Rendering Techniques in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

DEUS EX MANKIND DIVIDED
Labs R&D: The Rendering Techniques of Deus EX: Mankind
Divided and Rise of the Tomb Raider
SIGGRAPH 2015
www.eidosmontreal.com/www.square-enix-montreal.com

VFX Effect for Adam Jensen
Titan
2
v
Nicolas Longhamps
Senior Technical Artist at Labs, Eidos Montreal
Peter Sikachev
3D Programmer at Labs, Eidos Montreal

Titan
3
VFX Description
 Trademark effect for DXMD
 A protective shell covering character
 Should look solid but feel “alive”
 Should look similar to CG version
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Titan
4
Visual Features
 Triangular surface
 Animation
 Hit reaction
 First-person vignette
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Titan
5
Tessellation
 Hardware tessellation
 Dynamic tessellation factor based on distance
 Small triangles used for geometry animations and displacement
 Tessellation barycentric coordinates used for edge bevel effect
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www.eidosmontreal.com
www.square-enix-montreal.com
Titan
6
Geometry Animation
 Masks control specific areas
 “Living skin”: periodic surface disturbance
 Full-body noise on hit
 Sequential vertex/normal offset
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Titan
7
Hit Reaction
 Weapon hits
 Parameters set per ammunition type
 Hits found on CPU and passed in CB
 Titan mesh animated near hit areas
 Underlying character mesh is shown in holes only
 (De)construction
 Reusing proxy weapon hits
 Placed at joints selected by artists
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Titan
8
Texture and Normal Map
 Normal bevel (helps smooth edges)
 Normal softening
 Detail normal/data maps for normal animation
 Surface noise map to simulate animated micro detail
 Custom back reflections (aka ‘fake specular’)
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DEUS EX MANKIND DIVIDED Normal Bevel Off

DEUS EX MANKIND DIVIDED Normal Bevel On

DEUS EX MANKIND DIVIDED Normal Softening Off

DEUS EX MANKIND DIVIDED Normal Softening On

DEUS EX MANKIND DIVIDED Detail Normal Map Off

DEUS EX MANKIND DIVIDED Detail Normal Map On

Titan
15
First Person Vignette
 Post Process effect in same visual style as Titan
 Should convey the presence of armor but not obstruct view
 Artist created mesh rendered in screen space
 Shader supports Titan-like effects :
 Sequential normal and vertex position offset animation
 Edge bevel
 (De)construction
 Other shader effects :
 Refraction
 Chromatic aberration
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Titan
16
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Implementation Details
 Not a performance-critical feature (~0.1 ms per character with Titan)
 Flat normal using pos gradients
 Tessellation was retro-fitted to the engine
 Especially painful on PS4
 Number of simultaneous hits is limited (32)
 Limit displacement based on camera distance and artist mask

DEUS EX MANKIND DIVIDED 17
vParallax Occlusion Mapping
Peter Sikachev
3D Programmer at Labs, Eidos Montreal

Parallax Occlusion Mapping
18
Relaxed Cone-Step Tracing Refresher
 Introduced in GPU Gems 3 [Policarpo07]
 Pre-generate a cone-step map (CSM) acceleration structure
 Use CSM instead linear steps
 Improve intersection with binary steps
v surface

19
view raysurface
cone

20
view raysurface
cone

21
Blending POM surfaces with puddles
 Water should look like it is between reliefs
 Use height as a threshold between two materials
fMaterialMask *= 1.0f - saturate( (fPOMHeight - u_fPOMThreshold) * u_fPOMMultiplier )

Visuals Examples
All Rights Reserved SquareEnix Eidos Montreal 2015

Height blend threshold = 1 (no blend)

Height blend threshold = 0 (no blend)

