How did you get involved with The Plutonia Experiment?

Since I was soon to lose my internet connection, Milo and I decided to make an 8 level single player episode and release it for free. It would be based on our own rules and our own style of gameplay (very challenging, tactical combat). Together we whipped the 8 levels out in just over a month, and before releasing it, I sent it to American McGee, who was impressed enough to demo it to the rest of the ID crew. They asked us if we could make them a 31 level game in less than 4 months! We did so, and this was entitled the Plutonia Experiment, and became part of Final Doom.

Today Square Enix, Microsoft and Nvidia showcased an incredible tech demo that can be considered the successor of Agni’s Philosophy at Build 2015.

The demo, created with DirectX 12 and Nvidia GameWorks Effects Studio, runs on a super-high-end PC with four GTX Titan video cards. It’s named WITCH CHAPTER 0 [cry], and it’s a real-time attempt to cross the uncanny valley and finally show an animated character that truly looks human.

Whether the uncanny valley crossing has been successful or not is for you to judge, but it’s doubtless that the video showcases an incredible level of fidelity. The skin is incredible, with 8k by 8k textures, over 63 million polygons (6 to 10 times as many as what was possible on DirectX 11) and each strand of hair is an individually rendered polygon.

You can check it out in the video below, courtesy of YouTube user Michael Wieczorek, and a set of fantastic screenshots provided directly by Square Enix.