It's important to iterate on past concepts when creating sequels. The graphics team for Far Cry 4 was to lead on current-gen tech, which gave them constraints that affected a lot of our decisions throughout the project.

In this 2015 GDC session, Ubisoft Montreal's Stephen McAuley explains how the team rendered Kyrat, the world of Far Cry 4, and how it inspired the development of new graphical features to create a game that used the power of a new generation of hardware.

McAuley dives into a lot of technical concepts, like discussing how the high-resolution directional sky occlusion was implemented, and how the global illumination system was extended.

Programmers interested in learning how Far Cry 4's environment was rendered can now watch the talk completely free via the official GDC YouTube channel!

About the GDC Vault

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas.