SiO2 Demos 3D Engine, Promise First-Person RPG

by Eric March on August 12, 2008 at 10:06 pm

Apparently this one’s been floating around for a while, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it. Shanghai-based developers SiO2 Interactive have worked up a tech demo of their 3D engine, known as SiO2|ES. It seems to be pretty robust and feature-rich low-level engine, capable of real-time rigid and soft-body physics, per-vertex light mapping, projected shadows and geometry, multitexturing, MIP mapping, anisotropic filtering, transparency, billboarding, non-linear particle system, lens flares and coronas, skybox and skyplane, perlin noise clouds, volumetric fog, skeletal animation, OpenAL stereo and surround sound, Ogg Vorbis and Theora video support, and a ton and a half more.

Based on the video it looks like it does a pretty good job, especially for a mobile device. There are significant frame rate drops when scenes get too busy, the textures look to be fairly low resolution (though it’s hard to tell from the low quality of the video), the physics objects seem to be simple texture maps with no shading or lighting applied, and in general the whole thing doesn’t show off everything the engine is apparently capable of at once — or in some cases, at all. (No lighting effects, shadows only on static objects, etc.) Even so the performance of the engine is quite good for what it is, and the world objects are plentiful — trees and foliage are present, though relatively sparse, but add a great deal of atmosphere to the demo nevertheless.

Their first planned game will be called Stones of Arcania, and will be a first-person role playing game where you assume the role. There aren’t many details on the game other than drawing board stuff, but they plan on releasing a demo prior to the full game release. They state that the demo should contain about for 2-4 hours of gameplay, and you’ll get to explore areas such as the clearing, mountains, dungeon, and the town. Pretty impressive for a demo, and it bodes well for the breadth of the full game once it is released.

They also want to play the other side of the fiction coin with a sci-fi action RPG called Theorem 24, wherein you will explore the very origins of life itself. As with Stones of Arcania, they’ll be shooting for a playable demo with 2-4 hours of gameplay to hook you so they can reel you in with the release of the full version.

SiO2 haven’t actually put any sigificant code to either of these titles; right now their biggest stumbling block is a lack of investors, so they’re looking for some to inject some liquidity into their outfit so they can get the ball rolling. Presently the engine and this tech demo are all that exist of their plans; there is no evidence that either of the games have moved past the conceptual stage yet, so don’t start hoping for a release this year. However, the iPhone development scene is piping hot stuff right now, so it seems like it should only be a matter of time before SiO2 have the funds they need to kick things into high gear and pump out some quality 3D adventures.

In the mean time, feel free to check out the vid below.