umbra ( 3d technology company )
technology company umbra, which started as a research project, was the brainchild of the ceo and company founder otso mäkinen .
umbra evolves the future of 3d technology after securing $ 3. 4m in new equity
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join us on the forefront of technology and help define 3d visualization and graphics rendering .
the company is also certain that demand for 3d rendering for games will not subside anytime soon .
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finnish technology company umbra has been leading the way in rendering 3d landscapes for some of the most popular games of recent years, including call of duty: advanced warfare and destiny .
one branch of the company' s middleware called dpvs was also spun out to 3d occlusion culling which lives on at umbra technology. while it was still a part of the company, it was licensed broadly to mmo developers including soe and turbine .
umbra will use the raised capital to develop new technology for streaming and rendering any 3d content on any device in real time. the technology could be used for 3d scanning, architectural planning, construction engineering, digital maps and simulations. umbra aims to create a new technical standard for displaying 3d content in various industries .
umbra is a disruptive helsinki - based tech company that is taking 3d technology to new levels. founded in 2006 by ceo otso mäkinen, umbra comprises a team of 16 professionals, including seasoned veterans and young programming talent. with strong roots in games industry the team are using their expertise to make umbra the standard 3d database for all the 3d data in the world to allow streaming and rendering any 3d content on any device .
umbra will use the raised capital to further develop technology for streaming and rendering any 3d content on any target device in real time. the company aims to create a new technical standard that provides a solution for displaying the ever increasing 3d content in various industries .
umbra is confident that within five years the company will be at the forefront of providing 3d rendering, not just for video games, but everyday life too .
immersive 3d ar / vr content is large and complex. umbra makes delivering, sharing and viewing cad, point cloud datasets and authored 3d simple .
umbra software ltd. is a graphics software technology company founded in 2007 and based in helsinki, finland. umbra software specializes in occlusion culling, visibility and rendering optimization technology and provides middleware for all major console hardware platforms, mobile devices and the pc .
mäkinen is confident that within five years umbra will be at the forefront of providing 3d rendering, not only video games but for everyday life too, as 3d scanning is bringing 3d graphics into other uses .
umbra’s new technology is built upon the company’s existing 3d visibility solution which increases rendering performance of applications by processing only the content that is visible to the user. the current software has been successfully used to optimize 3d content in aaa video game productions over the last ten years .
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umbra software ltd. (urltoken) is a graphics software technology company founded in 2007 and based in helsinki, finland. umbra software specializes in occlusion culling, visibility and rendering optimization technology and provides middleware for all major console hardware platforms, mobile devices and the pc .
umbra is on a mission to make it possible to display any 3d content in real time on any piece of hardware. umbra’s solutions are the backbone of a wide range of 3d applications that are used by millions of people every day .
umbra is on a mission to make it possible to display any 3d content in real time on any piece of hardware. umbra' s solutions are the backbone of a wide range of 3d applications used by millions of people every day .
in order to revolutionize the future of 3d, umbra will be hiring a variety of new talents to support the newly funded technology project. video games remain in umbra’s focus as the key driver for development in the field of interactive graphics .
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founded in 2006, umbra software is a finnish middleware company specializing in graphics rendering technology. the company was spun off from hybrid graphics when it acquired the dpvs system and continued its development into what became umbra occlusion culling middleware. the core engineering team at umbra has worked in the field of occlusion culling since 2000. their technology is being used in games from developers such as bungie, bioware, 38 studios, square enix co. , io interactive, remedy, specular interactive and many others who have helped shape the technology. ]
the growth of bim and mixed reality has placed increased demands on wearable technology when working with large or complex 3d models. as part of the trimble mixed - reality pilot program, umbra technology can be used to optimize the performance of 3d graphics applications. the software automatically reduces the triangle count and generates varied levels of detail of the 3d content. when viewing the 3d visualization, umbra is able to choose the right level of detail and show only the objects that are visible to the camera at any given time, essentially streaming in only the necessary 3d assets based on what the user sees .
“we’re expanding our technology to enable storing, streaming and rendering of massive 3d data sets. we already have a functional prototype that will be first released on top of game engines such as unity and unreal. our goal is to make 3d available for everyone in the future”, says the company ceo otso mäkinen .
