NVIDIA GameWorks Integration

[Mike.Skolones]

@paulv2k4;281756

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.

What is the timeline for your project, the drop-dead date for DX Compute support?

[Mike.Skolones]

@;282332

I asked about yesterday. Apparently it doesn’t and performance was seen as a possible as it has to create new geometry at run time. I did get someway in implementing 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 :

It’s still and R&D topic on our side. Making a viable product is much more time consuming than publishing pure research.

[Mike.Skolones]

Work-in-Progress: VXGI Multi-bounce!

Note that the image below is not from UE4, it’s from our VXGI sample application.

From one of the VXGI developers:
“These images are rendered with the latest version of VXGI, which supports multiple indirect bounces (right column) and with single bounce for comparison (left column). One spot light, no ambient, no light maps, no SSAO.
While multibounce support was primarily added to improve diffuse and specular lighting, it plays really well with refractions too. While we already have support for multibounce in UE, there are no such refractive materials there yet…so it’s not quite ready for release yet.”

[anonymous_user_bcf66e2c]

@.;285867

Note that the image below is not from UE4, it’s from our VXGI sample application.

From one of the VXGI developers:
“These images are rendered with the latest version of VXGI, which supports multiple indirect bounces (right column) and with single bounce for comparison (left column). One spot light, no ambient, no light maps, no SSAO.
While multibounce support was primarily added to improve diffuse and specular lighting, it plays really well with refractions too. While we already have support for multibounce in UE, there are no such refractive materials there yet…so it’s not quite ready for release yet.”

Looking very nice, looking forward to integration, will be interesting to compare my game with single bounce and multi bounce

[MrMaster]

@.;285856

I’ll bring to the attention of the tech artists familiar with Hair.

Thank you Sir, though I had found out that I am to blame .
I had overlooked that curves have to be linear.
Instead I am hitting now another error-message.

None of the furs is mapped to any of the growth mesh vertices.

@.;285856

By the way, we have a new release of the stand-alone HairWorks library and viewer available, but you have to sign up for an account at ://devsupport.nvidia in order to access it.

Thank you for the update. I have access and will take a look.

[Mike.Skolones]

@MrMaster;285926

Is the stand alone viewer different from what is available at https://developer.nvidia/gameworksdownload ?

Yes, it’s a new version 1.1. Please sign up for an account at ://devsupport.nvidia (a less formal repository for releases than the GameWorks web site) by clicking on the button labeled ‘Create a New Account’, and send me a private message on forum telling me the email address you used for the account.

[rubenst]

OMG that looks ! Even better than expected1

I was thinking translucency might benefit from the tech as well. Nice to see you alreading have something in that direction running.

Nice job!

[Gandosh]

Wow. I didn’t see that coming xD Any news on Hairworks and Faceworks?

[Blakblt]

@.;285847

Yes, the word is that the engineer isn’t happy with the shadows and a few other artifacts, and is saying he needs more time. I’d rather push a first pass into the repo, even if there are a few artifacts that will be fixed in the coming days, rather than delay more. What do you think?

I think pushing out the first pass would be overall beneficial. It would get the community learning the shaders and giving feedback. A few artifacts won’t be prohibitive to testing the waters (pun intended).

[Mike.Skolones]

@;285956

Wow. I didn’t see that coming xD Any news on Hairworks and Faceworks?

The Faceworks integration has been seriously stalled by competing priorities. On Hairworks I get to sound like a broken record…“very soon…within 2 weeks…”. For Hairworks we are having an internal debate about whether we need to make certain changes before pushing a first release out the door, or whether we can release it without the changes. The risk is that if we don’t do these changes, it’s possible that after we do you would have to import and tune your assets again, because we might not be able to guarantee forwards compatibility of the code paths. What do you think?

