Real-Time Rendering and Animation of Trees

[Sh4un1r1k]

Pretty amazing, random wind and best-perfect subsurface scattering in the leaves.

[ArcadeGames]

Nice:)

[TheRodrigovp]

I cant believe that this is a game!

[vuckotadic]

@TheRodrigovp Its not a game

[Jerbod2]

Wow that looked pretty real at first, only thing that made me realise it was fake was that the leafs were located too perfect. Good job!

[notmorefat]

need some birds!!!

[AeolusMN]

When can we expect real time rendering of this level to be the standard for games, 10 years?

[gmxgamer]

@AeolusMN i think that crysis has some mods that do this

[russiankid530]

elder scrolls 7?

[Sirronkcuhc1]

This is pure amazing, I'm hoping more video game use this.

[hassaancool]

Futere of graphics..!!!!!!!

[gelarglr]

Afrika? :P

[arncj18]

hi can you recomend some software for rendering trees, combined with sketchup? I heard about twilight, maxvell and 3d studio max, but i'm looking for good quality and i'm also a beginner at this

[RedofYellow]

@arncj18 Try luxrender not sure if thats what your looking for but it is a great renderer.

[lilpimp994]

Any why cant video games have these graphics?

[WINxTEC]

@lilpimp994

Is just up to Developers. Consoles can't produce this kind of fidelity in real time yet. Only on PC but is up to developers to make a game like that. Probably in the next gen of consoles and new Engines will have near graphics and fidelity like the video in real time.

[alex91008]

@lilpimp994 Current gen consoles don't have enough processing power for them to render graphics like these in real time. PC can do it but you'll have to have one heck of a computer to do that. And it's up to developers to make a game with these kind of graphics. It's only matter of time until games have graphics like these and faster processors to render all of it in real time.

[JMtheCONQUERER]

@lilpimp994 a console game is limited by what can fit onto one disc, not only that but most consoles dont have the firepower to do what high end pc hardware can do. Xbox and ps3 cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 400. Theres pc graphic cards alone that go for that much.

[MrMadalien]

my god, it's beautiful!

[Caiosniper1]

Amazing

[exil3dlivecom]

More sss would make out come alive even more.

[Zeptoflop]

Amazing :O

[SuperLitterboy]

This is so awesome.

[vivadangermouse]

You should sell your wind motion algorithm to e-on software. I've never seen the wind effects in Vue as good as this :)

[ftlqed]

The only thing to add is the distance to the leaf provides its depth of color, like a scanned leaf. When you go right next to the tree, the leaf doesn't pop so much as you go, "get that out of my face." Nice work!

[philfort2]

Beautiful!

[Markus9705]

Very nice!

[ugamer20]

tyndall effects are not that realistic!! i mean why without particles???

[kiragimmya]

@ugamer20 i think he used the post effect instead of the volume texture to achieve the Gad Ray effect, fast and looks good enough.

[ugamer20]

@kiragimmya yeah ur right dude!!!

[alenvijay]

hi what software u used to make this wonder??

[TheComp462]

can I download this somewhere?

[UHYVE]

I don't usually comment on these kind of videos, but you guys need to be commended. Wow, just... wow. I can only imagine how much work must have gone into such a subtle, yet very pretty effect. Well done.

I was about to ask what kind of hardware this was done on, but since the video was made in 2009, this technique would probably be totally usable in a modern PC game.

[fennecfanatic]

Aside from a bit of lighting flutter when the camera is facing into a shadow, this is indistinguishable from Mental Ray. Amazing work.

[gage9600]

FUCK CRYSIS!!!

[FrankDodd]

A beautiful piece of work

[protox4]

Simply amazing! The wind sounded really strong, though. I think the tree trunks and branches should sway a little as well. (Tall trees in real life sway a LOT with wind sounding like that.)

[eliotcougar]

Someday, gamers will say that this is lame graphics... Someday... Yes...

[leonalchemist]

this is a cool video knowing that such graphics will be finally possible to do thx to the new unlimited graphics engine :) i so cannot wait for games to look like this, i'd say give it 2-3 yrs till we see something like this

[Ultralism]

Great stuff. Hopefully we'll get this kind of quality ingame soon enough.

[xPreatorianx]

This would be awesome in Crysis. But I doubt the engine would be able to handle this on a full forest :P. it would rape the framerate. Well the engine might be able to handle it, but not the computers running it. :P

[Dylantog]

@xPreatorianx Thats why we have LOD (Level of Detail).

[xPreatorianx]

@Dylantog Well that's true. I would love to see this in full detail inside of a game. :)

[5zidane6]

i cannot believe this is better than movie

[smukase]

sims 4 all the way! this is how it will have to look like otherwise i ll stop obsessing about that game >_>

[anderst5]

crysis 3

[dannotrax]

good job i demand a movie next or a short movie

[Drake126]

good, i demand a forest next.

[Lymos524254]

make a fucking jungle

[Globox822]

impressive

[tavogx]

Man! Who dislike this? I work with 3d software and getting these results are extremely difficult. People are jealous i guess. Very nice work my friend.

[rikimaru6811]

this is heaven

[eliotcougar]

Oh my... Each leaf has subsurface scattering effects and casts a shadow on other leaves so you see the "top" shadows on the "bottom" side of the leaf... It looks amazing...

[SunnyShawFilms]

you didnt tell what engine you used

[TwistXUK]

Surely you can record their movement into an animation, and have pretty much the same effect? Or is this purely for real-time epicness? :D But indeed i do like... + the atmospheric noises are very good quality.

[Spliffer45]

make it a screensaver!!!!

