Horizon: Zero Dawn is certainly one of the most visually impressive titles on current gen consoles, and with an exclusive development environment on the PlayStation 4, the team at Guerilla Games, have the focus to take full advantage of the hardware. Horizon was featured at Siggraph 2015 during the Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games course, in which Guerrilla Games Principal FX Artist Andrew Schneider hosted a session named “The Real-time Volumetric Cloudscapes of Horizon: Zero Dawn”

　　Siggraph’s website, made available an image showing the game's sky in four different conditions.

　　The description from the panel reads:

　　Real-time volumetric clouds in games usually pay for fast performance with a reduction in quality. The most successful approaches are limited to low altitude fluffy and translucent stratus-type clouds. For Horizon: Zero Dawn, Guerrilla need a solution that can fill a sky with evolving and realistic results that closely match highly detailed reference images which represent high altitude cirrus clouds and all of the major low level cloud types, including thick billowy cumulus clouds. These clouds need to light correctly according to the time of day and other cloud-specific lighting effects. Additionally, we are targeting GPU performance of 2ms. Our solution is a volumetric cloud shader which handles the aspects of modeling, animation and lighting logically without sacrificing quality or draw time. Special emphasis will be placed on our solutions for direct-ability of cloud shapes and formations as well as on our lighting model and optimizations.

　　Guerilla has also made available a PDF Guide, showcasing some images the incredible 3D model of Horizon's protagonist, Alloy, which can be viewed in the gallery below:

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Horizon: Zero Dawn is the new action role-playing game by the award-winning Guerrilla Games, creators of the Killzone franchise

KEY FEATURES:

　　Nature and Machines Collide – Horizon Zero Dawn juxtaposes two contrasting elements, taking a vibrant world rich with beautiful nature and filling it with awe-inspiring highly advanced technology. This marriage creates a dynamic combination for both exploration and gameplay.

　　Defy Overwhelming Odds – The foundation of combat in Horizon Zero Dawn is built upon the speed and cunning of Aloy versus the raw strength and size of the machines. In order to overcome a much larger and technologically superior enemy, Aloy must use every ounce of her knowledge, intelligence, and agility to survive each encounter.

　　Cutting Edge Open World Tech: Stunningly detailed forests, imposing mountains, and atmospheric ruins of a bygone civilization meld together in a landscape that is alive with changing weather and a day/night cycle.

　　Horizon: Zero Dawn will release exclusively on the PlayStation 4 in 2016. We will bring you any new information on Horizon, as soon as it becomes available.