Killzone 2 Tech Director Talks Rendering Technics

Last week at Killzone.com, Guerrilla Games posted an interview with Killzone 2’s Technical Director, Michiel van der Leeuw. Part two of the interview is live and ready for your reading pleasure.

Michiel sheds some light on the rendering technics behind Killzone 2 and explains why they decided to take that development approach. He also gives his candid views on the Internet “Hype Train”.

Continuing on from last week’s interview, this week Guerrilla technical director Michiel van der Leeuw talks about Killzone 2’s reception at E3 2007, his plans for the future, and the arcane art of deferred rendering. What is it? What’s so special about it? Read on to find out!

‘Deferred rendering’ seems to be the buzzword of the moment. What is it, and how does it differ from normal rendering techniques?

Well, a deferred rendering engine separates lighting from drawing geometry. In a traditional forward renderer, you run a pixel shader to sample the material properties (the texture, reflection, et cetera), add the influences from all of the lights, and write out the complete pixel. In a deferred renderer you write out the surface properties (texture, specular intensity, et cetera) first, and then perform lighting on the pixels in screen-space.

Read the full interview at the link.

[Read: Interview]

KILLZONE 2: Interview: Michiel van der Leeuw (Part 1)

Few people at Guerrilla Games know the ins and outs of the Killzone 2 engine as well as technical director Michiel van der Leeuw does. Killzone.com caught up with the veteran games developer to chat about his views on Killzone 2, the PlayStation 3, and what working at Guerrilla is like. The first half of this interview is presented here; check back next week for part 2.

What’s your current role within Guerrilla? What are your chief responsibilities?

I am currently Technical Director at Guerrilla. I go around putting my nose into everybody's business – especially if their business has anything to do with workflow, engine features, or new ideas. My main responsibilities include running the eight-man tech team and overseeing the four-man tools team. I also make sure that the engine technology we have is suitable for our game. My team and I mostly deal with the engine side, which includes graphics and sound, as well as the technology used by the other coders to get their work to run properly on PlayStation 3.

In the end, I'm the fall guy if our game gets low grades for frame drops or something like that. If our team delivers a smooth-running, gorgeous-looking product, I avoid getting hurt.

Read the full interview at the link.

[Read: Michiel van der Leeuw Interview]