“we’re expanding our technology to enable storing, streaming and rendering of massive 3d data sets, ” says the company ceo otso mäkinen. “we already have a functional prototype that will be first released on top of game engines such as unity and unreal. our goal is to make 3d available for everyone in the future. ”
helsinki, finland, october 29th 2015 – 3d graphics technology expert umbra, a pioneering graphics technology supplier in game industry, announced today that it has closed a $ 3. 4m series a round of financing. the investors include inventure, lifeline ventures and initial capital as well as prominent angel investors .
looking forward, umbra’s evolving technology will solve challenges for e. g. , 3d scanning that requires high - performance software to process vast and complex data sets. advanced 3d scanning creates detailed models out of real life objects like buildings, environments or even complete cities. future growth areas benefiting from umbra’s innovation include architectural planning, construction engineering, digital maps and simulations .
developer of 3d (three dimensional) graphics software designed to display any 3d content in real time on any piece of hardware. the company' s 3d (three dimensional) graphics software on virtually any modern cpu and does not depend on any specific hardware or external software, enabling users to choose the outcome between graphical fidelity and real time performance .
over its first years of activity the company starts manufacturing the first bar counters with coffee machine area .
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“ graphics development is moving from annotation to having all systems automatically reacting to polygon soups. it’s about making 3d content creation easier, automating processes that used to require tedious manual work. umbra 3 is the key enabler in this paradigm shift ” stated umbra software’s chief technology officer otso mäkinen .
umbra empowers 3d graphics designers and engineers to create, optimize, share and view their designs in real - time on virtually any device. as the established gaming industry standard in graphics optimization for more than a decade, umbra is now redefining rapid visualization for all industry ecosystems utilizing complex 3d models .
donya’s simplygon technology provides all developers with a similar performance boost, working on a more atomic scale by automatically enabling you to optimise 3d models in terms of mesh complexity .
umbra creates an optimized database from your 3d data, whether it is a small game level or a huge architectural model. umbra processes your data automatically, which means you can give umbra your geometry as - is without modifying it in any way, or doing any extra work .
no matter what your industry, if you deal with complex 3d models, umbra can automatically optimize and deliver your data to any mobile or ar user .
mäkinen also announced at their press conference on thursday, that umbra aims to be the world leader in storing all the available 3d data in the world .
one of the challenges facing virtual reality gaming is hitting key performance benchmarks which help increase presence and reduce simulator sickness. umbra software, a company that makes middleware for game development, says their technology can help developers of vr games hit the 120 fps threshold .
since virtual reality gaming has hit the market, it’s a natural venture for umbra to undertake 3d processing and rendering games that are more immersive for the player .
the umbra is available for a free evaluation on all major platforms. the umbra sdk is available as a standalone option for enterprise customers .
ciam presents design collection, a serial of new aesthetic line combining technology and extreme design .
from any 3d format – polygonal meshes, parametric surfaces, point clouds, bim / cad — to any device – ar, mobile, web, and gaming platforms, umbra composit is the only fully automated solution for optimizing and delivering complex 3d content .
a provider of 3d optimisation technologies, it follows a similar vein of scandinavian innovation as finish outfit hybrid graphics, now umbra software. its dpvs software is used to optimise 3d environments by automatically culling overdraw; something that has proved highly attractive for mmos .
the roots of occlusion culling in 3d graphics lie in hidden line and hidden surface determination algorithms. these algorithms are necessary to produce visually correct images of 2d projections in a 3d space .
with its hq in helsinki and another office in seattle, umbra has grown from a research project into a successful company. it currently employs 17 people altogether and the number is growing .
in spite of the fact that millions of players worldwide enjoy top quality video games based on umbra graphics software, until now, the company itself has been something of finnish hidden secret .
our goal is to make 3d available for everyone in the future ,
says mäkinen .
since we were in finland, the company had many talented programmers from the' demo scene', giving us an edge on graphics technology but very little global business experience. we even made a demo with the engine in the early years called cncd: inside, a rare move from a company already working on products .
you' ll get to experience stereo photography, the great - grandfather of 3d technology. the background of modern 3d lies in a discovery from almost 200 years ago. in 1838 charles wheatstone became the first to describe stereopsis and binocular vision, which prepared him to invent the stereoscope .
milestone in the company history: ciam inaugurates its new 6. 000 meter square factory and showroom in ospedalicchio nearby perugia .
the umbra cloud performs the geometry processing in the cloud instead of locally, and thus offers near - unlimited computation and storage capabilities. the umbra runtime can then use the cloud - generated data exactly as if it were created locally. the umbra cloud license makes it possible for smaller teams to take advantage of umbra’s powerful capabilities. the umbra cloud is already being utilized by developers .
umbra’s main client base consists of us - based video game companies ranging from cd project red to activision. one of the latest games to benefit from umbra’s 3d processing and rendering optimisation is deus ex: mankind divided, from game developer eidos - montréal .
