Umbra - Dynamic Navigation powered by Kythera news

SolarFall Games, developer of Umbra, wishes you a happy New Year for 2013.

Today we bring you some insight into the AI technology behind Umbra, our CryENGINE 3 hack’n’slash, with a tech demo from our partner, Intelligent Artefacts. Everything in Umbra is dynamic, including the AI. Characters can react to blocked routes if the player destroys a bridge or doorway, as well as finding new ways across moving objects or around cleared debris.

Intelligent Artefacts’ new AI platform, Kythera, makes it all possible. Their Dynamic Navigation feature-set monitors all changes in Umbra’s world, recalculating AI navigation in real-time. It saves a lot of complex scripting, and opens up exciting new gameplay possibilities, as the player interacts with Umbra’s highly destructible and dynamic environment.

The following video presents Kythera integrated with the latest version of Umbra, using test assets. Note that all character animations will be replaced before release.

SolarFall Games is a small indie development team of passionate people. Our game, Umbra, puts the player in a post-apocalyptic fantasy universe, with features including:

- Violent combat against large groups of organized enemies
- Destructible environment
- Day and night cycle and weather management
- Deep story background and oppressive ambiance
- Many different gameplay mechanisms and skills to defeat your enemies
- Free character progression
- Powerful craft system and semi-procedural weapon generation

Intelligent Artefacts (Intelligentartefacts.com) is the developer of Kythera, a new AI toolset for multiple engines and platforms. Drawing upon many years of AAA development experience and consulting on AI in the games and serious games industries, Kythera provides powerful new AI tools to games developers, solving the problems you care about.

Kythera’s first feature-set, Dynamic Navigation, enables rapid, interactive navigation mesh generation and uses runtime physics monitoring for real-time recalculation. This brings robust, efficient AI to sandbox gameplay designs. Kythera’s first announced integration is with the CryEngine 3 Free SDK.