TressFX Hair: Cross-platform and v2.0

tommybhoy · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:15

TressFX Hair was the world’s first real-time hair physics simulation in a playable game. TressFX brought an end to the era of short hair, fixed hairstyles, helmets and other unseemly workarounds structured to disguise the limited nature of hair technology.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR TRESSFX HAIR?
As Crystal Dynamics worked to bring TressFX to other platforms, we have been busy developing an even newer version of our award-winning hair tech. In November we announced “TressFX 2.0,” an update to the effect that brings several notable changes:
New functionality to support for grass and fur
Continuous levels of details (LODs) are designed to improve performance by dynamically adjusting visual detail as TressFX-enabled objects move towards and away from the player’s POV
Improved efficiency with many light sources and shaders via deferred rendering
Superior self-shadowing for better depth and texture in the hair
Even more robust scalability across GPUs of varying performance envelopes (vs. TressFX 1.0)
Modular code and porting documentation
Stretchiness now respects the laws of physics
and numerous bug fixes!

A MULTI-PLATFORM WORLD
TressFX Hair took the PC gaming world by storm, chiefly because it demonstrated that 3D graphics needn’t be incremental improvements—big and unexpected leaps can still happen! We were (and still are) very proud of that fact.

TressFX Hair also demonstrated the power of being transparent with your code when working with game developers. By collaborating so closely with Crystal Dynamics on TressFX Hair, we were able to make the technology efficient for all hardware, quickly incorporate the lessons and feedback from Tomb Raider™ into the 2.0 version TressFX, and make those improvements publicly available in source code form for adoption in games like Lichdom: Battlemage!

Finally and excitingly for gamers everywhere, Crystal Dynamics’ decision to adopt TressFX Hair for Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition shows that cross-pollination between PCs and consoles is not only possible, but happening right now and improving the overall experience on all platforms.

Glad to see AMD maintain the vendor agnostic adoption approach for TFX, other vendors should take note and even the playing field-it's not a dig btw.

All gamers deserve to benefit equally regardless of choice of vendors= helping to improve higher PC adoption as a whole to the magical heights it truly deserves.

- See more at: http://community.amd.com/community/...r-cross-platform-and-v20#sthash.UK0XfG5R.dpuf

shankly1985 · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:27

I really do like TressFX in Tomb raider really helped a lot in making the game stand out from the crowd. Be interesting if new tomb raider also supports TressFX me thinks it will.

Really look forward to how grass and fur also looks in games and what even better we can all enjoy this wonderful tech.

humbug · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:32

Experience True Audio and TressFX Hair 2.0 today in Lichdom: Battlemage

Awesome game ^^^

shankly1985 · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:34

humbug said:
Experience True Audio and TressFX Hair 2.0 today in Lichdom: Battlemage

Awesome game ^^^

Great stuff, think it's time I picked this up now it's finished game also looks very good.

GoogalyMoogaly · 23 Sep 2014 at 23:41

Oooo TressFX v2 already equalling v1 for number of games it's supported in.

I think that's the big problem with both technologies, the adoption rates. Wonder if the adoption rate is low because nobody knows which to use or if they just can't be bothered to support either. Gotta be loads of games that could benefit from this sort of thing.
I've not played any HairWorks or TressFX games as far as I'm aware as I've not seen a game that uses either that interests me in the slightest. If one is clearly better than the other then you'd hope it would be the one that gets adopted, but I don't see any problem there being two where at least one favours one vendor more than the other, in the same way that Mantle and DX12 can co-exist without both supporting both vendors equally.

tommybhoy · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:11

GoogalyMoogaly said:
I don't see any problem there being two where at least one favours one vendor more than the other, in the same way that Mantle and DX12 can co-exist without both supporting both vendors equally.

HW/TFX against Mantle/DX is unequivocally without any leeway a fair comparison.

It categorically is NOT the same thing Googaly Mantle/DX has ZERO bearing as BOTH vendors have access to those techs.

layte · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:19

It's interesting that AMD say they have been able to accurately time exactly how long the code is taking to calculate the hair in HW down to specific routines. Given that not too long ago we were subjected to a big song and dance about how it was all an evil black box that nobody could do anything with and that poor old AMD could never analyse what was going on without access to source code.

Fancy that. If you can accurately analyse code to this level, you can certainly see what is going on in order to optimise things, why then do AMD keep holding back performance for their users, it's their customers losing out for nothing more than to prove a point.

I hope they have something better than second rate forum bait like this in order to counter the 9x0 launch. If not things are not going to be pretty over the next few months.

Orangey · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:27

10 times longer for AMD with NV's logic bomb in play

Looks bad.

FoxEye · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:29

I find all this attention to hair detail a little baffling, unless they're lining up a big sponsorship deal with Loreal. Who gives a flying salad how accurate the hair physics is in a game?

Orangey · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:33

FoxEye said:
I find all this attention to hair detail a little baffling, unless they're lining up a big sponsorship deal with Loreal. Who gives a flying salad how accurate the hair physics is in a game?

