It's behind the scenes, but it's still neat!

Turbine Entertainment, the developer of Lord of the Rings Online has licensed technology from Umbra Software to integrate into their game engines. The technology is called Visibility Optimization, and will allow Turbine to create dynamic areas without pre-processing. It's cutting edge stuff in the background, but anything that make's Turbine's job easier makes for a better game overall.

SEATTLE, Nov 17, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Umbra Software Ltd., developers of highly-acclaimed Umbra occlusion culling technology, announced today that Turbine, Inc., the premier creator and operator of massive, persistent online worlds, has licensed and integrated Umbra into their cutting-edge game engine. Umbra's visibility optimization technology will be used in Turbine's award-winning titles including The Lord of the Rings Online(TM), and Dungeons & Dragons Online(TM).

"Turbine has always been at the forefront of technology used to develop immersive online worlds," said Chris Dyl, Chief Technology Officer of Turbine, Inc. "Umbra's solution provides us with the freedom to blaze new trails and define the next generation of online entertainment."

Umbra is a highly robust, GPU based, visibility optimization solution that allows game developers to create highly dynamic game worlds without preprocessing. With Umbra game developers can increase their polygon budgets significantly and create highly complex game worlds which were previously impossible.

"Turbine has shown that they have the ability to take large, innovative and complex virtual worlds to new places," said Marko Nurro, CEO for Umbra Software. "With Umbra's visibility optimization solution, Turbine will continue to push the envelope."

For more information, here is the press release.