Nvidia is finally making itsRTX Remixmodding utility available to the wider community as the application is going intoopen beta on Jan. 22. As freely available software it will give many modders a chance to test Nvidia’s latest graphics technologies and create their own ray-traced mods for ancientDirectX8 and 9 games.
Providing a stunning example, Nvidia showcased anew trailer forHalf-Life 2 RTX, an RTX Remix project currently in development that promises to add remastered assets and full ray-traced lighting effects to Vavle’s highly acclaimed video game.
RTX Remix is a highly advanced modding utility that enables modders to fully remaster DirectX 8 and 9 video games without a lot of development time or effort. The app features a plethora of tools enabling developers to easily import old assets (and textures) and remaster them into new ones with the help of AI. It also has special systems that can convert basic lighting systems in older titles into full ray-traced lighting. For lack of better words, it is theUnreal Engine 5of modding tools.
For the open beta, Nvidia has updated Remix with several enhancements including non-culled off-camera lighting, Terrain Baking for texture blending, sub-surface light scattering on foliage, and parallax occlusion mapping — which makes two-dimensional textures look three-dimensional.
Half Life 2 RTX Trailer
The trailer shows off the development studio’s latest work on Half-life 2’s spooky Ravenholm, which is a city in the game complete with zombies and a very spooky lighting atmosphere. Comparisons against the original game are made with the new RTX Remix version, which is enhanced with new in-game assets, textures, and ray-traced lighting effects. Unfortunately, pricing and availability have not been announced (still), but if it’s like any of Nvidia’s previousPortal RTXmods, you’ll only need the base (Half-Life 2) game to play the mod when it launches.
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Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
