Silicon Studio Releases New Version of the Game Developing Middleware, DAIKOKU/YEBIS Version 1.5 features Silicon Studio’s proprietary next generation multi-platform engines for real-time shading and realistic effects are further enhanced

Silicon Studio Corporation that provide digital content products and services to the entertainment industry (Silicon Studio) today announced new versions 1.5 for its proprietary graphics API “DAIKOKU: Advanced Shader Pipeline (ASP)” (“DAIKOKU”) and real-time post-effect engine YEBISU.

DAIKOKU is a multi-platform next generation rendering engine that utilizes a programmable shader that enables game developers to make use of the state-of-the-art shading techniques without ever writing shader codes. Any developer who does not have game engines may start development without the hassles associated with building a workflow thanks to various shader techniques as well as tool samples that aid building the workflow, both of which are offered with DAIKOKU. DAIKOKU offers a versatile yet compact low-level API and may be integrated with existing game engines game developers have built. The ASP enables a developer to quickly start projects for the next generation game consoles.

YEBIS is a multi-platform library that offers various real-time post-effect features to the game developers’ environment. Utilizing the High Dynamic Range (HDR) rendering technique, YEBISU adds post-effects including glare, depth of field (de-focusing), optical simulation and color correction to the rendering process enabling more natural and realistic scenes. As the quality of the effects may be specified according to the characteristics of any scene, those effects can be applied without placing unnecessary burdens on the system.

YEBIS is also capable of pseudo-HDR rendering in that HDR information is constructed using a simulation method from scenes rendered in traditional Low Dynamic Range (LDR, non-HDR) and then HDR-based effects are applied. While it is often costly to create materials for the HDR rendering as specialized tools and learning of new techniques on the artists’ side are essential, YEBIS enables a developer’s existing rendering engine to easily adapt to the next generation post-effects.

DAIKOKU and YEBIS have been developed through the game developing environment in Japan. Based on rich truck records of being used in various game titles, the new versions are targeted to further improve the rendering qualities. Both middlewares are offered to multiple platforms with GPUs supporting Shader Model 2.0 or later including Xbox360, PlayStation3, Microsoft DirectX9, DirectX10, OpenGL + GLSL and OpenGL ES 2.0 + GLSL.

As the performance of game consoles improves, richer content rendering is being required. These middlewares specialize in shading and post-effects to greatly alleviate the developers’ work in the area of rendering, and at the same time enable better rendering qualities.

Silicon Studio aims to deploy DAIKOKU and YEBIS throughout the world and continues its proposal to improve game developers’ processes.

YEBIS will be featured as a user case in the “Having Your Cake and Eating it Too: Increasing Game Realism, Scale and Reach” session at 15:00PM on March 26, 2009 (Thursday) during the world’s largest game industry event “2009 Game Developers Conference®” that will begin on March 23 in San Francisco.

Main features of DAIKOKU

Shader techniques

Shading, normal mapping, parallax mapping, environment mapping, gloss mapping, multiple light sources, shadow mappings (parallel projection, TSM, LiPSM), cascade shadow mapping, limb-specular, HDR output, fog, table-referring shading, refraction and distortion
Skinning, morphing, shaking (grass and tree) and mesh expansion to the direction of normal vector for toon rendering

Other features

Rendering to textures including Cube environment map
Abstraction or mesh, texture and render state
Compact API design compatible among different platforms
Depth buffer output for YEBIS’s DOF
Lightweight scene graph
Optimized shader auto-generation and management

Main features of YEBIS

Basic post-effects

Glare (bloom, lens flare, etc.)
Optical simulation
Depth-of-field (de-focusing)
Motion blur
Vignetting
Distortion
Tone mapping and color correction (gamma correction/brightness adjustment, etc.)

Other features

HDR effects on LDR renderings
Multi-platform

About Silicon Studio Corporation

Silicon Studio Corporation (Silicon Studio) was established on January 1, 2000 to deploy a wide array of digital content business in the entertainment industry arena. Silicon Studio aims to touch many people by providing technologies of the highest standard in four areas including rendering technology R&D, game content development, integration of the content creation environment and professional video systems as well as the digital creators dispatch service.

General Contact

Silicon Studio Corporation
1-21-3 Ebisu Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0013

Research & Development Div.
TEL：+ 81-3-5488-7070
FAX：+81-3-5488-7433
middleware@siliconstudio.co.jp