Height blend threshold = 0.4

Height blend threshold = 0.8

28
Depth Center
 An artist-inspired idea
 Feature from Marmoset Toolbag 2
 Allows details to stick out
 Used on charactersv
EyeDirTangentSpace.xy *= POMRange;
EyeDirTangentSpace /= max(EyeDirTangentSpace.z, NUMERIC_EPSILON);
float Distance = length(EyeDirTangentSpace.xy);
float2 BaseOffset = EyeDirTangentSpace.xy * POMDepthCenter / (Distance + 1.0f);
view ray
POM surface
mesh surface

29
Depth Center
 An artist-inspired idea
 Feature from Marmoset Toolbag 2
 Allows details to stick out
 Used on charactersv
EyeDirTangentSpace.xy *= POMRange;
EyeDirTangentSpace /= max(EyeDirTangentSpace.z, NUMERIC_EPSILON);
float Distance = length(EyeDirTangentSpace.xy);
float2 BaseOffset = EyeDirTangentSpace.xy * POMDepthCenter / (Distance + 1.0f);
view ray
POM surface
mesh surface

Without POM
31

With POM
32

Without POM
33

With POM
34

35
Optimizations and Cost
 Reduce number of cone/binary steps based on distance
 Texture mip is approximated as there were no POM
 Incremental cost: ~1 ms full-screen 1080p up-close at PS4
v

Pure Hair v
Presented by Anton Kai Michels
R&D Programmer for Labs at Eidos Montreal
Uriel Doyon
Technical Director for Labs at Eidos Montreal

Pure Hair Data Model
37
Asset Types
 Textured head
 Hair mesh
 Hair strands
Textured Head
v

38
Asset Types
 Textured head
 Hair mesh
 Hair strands
Textured Head + Hair Strands
vv

39
Asset Types
 Textured head
 Hair mesh
 Hair strands
Hair Mesh
v

40
Asset Types
 Textured head
 Hair mesh
 Hair strands
Hair Strands
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41
Asset Types
 Textured head
 Hair mesh
 Hair strands
Hair MeshHair Mesh + Hair Strands
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Pure Hair Hair Strands
42
Wisp Data
 Required at runtime
 Exported into Dawn Engine
 Keep DCC wisps if available
 Else grouping splines manually
 Generate master strand per wisp
Master strands (one per wisp)
vv

43
Master to slave skinning
 Less strands to simulate
 Shape preserving LODs
 Retains haircut shape despite simulation
Slave strands (many per wisp)
vv

44
Shape preserving LODs
 Reduce strand count while increasing strand width
 LOD is applied per wisp, so shape is preserved
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LOD 0 LOD 1 LOD 2 LOD 3

Pure Hair Simulation
Variable number of vertices
 Between 4 to 32 vertices per strand
 Master strands within groups have same vertex count
 Slave strands can have any number of vertices
 Fixed length enforcing (a la Muller)
vv

Pure Hair Simulation vv
World space simulation
 Issues on fast moving objects
 Calculate and scale root delta position
 Apply it to previous frame positions

Pure Hair Simulation vv
Wind
 Build a cone from wind direction
 Gives each hair slightly different vector
 Makes hairs spread nicely
 Creates desirable variation between frames

Pure Hair Simulation
48
vv
Wisp Interactions
 Slave strands affected by surrounding masters if close enough
 Decided on stateless approach
 Simplifies LOD handling
 View frustum changes
 Slaves only affected by closest master strand in reference position

v
Lighting probes
 Evaluate lighting over hair bounds
 Store directional intensities using cubemaps or spherical harmonics
 Reduces lighting cost significantly
 Head occlusion approximated by sphere in shader
Tangent based lighting
 Use tangent based lighting instead of normal
 Especially visible in diffuse because strands are billboarded
Pure Hair Lighting Model

Dual specular highlights
 Most significant hair lighting feature
 Adding tangent noise breaks "audio tape" look.
Fresnel factor
 More important than back scattering.
 Extra term in the lighting equation.
v
Pure Hair Lighting Model
1 specular highlight Dual specular highlights
Dual specular highlights
+ tangent noise

