NVIDIA GameWorks Integration

[Blakblt]

Hey, this is a silly question and sorry if it's been asked before but which GameWorks technologies work on the PS4?

I'm not sure what is compatible, but I know what isn't. Flex currently does not work, but should support it in the future. HBAO+ requires DX11 I believe, so for PS4 it's out as well. Same thing for VXGI, but even if it did support it, the PS4 isn't quite powerful enough to handle VXGI. I'm not certain about waveworks however. Essentially at this point in time very few, if any, are compatible with consoles, especially PS4, but the technologies should eventually be ported over.

[Sasuke]

Hi, this photo have all the informations about GameWorks

[DamirH]

I'm just interested in PS4 HairWorks...

[paulv2k4]

Hi, this photo have all the informations about GameWorks

Yes, but as far as I can tell Flex uses CUDA and therefore doesn't support AMD/ATI graphics?

[Blakblt]

Yes, but as far as I can tell Flex uses CUDA and therefore doesn't support AMD/ATI graphics?

A DirectCompute version is in the works.

[TK-Master]

Mike: Any progress or ETA for the boat sample?

Is Waveworks still available on the NvPhysX/UnrealEngine branch on Git? Can't find it.

Not that relevant but if you need to get a boat working, you might be interested to check out my branch of the OceanProject (post link), I recently added some ship examples



If you are unaware, the project uses gerstner waves (not necessarily as good as WaveWorks FFT but it's fine )

It's right here. https://github.com/NvPhysX/UnrealEngine/tree/WaveWorks

No progress on the boat sample yet. Sorry about that, too many projects going on.

Hey Mike! I haven't checked this thread for a while but let me thank you for the work you guys are doing awesome stuff.
Can't wait to get my hands on that fluid shader btw!

About WaveWorks.. is it possible for some of your programmer to perhaps give us some example code on how to get the height data (so we can calculate buoyancy)? or is this not implemented at all?
It would be awesome if we can add WaveWorks in our OceanProject.

[Blakblt]

Hey Mike did you guys find a fix for the VXGI error "Assertion failed: CascadeIndex < ARRAY_COUNT(CascadedShadowDepthZ)"? I'm starting to get it again and have no idea why.

[hanlei234567]

Well that's because the ocean shader used in the video would need to be re-created in UE4 (currently it includes only a super basic example material setup and no ocean plane, which I had to make) I'm sure that someone with experience could easily make it look like that video, and even better.
Also this is early in the works, all I did was play with some colors and adjust the post process effects really

The point is, you just plug WaveWorks to your material and you have awesome realistic wave displacement which has parameters you can adjust (like wind speed etc.) but the rest of the material doesn't really need to be done by WaveWorks..
WaveWorks makes the simulation, you define the look.


Sure why not! here is the modified project files..
You will need the UE4 branch with WaveWorks posted by Mike.Skolones for it to work.
TestProject.rar



Sounds good I would love to see a boat demo project!

That link has no active. Can you give me a new link? thanks!

[MrMaster]

Just a question from a hobbyist...
What is the requirement for a curve to be successfully exported for hairworks?
I made a sphere, a curve and snapped its cv on a vertex as a quick test. Didn't work out.
All I got from the FurViewer was "error importing file".

The tutorial video states that shave&haircut fullfills the requirements, but doesn`t state what they are nor does the documentation.

[paulv2k4]

A DirectCompute version is in the works.

Ah.

I guess my big concern is, if I go ahead using Flex, I may never have a DirectCompute when i complete the project or it may change things. Looks like I will have to take a different approach.

[Blakblt]

Well, since I haven't gotten to try VXGI on a "complete game", I tried opening Epic's ShooterGame with VXGI. I created a brand-new ShooterGame Project, didn't change the name of it, and opened it for the first time using VXGI 4.7.4. It initialized, compiled, loaded, etc. However the editor never popped up, and about 2 minutes after it appeared to finish loading I got a very familiar error.

MachineId:9E462D794467F91AAD0412A12EFD163A

Unknown exception - code 00000001 (first/second chance not available)

Assertion failed: CascadeIndex < ARRAY_COUNT(CascadedShadowDepthZ) [File:c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\renderer\private\PostProcess//SceneRenderTargets.h] [Line: 363]