/ prnewswire / - - trimble (nasdaq: trmb) announced today that it is collaborating with umbra to explore the use and integration of umbra 3d graphics optimization technology as part of its mixed - reality solutions to process and optimize complex 3d building information models (bim). the collaboration is part of trimble' s mixed–reality pilot program and solutions strategy to enable users to gather, analyze, visualize and share spatial information in a mixed - reality environment .
the latest version of the company’s software, umbra 3, natively supports occlusion culling for stereo scenes, like those displayed in the oculus rift. the feature is called stereo camera and the company says that with their software “both eyes can use the results of a single occlusion culling operation – effectively halving the required processing time. ”
umbra' s new product development extends beyond gaming .
using umbra, trimble pilot program users will be able to focus on what' s important about 3d and mixed reality: better communication, richer interaction and faster design review cycles ,
said otso mäkinen, ceo of umbra .
with trimble' s global presence and industry knowledge, this collaboration can enable umbra to enter new markets and accelerate the 3d revolution. we are very excited to work with trimble as part of its mixed - reality pilot program .
giuseppe malizia founds ciam snc, a company that in few years would have become leader in shop fitting and professional refrigeration sectors .
i also urge you to check out 3d dot heroes which does a very clever twist on npr visuals .
bigworld, a leading games middleware company and producers of the industry - leading mmog development platform today announced that they have partnered with umbra software, a global provider of visibility optimization solutions designed for games with large and dynamic 3d worlds. developers using bigworld' s comprehensive development suite will now have the benefits of dpvs' effective blend of cutting edge visibility technologies. umbra software' s dpvs computes visibility databases in real time, enabling bigworld' s licensees the creation of truly interactive and modifiable 3d worlds .
umbra software ltd. is the expert in 3d visibility optimization solution for pc and game consoles. umbra software' s dpvs uses instantaneous occlusion computations to speed up the development cycle; it allows for truly alive, interactive worlds with more objects and characters with new levels of realism; it increases freedom in mmo game worlds, enabling modification of worlds by players on the fly. umbra software is currently developing
umbra
which is targeted towards next - generation consoles and high end pcs. umbra software solutions are currently used by several high - profile massively multiplayer online games and 3d game engines. for more information see urltoken
umbra is the brainchild of the ceo and founder otso mäkinen, who started the company as a research project to look at how a game can maintain its fluid look while dealing with content created by the developers .
our wide client - base includes global enterprises, domestic listed companies as well as technology and outsourcing vendors .
umbra’s 3d technology has been used in over 100 video game productions over the last 10 years. its customers include globally famous game studios that have created games such as call of duty: advanced warfare, batman arkham knight, the witcher 3: wild hunt, quantum break and destiny. in the future, umbra will continue its development work with games alongside the other business lines .
tackling the biggest 3d challenges for some of the world’s largest industries isn’t easy. it takes a special team of passionate engineering, commercial, and operational employees dedicated to creating game - changing technology from the ground up .
the demand for efficient 3d visibility solutions is growing rapidly in the market. companies like google and apple are scanning our surroundings into virtual models despite the fact that today' s consumer technology cannot visualize such massive data sets .
, director of trimble' s mixed - reality program .
the computing power needed to visualize large and highly detailed 3d models can outpace the capabilities of mobile and wearable devices, which lack the processing power of professional high - end desktop machines. by collaborating with umbra, we can leverage technology proven in video gaming to improve the user experience and enable visualization of large and complex architecture, engineering and construction 3d models .
to help shed more light on this niche topic, i' m not sure if there' s a need for a full ama thread but: i am a 3d engine programmer, we started developing and licensing our surrender 3d engine back in 1994, over at hybrid graphics. the company was later acquired by nvidia thanks to hybrid' s focus on opengl es .
the umbra debugger is a modern gui tool for programmers and artists to visualize how umbra’s visibility system works with their content. the software allows for rapid prototyping and quick debugging .
what is occlusion culling and how can it help? umbra explains and shows how our umbra 3 occlusion culling system works. learn more at urltoken start a free trial: urltoken
umbra’s main client base consists of us - based video game companies ranging from cd project red to activision. pictured is one of umbra’s projects the witcher 3: wild hunt .
we are seeking seasoned veterans, propeller hat scientists and enthusiastic students to join us and to be part of the team that will change the world of 3d graphics. join us in bringing 3d to everyone! up for the challenge ?
