GTA: Ray City (Courtesy of Delfi!)

A look into an experiment performed by Saarland University to use cutting edge graphics on GTA: VC!

Brought to you by Delfi!

This needs to be pointed to with some gold stick:

from the website:

Ray Tracing in Racing Games

Racing Games have very strict requirements regarding interactivity.

As a scientific study Saarland University developes in cooperation with Erlangen University the worlds first completly ray traced Racing Game.

The point is to prove that the high quality of raytraced graphics can be archieved with acceptable framerates.

The project is set in a rich urban environment. The models and textures to provide this environment have been used from Rockstar Games title “Grand Theft Auto Vicecity”.

This project is based on an adjusted version of the q3rt engine by Daniel Pohl, whom I also want to thank for his great support.

Please note that this work is in progress.”

“The following features are to be expected:

realtime 3d raytrace engine

* framerate scales nearly linear to number of computers used

* realistic glass with reflection and refraction

* varnish shader

* realtime per-pixel shadows

* colored realtime per-pixel shadows

* realtime soft shadows

* colored lights

daylight cycle with change in color and intensity

* ground fog

loading grand theft auto vice city content

support for renderware dff model format

* support for DirectX dxt texture format

* console to modify internal game parameters

movement by foot, motorcycle, car, boat, plane, helicopter

* integrated benchmark system

* offline rendering for saved demos

exemplary some vegetation replaced with high polygon models

realistic physic for vehicels

* physic for players (e.g. gravity)

collision detection for players and vehicels

damage model for vehicels and some models

player animations

* simple waypoint AI

traffic simulation and pedestrians

* possible resolution up to 16384x16384x32

* png screenshots

sounds

* mipmapping

* camera and teleport portals

reflecting water 

I think they’ll put renderware out of buisness

Basicly, this picture shows gta-vice city rendered with some awesome new hardware ray-tracing technology.