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Wow! Parallax occlusion mapping looks almost exactly like extra 3D detail on the model. Though I guess it wouldn't work if the details were sticking out of the

Wow! Parallax occlusion mapping looks almost exactly like extra 3D detail on the model. Though I guess it wouldn't work if the details were sticking out of the face, or otherwise changing the silhouette? Is that why the demo uses a cube with concave faces?

slackingoff2017 9y ago
This kind of mapping hit mainstream a few years ago. Look at the ground in most games, it's not actually 3D but does a damn good appoximation. In some games you'll see real subdivision surfaces which are even more awesome but somewhat expensive. I remember being super excited when these features were making their way from software rendering to GPU years back. I would guesstimate a very large fraction of the perceived increase in game graphics have come from these techniques in recent years.
- santaclaus 9y ago
  > In some games you'll see real subdivision surfaces Cool! What games are using subds? I thought they were mostly relegated to offline use due to evaluation cost.
  - corysama 9y ago
    I'm not certain this shipped, but there's http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/brainerd2016efficient.html http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/brainerd2016effic...
  - slackingoff2017 9y ago
    Too lazy to check my games right now but the Unigen Heaven benchmark was the first time I saw "tesselation", which used to be known as displacement mapping in software rendering days. Crank that thing to max and wander around a bit.
- hughes 9y ago
  > it's not actually 3D but does a damn good appoximation That is the driving force behind almost all real time graphics! Everything from rasterization to texture sampling to transparency, to this occluding parallax example - it's not exactly correct, but close enough that when used appropriately it is convincingly real and fast.
  - CyberDildonics 9y ago
    That is not the same thing. Polygons exist in 3D space, this is a technique using a shader to fake render a surface within the bounds of the polygon that is actually being rendered.
NTripleOne 9y ago
Yes, you're entirely correct - that is precisely why it's concave - as Parallax mapping is purely the illusion of depth, instead of adding any actual depth or height, this means that the perceived depth effect is constrained to the surface of the object. If the pyramid shape were to extend past the surface of the texture, it would look fantastic up until the point that the viewing angle of the surface would cause the pyramid to visibly protrude past the edge, at which point anything extending beyond those boundaries would be lost. Here's a terrible mspaint example, please ignore my awful consistency, it's early and I've not had any caffeine yet. http://i.imgur.com/iC7czF5.png http://i.imgur.com/iC7czF5.png

slackingoff2017 9y ago

This kind of mapping hit mainstream a few years ago. Look at the ground in most games, it's not actually 3D but does a damn good appoximation. In some games you'll see real subdivision surfaces which are even more awesome but somewhat expensive. I remember being super excited when these features were making their way from software rendering to GPU years back. I would guesstimate a very large fraction of the perceived increase in game graphics have come from these techniques in recent years.

santaclaus 9y ago
> In some games you'll see real subdivision surfaces Cool! What games are using subds? I thought they were mostly relegated to offline use due to evaluation cost.
- corysama 9y ago
  I'm not certain this shipped, but there's http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/brainerd2016efficient.html http://www.graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/brainerd2016effic...
- slackingoff2017 9y ago
  Too lazy to check my games right now but the Unigen Heaven benchmark was the first time I saw "tesselation", which used to be known as displacement mapping in software rendering days. Crank that thing to max and wander around a bit.
hughes 9y ago
> it's not actually 3D but does a damn good appoximation That is the driving force behind almost all real time graphics! Everything from rasterization to texture sampling to transparency, to this occluding parallax example - it's not exactly correct, but close enough that when used appropriately it is convincingly real and fast.
- CyberDildonics 9y ago
  That is not the same thing. Polygons exist in 3D space, this is a technique using a shader to fake render a surface within the bounds of the polygon that is actually being rendered.

NTripleOne 9y ago

Yes, you're entirely correct - that is precisely why it's concave - as Parallax mapping is purely the illusion of depth, instead of adding any actual depth or height, this means that the perceived depth effect is constrained to the surface of the object. If the pyramid shape were to extend past the surface of the texture, it would look fantastic up until the point that the viewing angle of the surface would cause the pyramid to visibly protrude past the edge, at which point anything extending beyond those boundaries would be lost. Here's a terrible mspaint example, please ignore my awful consistency, it's early and I've not had any caffeine yet. http://i.imgur.com/iC7czF5.png http://i.imgur.com/iC7czF5.png