KERNELBASE + 35740 bytes
UE4Editor_Core!FOutputDeviceWindowsError::Serialize() + 292 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\core\private\windows\windowsplatformoutputdevices.cpp:95]
UE4Editor_Core!FOutputDevice::Logf__VA() + 248 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\core\private\misc\outputdevice.cpp:144]
UE4Editor_Core!FDebug::AssertFailed() + 1079 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\core\private\misc\outputdevice.cpp:224]
UE4Editor_Renderer!FSceneRenderTargets::BeginRenderingCascadedShadowDepth() + 118 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\renderer\private\postprocess\scenerendertargets.cpp:884]
UE4Editor_Renderer!FDeferredShadingSceneRenderer::RenderProjectedShadows() + 3261 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\renderer\private\shadowrendering.cpp:3256]
UE4Editor_Renderer!FDeferredShadingSceneRenderer::RenderLights() + 4289 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\renderer\private\lightrendering.cpp:499]
UE4Editor_Renderer!FDeferredShadingSceneRenderer::Render() + 5934 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\renderer\private\deferredshadingrenderer.cpp:1694]
UE4Editor_Renderer!RenderViewFamily_RenderThread() + 944 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\renderer\private\scenerendering.cpp:1121]
UE4Editor_Renderer!TGraphTask<`FRendererModule::BeginRenderingViewFamily'::`12'::EURCMacro_FDrawSceneCommand>::ExecuteTask() + 460 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\core\public\async\taskgraphinterfaces.h:667]
UE4Editor_Core!FTaskThread::ProcessTasks() + 3109 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\core\private\async\taskgraph.cpp:428]
UE4Editor_Core!FTaskThread::ProcessTasksUntilQuit() + 77 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\core\private\async\taskgraph.cpp:271]
UE4Editor_RenderCore!RenderingThreadMain() + 189 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\rendercore\private\renderingthread.cpp:282]
UE4Editor_RenderCore!FRenderingThread::Run() + 63 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\rendercore\private\renderingthread.cpp:385]
UE4Editor_Core!FRunnableThreadWin::Run() + 102 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\core\private\windows\windowsrunnablethread.cpp:73]
UE4Editor_Core!FRunnableThreadWin::GuardedRun() + 93 bytes [c:\users\sbwor_000\documents\github\gameworksunrealengine\engine\source\runtime\core\private\windows\windowsrunnablethread.cpp:26]
kernel32 + 5074 bytes
ntdll + 87108 bytes

I've been trying to find a cause for this, and so far I've gotten a few possibilities. Please keep in mind I am NOT much of a programmer, this is just based purely off what I've observed. First off whenever it crashes on a project that SUCCESSFULLY opened, the editor freezes for, once again, about 2 minutes, and then crashes. normally in the frozen editor there is a shadow that seems close enough that if you moved slightly forward, a new cascade would appear. Essentially what I'm getting out of this is that the problem has something to do with adding cascades, but not subtracting them, because I've not seen the editor crash when I was moving away from objects (as in when I'm fully outside of a level and there are no shadow-casting objects behind me). With that in mind, my theory is that it's possible that when you move away from objects, the editor maybe tries to remove a cascade that doesn't exist. So say you move away from the objects in you scene, and at certain intervals, a shadow cascade is removed, but after the shadows disappear, it continues "removing" cascades, going into negative values. Then, upon approaching your scene, the second cascade would actually be the first one, the second would be the third, and so on. Eventually what will happen is it will think the 4th cascade is the 5th, try to create it, and simply fail.

Another thing I've noticed is that I only ever recall having crashes while using unbound post process volumes. That's most likely a coincidence, but, it also somewhat lines up with my first theory, simply because I use unbound PPVs when working with larger scenes where all of the shadow cascades would be seen.

BTW if none of this makes any sense and I sincerely have no idea what I'm talking about, remember, I don't understand the inner workings of game engines too well.

[Blakblt]

Okay, nevermind what I said. I'm very convinced I was very wrong, mainly because I just loaded up the elemental demo without any problems. I'm going to work on getting it running with VXGI without baked lighting. Probably will take a while, but it will be worth it.

[Melvin Eng]

Hey folks,

Does anybody know if the PhysX destruction that comes with UE4 actually support real-time dynamic fracture(where cracks are generated during run-time with no pre-fracture)?
Or is there any branch here that supports this?
Kind of hard to find precise info on this...


Cheers :-)
Melvin Eng.

[PompeyPaul]

Hey folks,

Does anybody know if the PhysX destruction that comes with UE4 actually support real-time dynamic fracture(where cracks are generated during run-time with no pre-fracture)?
Or is there any branch here that supports this?
Kind of hard to find precise info on this...


Cheers :-)
Melvin Eng.

I asked about this yesterday. Apparently it doesn't and performance was seen as a possible issue as it has to create new geometry at run time. I did get someway in implementing Matthias Mueller's paper which describes their approach to real time fracturing, and had a version running in Unreal. In the end it didn't really give me much more than the built in Apex Destruction did for my particular game. That said if you wanted super slow mo, camera close in fracturing then it did look truly incredible. The paper can be found here: http://matthias-mueller-fischer.ch/p...tureSG2013.pdf

[Melvin Eng]

PhysX Destruction dynamic fracture?

I asked about this yesterday. Apparently it doesn't and performance was seen as a possible issue as it has to create new geometry at run time. I did get someway in implementing Matthias Mueller's paper which describes their approach to real time fracturing, and had a version running in Unreal. In the end it didn't really give me much more than the built in Apex Destruction did for my particular game. That said if you wanted super slow mo, camera close in fracturing then it did look truly incredible. The paper can be found here: http://matthias-mueller-fischer.ch/p...tureSG2013.pdf

Hmm..suspected as much. But surely this could be a feature targeted at high-end hardware just like Flex itself is?