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“improved usability and performance are our themes for this year. the addition of cloud computation allows even smaller teams to create large game worlds. the debugger is a powerful new tool which developers can utilize to use and understand the inner workings of umbra better” said otso mäkinen, chief technology officer of umbra .
ciam hinges its production facilities on a new laser cutting technology, ensuring superior quality and high speed in cutting stainless steel .
umbra 3. 2 is available for current generation consoles and a variety of other hardware platforms .
we’re all about adapting to your needs. with umbra, there are no limits on file size, polygon counts, texture dimensions or data complexity. composit optimizes the most complex 3d models with virtually no loss of fidelity .
designing, rendering and sharing complex 3d models with co - workers and customers can be a time - consuming venture. with umbra, you can accelerate design and make it easy to share your vision with anyone, anywhere .
umbra has been powering up graphics performance in more than 100 video games during the last 10 years. clients include internationally renowned game studios that have produced commercially successful aaa productions such as call of duty: advanced warfare, batman arkham knight, quantum break, the witcher 3: wild hunt and destiny. umbra is a helsinki based company that was founded in 2006 by its current owners. today the company employs a team of specialists working in finland, united states, korea, china and japan .
when working in conjunction with trimble technologies for bim and mixed reality, umbra can preprocess 3d bim models and produce optimized content that can enable trimble clients to work with large amounts of 3d content on virtual and mixed - reality devices .
mixed reality enables professionals and their clients to interact with 3d models. trimble customers are involved in some of the largest and most complex projects in the world and it' s important to provide a solution which will support their needs ,
said
umbra is also working to get their occlusion culling solution, including the stereo camera functionality, into the unreal store as another means for indies to get their hands on the technology. unfortunately, no timeline is yet available .
renowned developer bungie is using umbra 3 for its unannounced project and other developers taking full advantage of umbra include: 38 studios, io interactive, sony online entertainment, tripwire, and remedy entertainment .
helsinki, finland (february 6th 2013) – umbra software, the developer of the umbra 3 visibility solution announced today the release of umbra 3. 2. , the latest version of it’s middleware which powers up real - time graphics performance and productivity with automatic occluder generation and software based occlusion culling .
cd projekt red have chosen to use umbra 3 in it’s upcoming the witcher 3: wild hunt .
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jon jordan has a look at the progress on lighting tool modo 401, as developer luxology slowly reveals more information on the new technology .
indie developers can get their hands on the tech through the unity game development software which uses umbra’s solution for occlusion culling. umbra’s occlusion culling integration with unity was completely rewritten to improve performance in unity 4. 3 .
umbra does not require content to be in a certain format or artists to change the way they work. whatever polygon soup your engine wants to serve, umbra can handle it and make it run smoother and faster .
to learn more about the unreal engine 4 integrated partners program and the similar middleware collaboration for ue3, visit the relevant page of the company & apos; s website here .
it’s a mark both of how specialised game development has become, and the complexity of games themselves, that swedish technology vendor donya labs exists .
ciam invests in software and provides its r & d department with advanced 3d design and simulator tools: a key resource for creating new product lines .
in the previous post, i briefly described how umbra first voxelizes the occluding geometry, groups these voxels into cells and then connects the cells with portals. in the process, umbra is always conservative, meaning that in various cases umbra considers the occluders slightly smaller than what they are in reality, or conversely, the empty areas slightly larger .
the umbra technology helps game engines process massively higher object counts in - game, particularly on next - gen platforms, by automatic early rejection of objects that are not visible. umbra’s multi - core architecture provides accurate visibility information for the game view in a matter of milliseconds, helping save gpu costs and freeing up valuable resources for developers to create richer environments for gamers to enjoy .
the company, a participant in the northern european accelerator programme startup sauna, has developed a sales productivity smartphone app that works in the background of salespeople’s smartphones and automatically updates the crm .
federico malizia assume the role of ciam group chief executive, at the completion of a successful training process within the company which allowed the young entrepreneur to acquire extensive technical and management experience .
umbra was founded in 2006 and its headquarters are located on the very northern edge of europe – helsinki, finland .
ciam moves in a new establishment in bastia umbra, perugia, and enlarges its production with custom shop fitting lines .
umbra 3 has been selected by some of the world’s best game developers as their visibility solution; arenanet, bungie, remedy, sony online entertainment, splash damage, vicarious visions and many others are using umbra for future video games .
hah. i remember when culling and poly - intersection was the only practical method to do distance occlusion. z - buffer was an exotic technology that was available to very few. nowadays – engines can get by with being wasteful. it’s funny to hear this popping up again as an exciting new technology .
the technology is already in use with companies such as crytek, evolution studios, ea and ccp. simplygon does require integration within your art pipeline however .
ciam presents “programma europa 4”: an innovative project based on new materials and new production processes. ciam is the first company inside its sector to use high density polyurethane to create aesthetic panels .
devices that could never before run high - quality 3d content can now render amazing graphics at super high frame rates for the smoothest, most immersive visual experiences .
we are thrilled to be integrated with the bigworld technology suite, a gold standard in the mmog industry
said farhad taherazer, vp of marketing for umbra software .
bigworld' s global presence provides us access to mmog developers that we could not otherwise achieve .
helsinki, finland – november 7th, 2013 –umbra software today announced that activision publishing, inc. has licensed the umbra 3 visibility solution for use in call of duty®: ghosts, developed by activision’s award - winning studio in! nity ward .
umbra runs on virtually any modern cpu and does not depend on any specific hardware or external software. all computers, mobile devices and gaming consoles are supported. umbra is part of unity and available as a plug - in for unreal engine 4 .
the demand for efficient 3d visibility solutions is growing rapidly in the market. companies like google and apple are scanning our surroundings into virtual models despite the fact that today’s consumer technology cannot visualize such massive data sets. the emerging platforms such as virtual and augmented reality push the envelope even further, demanding staggering frame rates and performance .
design: umbra composit will accelerate your ability to revise, render and collaborate on your models without time - consuming hand optimization .
left: the
umbra
( photo: helle k. hagen / preus museum) right: two examples of stereo photography
umbra 3 improves development workflow by enabling both rapid content iteration and the creation of more sophisticated levels and more detailed graphics content. umbra 3 automatically generates occluders from “polygon soup” empowering artists to spend their time on what really matters – creating awesome looking game worlds .
demonstrating the increasing convergence between the concepts and technology of game development and the commercial demands of training, simulation and serious gaming markets comes worldweaverâ? ? s dx studio .
there are two main types of objects umbra cares about: occluders and occludees. the former are just geometry and umbra treats them basically as a single, solid model. the latter are the ones whose visibility umbra actually tests using the occlusion data. occluders consist of pretty much all geometry that have the “occluder static” flag set, and unsurprisingly, occludees that have the “occludee static” flag, respectively .
umbra’s software is in use by some of the gaming industry’s biggest names, including bungie, square enix, and microsoft game studios .
umbra 3 is a rendering and performance optimizing middleware that is used to improve frame rates and help to create visually striking game worlds. umbra 3 does this by optimizing critical parts of a game such as rendering, audio and game logic with highly effective content streaming. umbra automatically generates portals in pre - process which are used for highly - efficient occlusion culling taking away tedious manual work from artists .
the following blog post was written by jasin bushnaief of umbra software to explain the updates to occlusion culling in unity pro 4. 3 .
in addition to needing only one query for both eyes to determine culling, the company says that its software does all processing on the cpu. their particular approach to occlusion culling means there can never be pop - in artifacts .
helsinki, finland (december 15 th, 2011) – umbra software, the provider of state of the art rendering optimization middleware, announced today that its umbra 3. 1 sdk is now available for playstation® 3, xbox 360®, pc, playstation vita®, ios and future platforms .
epic games has today debuted its unreal engine 4 integrated partners program, which is conceived to offer developer & apos; s a wealth of tools optimised to work together with the new technology .
our technology & outsourcing practice is constantly involved in complex technology related transactions work. we are frequently working in substantial outsourcing transactions, often with off - shore and cross - border dimensions. transactions typically include complex data protection and ip issues, which are handled in close co - operation with the expertise provided by our highly regarded data protection, marketing & consumers as well as ipr practices .
“ call of duty is revered for creating truly immersive experiences and epic gameplay that always runs at 60 frames - per - second. so we are thrilled to work with the incredible talent at in! nity ward as they usher in the next - generation with call of duty: ghosts, ” said otso mäkinen, chief technology officer, umbra software .
“ level artists are there to fill the world with content. integrating umbra saved us not only artist time but the time to create and maintain an efficient visibility culling solution. umbra’s support provides us with the solutions and features that we need ” commented balasz torok, the lead engine programmer at cd projekt red .
starting from an intuition of giuseppe malizia, the founder of the company, ciam grows to be head of a group of business units, each one dealing with different manufacturing processes, linked together in order to be as much effective and rapid as possible .
i' m always happy to wax nostalgic about the industry, there are many warning examples but also many successes to share. we were in the middle of the war, licensing technology to all sides .
we learned well that you can' t please everyone 100% , and that licensing technology into games is one of the riskiest businesses you can take on. we did okay in the end. : )
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umbra has been powering up graphics performance in more than 125 video games during the last 10 years. clients include internationally renowned game studios that have produced commercially successful aaa productions such as call of duty®: infinite warfare, fallout 4, quantum break, deus ex: mankind divided and the witcher 3: wild hunt. umbra is a
among a host of updates in this release are major updates to unity' s rendering capabilities, its physics features and significant optimizations to its core systems to make targeting multiple platforms easier than ever for developers. for improved performance and fidelity in its rendering, unity now includes fully integrated licensed technology from illuminate labs and umbra software. used in games such as the highly regarded mirror' s edge, illuminate lab' s beast lighting software provides unity developers with a complete global illumination solution for photorealistic scene lighting. ensuring exceptional performance for games with large, open scenes and complex geometry, umbra' s occlusion culling software is also fully integrated in unity 3. 0. both umbra and beast are included in unity pro at no additional cost .
