AMD’s TressFX hair tech shown in new Tomb Raider gameplay video

Looks very… flappy and there’s some collision problems. Hmm.

A little too much swaying on the hair….. The more realistic hair is nice but the motion is too exaggerated.

It’s way too animated.
Nice to see so many individually rendered hairs. But they don’t behave realistically at all.

This is for the PC version only right?

@4

Yes only for the PC version.

@1

No one is going to put collision on hair, the PC would catch on fire for such a thing but yes the hair seems to have no weight and that is probably a setting on the developers side that they forgot to mess with.

@4 Yeah and apparently you need quite a beefy card to run it smoothly.

And yeah the hair has collision: http://blogs.amd.com/play/tressfx/

Yea it’s not enough for me to purchase this over the consoles.

Wow they should have exaggerated the hair movements a little more!

@6

I know how to works. But that is not the collision I was talking about. THe hair does not collide with the world is what I meant. It only reacts with the character.

@7 And what about 1080p @ 60 fps?

@10

I’m not a “fps” whore. As long as the game is good, I’m good.

@9 Well they already did the hard work getting it to work on a skinned character, moving that over to static environmental objects should be simple.

@10 Even if it’s a slideshow?Good man.

@12

There are plenty of plug ins that work with hair even Maya Ncloth can do the same thing with enough tweaking. You can simulate in a software package like Maya or 3ds max and then just bake the simulation to the joints. And no they wouldn’t have it collide with the environment because then the engine and the PC would have to then calculate collision for every strand of hair which would bog the machine down tremendously.

@14 Yeah but baking in Maya/Max removes the the physics altogether since it’s then an animation and not physically simulated in-engine.

I’m pretty sure they don’t physicalise every strand, but rather clumps to save on computations.

It’s still easy to work out the collision on say a static wooded pole over a animated, moving body.

@Dave: change the video embed, the original poster flagged AGB’s one because he felt “robbed”.

Kids these days.

the real test of this tech will come when a nude patch comes out and she doesn’t shave.

@15

“Yeah but baking in Maya/Max removes the the physics altogether since it’s then an animation and not physically simulated in-engine.”

Absoultely right.

“It’s still easy to work out the collision on say a static wooded pole over a animated, moving body.”

I personally don’t think its needed but yeah you are correct. My only gripe is when she goes in the water the hair moves the same way which is very light and unrealistic. No weight I would rather go with baked simulation than this.

@17

You won’t be able to do that since you have to have access to the software which is proprietary.

*delete*

preorder cancelled.

I buy games because of the hair effects on the characters. ITS ALL ABOUT THE HAIR, GOT IT?!

Meanwhile, in the real world, people lol’ed and bought something else.

Seriously, AMD, get your sh1t together, and start doing something people give a monkeys abot.

@21 Have you seen the hair in games now days? It looks like crap, so if AMD wants to improve something that looks like crap..then I am all for it.

@17: Tangled and greasy hair, oily skin and massive armpit hair or no buy. We’re trying to make this series more “realistic” after all!

Well I can’t say I have had my gaming experience ruined by bad hair but hell maybe one day I will be and so I can only agree with you and hereby commend AMDs effort in the computation of hair behaviors.

Maybe designing a decent range of CPUs which don’t suck balls was deemed too straight-forward and so they elected for the hair option instead.

Can you imagine an AMD board meeting?

CEO: ‘so, Smith, what have you and your physics modeling department been working on for the last 8 months? You’re as pale as musk-rats from hiding in that office of yours all day and the accountants tell me your expenditure on donuts and coffee is at unprecedented levels, you must have something truly epic to tell us?

Smith: ‘hell yes sir! My guys and I have been working 24/7 as like inmates in a north korean work camp, and we have done it sir, something NEVER, EVER seen before in the videogaming world, This is gonna B.L.O.W you away!

CEO: ‘glad to hear it Smith, I knew it wasn’t a mistake to have you on the team, so what is it?

Smith: ‘well sir, we call it, TRESS-FX’.

CEO: ‘Sounds tasty, the customers will love that, can you elaborate?

Smith: ‘Absolutely, this is a big one. This makes Cry engine look like burger and PhysX look like merde. This is it: REAL TIME HAIR PHYSICS!!! For the Win!

CEO: ‘What the cronk!? You just spent a hundred million dollars on freaking HAIR?! Get the hell out. NOW.

Love my job, since I’ve been bringing in $5600… I sit at home, music playing while I work in front of my new iMac that I got now that I’m making it online.(Click Home information)
http://goo.gl/shMDf

“Maybe designing a decent range of CPUs which don’t suck balls was deemed too straight-forward and so they elected for the hair option instead.”

Completely different departments. THey have a side that does CPU and another that does GPU. I know it s hard to wrap your head around.

The main question is: what shampoo does Lara use?

physx story once again!

@27: “Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s pig grrreeease!”

I’m scared to find out what kind of Herbal Essences spinoff reaction she has with it. Does she start sobbing in the shower, or does she start gnashing her teeth with bloodlust?

The devil is in the details

Little things as hair physics can improve immersion in a game, just like the little but immersive effect in Assasin’s Creed 3 when you sink down in the snow instead of walk on top of it like in all other games.

The little but important details.

^ right. Like bouncing boobs in DOA?

Video doesnt work but going off the screenshots its make little sense why Lara apparently took a bottle of Head’n Shoulders to have such clean shiny hair but not a bar of soap to wash all of that dirt and blood off of her.

@29 in the console version she might be using “Dapper Dan” grease, seeing her hair isn’t as articulated …

#Gekidami has a point. It’s like those actors went through hell and back but the lipstick and eyeliner still perfect. Yepp, the little but important details.

Come on, it’s not that great or realistic but it’s definitely improvement.

@31 Hehe, oh yeah! Bouncing boobs is the best thing that happened in gaming technology for years!

Kinda hate to piss on yours parade, but that video has been removed by the user. Heh.

Video of TressFX here, starts at end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF_P8JPwR-U

Looks all glitchy and shit

Aye it does.

VG247: your prime source for tech demos of miraculously immaculate hair.

Frankly, I’m waiting for a news report about the wide array of noses the team considered putting on Lara.

Yeah, they flying around way too much. That must get better, but hey, its the god damn first Game to use TressFX. Give it Time.

Um, I don’t know why no one mentioned this yet but Alice’s hair in Madness Returns looked pretty wicked to me. Better than this really. Maybe not in terms of colors and textures but definitely in terms of animation.

@43

THat would because of PHysX which you need an Nvidia Card for.

“Maybe not in terms of colors and textures ”

That wouldn’t be because of the tech but because of the artist who did it.

What about pubic hair?

@45: They shall have pubic lice, to maximize the realism and suffering on display. That’s right, Lara’s pubic hair is a they now, they have thoughts and feelings of their own!

Err AMD, one big company, yeah? One R&D pot, shall we spend this on new CPUs or…. hair physics modelling?

Nvidia should definitely market PhysX as being the answer to all boob physics. Card sales would soar… lol