New Square Enix real-time DirectX 12 Tech Demo
Source: arstechnica.com
Final Fantasy maker and tech-demo master Square Enix unveiled a doozie of a demo at Microsoft's 2015 Build conference. Titled Witch Chapter 0 [cry], the demo showcased a range of DirectX 12 technical and processing wizardries to create a real-time animation on par with pre-rendered cut scenes and movies.
Update: We now have some delicious full-resolution screenshots of the demo, which you can check out at the end of the post.
During the demo (which you can view below), Microsoft's Steve Guggenheimer explained each scene contained around 63 million polygons, which is supposedly up to 12-times more than Square Enix managed to render in its Agni’s PhilosophyDirectX 11 demo back in 2012. Running 63 million polygons with high-resolution textures—8K by 8K in this case—is no small feat. By comparison, Star Citizen's biggest carrier ships run up to around seven million polygons, while Ryse's protagonist Marius was made up of 85K polygons on the Xbox One.
One of the most impressive moments in the demo is when Guggenheimer zooms in to the character model, revealing an immense amount of detail right up to the individual pores on her skin. The character's hair was also revealed to be made up of individual polygons rendered with over 50 shaders and not the less expensive surface mapping technique that's commonly used to create features such as hair.
