Guild Wars nabs Umbra occlusion tech

Umbra Software has announced that it has licensed its Umbra occlusion culling technology to Guild Wars developer ArenaNet for use in its globally popular PC MMO franchise.

Umbra is a visibility optimisation that determines areas of the playing world that are out of view and need not be processed by the GPU, affording more polygons for use in the visible game environment.

“Rather than spend resources developing a new occlusion system to meet the demands of our next game we decided to license technology from the experts,” ArenaNet’s lead graphics programmer Jim Scott stated. “This allowed us to get up and running with sophisticated culling quickly.”

Umbra’s VP of marketing Farhad Taherazer added: “ArenaNet has proven their talent and leadership in building a lasting franchise with over five million copies of Guild Wars sold around the globe. With Umbra’s occlusion culling technology, we will give ArenaNet’s talented developers and designers the toolset they will need to create more innovative and large complex 3D worlds with less development time and effort."