Terrain Tessellation in Battlefield 3 Confirmed

It has been revealed through the twitter account of Johan Andersson that Battlefield 3 will use terrain tessellation.

[Hufandpuf]

Somebody explain to my dumb self what that is please.

[Voxelman]

Basically tessellation uses a mathematical formula to generate additional geometry.

for example http://www.dvhardware.net/n...

In other words if you have a powerful system and the game supports tessellation terrain and models in the game can be much more detailed. Without the developers having to spend as much time and without having to store lots and lots of very highly detailed models.

[DFogz]

Thank you Voxelman, I learned something new today :)

[Laypoof]

My question is: does that extra generated geometry such as the pic you posted in the link affect objects? For instance if a vehicles drives over it, do those extra generated bumps in the surface actually affect the vehicle and cause it to actually shake more for instance?

[Voxelman]

@ Laypoof
Depends on how it's implemented, there is no reason why it can't. But the implementation used in games so far usually use it on small details like bricks in a wall or pebbles etc which is to small to make a significant difference or to smooth out "round" objects, or to terrain that is inaccessible.

I doubt that they would have it change the collision maps etc in multiplayer because the people that don't have tessellation on would ether be interacting with invisible parts of objects or clipping though the added details while people with tessellation would be interacting with it.

Maybe when we get to the point where the game can have tessellation on for everyone it will. But for now it won't actually make a difference other than added visual detail.

[Laypoof]

Excellent reply! Thanks!

[Kakkoii]

Btw, it should be noted that it's implemented through DX11. So you'll need a DX11 compliant GPU. They have a dedicated tessellation processing unit built into them (multiple for Nvidia GPU's.) Which is why tessellation is seeing a rise in use now. It wasn't efficient enough being run on the general purpose shaders of the GPU. It's finally worth it now performance wise.

[TheIneffableBob]

Terrain tessellation.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[xtremegamerage]

Message to dumb self, uses smaller triangles to make polygons stand out, on it's own it's not much. But together with displacement mapping adds more realism to surfaces etc. Being displaced with the information in the smaller triangles. shifted up and down etc.

Can add alot to a scene if done properly.

[MARKUS_MAX1MUS]

Nice!

But I still cant understand why the snipers are the way they are...They kill with 1 shot up close right enough just like in BC2 but dont at range? cant understand this, its like it promotes quick scoping instead of proper sniping.

ah well tesselation is a definite plus point, it gives objects/terrain in games alot more depth.

[Hicken]

Because that bullet will have lost no energy right up close, whereas wind friction will eat away at kinetic energy over a distance. It's tied in to why bullets drop as they travel: it's not just gravity, but also resistance from the air as it travels that lowers velocity.

[Tachyon_Nova]

Still, snipers have a kill range of 100s of metres to kilometers

[Hicken]

Yeah, but that's going a bit far in a game. Sure, it's got a heavy dose of realism, too, but it's gotta be balanced out a little bit.

[Orpheus]

I just hope they add tessellation on character models , vehicles, foliage and guns too :D. My fingers are crossed.
Epic said they will tessellate everything if they can get nvidia or ati to deliver 10 billion triangles per second. 580GTX delivers 2 billion tps Kepler will deliver at least twice that, so two Keplers in sli will be enough to tessellate everything on screen.

[DoomeDx]

Old. this was pretty much confirmed at the day it got announced

[MidnytRain]

This story shouldn't have gotten approved. If you don't have a Twitter account, I don't think you can view it.