 50 – 80 ) Z800 + single NVIDIA GTX 460 : average 45 – 60 DELL T3500 + single Quadro 1800 : average 18 fps

11. Technical Highlights

12. Highlighted Effects HDR ( highDynamic Range ) / Tonemapping Bloom ( leaking lights ) DOF ( Depth Of Field ) DeferredShading ( Lights on platform ) Sky ( Sun + atmosphericeffect / scattering ) Day Cycle Water Effect Shore Effect / Foam Reflection/Refraction Soft Particles ( Landing Helicopter ) PathFinding ( Operatorsmovingaround ) Terrain Soft Shadows MLAA ( antialising for deferredrendering )

13. HDR / ToneMap / Bloom Tonemapping to adapt to differentlighting conditions Directly configurable on the viewportinside Studio

14. Shadows Soft Shadows ( Omni , spot , directional ) Directly configurable per light / per object

15. Path Finding Navigation meshgeneratedfrom the raw structure of the platform Behaviors to move operatorsbetweenkeep points using the NavEngine

16. Soft Particles Prevent hard linesbetweenparticles and objects

17. DOF Autofocus on main camera to adaptdepth of field

18. SKY Sun and atmosphericrendering Simple item from the library to drop in a Studio project

19. Deferred Shading During light ~200 lights are switched on Deferredshadingallow for many light without performance impact

20. Terrain Dedicated editor available in Studio Multiple materiallayers.

21. Water FFT to computeheightmap & normalmap on CPU using SSE Projective gridcomputed on GPU Shore effects ( foamnear the shore and soft blending ) Reflection & refraction