Grow Your Own Tree In UT3 News

Epic has revealed that they are using IDV's SpeedTree technology in their upcoming shooter Unreal Tournament III for PlayStation 3 and PC (as well as Xbox 360 next year). The technology is used industry wide to generate realistic trees in gaming environments and Epic is using it in conjunction with their Unreal Engine 3. But wait! There's more:

Obsessive Unreal Tournament gamers will be able to get their mitts on the SpeedTree technology within the Unreal editor. Epic's Vice-President Mark Rein expanded on this point: "For the first time in any game featuring SpeedTree, Unreal Tournament 3 is going to let players use the professional tree-editing features of the SpeedTree system to create and edit foliage in the worlds they develop. Content creators will enjoy an unprecedented degree of freedom as they build fantastic new worlds."

Given the complex nature of the Unreal editor, however, mere gaming mortals will have to be content with simply playing the game and lapping up the goodies that modders produce. Works for me!