Umbra has revealed they will be bringing their expertise to help boost the graphics for Final Fantasy XV.
Umbra is not a video game company per se. It would be more accurate to say they are a 3D graphics company. They specialize in technology that creates an optimized database from 3D data. Umbra’s technology distinguishes itself in how it can create these databases automatically, and this results in more efficiently processing of this data, which can ultimately be used to improve video game graphics. Umbra may not be a familiar name to gamers, but its technology is used in games like Destiny, Quantum Break, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and Rime. Umbra is also compatible with the Unreal and Unity video game engines.
As the first game to run on Square Enix’s Luminous game engine, FF also uses Umbra’s visibility optimization technology, which has been integrated into it. What this means for players is that only objects visible in each frame are rendered and processed, and so they will appear with the best possible graphics and frame-rate that each platform can render them in. Apparently, Square Enix’s developers have been able to improve framerate already over two times for character scenes. They are also using a simple API build for improved paralleling computation.
Final Fantasy XV will be released in 2016 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Square Enix will be revealing the complete release details in the West in their upcoming Uncovered Final Fantasy XV event. The developers have recently revealed they want to hit a consistent 30 FPS framerate, and build a 50 hour game, with Final Fantasy XV.
