Nvidia's new modding tools will add ray tracing to almost anything, even Morrowind

Hear that? That's the sound of modders applauding in unison because their jobs just got a bit easier. Nvidia announced RTX Remix, a free modding platform that lets quickly create RTX mods for "classic games" such as Portal and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. This allows for a more straightforward way to capture and mod content that takes advantage of all the Nvidia RTX goodness.

It lets you import game assets into the RTX Remix at the touch of the button (in compatible games) and converts the assets into commonly used USD (Universal Scene Description). This lets those assets easily be modified or replaced using apps like Unreal Engine, Blender, Nvidia's own Omniverse apps. According to the blog post, Remix makes it "easy to remaster supported DirectX 8 and DirectX 9 games with fixed function graphics pipelines."

Or, as the CEO of Nvidia, Jen-Hsun Huang, put it, "Start the game, and capture the game into USD, which is loaded into Omniverse." This makes one of the most complex parts of the modding process, the capturing of assets, a whole lot easier. 

During the GeForce Beyond broadcast, we saw RTX Remix work its magic on Morrowind to up-res textures and assets. It also added AI-enhanced ray tracing, and textures to the 20-year-old RPG, essentially making it look like a brand new game. 

The most exciting part is that RTX Remix mods can easily be exported and shared with other players online. All the mods will take advantage of Nvidia's Reflex and upcoming DLSS 3 tech. Nvidia also claims that RTX Remix will work with existing game mods from popular mod sites like Nexus Mods, enhancing that content as well. 

The RTX Remix Runtime editor packaged in every RTX mod will give modders the ability to highlight changes to any assets making it easier to diagnose problems and for mod teams to review in-progress mods before going live. 

And if that wasn't cool enough news, Portal with RTX on was announced during the presentation. It's a Portal completely re-made using RTX Remix. Both Portal with RTX DLC and RTX Remix will be coming soon. Modders can sign up for information and updates here.