[anonymous_user_bcf66e2c]

@.;285986

The Faceworks integration has been seriously stalled by competing priorities. On Hairworks I get to sound like a broken record…“very soon…within 2 weeks…”. For Hairworks we are having an internal debate about whether we need to make certain changes before pushing a first release out the door, or whether we can release it without the changes. The risk is that if we don’t do these changes, it’s possible that after we do you would have to import and tune your assets again, because we might not be able to guarantee forwards compatibility of the code paths. What do you think?

I think as long as its documented that the release is experimental and is subject to change that will potentially break previous assets, then I don’t have a problem with it being released earlier.

[Gandosh]

@.;285986

The Faceworks integration has been seriously stalled by competing priorities. On Hairworks I get to sound like a broken record…“very soon…within 2 weeks…”. For Hairworks we are having an internal debate about whether we need to make certain changes before pushing a first release out the door, or whether we can release it without the changes. The risk is that if we don’t do these changes, it’s possible that after we do you would have to import and tune your assets again, because we might not be able to guarantee forwards compatibility of the code paths. What do you think?

Oh im fine with that. If you mean tuning my asset “again” just like hairviewer yeah im absolutely fine with that.
edit
right now im having really bad time placing alpha planes all over my character head and texturing them one by one haha.

[Number47]

@.;285847

Yes, the word is that the engineer isn’t happy with the shadows and a few other artifacts, and is saying he needs more time. I’d rather push a first pass into the repo, even if there are a few artifacts that will be fixed in the coming days, rather than delay more. What do you think?

I would very much like to have it sooner than later. I am looking very much forward to playing with water.

[darthviper107]

Wow, that looks really great!

[MrMaster]

None of the furs is mapped to any of the growth mesh vertices.

I got rid of it by setting transform and rotation to zero (freeze transform). (another prerequisite found )
Flawless export but I am now back to the old error.

File open error

As it looks like the HairDescriptor has changed, I can´t test with the 1.1-viewer.

However, somehow my FlightControler wants to play with the new viewer too and rotates arround all the time.
Interesting that the axes are changed by the same number.

NVIDIA HairWorks Version v1.1.0

INFO: HairWorks SDK initialized OK
manual-build.WIN764BU-78C12E.Wed 04/29/2015.10:31:07.50.x64.release
Axis changes: 2 -32768
Axis changes: 3 -32768
Axis changes: 4 -32768
Axis changes: 6 -32768

[Bladerskb]

@.;285867

Note that the image below is not from UE4, it’s from our VXGI sample application.

From one of the VXGI developers:
“These images are rendered with the latest version of VXGI, which supports multiple indirect bounces (right column) and with single bounce for comparison (left column). One spot light, no ambient, no light maps, no SSAO.
While multibounce support was primarily added to improve diffuse and specular lighting, it plays really well with refractions too. While we already have support for multibounce in UE, there are no such refractive materials there yet…so it’s not quite ready for release yet.”

Are you gonna release sample in UE when its ready?

[anonymous_user_c6c5dc0d]

Is it a priority to move the gameworks branches to 4.8 when its released or do you think that they will lag behind on 4.7.4 for some time?

[anonymous_user_bcf66e2c]

@MrMaster;286066

As it looks like the HairDescriptor has changed, I can´t test with the 1.1-viewer.

However, somehow my FlightControler wants to play with the new viewer too and rotates arround all the time.
Interesting that the axes are changed by the same number.

Just in case you haven’t looked. uploaded the v1.1 of the plugins for 3dsmax and Maya to the same place. 64-bit only at time.

New viewer and plugins work well. Heres a quick test I did:

Now just waiting on integration to test in engine.

[Blue_man]

Can I somehow speed up shader compiling becouse is taking too long.

[MrMaster]

@;286621

Just in case you haven’t looked. uploaded the v1.1 of the plugins for 3dsmax and Maya to the same place. 64-bit only at time…snip.

Thanks for pointing that out. I thought all downloads are displayed. Going to the hairworks-section revealed the plugins.

Cheers.