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Key Features

Technology

FxStudio Designer

Reference Application









"The integration of FxStudio with Gamebryo empowers the creativity of artists. It enables them to rapidly go from their effects concept to their in-game implementation, instantly taking full advantage of Gamebryo's run-time performance and capabilities"

-
John Austin, VP Emergent Game Technologies

Key Features



COVERAGE : Cross platform support for PC, Microsoft Xbox360, PlayStation 3

At the heart of the design of FxStudio lies cross platform support. Designed from the ground up to support any number of platforms with ease the FxStudio system provides the key feature set that a modern game team is looking for. An important part of the workflow is to differentiate between platforms and FxStudio embraces this by providing both platform specialization and runtime management.



INSPIRATION : Powerful Designer for creating effects

At the heart of creating special effects with the FxStudio system lies FxStudio Designer, the artist friendly environment for creating special effects. Designed to embrace familiar and useful editing features such as timeline track based editing, drag and drop components and in-place property editing with real-time feedback, FxStudio Designer users will feel right at home.



FEEDBACK : Real-time preview system

FxStudio is all about efficiency. You want to see your changes happen as you make them. The FxStudio real-time preview system provides the feedback you are looking for. As you make changes to an effect, those changes are silently communicated to your runtime and updated behind the scenes. This means ZERO iteration time and that translates into quicker, better and more enjoyable!



SPEED : Optimized runtime effects engine

The FxStudio runtime provides high performance playback of special effects. Designed to fit into your environment with ease, the FxStudio runtime comes with an easy to use SDK which speeds integration. Optimizations include fast loading through packed banks, optimized playback core and virtually no memory allocations with hooks provided for memory management.



FLEXIBILITY : Data-driven, component based modeling of special effects

The FxStudio system uses a tried and tested system for putting together special effects - components. Components can be defined easily through the component editor within FxStudio Designer. Any number of properties can be added to components to represent all manner of interesting things from colors, to decay rates, to screen effects and so on and so forth.



COMPLETION : Integrated Level of Detail system and support for platform targeting

The FxStudio LOD system solves the inherent problems with effect content in a tightly integrated fashion. Categories of special effects can be defined that contain any number of level of details. Artists can assign different values for different levels of detail through the powerful FxStudio Designer property editor.








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