then you can start adjusting it downward and see how umbra culls better. stop when culling starts taking up too much time and / or the occlusion data becomes too large .
in the next and final post, go over some common issues people tend to run into when using umbra. in the meantime, go check out urltoken for more information !
using the umbra 3 visibility solution, the team at in! nity ward was able to further enhance the visually rich and immersive environments – delivering varying view distances and higher amounts of detail. the new call of duty engine also utilizes umbra’s automatic visibility determination to process more geometric and shader complexity on next - generation hardware and pc than what has been possible on previous hardware .
umbra’s software is largely aimed at full scale game studios seeking integration with proprietary engines, though thomas puha, umrba’s developer relations manager, tells me that it never hurts to get in touch .
umbra’s optimized database can then be used in an application to perform queries. the queries answer questions like “what can be seen here? ” or “what needs to be rendered next? ” .
with long - standing support for the wii and recently announced support for the xbox 360, today' s announcement from unity technologies that it will support playstation 3 unlocks an additional install base of more than 33 million consoles to unity developers and completes the company' s support for the current generation of consoles .
since our first version in 2005, unity technologies has been focused on the democratization of interactive 3d and delivering an impressive list of technological advances making it the technology of choice for more than 100, 000 developers today ,
said david helgason, ceo of unity technologies .
we have been driven by innovation and a desire to always offer the best capabilities to developers. unity 3. 0 is built on that same promise and allows our customers to further expand the reach of their games to new platforms and audiences .
“our approach to 3d optimisation isn’t dependent on what dcc tools you use, ” ekdal says. “we find that by integrating simplygon elsewhere in the pipeline, you can achieve greater efficiency. our customers have chosen to integrate simplygon in different ways depending on their content pipeline’s configuration. ”
[ in this sponsored feature, umbra software discusses the pros and cons of various methods currently being used for occlusion culling and explains its own automated occlusion culling system that can take any type of polygon soup as input .
software house umbra closed its series a round of financing with over three million us dollars. the investors include, for instance, london and silicon valley based initial capital, inventure and lifeline ventures as well as private investors .
the information at umbra might help understand it a bit better, but in short the idea behind dynamic visibility culling is to mask objects out by occluders picked by their historical good performance in occlusion rather than a static selection. in the first generation technology these objects were rasterized as 1 bit deep silhouettes into a hierarchical depth buffer of sorts. this work was then balanced against the cost / benefit function of keeping objects in or leaving them out. by default, dpvs performed conservatively so that there were never visible artifacts .
given the fact that umbra does object - level occlusion culling, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to have objects of several kilometers in size. such massive objects are very hard to cull, as some part of the object is almost always visible, especially combined with umbra’s conservative culling. so, splitting up e. g. the terrain into multiple patches is typically a good idea, unless you want the entire terrain to always be visible .
ciam focuses its business target on semi - finished modules, offering its customers a wide range of technical solutions and, at the same time, high quality and very short lead time. ciam outlines its new business strategy which establishes resellers and shop fitting producer as unique way for distributing its products and technology .
the umbra 3 visibility solution is available for xbox one, the all - in one games and entertainment system from microsoft, playstation® 4, xbox 360 game and entertainment system from microsoft, playstation®3 computer entertainment system, windows and ios platforms .
helsinki, finland / february 26 th 2015 – umbra announced today a new version of its rendering middleware which is used in such video games as call of duty®: advanced warfare, destiny, quantum break and the witcher 3: wild hunt .
we started out doing everything in 32 - bit assembler on the x86, eventually converting most code over to c + + but creating dynamic compilers to generate rendering loops at run - time. during the development we went from 60 mhz pentiums to ghz + processors with 3d accelerators, meaning we were living in quite exciting times .
umbra 3. 2 has been developed to meet the challenges presented by the next wave of games enabling the rendering of massive, streaming open worlds with gigantic object counts. new code and memory optimizations also significantly improve performance on current generation console platforms .
it may seem obvious, but of course the first thing to make sure is that your scene actually contains meaningful occlusion. moreover, the occlusion should preferably consist of good, large occluders if possible, as opposed to fine details that only accumulate as occluders when looking at from a certain angle. umbra will generally not be able to perform occluder fusion, so even if your lush forest with lots of foliage will occlude something behind it, it will do so only once the individual occluders are “accumulated”. so in this sense, the trees and forests in general will be pretty bad occluders from umbra’s point of view. on the other hand, a mountain is a good occluder and umbra will certainly be able to capture it into the occlusion data as expected .
i' d love to give you a more concrete answer but if i myself was to pitch a 3d - heavy game for next generation, i' d probably pencil in 20% for engine and 20% for support / creation tools, 40% for content and 20% for everything else. for $ 5m title this would mean $ 1m for engine, $ 1m for support tools, $ 2m for content and $ 1m for anything else. a million buys you 5 - 10 man - years of lead 3d programmer time depending where you work and how experienced they are, making this sound reasonable for a 24 month project with 6 people working on the core .