People who play those virtual girlfriend games?

GoogalyMoogaly · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:37

tommybhoy said:
HW/TFX against Mantle/DX is unequivocally without any leeway a fair comparison.

So you're saying it IS a fair comparison?

tommybhoy said:
It categorically is NOT the same thing Googaly Mantle/DX has ZERO bearing as BOTH vendors have access to those techs.

And now you're saying it's not? Quick change of mind!

When you say that both vendors have access to those techs do you mean TressFX/HW or Mantle/DX cuz I'm not sure Nvidia have any access to Mantle, didn't Intel get turned down when they asked about it?

So...
TressFX - runs on both
HW - runs on both, better on Nvidia
DX - Runs on both (you'd think)
Mantle - runs only on SOME AMD cards

So runs better vs doesn't work at all?

All I was saying is that we can have 2 different techs and they don't have to run equally well. If they did what would be the point?

tommybhoy · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:42

layte said:
It's interesting that AMD say they have been able to accurately time exactly how long the code is taking to calculate the hair in HW down to specific routines. Given that not too long ago we were subjected to a big song and dance about how it was all an evil black box that nobody could do anything with and that poor old AMD could never analyse what was going on without access to source code.

Fancy that. If you can accurately analyse code to this level, you can certainly see what is going on in order to optimise things, why then do AMD keep holding back performance for their users, it's their customers losing out for nothing more than to prove a point.

I hope they have something better than second rate forum bait like this in order to counter the 9x0 launch. If not things are not going to be pretty over the next few months.

Two systems running both implementations don't need access to black box libraries what so ever to determine the end result-run titles and record and extrapolate the performance data-if Nvidia run the same comparison they would produce the same end result very simple to work out.

AMD are promoting TFXII and TA in a game, how you can draw conclusion that it's a counter to a gpu release is beyond ridiculous.

layte · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:46

Read what AMD said. Suddenly HW has gone from a mystical black box of exciting and daring mystery, to something they can accurately analyse down to specific code routines when it serves their purpose.

Now.. If I was a cynical man.....

shankly1985 · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:50

Ignore

shankly1985 · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:54

FoxEye said:
I find all this attention to hair detail a little baffling, unless they're lining up a big sponsorship deal with Loreal. Who gives a flying salad how accurate the hair physics is in a game?

It definitely made a big difference to how tomb traider looked. Did you play tomb raider? If so don't you think it looks leagues ahead of the standard hair graphics.

GoogalyMoogaly · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:55

shankly1985 said:
Ignore

Never heard of Lincoln and can't find anything about it.

tommybhoy · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:55

GoogalyMoogaly said:
So you're saying it IS a fair comparison?

To clarify-

tommybhoy said:
HW/TFX against Mantle/DX is unequivocally=leaving no doubt, without any leeway a fair comparison.

GoogalyMoogaly said:
All I was saying is that we can have 2 different techs and they don't have to run equally well. If they did what would be the point?

To clarify again-

tommybhoy said:
It categorically is NOT the same thing Googaly Mantle/DX has ZERO bearing as BOTH vendors have access to those(HW/TFXII) techs.

Both HW/TFXII should be vendor agnostic, Mantle/DX or even Gpu PhysX isn't a comparison that should be drawn in any context to HW/TFXII as those two techs aren't proprietary.

humbug · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:56

layte said:
It's interesting that AMD say they have been able to accurately time exactly how long the code is taking to calculate the hair in HW down to specific routines. Given that not too long ago we were subjected to a big song and dance about how it was all an evil black box that nobody could do anything with and that poor old AMD could never analyse what was going on without access to source code.

Fancy that. If you can accurately analyse code to this level, you can certainly see what is going on in order to optimise things, why then do AMD keep holding back performance for their users, it's their customers losing out for nothing more than to prove a point.

I hope they have something better than second rate forum bait like this in order to counter the 9x0 launch. If not things are not going to be pretty over the next few months.

Your missing the point, TressFX is open to developers so they can optimise it for anyone including Nvidia.
Hair Works is locked so developers cannot optimise it, that fact is demonstrated by the fact that they cannot optimise it for AMD's GPU's.

Rusty0611 · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:57

I did love TressFX for about half of my playtime in Tomb Raider. Then forgot it was there. It's certainly nice though not game changing for me.

GoogalyMoogaly · 24 Sep 2014 at 00:58

tommybhoy said:
To clarify-

To clarify again-

Both HW/TFXII should be vendor agnostic, Mantle/DX or even Gpu PhysX isn't a comparison that should be drawn in any context to HW/TFXII as those two techs aren't proprietary.

That's what I though, you said it is a fair comparison (without doubt), then changed your mind.

Why should HW/TressFX be vendor agnostic when they made by a vendor?
If Microsoft was making things favour one or the other then it's bad, but if a vendor can't make something that works better on their own hardware...