Update log
Full World of Warships update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Extracted changes
- Gameplay
- Maps
World of Warships was released back in 2015. As the available technology has continued to evolve since the game's launch, the game itself has also evolved with numerous updates and improvements. One of the most important elements of a game is its visuals, and World of Warships is by no means an exception.
With Update 0.10.10, we're launching a large-scale overhaul of the in-game graphics. That's what we're going to talk about today, while also looking back at some of the most significant changes that we've made over the past few years.
| Boosting Graphics: The First Steps ● Visual Effects ● A Future Look at Water and Other New Features |
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Boosting Graphics: The First Steps
Rendering, DirectX, and HDR—complicated stuff, in plain words.
Latest technology
The updated lighting system is one example of how we've made use of the latest technology at our disposal over the past years. It all started with the tweaks we made to the image creation stages.
Rendering is the process of creating an image with the help of a computer program.
The rendering system we relied on when the game went live, as well as its underlying DirectX 9 technology, were bottlenecks that limited any attempts to enhance the in-game graphics.
DirectX is a special set of "instructions" created for managing graphic card operations. It's widely used in the development of video games for Microsoft Windows.
To remove this bottleneck, we adopted the more sophisticated DirectX 11, which gave us the green light to use more modern technology to create the game graphics, enhance the lighting, and add new effects.
Updated lighting model and HDR
The technical refit allowed us to move ahead with making the game visuals more beautiful. First, we changed the lighting model because the "old" one came with numerous technical limitations and was a little uncomfortable to work with.
At the same time, since all content in the game had been created to "fit" the old lighting system, we had to make endless manual adjustments to reproduce colors correctly. After a number of experiments, we developed an algorithm that allowed us to convert game objects made in the outdated lighting system to fit the new one.
In the case of warships, it didn't take a huge effort since they all have similar properties in terms of game graphics and were reworked along with the lighting system in Update 0.8.6. The majority of maps and Ports, however, had to be approached by artists individually and were updated for the HDR technology gradually as we rolled out updates.
HDR (high dynamic range) rendering is a method of calculating and rendering an image using a wide color and brightness range. This technology brings the ratio of light brightness in line with reality, so even separate shades can be easily differentiated from one another. It allows for the simulation of bright day or dark night and everything in between, as well as looking from a low-light perspective towards a bright light or vice versa in an accurate and realistic way.
The new lighting system widened our choices of how to handle lighting, color rendering, and the reproduction of various surface effects. It allowed us to make all of the imagery in the game brighter, more realistic, and more diverse.
Once we finished working on the lighting system, we were able to move on to directly updating the HDR technology. For quite some time, we experimented with various parameters of the formula used to convert the physical parameters of an
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