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Square Enix challenges the uncanny valley in DirectX 12 demo

The Luminous Studio engine's future sure is looking bright.

Square Enix has revealed a glimpse of the tech it's developing for its upcoming Luminous Studio engine at Microsoft's Build conference today.

Using DirectX 12, Windows 10 and four Nvidia GeForce Titan X GPUs graphics cards, Square Enix recreated a more advanced version of the Agni's Philosophy tech demo it revealed in 2012. Check it out, courtesy of YouTuber Michael Wieczorek.

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This new demo, entitled "Witch Chapter 0 [cry]," certainly looks impressive, and Microsoft's Steve Guggenheimer noted that it's rendering 63M polygons per scene. That's 6-12 times more than was possible with DirectX 11, he explained before noting that these are "8K x 8K" textures. Impressively, he alters the lighting conditions and camera in real-time.

"Our team has always pursued cutting-edge pre-rendered and real-time CG," said Final Fantasy director Hajime Tabata in his introductory video. "This time around, with the help of both Microsoft (Windows 10 and DirectX 12) and Nvidia (GeForce GTX), we have prepared a tech demo using state of the art software and hardware." He then noted that this is a "sneak peek" at what the company is currently developing.

"The results will be incorporated into Square Enix's Luminous Studio engine," Nvidia noted on its official blog. "Much of the know-how achieved by this project will surely trickle down to tomorrow's games."

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