NVIDIA ‘Turf Effects’ GameWorks Demo Will Make You Want To Grab Your Toro And Edge Trimmer
There's more to the graphics wars than framerates, prices, and game bundles. There's also image quality to consider, along with special technologies that NVIDIA and AMD tout in hopes of winning your business. And just as AMD recently made a big deal about realistic hair via TressFX Hair, NVIDIA is now showing off realistic grass technology called Turf Effects that will make you want to hop on that John Deere and get to mowing.
Turf Effects is a new NVIDIA GameWorks technology capable of simulating and rendering massive grass landscapes with physical interaction. The technology provides a fully geometrical representation, with individual grass blades ranging from as low as 3 triangles to several hundred triangles for lush detail. This allows for the simulation of millions of grass blades without overwhelming your GPU.
"The high fidelity allows for enhanced physical interaction. The rendering supports natural shading with correct shadows from the individual blades of grass as well as self-shadows, two sided lighting and correct occlusion for scene geometry. The simulation supports interaction with physical scene objects including height fields and dynamic primitives," NVIDIA says.
NVIDIA posted a demo of the technology featuring realistic looking grass and a series of cubes colliding as they bounce around the landscape. Though cubes are used in the demo, NVIDIA says the simulation supports interaction with highly complex shapes.
Turf Effects is a new NVIDIA GameWorks technology capable of simulating and rendering massive grass landscapes with physical interaction. The technology provides a fully geometrical representation, with individual grass blades ranging from as low as 3 triangles to several hundred triangles for lush detail. This allows for the simulation of millions of grass blades without overwhelming your GPU.
"The high fidelity allows for enhanced physical interaction. The rendering supports natural shading with correct shadows from the individual blades of grass as well as self-shadows, two sided lighting and correct occlusion for scene geometry. The simulation supports interaction with physical scene objects including height fields and dynamic primitives," NVIDIA says.
NVIDIA posted a demo of the technology featuring realistic looking grass and a series of cubes colliding as they bounce around the landscape. Though cubes are used in the demo, NVIDIA says the simulation supports interaction with highly complex shapes.
Turf Effects isn't just about creating pretty grass, it's about immersing the player into a virtual world that reacts realistically to the surrounding. For example, imagine tracking an enemy by following crushed clumps of grass from his footprints. Using Turf Effects, developers are in control over how long the blades stay deformed, which opens up a whole new level of game play.
The tools to use Turf Effects will be available to developers in early 2015. We can't wait to see what they do with them.
The tools to use Turf Effects will be available to developers in early 2015. We can't wait to see what they do with them.