Pure Hair Translucency
51
Per Pixel Linked List (PPLL)
 Node buffer = 200Mb in 1080p
 With 12 bytes per node
 Koverdraw = 8
 More overdraw makes resolve more expensive
vv
Fill PPLL
Resolve Color
Resolve Depth

52
PPLL with Hair Depth Pre-Pass
 Optimization for PPLL, greatly benefits LODs
 Allows smaller Koverdraw (~ 3) for the same quality
 Artists must limit translucency to strand tips and mesh edges
 ~100Mb total
vv
Fill PPLL
Resolve Color
Resolve Depth
Hair Depth Pre-pass

Depth Peeling
 Use atomics to compute closest depths 0 and 1
 Fill nodes only if they are entry 0 or 1
 Similar performance to PPLL with depth pre-pass
 Half memory cost with no overflow
 ~50Mb total
Resolve Depth (D0 or D1)
Fill Nodes
Resolve Color
DepthPeeling,AlphaAcc

Depth Peeling vs PPLL with Depth Pre-Pass
 Performance comparison on a Radeon HD 7970, using Adam Jensen, cinematic LOD
Fullscreen Near Far*
PPLL & Depth Pre-pass 1.774 1.004 0.852
Resolve PPLL 2.059 0.422 0.146
Depth Peeling 1.452 0.892 0.833
Resolve DP 1.907 0.338 0.098
Note: Depth Peeling is faster at close range in part because the PPLL depth pre-pass does not have early depth, and also because data access have better locality. Still this is very hardware
specific.

Motion Blur
55
v
Samuel Delmont
Senior 3D Programmer for Labs at Eidos Montreal

Motion Blur
56
 Real cameras produce motion blur by accumulating exposure of
moving objects while shutter is open
 Mimicking this in video games adds realism and a cinematic
look
 Helps reduce the perception of frame rate
v

Motion Blur
Inspiration
 Crysis, [Sousa08]
 Iterative sampling approach : multiple blur passes
 [McGuire13]
 Tile neighborhood max velocity removes hard edges
v

Motion Blur v
Overview
 Motion Blur done in 2 steps:
 Velocity Buffer Generation
Velocity buffer is RG_FLOAT16, contains motion vectors in screen
space coordinates (delta UV of a pixel’s previous position and
current position)
 Blur
Post process, uses velocity buffer to compute blur direction and
samples offsets.
 Velocity buffer is full resolution: used for temporal reprojection

Motion Blur v
Velocity Buffer Generation
 Dynamic objects
 Velocity caused by camera movement + object movement
+ object skinned deformation
 Applies to opaque dynamic/skinned primitives
 Static objects
 Velocity caused by camera movement only
 Applies to opaque static primitives

Motion Blur
60
v
v
Dynamic Object Velocity Pass
 Render dynamic objects using:
 Previous world matrix
 Previous skinning matrix if applicable
 Any previous vertex deformation
 Write in stencil buffer to reduce static object velocity pass overhead
Velocity buffer RG_Float16 visualization

Motion Blur
61
v
Static Object Velocity Pass
 Screen space pass, skip dynamic object pixels from previous pass
using stencil buffer
 Calculate pixel’s last frame screen position using depth buffer and
previous frame’s view-projection matrix

Motion Blur
62
Blur
 Half or full resolution
 Artist velocity exponent, smoothens velocity curve and
diminishes motion blur on low velocity targets
 To deal with hard edge artifacts, use tile max velocity
 Compute max in 20x20 pixel tiles
 Compute max in 3x3 tile neighborhood

Motion Blur
63
Blur
 Blur done in two passes
 Low Frequency: blur 4 samples along tile max velocity
Tile neighborhood max velocity
Base Samples

Motion Blur
64
Blur
 Blur done in two passes
 Low Frequency: blur 4 samples along tile max velocity
 High Frequency: blur between samples from first pass
Tile neighborhood max velocity
Base Samples

