Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed Unity: Spicing Up PC Graphics with ...

Andrei Tatarinov, Senior Developer Technology Engineer, NVIDIA

Far Cry 4 and Assassin’s Creed Unity: Spicing Up PC Graphics with GameWorks

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Agenda

What games are we dealing with?

How to make these games look even better on PC?

The Mighty Three: HBAO+, PCSS, TXAA

Far Cry 4: Making the beasts look cute

Far Cry 4: Illuminating Kyrat with divine light

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Far Cry 4

Open-world action-adventure first-person shooter

Set in Kyrat, a breathtaking, perilous and wild region of the Himalayas

Terrain spans from lush forests to the snowcapped mountains

Kyrat is home to abundant wildlife

Uses Dunia Engine 2

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Far Cry 4

Set in astounding Himalayas

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Far Cry 4

Player finds himself in the midst of a civil war

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Far Cry 4

Absolute freedom of movement

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Far Cry 4

Dangerous and deadly wildlife

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Assassin’s Creed Unity

Historical fiction action-adventure open world stealth video game

Set in Paris during French Revolution

Stunning full-scale open world city, made possible by the all-new game engine

Unprecedented degree of freedom and control

Uses AnvilNext engine

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Open world

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Variety of moves

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Focus on stealth action

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Cooperative mode

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Making PC versions look better

PC offers extra performance to add extra features

NVIDIA has technology that is ready to be integrated

Experience gained while working on Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag

Both Ubisoft and NVIDIA dedicate engineers for collaboration

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What GameWorks can offer?

We played both games and thought of what can NVIDIA GameWorks offer to make them look even better

NVIDIA ShadowWorks and NVIDIA PostWorks are a great fit for both Far Cry 4 and Assassin’s Creed Unity

NVIDIA HairWorks and NVIDIA Godrays are a great fit for Far Cry 4

The Mighty Three: HBAO+, PCSS, TXAA

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NVIDIA ShadowWorks

Consists of different technologies to provide cinematic shadows

HBAO+

Advanced Soft Shadows

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Horizon-Based Ambient Occlusion+

State of the art SSAO approach

Optimal performance

Scalable

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No AO

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Default

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HBAO+

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SSBC

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HBAO+

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Closer look

HBAO+ SSBC

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Tuning HBAO+

Radius: Size of HBAO kernel

Bias: Hides low-tessellation artifacts

Exponent: Occlusion fall-off

Detail occlusion: Weight of high-frequency occlusion component

Coarse occlusion: Weight of low-frequency occlusion component

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State of the art soft shadows

Based on Percentage Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS)

Support for cascaded shadow maps

Simple, but powerful interface

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OFF

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ON

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OFF

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ON

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OFF

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ON

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Tuning Advanced Soft Shadows

Light size

Maximum threshold

Minimal percentage

Blend percent

Border percent

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Light size

Maximum threshold

Minimal percentage

Blend percent

Border percent

Maximum threshold

Light size

Minimal percentage

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Light size

Maximum threshold

Minimal percentage

Blend percent

Border percent

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Light size

Maximum threshold

Minimal percentage

Blend percent

Border percent

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Light size

Maximum threshold

Minimal percentage

Blend percent

Border percent

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PCSS light leaks

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Fixing light leaks

Light leaks occur when light size is too big

PCSS kernel gets too wide and samples outside cascades

Adjust border percent to limit the kernel

If light leaks are still there, decrease light size and maximum threshold

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Advanced Soft Shadows in Far Cry 4

PCSS shadows are softer at mornings and evenings and sharper at noon

9:00AM

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10:00AM

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11:00AM


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12:00AM


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1:00PM


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2:00PM


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3:00PM


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4:00PM


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5:00PM


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PCSS shadows were too sharp and aliased at noon

Shadows = SOFT SHADOWS

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PCSS missed small-scale details


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Small features

start disappearing

Small features are

completely gone

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Original shadows handle this case properly

Shadows = ULTRA

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Make light size depend on daytime

Re-configure cascades


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Make light size depend on daytime

Re-configure cascades


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Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TXAA)

Film-style anti-aliasing technique designed specifically to reduce temporal aliasing

Part of NVIDIA PostWorks family

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No AA

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FXAA

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4xMSAA

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TXAA

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Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TXAA)

TXAA requires properly generated MSAA image as input

MSAA path in the engine should work correctly

Use g-buffer with MSAA

Make shading pass support MSAA

Add MSAA support for post-processing techniques

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Summary

Five engineers were involved in integrating these features into both Assassin’s Creed Unity and Far Cry 4