“with umbra cloud we have access to a cost effective and extremely scalable computation infrastructure with zero setup effort” said jani joki, the director of engineering at futuremark. “it has accelerated our work - flow as we develop our next generation of 3dmark® benchmark tests. ”
when rendering 3d world views in a game, resources spent in processing elements that are invisible to the player are inevitably wasted. these resources could be better used to increase the visual complexity of the visible elements or to decrease the time taken to produce a frame. for this, we must identify the objects that are not visible to the player .
for more than 100 years kodak stood alone atop the amateur market in film and cameras. the company produced various versions of the brownie camera in addition to others such as retina, tourist, vest pocket camera, and instamatic. with the slogan
you press the button, we do the rest
kodak changed the relationship of people to photography. instead of requiring specialized knowledge, photography now became accessible to almost everyone .
“the stereo camera is a runtime operation, which returns the set of visible objects within a specified sphere, instead of a point in space. the query origin is set exactly between the two eyes of the viewer, and the sphere is set to encompass both eyes, which guarantees correct results, ” reads the company’s page on vr. they say it can help developers “reach 120 fps or build bigger scenes” with high performance .
new streaming support allows splitting the game world into a number of streaming blocks, for which the occlusion data is computed. these blocks can be loaded into memory and combined at runtime to perform umbra visibility queries. streaming helps decreasing the memory footprint and improve overall performance .
audiokineti c – wwise autodesk – autodesk gameware donya labs – simplygon geomerics – enlighten idv – speedtree for games intel – intel threading building blocks (tbb) naturalmotion – morpheme and euphoria nvidia – physx and apex oculus vr – oculus rift rad game tools – bink video and telemetry performance visualizer reald – reald developer kit (rdk) umbra software – umbra 3 xoreax – incredibuild - xge “the new integrated partners program helps unreal engine 4 developers maximise their time with the most advanced toolset we’ve ever developed, ” said tim sweeney, founder and technical director of epic games .
games have almost single - handedly turned supercomputing into a mass market commodity. thanks to the push to support the latest video games, an engineering, physics or mathematics student today can buy a fucking supercomputer for less than a month' s salary of flipping burgers. the cost of computation technology has come down with the need to mass produce and market it to everyone .
any spending of over a million dollars into a game engine, no matter how shiny the shaders or how slim the footprint, in my mind should be seriously scrutinized even for the next generation. seeing how the production budgets of aaa titles can run into 10 + million and the marketing budgets into many times that, it' s tempting to double the technology budgets too .
ciam inaugurates its 23. 000 meters squared new factory in petrignano of assisi. the new buildings and the equipment inside, are the full expression of ciam’s skill to create design and technology. € 15. 000. 000 investment in modern facilities: laser cutting, metal and steel processing and bending machinery, environmentally friend painting booths. more than 12, 000 pieces per year production capacity .
there are plenty of other aspects of development that the technology could be used for, too, says ekdal: “instead of creating new content to cover the stepdown from wii to ds, ps3 to ps2 to psp, or generally to iphone, simplygon could do it automatically. it would also be useful in terms of optimising downloadable content for mmos and like, before or during the download process. ”
it works automatically and universally ideally, an occlusion culling system automatically works with any kind of 3d content, from simple object viewers to massive virtual worlds, and requires no manual work from the artists building and modeling the game world. furthermore, the system should not pose restrictions on the creativity of the artist. finally, the system should not depend on any specific hardware features, rendering conventions, or authoring methods or tools .
using unity is such an enjoyable experience that it' s sometimes easy to forget what a powerful tool it has become ,
said mauricio longoni, development and technology director at aquiris .
the team here has been banging on early builds of the new unity pro 3. 0, and we' re very impressed by the early stability and polish of pre - release builds amidst the massive changes and improvements .
ciam celebrated its 40 years of activity with plenty of new products. the participation to host 2017 milan tradeshow has been the ideal opportunity for the launch of the new brand, which was completely improved for what concerns the graphic lines and with a strong recall to the first logo in order to underline the importance of looking to the future by keeping a strong bond with our origins. for this reason, we created ciam’s monographic handbook, which was presented at the tradeshow, composed of 800 pages which retrace the company’s history and achievements .
economics is closely linked not only with the development of photographic processes and technology, but also with the esthetic unfolding of photography. there has been a struggle to generate ideas that make photography more inexpensive and more exact, and to give it the most extensive possible distribution. the competition between various technologies and processes that began with the invention of photography in 1839 has resulted in the profusion of easily accessible images we surround ourselves with today .
