Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment today dropped a tech showcase detailing how the Snowdrop engine is bringing the world of Pandora to life.

Massive Entertainment's proprietary Snowdrop engine, which made its debut with 2015s Tom Clancy's The Division, is also powering Avatar: Frontier's of Pandora. It's an ambitious project with the goals of faithfully recreating James Cameron's world. To accomplish this, Massive has seriously upgraded Snowdrop to take advantage of the new generation of hardware.

Pandora is a large, lush planet made up wide assortments of plants, wildlife, N'avi, and humans. Bringing that level of detail to life meant making big changes that allow Massive Entertainment to push thousands of assets in a single frame, develop shaders that can be affected in real-time, and a volumetric cloud system that makes the skies as dynamic as the planet below.

Only available on new hardware, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is taking full advantage of them. Massive has built sophisticated NPC systems that understand the state of the world. They're also using hardware-based raytracing to create dynamic lighting and reflections. You can see the creation of these systems in the tech showcase video.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora launches in 2022 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Stadia, and Luna.

https://www.anrdoezrs.net/links/3607085/type/dlg/sid/UUhgUeUpU11997/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL24J4a91us