studio hallway

EoR Core Technology

Our games are developed using our proprietary cross-platform engine. Because the engine is created and supported in-house, we know it inside and out. We can customize it for the needs of a particular game, add features, fix problems, and prototype far more efficiently than would be possible with any off-the-shelf engine. Our tech has matured and evolved over eleven years of development, 8 platforms, and dozens of releases (including externally developed ports and sequels of our games).

bullet pointEfficient Content Creation

One of the most unique features of the engine is the way that it revolves around efficient content creation and team collaboration. Perhaps the most critical challenge in game development is to create an efficient development process that allows team members to work independently, make iterative changes with rapid feedback, and integrate those changes into the game. Our developers spend their time creating game content, not waiting on builds or shared files. Our level design and build tools scale gracefully to huge teams and huge datasets.

Hot-Syncing

In addition to fully interactive editors, which allow changes to be seen in the game in real time, any asset can be updated while the game is running. This reduces iteration time to almost nothing, dramatically improving productivity and quality.

Robust Build Process

  • bullet pointFully automated
  • bullet pointFast
  • bullet pointReliable & Reproducible—consistent builds from given source data
  • bullet pointResilient—content errors detected and reported, without breaking builds
  • bullet pointCross-platform
  • bullet pointSupport for one or multiple localizations per SKU
  • bullet pointAutomatically incorporates referenced data
  • bullet pointAutomatically uses data referencing relationships to build dataset files, for fast loading


bullet pointRendering

  • bullet pointSeamlessly combines real-time and baked lighting, combining the benefits of interactivity with the quality and performance of precomputed Global Illumination.
  • bullet pointNormal maps and specular are supported for both real-time and baked lighting, which is critical for combining great lighting and great surfacing.
  • bullet pointHundreds of shaders produce state-of-the art effects, including reflection, refraction, volumetric effects, skin with subsurface scattering, parallax mapping, 3D shaded particles, caustics, animated water, animated clouds, and whatever we dream up next.
  • bullet pointView-dependent texture streaming enables extremely high detail textures, which is especially critical at HD resolutions.
  • bullet pointFull-screen anti-aliasing
  • bullet pointHDR rendering with post effects, such as lens flare, tone mapping, depth-of-field, and motion blur.
  • bullet pointDigital color processing enhances contrast and enables a variety of visual styles and moods.
  • bullet pointGeneral and dynamic occlusion culling works well indoors and outdoors.
  • bullet pointMulti-threaded architecture is tuned for optimal performance on next-gen consoles.


bullet pointObject System

This is our game object creation and scripting system, which enables artists and designers to directly implement game objects.

Features

  • bullet pointObject-oriented design enables massive reuse of game content within games and across games.
  • bullet pointCreates optimal workflow. Common tasks can be performed with menu selections and filling out a form. Objects are plug-and-play. A smart object can be dropped into an area and perform complex interactions, without requiring tedious setup.
  • bullet pointBuild on growing object library
  • bullet pointDynamic scene management loading and unloading sections of the world, without a performance hit
  • bullet pointAble to detect most common script errors at compile time. Run-time errors are handled gracefully, without breaking the game for the rest of the team.
  • bullet pointAble to divide up levels hierarchically, for collaboration and streaming.
  • bullet pointThe fast way to do things is also the right way to do things. Prototypes created from standard building blocks form a solid foundation for the shipping game.
  • bullet pointIntegrated multi-player support. Selectable options on object attributes and script messages provide a seamless distributed object system that can easily extend single-player objects for multi-player support.


bullet pointStreaming

Streaming is a key feature of our engine. The following pieces of technology contribute to strong streaming support:

  • bullet pointBackground loading
  • bullet pointRobust memory management, free from fragmentation problems
  • bullet pointHierarchical levels, for scalable creation and zone loading
  • bullet pointDynamic scene management loading and unloading sections of the world, without a performance hit
  • bullet pointPersistence system allows state to be maintained for unloaded sections
  • bullet pointLevel of Detail support for objects and entire areas
  • bullet pointIntelligent texture streaming system invisibly loads high-resolution textures only near the camera, allowing for much higher texture and lighting detail, and much faster load times


bullet pointOnline

Key features

  • bullet pointPlatform-agnostic—currently supporting PC, XBox 360, and PS3.
  • bullet pointService-agnostic—currently supporting Live and PSN. (i.e., Steam would be easy to add.)
  • bullet pointOnline gameplay
  • bullet pointOnline service management

EDGE Protocol

  • bullet pointObject-oriented and high-level
  • bullet pointSmall and large-scale worlds
  • bullet pointRapid implementation and iteration

Service manager

  • bullet pointMatch-making
  • bullet pointRanking
  • bullet pointPresence
  • bullet pointCommerce
  • bullet pointPatching

Platforms

  • bullet pointTRC/TCR Compliant
  • bullet pointLocalized
  • bullet point1st-party vetted