bigworld technology suite provides operators and studios with a lower total cost of ownership through a seamless, integrated development pipeline that is optimized for the development of next - generation mmogs. the bigworld server architecture allows operators to run several games on a single server cluster, dramatically reducing the cost of running the game, while the enhanced content creation pipeline reduces the cost of building and filling out the complex worlds required in next - generation games .
even further into the future is donya’s xtreme polygon reduction & repair system. xprss (a working title) is an experimental technology that produces simplified meshes. as well as the mesh, a new texture is created, with the result being something that’s extremely low - poly and optimised for a particular screen resolution. “we’re really looking forward to introducing these re - meshing and re - texturing abilities sometime during 2009, ” ekdal says .
the problem is simple enough to grasp ­ - ­ - out of the rays of light travelling from surfaces in the world towards your eye, only the ones that do not run into obstacles on the way will contribute to the final image. this is an instance of the visibility problem and the formulation readily suggests one possible solution for 3d rendering: we could simply trace light rays back from the eye and find the first surface that each ray intersects with .
trimble' s mixed - reality pilot program provides visionary architecture, engineering, construction and operations (aeco) companies an opportunity to experience how mixed - reality technology can transform the way they work. working together with trimble, pilot participants can explore and utilize mixed reality in their projects to improve team communication, data interpretation and collaboration during the design development and pre - construction stages of their projects. as part of the program, trimble provides training and implementation support on microsoft hololens and trimble mixed - reality solutions.
umbra is a graphics software technology company founded 2007 in helsinki , finland . umbra specializes in occlusion culling , visibility solution technology and provides middleware for video games running on windows , linux , playstation 4 , xbox one , playstation 3 , xbox 360 , handheld consoles , ios , wii u and other platforms . umbra provides the occlusion culling system for unity game engine since unity 3 release . umbra is also available as a plug-in for unreal engine 3 and 4 . umbra ’s technology is being used in many major video games such as batman : arkham knight , call of duty : ghosts , the witcher 3 : wild hunt , destiny , until dawn , killzone shadow fall , mass effect 2 , mass effect 3 , guild wars 2 , raiderz , the secret world , lord of the rings online , planetside 2 , alan wake , age of conan : hyborian adventures , grandia online , eve online , free realms , dragon age origins , dragon age ii and deus ex : mankind divided . umbra 's technology has been licensed for use in video games by bungie , guerrilla games , cd projekt red , microsoft game studios , team dakota , neversoft , infinity ward , shanda games , vicarious visions , specular interactive , remedy , red duck inc. , splash damage , softmax and several others . 
umbra is a graphics software technology company founded 2007 in helsinki, finland. umbra specializes in occlusion culling, visibility solution technology and provides middleware for video games running on windows, linux, playstation 4, xbox one, playstation 3, xbox 360, handheld consoles, ios, wii u and other platforms. umbra provides the occlusion culling system for unity game engine since unity 3 release. umbra is also available as a plug-in for unreal engine 3 and 4. umbra ’s technology is being used in many major video games such as batman: arkham knight, call of duty: ghosts, the witcher 3: wild hunt, destiny, until dawn, killzone shadow fall, mass effect 2, mass effect 3, guild wars 2, raiderz, the secret world, lord of the rings online, planetside 2, alan wake, age of conan: hyborian adventures, grandia online, eve online, free realms, dragon age origins, dragon age ii and deus ex: mankind divided. umbra's technology has been licensed for use in video games by bungie, guerrilla games, cd projekt red, microsoft game studios, team dakota, neversoft, infinity ward, shanda games, vicarious visions, specular interactive, remedy, red duck inc., splash damage, softmax and several others.
umbra is a graphics software technology company founded 2007 in helsinki, finland. umbra specializes in occlusion culling, visibility solution technology and provides middleware for video games running on windows, linux, playstation 4, xbox one, playstation 3, xbox 360, handheld consoles, ios, wii u and other platforms. umbra provides the occlusion culling system for unity game engine since unity 3 release. umbra is also available as a plug-in for unreal engine 3 and 4. umbra ’s technology is being used in many major video games such as batman: arkham knight, call of duty: ghosts, the witcher 3: wild hunt, destiny, until dawn, killzone shadow fall, mass effect 2, mass effect 3, guild wars 2, raiderz, the secret world, lord of the rings online, planetside 2, alan wake, age of conan: hyborian adventures, grandia online, eve online, free realms, dragon age origins, dragon age ii and deus ex: mankind divided. umbra's technology has been licensed for use in video games by bungie, guerrilla games, cd projekt red, microsoft game studios, team dakota, neversoft, infinity ward, shanda games, vicarious visions, specular interactive, remedy, red duck inc., splash damage, softmax and several others.