"Yes, but how many polygons?" An artist blog entry with interesting numbers

[eloic]

As you and Shifty seem to be concluding, the issue seems to be the need of refining the codework and software efficiency than the lack of raw power. The polygons needed doesn't seem to be enough to strain current-gen consoles.

Yes, at least that's one of my points. However, I'm not saying that with current hardware we can achieve CG quality hair nor strand by strand hair solutions, but there are other methods, such as this one (tressfx), that could be more used (and better) in the videogames industry. I honestly think that we haven't evolved because developers didn't give enough importance (nor effort) to this.

The way tressfx does hair simulation is not mind blowing to me, although it looks pretty in a static image. I still think that if AMD tweaks the code a bit, the results would highly improve.

I think we should have seen similar solutions for a while in almost every game that features long hair characters.

EDIT: I still remember how I loved the physics for Lara's low polygon ponytail in PS1 games.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

keeping this on topic (), what's the polygon difference in TressFX? Looks low-poly-count to me. I think there's plenty of scope to improve hair-tech by increasing counts for hair.

I don't have the models yet to get into specific detail but from the looks of it it's a minor leap in polys. her hair is still flat likewise to many other titles.

Tessellation overall provides little differences in Lara and does just about nothing to her hair.

front view of tressFX Hair

it's a feature that's more effective on the environments i guess for this game. (with tessellation.)

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

posting my last batch of PC tombraider snap shots.

settings (Ultimate)

settings (Ultimate, with tressFX off)

Xbox 360 snap shot (from gamersyde footage.)

don't know what lighting settings the xbox version is running; for some reason not even the highest setting on PC gets the glow effects or lends flare. a custom post process freebie for consoles perhaps?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I've told you so many times before: tessellation on its own can not create detail, all you can expect is to get smoother curves. If the mesh is manually optimized to be smooth enough already, then the effect is almost unnoticeable.

Displacement mapping on top of the tessellated mesh could add detail, but only if the resulting mesh is dense enough - which would ruin fragment efficiency of the GPU, resulting in a large performance hit - and it'd also work well if the subject is a scaly monster with lots of horns and fangs. Lara doesn't seem to be like that.

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

I figured as much, put enough geometry in a character and tessellation may not be all that necessary. i've studied the use of it in water for some games, similar to this would be cloth ripples and folds. i think the most profound impact on character detail is when the usage of cloth comes into the picture.

for now baked detail will always be baked detail no matter how many polys are used.

 

[amberz_boi]

I figured as much, put enough geometry in a character and tessellation may not be all that necessary. i've studied the use of it in water for some games, similar to this would be cloth ripples and folds. i think the most profound impact on character detail is when the usage of cloth comes into the picture.

for now baked detail will always be baked detail no matter how many polys are used.

It seems to be some sort of bug, on certain cards/circumstances. http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=133983

 

[nightshade]

Let's not forget about Alice Madness Returns, they did Alice's hair without physx or TressFX ofcourse...even the console versions had it. And eventhough it looks just as fake, I think it looks a lot better than Tomb Raider and has a lot more weight to it and isn't as jumpy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpW6kPBnyQ4

http://i.minus.com/iblOKR7QlYY63u.gif

 

[lwill]

Let's not forget about Alice Madness Returns, they did Alice's hair without physx or TressFX ofcourse...even the console versions had it. And eventhough it looks just as fake, I think it looks a lot better than Tomb Raider and has a lot more weight to it and isn't as jumpy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpW6kPBnyQ4

http://i.minus.com/iblOKR7QlYY63u.gif

Alice's model was definitely distinctive compared to most protagonists as of late. Besides Alice Returns and (agruably) Tomb Raider, what other current-gen games had impressive hair?

 

[dagamer]

Let's not forget about Alice Madness Returns, they did Alice's hair without physx or TressFX ofcourse...even the console versions had it. And eventhough it looks just as fake, I think it looks a lot better than Tomb Raider and has a lot more weight to it and isn't as jumpy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpW6kPBnyQ4

http://i.minus.com/iblOKR7QlYY63u.gif

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Alice used PhysX: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/physx-in-alice-madness-returns

We need to keep in mind that PhysX isn't exclusive to Nvidia GPUs, it works on CPUs, but slower. Also, Nvidia has just announced PhysX support for the PS4, which as we know has no Nvidia hardware: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/07/nvidia-rolls-out-apex-and-physx-developer-support-for-the-ps4/

The problem I see with hair in Tomb Raider is that only Lara gets the TressFX treatment. Everyone else still uses pre-animated (or actually non-animated hair) most of the time, which makes for a jarring, non-immersive effect. Should other games try to animate hair, it should be done to all main characters, but I fear it would totally kill performance if more than one main character were on screen at once!

