Upon hitting an object's surface, a light particle is temporarily absorbed by it. The first of these was a 'Light Model', where light sources emit 'particles' that travel instantaneously in straight lines from every direction. Inexperienced with traditional rendering techniques such as ray tracing, radiosity, and photon mapping, Sonic Team devised other methods of calculating global illumination for terrain. The team would then work for two months to develop an experimental global illumination rendering algorithm. From the observation of several computer-generated images and films, Hashimoto and artists at Sonic Team concluded that high-end game graphics at the time were missing a key element, global illumination, where light bounces off every object in the scene. Yoshihisa Hashimoto, the director of Sonic Unleashed, wanted to achieve in-game graphical fidelity on par with pre-rendered computer-generated imagery, particularly the work of Pixar. 3 Other games using the Hedgehog Engineĭevelopment of the Hedgehog Engine began in 2005, approximately a year before Sonic Unleashed entered production.2 Sonic games using the Hedgehog Engine.
