The UK Governments Technology Strategy Board runs a program known as IC Tomorrow, which is a testbed for digital innovations. Through this program, IC Tomorrow launch various competitions and challenges in different sectors, all along the theme of innovation.

This challenge was in the field of video games and involved industry partners such as Crytek UK and SCEE (Sony Europe).

With our experience in procedural and real-time systems (our Fluid System used in Master of the Seven Teas, is a prime example), we entered into the Crytek challenge – to create a procedurally generated city, starting with Open Street Map data and outputting a 3D scene.

From our entry, we were selected as one of three finalists! Our first stop was the IC Tomorrow offices in London, where we gave our initial presentation in order to receive feedback and ensure the final pitch is the best we can deliver.
A few weeks later, it was the final event! We were the first up in our category (and the third category on the day). Afterwards, many commented on how well the presentation was delivered, all of the ideas were brought across to the room and we felt we left everything we could up at the podium.

Ultimately, and sadly, we were not selected as the eventual winners.
Our thoughts were that the raw computing power required to enjoy a CryEngine experience would mean the systems these games were running on would likely have plenty of processing capability. From this, we wanted to download and process the map data on the machines, seeking to reduce how much was streamed from remote sources. Another facet of our concept was to potentially use the OSM data as a base, which an environment artist could then modify to create the experience they were after.
It seemed that Crytek were looking for a more cloud based solution – very much the opposite of what we conceived! The entire competition was a fantastic experience and we met even more great people in the video games industry (easily the best industry!).

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