Tuesday, February 26th 2013
AMD TressFX Technology Detailed
AMD unveiled the new TressFX technology it teased us with, earlier this week. The technology, as predicted, works to create realistic hair rendering and physics; but we imagine it could be applied to foliage and hopefully, furry donuts as well. It will be first implemented in the 2013 reboot title of the Tomb Raider franchise, in which Lara Croft finally parted with her braid. TressFX helps accurately render Croft's hair, drawing finer locks of hair than pre-rendered hair textures plastered on bigger hair polygons that look unnatural. The free and fluid nature of these locks can then be used to accurately draw the effects of wind and water onto the hair. Below are a few before-after instances of TressFX.
Technically, TressFX is a toolset co-developed by AMD and Crystal Dynamics, which taps into DirectCompute to unlock the number-crunching prowess of the GPU (specifically Graphics CoreNext ones), to render individual strands of hair. It is built on the foundation laid by AMD's work on Order Independent Transparency (OIT), and uses Per-Pixel Linked-List (PPLL) data structures to manage rendering complexity and memory usage. DirectCompute is additionally used to process the physics of these strands of hair, which are affected by the character's motion, and elements such as wind and water/rain. TressFX will be implemented at least on the PC version of the upcoming Tomb Raider.
Technically, TressFX is a toolset co-developed by AMD and Crystal Dynamics, which taps into DirectCompute to unlock the number-crunching prowess of the GPU (specifically Graphics CoreNext ones), to render individual strands of hair. It is built on the foundation laid by AMD's work on Order Independent Transparency (OIT), and uses Per-Pixel Linked-List (PPLL) data structures to manage rendering complexity and memory usage. DirectCompute is additionally used to process the physics of these strands of hair, which are affected by the character's motion, and elements such as wind and water/rain. TressFX will be implemented at least on the PC version of the upcoming Tomb Raider.
99 Comments on AMD TressFX Technology Detailed
Still nVidia's gimping has been documented several times. Basically physx on CPU runs in x87, a set of instructions that no modern software has used since 10 years ago. x87 is the lowest common denominator but I'd say that whomever wanted to play a physx enabled game would have a CPU with SSE2 support at least.
OT Mussels I appreciate your feedback on the way this tech might be used, I had not considered grass etc, I like it even more now and I think Amd should be applauded for bringing us an open multi format physics feature which will no doubt be expanded upon.
And its open enough to run on enemy radars from the get go, oh no they didn't. .; o
They still use pesticides, they just happen to use silly stuff that seems natural, oh you know, stuff like concentrated urine. Look it up. ;)
Back to this. Just think of TressFX as a stepping stone to a full, non-proprietary API GPU physics system.
I mean, let's be honest here, with AMD doing all the CPU and GPU ships for both next gen consoles, with the PS4 already shown to have quite capable GPU physics from its demos, it's pretty clear that AMD has already created many technologies that make PhysX's proprietary nvidia only gpu physics modes obsolete.
Now, as these consoles are closer to release, more and more developers will be working with these new non-proprietary APIs, allowing (and forcing) all developers to use these physics tools.
NV physx3 HW is still crippled, even with improved SSE2, physx 2.8.x is much worse - in HW layer, SW is ok but nothing special compared to any other physics engine.
Btw nvidia's hair tech demo from y2010 doesnt use physx, but tessellation and direct compute physics calculations, just like this tressFX.
Imo AMD nailed it with this tressFX, apparently its used in upcoming Luminous engine as well - for hair rendering. :)
My post stated:To put this into context:
Nvidia make GPUs - they don't make CPUs
Why would Nvidia buy IP, then optimize it to not only benefit their competition (who make CPUs), but to make their own GPUs irrelevant in using the technology? <<<Not rhetorical. If you can tell me why Nvidia would buy Ageia to benefit AMD and Intel and marginalize their own products I'd be much interested to know.That's probably more about keeping backward compatibility (esp. with consoles), and the fact that game dev's are a pretty lazy bunch that need spoon feeding. I think you'll find that the 3.x SDKis also available.
As far as popularity goes, it waxs and wanes based on individual titles. With many game engines now incorporating their own physics engines ( e.g. Frostbyte 2), PhysX is just one of a whole raft of game orientated physics engines...but then again, just like Lagoa and other pro/scientific function physics engines, PhysX has uses outside of eye candy.
And that's the part that is a pity really.
But of course that's all semi-superseded by the development the last few years with openCL and DirectCompute and even CUDA and such. And changes in the hardware also helped, so we are at a different point than when ageia first released their idea.
Still we should not re-write history either and ageia much more focused on true parallelism in calculation and accessing data.
Tomb Raider - Scavenger Den Gameplay [tressFX] - Y...
Meh. :P
Tomb Raider: AMD Touts TressFX Hair as Nvidia Apologizes for Poor Experience.Funny pun :nutkick:
The look don't justify the lowered performance in my case.