The Climax Group today took a major technological step forward in the development of cross-platform games with the unveiling of Blimey, a powerful new game engine that drastically reduces development times. Created by some of the most experienced programmers in the interactive entertainment industry, the Blimey technology has been specifically designed to meet the needs of the Climax Group and allows for the rapid development of games on PS2, Xbox, Gamecube and PC.

By maintaining a complete layer of abstraction between the main game and console dependant code, the Blimey engine ensures that the amount of code that needs to be re-written for each console is significantly reduced.

As well as speeding up development times, the power of Blimey enables programmers to create cameras, worlds, objects and AI that work across all formats. In addition to this, the flexibility of the engine allows the programmers, artists and designers to create features specifically for each hardware platform, thereby creating unique gameplay and maximising the power of each of the platforms. Because the Blimey engine dovetails neatly with Climax’s proprietary content creation tools – SuperTed, SuperModel and BLC - the developer can create vast, detailed environments quickly, efficiently whilst maximising the capabilities of each hardware platform. This enables the Climax Group to maximise the efforts of all its programmers, no matter which format they are working on.

One of the most exciting qualities of Blimey is its compatibility with the company’s enhanced DYNE 2.0 vehicle dynamics engine. Dedicated to the development of ultra realistic motor vehicles, DYNE’s capabilities combined with Blimey’s sophisticated suite of development tools will enable Climax to produce excellent games with superb physics and superior graphics.

Features of Climax’s Blimey engine:

• Greatly increases the speed at which designers and artists can view and play their work, allowing for longer periods of gameplay tuning and state-of-the-art visuals.

• The ability to easily swap features between platforms maximises the development time of all programmers, regardless of which platform they are working on. Cameras, world, objects and AI can quickly be ported from one version to another.

• Error reporting for debugging

• Timing functionality to assist with game profiling for high performance

• File handling system to manage files loaded from DVD, CD, Hard drive or memory card

• Highly optimised rendering and special effects system supporting Climax’s curved surface geometry technology as well as traditional non-procedural geometry

• Advance replay camera and in-game camera system

• Advanced sound effects and music system for each console

Date: 2002-06-11

Posted by: Steve

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