Dragon Age 2 - New Lighting Engine - Part 2

Andreas Papathansis has posted part 2 of the technology behind Dragon Age II  on the official Bioware blog. Some of the new features require a DX11 capable GPU on Windows 7 or Vista.

• smooth particle edges (better environmental blending)
• hundreds of dynamic lights on spell effects (as opposed to 2-3)
• additional shadows cast by spell effects
• moving cloud shadows
• tessellation to smooth out terrain edges
• displacement mapping techniques to increase surface detail
• screen space ambient occlusion (adds self shadows to objects)
• diffusion depth of field (blur objects very close to the camera)

Be sure to configure Dragon Age II to use the high detail setting to enjoy the DX11 eye candy. Also, don't forget to grab the Dragon Age II high resolution texture pack which is an optional download.

Related articles

• Dragon Age 2 - New Lighting Engine (k1dblitz.com)
• Dragon Age II Looks Better, Hits Harder (us.playstation.com)
• Dragon Age II: Familiar Faces (pc.ign.com)