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DRIMaker: Automated High Dynamic Range Images
High Dynamic Range (wikipedia) images are all the rage these days. These images are produced by combining several different shots of the same scene with different exposure settings; this allows photographers to create images that almost jump off the screen. This HDR image of NYC, which made the front page of Digg a while back, is a good example. Traditionally, HDR images are produced in Photoshop as described here, but now Jasper's DRIMaker makes creating HDR images a matter of drag and drop. You drop your set of images on the well, and then you can adjust Threshold, Luminance, and Response values with sliders until you get the image the way you want it. Jasper has a gallery of his own images to get a sense of what is possible.Unfortunately, Jasper's site is only in German as of yet, but an English build of the software is available for download and an English language site is coming soon. The software is free, but donations are requested.Thanks, Gunnar!Update: There was a typo regarding the name of the application; it is 'DRIMaker.'
Dolby to buy BrightSide HDR technology for $28 mill
BrightSide Technologies blew observers away with demos of its high dynamic range (HDR) HDTVs back in 2005 but we haven't heard much about them since then. Today the technology might have come a step closer to commercial release as the company has reach an agreement to be acquired by Dolby for $28 million. BrightSide's Extreme Dynamic Range displays are capable of contrast ratios far beyond todays LCDs, and a maximum brightness far better than even that 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio OLED we saw at CES. Still, just like OLED and SED this is another technology that promises to take HDTVs to a whole new level of realism but has more hurdles to jump before it hits the mass market. Here's hoping we see this on store shelves sooner, rather than later -- minus the enormous ugly bezel though, we have a reputation for style to keep up.
The tech behind Death Jr. 2
IGN's Death Jr. 2 blog has been revealing some real gems of info. The latest entry goes into the technical aspects of creating the game. Read the lengthy, but genuinely informative, blog to find out more on what kind of evil magic programming the team had to do to get HDR lighting running in the game. It gets pretty complicated, showing off scary XML code. I was personally fascinated by the images from the developer's tools (PB Viewer and Maya Viewpoint)-- this is the kind of behinds-the-scenes stuff that we don't get enough of. The blog also explains more complicated-sounding things like vertex lighting and light seams. Finally, they reveal some of the special visual effects the game will employ: softening, eggcrate, fisheye, ripple, and vortex.All this technical mumbo-jumbo's being thrown around to razzle dazzle us, and I have to say it's sort of working. Although the game is going to pretty, the real test will come the game ships this Halloween, when we'll be able to test all of its gameplay.
Fight evil llamas and chickens in Death Jr. 2
Konami's Gamers Day has been very good to PSP owners. Gamespot (are they the only ones covering this event?) posted some new gameplay videos of Death Jr. 2 in motion. While I can't really see any HDR lighting in it, the game does look pretty sharp, and if Gamespot is to be believed, it does have advanced light blooming and shadow effects. Although my eye may not be trained to see the technical details, I do see that the quirky charm has been retained: there are crazy chickens that shoot lasers at you!!! They are far more vicious than the chickens of Zelda and clearly, they must be stopped.Watch - Fight against chickensWatch - Boss fight
Death Jr. 2 to feature HDR lighting?!
Death Jr. was the first PSP game to be publically shown, and it wowed a whole lot of people with its technical prowess. If a new interview at QJ.net is to be believed, it appears that we'll be wowed again. Chris Carla commented:Well, we used Renderware on our first game on PSP, and it wasn't exactly perfectly tuned for PSP. After we removed it for [Death Jr. 2], we found our framerates hit 90fps... before we knew it, thanks to our fantastic tech staff, we had light blooms, High Dynamic Range lighting, and lots of other lighting and frame buffer effects running in the game. The net result is that we've probably got some of the most technically advanced features of any title on PSP at this point, which is pretty cool. We've done a lot more than that as well; I think people will be pleased by the tech in the game, and our loading times are still extremely short.Can this really be possible on a handheld? Death Jr. 2 seems to address the problems of the original and throws in a multiplayer co-op mode to boot. The sequel comes out this Halloween, but until then, don't forget you can check out the original for only $10.