One man-month per effect per title on average

Experience and knowledge from past collaborations saved us a lot of time

Far Cry 4: Making the beasts look cute

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Wildlife in Far Cry 4

This is how animals of Kyrat look in real life:

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This is how they look in real life:

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The cutest creature in the whole game:

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NVIDIA HairWorks

Enables users to simulate and render fur to provide a truly interactive game experience

A combination of run-time library and a content creation tool

Actual game

HairWorks Viewer

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HairWorks integration workflow

Get a proof-of-concept for HairWorks to be a good fit for Far Cry 4’s content

Integrate the run-time library into the engine and the level editor

Author the HairWorks assets

Add them to the game’s content

Perform the QA pass

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Proof of concept

Perform initial experiments on assets from Far Cry 4 to see if HairWorks is a good fit for the game

Experiments were performed in the HairWorks Viewer

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Proof of concept

Perform initial experiments on assets from Far Cry 4 to see if HairWorks is a good fit for the game

Experiments were performed in the HairWorks Viewer

Yak

Yak (NV Fur)

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Integration into the engine

HairWorks run-time has a customizable rendering functionality

HairWorks fur properties are stored in additional textures

Far Cry 4 level editor has been modified to add new properties to support HairWorks

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Authoring the assets

HairWorks Viewer was used to create the assets that were later exported to the

game

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HairWorks Viewer was used to create the assets that were later exported to the

game

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Two days required to do the initial authoring of each asset

30 assets total were created

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Preserving the silhouettes

Fur is “baked” into the mesh

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Fur is “baked” into the mesh

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Artifacts appear if you try to both preserve the silhouette and leave the original mesh beneath the fur

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A modified mesh should be rendered when HairWorks is active

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Shading

HairWorks allows you to implement your own shading model

Supports both forward and deferred shading

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Shading in Far Cry 4

In Far Cry 4, we rely on Dunia rendering mechanics to perform shading

Custom material is used

HairWorks parameters are stored in g-buffer

Diffuse color, compressed

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Normals

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Specular power and scale

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HairWorks Fur tangents

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Result of deferred shading

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Anti-aliasing

HairWorks generates a lot of tiny fur springs

Shimmering can be visible on fur

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Anti-aliasing

Best solution is to render HairWorks fur in a separate, anti-aliasing enabled pass

In Far Cry 4 fur is rendered in the main pass and relies on global anti-aliasing

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Anti-aliasing

Far Cry 4 relies on global anti-aliasing settings to fight shimmering

No AA applied

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Anti-aliasing


No AA applied

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Anti-aliasing


No AA applied

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Anti-aliasing


4xMSAA

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Anti-aliasing


4xTXAA

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Summary

The animals of Kyrat now look even more realistic

One man-year and three engineers were needed to add this feature

One software engineer from Ubisoft

Two technical artists from NVIDIA

30 assets were created total

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Summary

The animals of Kyrat now look even more realistic

One man-year and three engineers were needed to add this feature

One software engineer from Ubisoft

Two technical artists from NVIDIA

30 assets were created total

Most of these cuties are just too deadly!

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Far Cry 4: Illuminating Kyrat with divine light

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104 OFF

ON

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NVIDIA Godrays

Realistically looking sun shafts

Vast opportunities for tuning

Scalable performance

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Add some color!

First integration of Godrays used the in-game color of smoke

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Add some color!

Using the sun color showed the best results

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Find the balance

The scene looks completely fogged

In fact, it is just godrays adding too much density

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Find the balance Make godrays intensity daytime-dependent

7:00AM

5:00PM

NOON

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“ This is a very exciting feature.

Above all, this one makes a big

difference in image quality that is

noticeable throughout the game.

The drastic changes between

turning it on and off can totally

transform scenes in Far Cry 4.”

— HardOCP

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Summary

One man-month and one engineer were needed to add this feature

One software engineer from NVIDIA

One week to perform a basic integration

Three weeks to tune the effect and fix artifacts

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Overall summary

Five effects integrated into Far Cry 4

Three effects integrated into Assassin’s Creed Unity

Active phase of engagement took six months

Seven engineers from Ubisoft Kiev and six engineers from NVIDIA involved

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Special thanks to:

Dane Johnston

Johnny Costello

Tim Tcheblokov

Oleg Arutyunyan

Alexey Barkovoy

Tae-Yong Kim

Chad Vivoli

NVIDIA:

Sam Kovalev

Roman Bobel

Mikhail Kravets

Artem Kandinsky

Aleksandr Polischuk

Dmitry Rozovik

Artem Kotsiuba

Anton Remezenko

Ubisoft:

Thanks!

Far Cry 4 and Assassin's Creed Unity: Spicing Up PC Graphics with ...

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