Ternion Corporation is bringing gaming technology into the modeling and simulation world with the integration of its flagship FLAMES simulation framework and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine.

“Simulations do not represent the state-of-the-art in graphics, ground vehicle and character movement, and visual and audio effects,” explains Brad Spearing, Ternion President and FLAMES Product Manager. “Military leaders look at video games and say, ‘Why can’t our simulations look like that?’ Well, now they can.”

The newly released FLAMES version 22.0 is the culmination of over 16 months of effort to develop the FLAMES Unreal Engine Option. This option tightly integrates FLAMES, a simulation framework, with Unreal Engine, an advanced real-time 3D creation tool, to provide the ultimate framework for the creation of serious games and 3D, entity-level constructive and virtual simulations.

When used in a FLAMES-based simulation, an Unreal game is embedded directly within the simulation and provides 3D visualization and much more. For example, the 3D world defined in the game is the same world used in the simulation. The detailed physics functions in the game can be used to model the motion of any entity in the simulation. Further, the simulation can generate damage, impulse, and visual and audio effects in the game.

FLAMES adds the “serious” to a serious game with its robust support for simulating aircraft, sensors, data processors, weapon systems, electronic warfare; command, control, and communications (C3), logistics, human cognition, and real-world tactics. FLAMES also supports a powerful scenario editor and interfaces to external and real-world systems, including live C3 systems. In addition, a game executing in FLAMES can act as the server for multiple Unreal-based virtual simulators that communicate using Unreal’s multiplayer game capability.

“The simulations we need today are too complex to be developed from scratch,” says Spearing. “Developing constructive and virtual simulations and serious games based on FLAMES and Unreal Engine can reduce development time and cost by at least a factor of 10 and yield results that are unparalleled in capability.”

The FLAMES Unreal Engine Option is included in the FLAMES Developer which is available to download for free in the FLAMES Store.