Naughty Dog Dev: Incoming Tech Will Overcome Character Homogenisation, Talks About Hair Rendering

Hair is one of the most difficult things to render in real time in video games. Developers are getting closer to capturing realistic facial capture and lighting effects but hair rendering is still bland in most games.

[NewMonday]

"Homogenisation"

I learned a new word today

[Roccetarius]

Any MMO player knows the terrible word, aka Homogenisation. It's not something people like when developers do it, because it makes classes less unique.

Well, at least most veteran players know it.

[GW212]

Any decently educated person knows the word too. At least I hope that's the case. Otherwise, yikes.

[zebramocha]

@gw Thier are thousands of words in the English language, not being cognizant of a few doesn't show a lack of an education.

[frostypants]

@zebramocha, just about every carton/jug of milk you see at the store has "homogenized" written on it. I'm pretty surprised myself that anyone doesn't know what it means.

[zebramocha]

But that word on milk does not mean the samething in which the word in the article was used.

[NewMonday]

"cognizant"

that makes it 2 word in 1 day, thanks zebramocha, English is not my native language

[frostypants]

@zebramocha, yes it does. The word basically means to make something uniform. With milk it's a process that keeps the fat/cream from separating, thereby keeping a uniform consistency. In this case, it means uniformity of characters. But the gist is the same.

[zebramocha]

@frost you can't use the milk definition and apply it to people,the concept is the same for both meanings but the application is different. http://www.google.com/searc...

[HiddenMission]

You guys are on one...the reality is who really stops and says you know I'm going to read every word that's on my carton of milk...yeah I think I'll pass.

Truth is those that act like this is a commonly used word in most everybody taps into for basic discussions is being nothing more than stuck up...and trying to come off as superior. We may know the word but might only use it maybe once or twice in a lifetime so please do get off your high horse and stop pretending to be something that your not...superior.

...just saying try some humble pie please..

[UltraNova]

@zebramocha

While there are many words in the English language a large portion of them are foreign and pretty much Greek, just like the word Homogenization. If we are talking science Greek words make up for 70% if not more of the terminology used in the English language.

And knowing the meaning of translated foreign word is half way there, you should also know the origin of that word as well.

Homo- Greek > Omios: meaning similar, Genization- Greek> Genia: meaning generation

[Edsword]

I don't want my characters homogenized. What was wrong with hedrogenized characters?

[mogwaii]

Seriously? Well its a good thing.

[Magicite]

Haha, yeah, me too :D

[Pancit_Canton]

We are not worthy.

Hail Naughty God.

Lol

[Volkama]

Mmm yes I agree, well said, +bubbles, I totally fit in here.

[Volkama]

These disagrees flatter me. I would be mortified if I actually did fit in here.

Thanks guys x

[theRell]

Articles about hair. I can't even...

[Volkama]

To be fair it's quite a hot topic in rendering. Both AMD and nVidia put significant R&D into TressFX and Gameworks hairworks, and there is quite a lot of discussion around them.

[Dolf045]

It makes a big difference to character modelling. Tomb Raider is a prime example. Rather this than a "top 10 reasons why something sucks" article.

[starchild]

Well said. That kind of article is worthless and unnecessarily negative.

I also agree that well rendered hair makes a big difference. Lara Croft's hair in the PC version of Tomb Raider and the Definitive Edition on PS4 and XB1 looks way better than the hair we typically find on game characters. It does make a big difference to how believable the character is.

[AgentSmithPS4]

<sings> Give me a woman with hair, long beautiful ha-air.

In the game "Stick it to the Man" I liked the fire-guy's hair. Even if the hair is on a greasy guy it can create more emotions, variety, etc, imagine you're playing a new game and a guy with stupid looking hair kills you, you might get more butthurt. Then when you load a save you might think "I'm going kill that dumbass-hair guy!"

[chrissx]

Good news all round concerning this game. 2015 can't come soon enough

[hello12]

I can't wait till we see gameplay footage. 1080p 60 frames i think they're dreaming personally.

