The U.S. Army licensed Illuminate Labs' Beast lighting technology to provide global illumination and dynamic relighting effects for both the public and government versions of upcoming first-person shooter
America's Army 3 for PC.
Beast is a platform-independent pipeline product that allows developers to add global illumination and baking functionality to their internal tools. The middleware is integrated into Unreal Engine 3, on which
America's Army 3 is built.
Due to release sometime this year,
America's Army 3 offers a virtual introduction to the Army with basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and medic training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Players are bound by Rules of Engagement and navigate challenges in team-based, multiplayer, "force on force" operations.
This new entry will feature new technology, missions, Army units, and occupations. The game will be available for free on the official
America's Army site, and will also be distributed at local Army Recruiting stations, ROTC Detachments and Army events.
"We were drawn to Illuminate Labs' Beast product because of the need for realistic lighting and shadowing for the America's Army Game and Government use platform and the believable effects that we were able to produce with Beast," says
America’s Army producer Michael Bode.
Bode continues, "With
America's Army 3, we were challenged to produce highly realistic environments. We needed to incorporate the natural look of shadows created from bounced light in different weather and times-of-day, properly colored environments through materials reflecting manmade light in urban environments, and dynamically shadowed and illuminated character avatars with the same lighting effects for stealth and camouflage purposes."
"With Beast, everything is transformed into a cohesive lighting scene that is fully integrated into the Unreal Engine 3. The excellent support from Illuminate Labs was a great additional benefit. Ultimately, Beast has allowed us to create highly realistic battlefield environments for both the game and for government simulations where light and shadow play as important a tactical factor as the visuals for every element in the world," said Bode.