 

[jlippo]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Alice used PhysX: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/physx-in-alice-madness-returns

Not for hair.

 

[Sigfried1977]

posting my last batch of PC tombraider snap shots.

don't know what lighting settings the xbox version is running; for some reason not even the highest setting on PC gets the glow effects or lends flare. a custom post process freebie for consoles perhaps?

That is a known bug. Somehow full screen mode kills these effects. They do appear in windowed mode, though.

 

[nightshade]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Alice used PhysX: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/physx-in-alice-madness-returns

Get your facts right first , it wasn't used for hair.
Why else would I specifically mention that it was running on consoles too ?

 

[Sigfried1977]

Yep, Alice's hair did indeed move in a much more convincing manner. It felt like there was proper weight to it. Lara's hair seems like it's electrically charged at all times.

 

[dagamer]

Get your facts right first , it wasn't used for hair.
Why else would I specifically mention that it was running on consoles too ?

Consoles have PhysX, you know, but I get your point. Anyway, hair modeling could use further work.

 

[nightshade]

Consoles have PhysX, you know, but I get your point. Anyway, hair modeling could use further work.

Ofcourse I know, but which physx enabled game till date has had the PC version exclusive physx effects making it to the console version as well ? It's supported but no one uses it because of obvious reasons.

 

[joesiv]

Yep, Alice's hair did indeed move in a much more convincing manner. It felt like there was proper weight to it. Lara's hair seems like it's electrically charged at all times.

I'll bet the TresFX in TombRaider was very last minute, they might not even had time for the artists to actually tune the effect to where it has the right weight/friction. I'll also bet we'll get a patch sometime soon that tweaks some of those values.

 

[nightshade]

I'll bet the TresFX in TombRaider was very last minute, they might not even had time for the artists to actually tune the effect to where it has the right weight/friction. I'll also bet we'll get a patch sometime soon that tweaks some of those values.

Already in works
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/19us99/tomb_raider_pc_woes_update/

 

[COPS N RAPPERS]

That is a known bug. Somehow full screen mode kills these effects. They do appear in windowed mode, though.

ah i see, thanks for the info about that. checking it out later when i get the chance.

Let's not forget about Alice Madness Returns, they did Alice's hair without physx or TressFX ofcourse...even the console versions had it. And eventhough it looks just as fake, I think it looks a lot better than Tomb Raider and has a lot more weight to it and isn't as jumpy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpW6kPBnyQ4

http://i.minus.com/iblOKR7QlYY63u.gif

I have Alice Madness Returns and to my surprise the hair in that game is just as much as the same like tombraider's...minus the major performance hit, or exclusive to pc. .....tressfx sounds like a gimmick now.

both Alice and Lara's hair are rendered as flat poly surfaces; which use physics driven instructions to add more bounce and flow sensitivity to give it movement.

The problem I see with hair in Tomb Raider is that only Lara gets the TressFX treatment. Everyone else still uses pre-animated (or actually non-animated hair) most of the time, which makes for a jarring, non-immersive effect.

This, bingo....so true.

 

[Billy Idol]

posting my last batch of PC tombraider snap shots.



don't know what lighting settings the xbox version is running; for some reason not even the highest setting on PC gets the glow effects or lends flare. a custom post process freebie for consoles perhaps?

there seems to be a bug with the PC version of the game. For lots of people, those effects only kick in when in window mode or exclusive window mode (sorry, can't remember correctly). It is just a bug. I think that it is best to wait till the PC version gets a patch resolving all those (many) issues. Especially for NVidia users...

 

[milk]

I really can't see how that hair should be so expensive. Its about a dozen or so cloth strips with alpha textues of hair on them. We've been able to simulate dozens of choth strips for ages. And many games do so, just not for hair.
The real proble I think is making it look good. Real hair falls into peoples mouths, in front of their faces, and gets into weird positions constantly. More so if you were to perform the sort of fast motions game character do. Offline animation has a lot of artis trickery and correction going on to 'fix-up' their hair and cloth sims. You can't do that in real time. So the problem really is developing a bunch of artificial constraints and procedural systems to keep hair from doing weird things, while still alowing it to move perceptually realistic. That's not so trivial.