Longer grass distance-possible by DX 10 now.

[Commonplace 28]

Hi guys,

today I've listened to a presentation of a team of programmers and they were

talking about how they managed it to produce an theoretial indefinite amount

of grass by using the DX10 features, namely the Geometryshader.

A Geometry shader is able to procedualy genetared 3d "geometry". Its fast and runs effectively on the GPU.

They made a sphere with grass and 5.000.000 vertixes and ran it smooth.

Would you load 5.000.000 vertixes in e.g. 3ds Max, the program would probably stutter.

Why does it lag in 3ds Max? Because the data has to be fed in the application. Its like the application feeds the GPU. But with the shader, the GPU feeds itself.

There is also a downside though, its the collision because its not able to import a collision model. For grass it wouldn't matter though but for trees.

This could be fixed by coding the collision informations into the terrain maps.

You don't have to necessarily create textures. There is a terraingroundtexture and the RGB colorinformations

In FX Composer Procedural

They have yet to manage it to produce lag by this indefinite amount of grass.

[suma 8]

The major limiting factor for the grass (and other vegetation as well) is currently the pixel (and to certain extent vertex) processing on the GPU. By offloading the vertex creation to GPU, which is what geometry shaders can do, you do not reduce this limiting factor at all.

[PuFu 4591]

today I've listened to a presentation of a team of programmers and they were

talking about how they managed it to produce an theoretial indefinite amount of grass by using the DX10 features, namely the Geometryshader.

would you mind posting a link to that presentation?

A Geometry shader is able to procedualy genetared 3d "geometry". Its fast and runs effectively on the GPU.

They made a sphere with grass and 5.000.000 vertixes and ran it smooth.

as suma said, procedural generated geometry is still geometry, and it still taken into account by the GPU.

Would you load 5.000.000 vertixes in e.g. 3ds Max, the program would probably stutter.

Why does it lag in 3ds Max? Because the data has to be fed in the application. Its like the application feeds the GPU. But with the shader, the GPU feeds itself.

It depends on the GFX cards and its drivers (this is where professional vid cards comes into play). Besides, both my gtx280 and AMD6970 (which are not professional grade gfx cards) are able to run 10 mil poly scenes(that is 2x times higher vertex count) in 4ds max without headaches.

But bear in mind that 3ds max is not working as a game engine does in terms of DX usage.

Just a note, DX10 is obsolete technology nowadays, since DX11 can do all DX10 can plus its tessellation technics (which in theory means no more geometry LODs are necessary).

If you really wanna see infinite Geometry Used, check those Point Cloud Data explanation vids (there is even footage from A2 in):

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[daman3 19]

Unlimited Detail is not the "Holy Grail in terms of Poly Handling" as many want to believe.

Key people in the industry are aware of it since launch and except one "fancy"

trailer they've shown nothing so far.

They want to replace "Poly's" with "Voxel', without describing the downsides

of their engine: Its not able to draw animations. Or in other words:

Animations are not possible as of now. Look how still and static the whole scenery looks. They've yet to show a trailer with a full blown animated sequence. They haven't because they can't.

(There is one trailer with an animated bird out there, but its so simple and lagging that I cannot even consider it as animation.)

Edited January 6, 2011 by DaMan3

[50.cal 10]

Well it could at least replace bump map for ground.

[savedbygrace 2]

Is there a way of combining the two to get the best of both worlds? Voxel for solid, unmoving structures and ground and then Poly for animated models?

[daman3 19]

If you want to archieve models with large landscape while maintaining a relatively high polycount, there is one engine which I can recommend. Not only are the developers very friendly and kind people, this engine

actually won awards and prizes (last was the European Innovative Games award under the category: Advancement Price T Innovative Technology).

Actually there's more under the hood than fancy trailers.

http://www.cloddy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=56&Itemid=34

[DieAngel 0]

I'm the only one who is worried how much more shrinkage the actual GAMEPLAY, STORY, and depth of the game will occur when instead of being able to take many modeling shortcuts, modelers will have to build "movie grade" scene?

Am i the only one getting tired by the graphical armrace ?

as for "unlimited point cloud data" (they keep repeating it) I might have some interest when i can run a smooth demo from the comfort of my home, but they only releasedvideos and stills. Sooo...

Edited January 9, 2011 by DieAngel

[-)rStrangelove 0]

Am i the only one getting tired by the graphical armrace ?

No. But i think we're in luck. Currently the PC games gfx armsrace has stopped, most publishers are waiting for the next console generation before fully using all features of Dx11.

Which (in theory) could mean that - since the gfx department has less to do - developers could concentrate more on dynamic stories, gameplay fun and replayability of their games.

[Ironman13 12]

volumetric clouds would be nice

[Big Dawg KS 6]

volumetric clouds would be nice

Weather module...

[Steakslim 1]

volumetric clouds would be nice

As mentioned by Big Dawg, we already have them since A2's release.