Motion Blur
65
Blur
 1st Pass blur weighted with pixel velocity
 2nd Pass can’t use original pixel velocity
 1st Pass outputs a comparison value to alpha channel
 2nd Pass reads these values and uses them for weighting
First pass velocity
comparison average
First pass blur
4 samples
Second pass blur
4 samples

Motion Blur
66
Blur Recap
 Separate iterative passes give high quality at lower cost.
 Total of 8 samples for virtually 16 samples.
 Tile max deals with hard edge artifact.
Hard edge artifact without
Tile neighbor max
No hard edge with
Tile neighbor max

Motion Blur
67
Performance
 0.8ms on PS4, includes:
 Color buffer downsample
 Velocity buffer downsample
 Tile max and tile neighborhood max passes
 Both separate blur passes
 Bilateral upsampling
v

Heart and Soul v
Dominique Demers
Director of Photography at Eidos Montreal
Philippe Desrosiers
Lead Interactive Objects at Eidos Montreal

Heart and Soul v
Heart of the machine
 Deus Ex very interconnected
 Living, breathing world
 Applies to environments
 Interaction increases immersion

Heart and Soul v
Creating Interaction
 Dawn Engine
 Artist & game designer created behaviors
 Modular System
 Quick Iteration
 Fast Prototyping
 Coherent and standardized

Heart and Soul
Graph View
 Scripting UI
 Node based
 Display and edit everything
 Lego block approach
 Connections visualized as lines
 Shows active links
 Easy to Debug

Heart and Soul v
Gameplay Objects
3 Geometry Types
 Static objects (level geometry)
 Physics objects (rigid bodies)
 Kinematic objects (bones + animation)
All gameplay objects are a mix of geometry and scripting entities.

Heart and Soul
Pins
 Input pins receive trigger signals
 Output pins send trigger signals
 Property pins expose values
 Accessor pins fetch values
 Event scripting: left / right
 Data scripting: top / bottom

Heart and Soul v
Signal Types
 Various signal types
 Void, Bool, Int, Float, Vector, String, Color, etc.
 Types are color coded
 Makes compatibility explicit
Custom Signals
 Dawn Engine allows user created signals
 Expose signals from child to parent

Heart and Soul
Composite Objects

Heart and Soul
Images with Soul
 Ambitious artistic direction
 Push graphic quality
 Push image tangibility
 Volumetric lighting + air density
 Apply photography to videogames
 Tell stories with color
v

Heart and Soul
Photographic Postfilters
 Depth of Field with Bokeh
 Motion Blur
 Volumetric Lighting
 Parallax Occlusion Mapping
 Screen Space Reflection
 Glare + Glow
 Lens Effects (Flare, Dust, Scratch)
v

Heart and Soul
Color Language
 Color = emotional cues
 Meanings vary by culture
 Devised own color language based on:
 Factions
 Metaphors
 Story hints
 Subtle but noticeable
 Coherent + Consistent

Heart and Soul
Colorscripts
 Colors should tell a story
 Use color language as base coat
 Fluctuate saturation and contrast
 Affects brain stimulation and stress
 Climatic scenes more saturated and contrasted
 Colorscript is a map of these fluctuations
“Colorscripts provide a roadmap for shifts in color, lighting, emotion and
mood throughout a film.” – Amid Amidi, The Art of Pixar

Heart and Soul
Color Correction Tool
 Adjust multiple aspects of color
 3 color zones based on luma curve
 2 depth zones: near and far
Tool split into 3 parts:
 Luma
 Color 1
 Color 2
109

Heart and Soul
Two luma curves define the color zone distribution:
Shadows, Midtones and Highlights
Luma
110

Heart and Soul
Parameters for each color zone defined by luma curves
Adjusts Hue, Saturation, Contrast and Global Tint
Color 1
111

Heart and Soul
More color zone parameters. These can affect RGB individually
Adjusts Level, Brightness, Contrast and Color Temperature
Color 2
112

Heart and Soul
Foreground & Background
 Each can be affected separately
 Full color correction
 Adjustable for photography needs
 Distances set by lighting artists
v

Rendering Techniques in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

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