Flames so solid you can feel the heat

When it was revealed that what we saw in the Resident Evil: Revelations trailer at E3 was rendered in real-time, people had a hard time swallowing that nugget of information. Although Nintendo is tight-lipped about the technical specs of the wonder-machine, Capcom has recently touched upon what the 3D system is really capable of.

A number of Capcom staff spoke to Impress Watch about the company's MT Framework engine that was designed for PC and HD gaming, as well as the "mobile" version it is bringing to the 3DS. What Resident Evil: Revelations uses is a specialised version called MT Framework Mobile, which is based off version 2.0 last seen powering Lost Planet 2. The portable survival game also marks the first project to use MTFM, although Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition will also be making use of the development tool.

Jun Takeuchi, head of production at Capcom, had the following to say about the latest in the Resident Evil franchise:

Hunk is running pretty damn fast here

It's not a project that was progressing on separate hardware and was moved to the 3DS... The images since the game's E3 unveiling have all been real time rendered on the 3DS development hardware. It seems as though people didn't believe us at first, but we'd like you to know that the 3DS is capable of this level of expressive power.

Regarding the 3D effect, Revelations is designed to be played with it turned on throughout the game, although there's no difference in visual quality with it switched off. Gamers, of course, have the option to turn it off, but certain effects like anti-aliasing will change — with 3D turned on, anti-aliasing will be switched off, whereas with 3D off, the filter will be working at double the speed. During 3D play, the game will maintain an output of 30 frames per second, and motion blur is something in a test state as the developers determine whether it's suitable in 3D.

Those who are tech-minded will be interested to know that the game supports HDR rendering, self shadows and normal mapping. Effects like colour correction, depth of field, and gamma correction are also utilised. If you pop over to Andriasang's translation of the original article, you can see images of the game with specific effects on and off for a comparison.

[source andriasang.com]