GDC09: Dead Rising 2 will have most rendered characters ever
During a GDC presentation about the bolstered graphics engine powering Dead Rising 2, Izmeth Siddeek, the game's character art lead, made a fairly startling proclomation: "Dead Rising 2 deals with the rendering of the greatest number of characters ever seen in a video game," he said. In other words, the massive amounts of on-screen zombies featured in the original Dead Rising will apparently increase by a huge margin in the sequel.
The enlarged zombie processing power can be attributed to developer Blue Castle's implementation of new visual technology called Mental Mill, which is capable of rendering large groups of characters without sacrificing graphical quality. Mental Mill product manager Laura Scholl claimed the new software will allow over 6,000 zombies to appear on-screen, providing undead multitudes that will be easy on the eyes, but rough on our formerly uneaten brains.