Uncharted is going to be a great looking game, but i can't see them hitting 1080p and 60 frames.

The order couldn't do it so its unrealistic to believe uncharted will if the visuals are anywhere near what was shown at E3. The CPU isn't powerful enough and i'll take bets with any Sony fan now if you like?

[windblowsagain]

It can be done. But not on CPU.

GPGPU will be doing it.

[Utalkin2me]

With the graphic fidelity they have shown with Nathan in the in-game engine, i also think it will be hard to achieve. But if anyone can do it, it would be Naughty Dog. And i for one would not bet against them.

[hello12]

They can do it of course, but the visuals are not going to be out of this world. The CPU simply isn't powerful enough, unless something unexpected happens from now till then.

OpenGL might be improved on to match directx12 and it could help with frame rate. But I'd have to see how they'll manage it. I'm confident in directx12 for xb1 because of what Microsoft have shown.

[Salooh]

Who knows . You are comparing a psp developers to masters . But still won't be expecting anything. I will just wait for what they will deliver. Love hype but lately i started hating it for many disappointments . However, like i said this is NAUGHTY DOG :O

[uth11]

IIRC the 30fps in The Order is a choice, as is the widescreen aspect (note the black-bars at the top and bottom). They want it to look as cinematic as possible.

[Give_me_head_strong]

uth11- It was a "choice" because 60fps and full 1080p wouldn't have allowed such detailed graphics.

[AgentSmithPS4]

I'd rather have both OPTIONS for SP, 30fps with more details, effects, etc or 60fps. I don't mind 60 in MP.
That's one of the things that's bothered me since switching to consoles, they can force button layouts and "graphical settings" on you.

I wonder if it takes them more time to make a game 60fps and if so how much, would you rather get your new games sooner?

[heisenberguk]

Uncharted 3 had terrible lego hair on the lady villain!

[heisenberguk]

HUH? A lot of disagrees when stating a fact although it IS saying something negative about sony and this IS n4g after all!! HaHaHa

[Walker]

haters gonna hate

[MysticStrummer]

I'd be more interested in an article about them improving the AI. If the AI stays the same, I predict reviews will knock off more points for that now than they did just last year. "Amazing visuals marred by boneheaded AI"… that kind of thing.

[AgentSmithPS4]

Yeah I read about the girl's AI breakdancing in front of the enemy and not being noticed. It would be a shame if they didn't at least do a simple fix on that.

[MysticStrummer]

Agreed.

Speaking as someone who knows nothing about game development, it doesn't seem like it would be a complex thing to simply make her hang back when enemies are near. At certain points of the game they have her doing that anyway, like when Joel lets her use a rifle for the first time. She could still stay close enough to throw things at enemies without always being on Joel's heels.

[MCTJim]

So now we have come full circle..we went from breasts bouncing to realistic hair swishing.

[Artista]

U4 is probably a fall 2015 title. For now, let's just discuss hair rendering.

[60FramesPerSecond]

Im starting to notice most articles that are currently popular are ps4 exclusive. A little biased N4G?

[heisenberguk]

You must be new around these here parts!

[60FramesPerSecond]

Not too new. Im not a xbot, and i certainly play my share of ps3, but id like to see more diversity once in a while

[Give_me_head_strong]

It would be realistic if Drake's hair matted to his face after being submerged in water. But instead, I bet his hair will look "Salon Fresh" even when barely surviving a Tidal Wave, lol.

[Solitaryswordsman]

Still think short back and sides will be the order of the day, I'm all for wasting gpu cycles on fancy effects but when Lara's hair doesn't respond to gravity when strung upside down it seems that the tech isn't quite there yet. I'd rather have better foliage, shadows that are not pixelated and no pop in and a half decent frame rate.

[lovesGaming17]

This is why I bought a ps4

HAIR RENDERING! (Mind blown)

[Azzanation]

ND are talking like MS with these power upgrades. Its sad people judge MS for talking so much about future updates which they design while people here admire ND and they don't even make software/hardware.

Sad world we live in.