[KulakxFilms]

10 years or even 5 years from now gaming is gonna be elite

[gage9600]

great work congratulation

[sSwiety]

OMG !

[theslaking2]

were can i get this

[daqde6bob]

DAMN...

[fedeita89]

I am Neptune, god of the sea.

[MrLowrider1980]

love it all the way, just found it onB00rek

[binhleau]

amaaaaazzzzzzzzz

[MisterGasMan]

And the animation is way better then Vue's

[JerryTheSquid]

Very impressive video, have you done these trees with sky sensitive leaves?

[codous]

TES V Skyrim Graphics... Hopefully

[depeche879]

amazing graphic and sound effects

[Alexandervo1]

I dont care who you are, those trees are awesome!

[FirewallAndFlush]

1:19 was easily the most realistic shot, sorry but the slow bobbing animations dont look real to me in the beginning, damn nice trees though kudos can i i buy a dozen to seed in my games please? :P

[pascottoz]

is this real life?

lol amazing graphics look like real

[Xenocide664]

some of the white flashes over the leaves in some parts is a little annoying (probably too reflective) but the lighting and of course the tree animations are sick

[student908065]

The future of gaming right here!

[vash47]

I CAMED

[LunyAlex]

Better than Crysis

/win 

[TheFretgod]

what is the practical application of real time rendering? like, what's it used for? i know video games, but please tell me that's not it. right now i'm just in the non-real time rendering. so i'm just looking at what options are available

[soupouscous]

@TheFretgod Science, education… Imagine an interactive exhibition where people could plant trees or grow leaves for example. A website could then be used to track their creations. My tree is the 1st one okay ? ;)

[FearlessLT]

Another 20 years and it will be better than Crysis.

[Fangornmmc]

can you imagine how much more life this would bring into games?

awesome!

[TheMasenko]

What was it rendered with ?

[LauxHawk]

You need some serious power to pull that one off....sheesh, what are you running?

[Slance1Himself]

Very nice!

[ANDRESSOSPINA]

NOw this is how next gen will looks like

[ProProductionsGaming]

Amazing !

[yanndick]

Amazing work !! Bravo !

[harvesthunter0707]

Wow, this is crazy...

[csisyfiu]

Amazing! :)

[hlvrn]

Can't wait to see things like this in games, that would be amazing

[noxmediasoftware]

great work!

[berkut2006]

When new games began to make trees like that, we gona enter to new Gaming Era

[Marukka]

Wow das sieht super aus, für mich speziell ab ca 1:15, wenn man das Sonnenlicht durch die Blätter sieht sowie das der Wind toll simuliert wird.

So wie sich das Blattwerk hier verhält, sollte es in aktuellen Spielen endlich sein.

Ich weiss nicht warum, aber als ich hier das Simulieren von Wind an den Bäumen gesehen habe, merkte ich wie sehr das doch in Spielen fehlt, nicht nur simples geschaukel oder gedrehe wie bei Speedtree.

[razanet16]

not realtime

[TerrorBlack]

The real-time aspect is impressive, but why do these leaf growths look unrealistic? I can't place it, but they look like plastic trees...

[Sutanreyu]

This is completely ridiculous.

[joshisushant]

if its indeed real time, its mind blowing.........

[se5d]

matrix reality is not far away :)

[josephj4050]

I think your modeling is awesome; and Ik now it must have took a good 3 to 4 hours just for rendering.

[SkateforFun133]

You must have a realy fast hardware to render this in realtime

[Playtime00]

beautifully done.

[SamrBrown25]

Very impressive tech.

[JundoYoupo]

they should use this for games~

[MrKarlalfred88]

I cant wait to play games with these trees in them! Pure awesomeness! Technology is advancing at a stunning rate. Amiga, gameboy, settlers and now this!? This is sick! ;D Wonderful!!! Love it!

[llRoBoBinHoll]

Created with...??

[HirniNG]

You can find all the detailed information on how this was created in the publications given at the end of the description for the video.

Cheers!

[XBOXNationTVHD]

@HirniNG is this a program?

[dfpcmaia]

wow, you guys nailed the trees. wow.

[leezhieng]

the movements of the leaves are close to realistic. good job

[str1kerfswc]

All well and good, but let's face it, if you tried doing a whole jungle using the same technique, I highly doubt it'll hit 60 frames.

Still looks sexeh.

[KarenRei]

@str1kerfswc

That's what geometry paging is for. Sure, you'll still lose performance, but not linearly so. Basically, the further down the frustrum you go, the more you simplify the tree model -- first combining the leaves with their branches, then smaller branches with larger, and so forth. Further still you stripe multiple trees onto vertical quads and waver that a little bit (ala grass), and further still, you use a static horizontal texture on your terrain.

[str1kerfswc]

@KarenRei That's still not going to do much.

It's basically applying the standard LOD techniques that we all would, but it still isn't gonna' pull 60 frames, and certainly not in a proper game or simulation.

And if we used proper LOD, you'd need to work on a child/parent tessellation system to make LOD transitions smooth with the tree geometry, and that doesn't include any method you'd use for the leaves.

[KarenRei]

@str1kerfswc

I did note "Sure, you'll lose performance". But that's not a critical issue. The average game based on a new game engine takes years to complete. So by then, the video card used to render this will be well out of date.

Procedural trees are already created via child/parent tessellation, so that's not an issue. The leaves either become static or simple texture animations, embedded in the simplified limb quad, but at a distance, that becomes unimportant.

[KarenRei]

@str1kerfswc

Also, not having seen the algorithm, I can't specifically comment, but there may well be a number of potential optimizations not yet implemented, such as proper frustrum pruning on the branch/leaf position calculations.

[HirniNG]

There is a ton of optimizations that can be done, basically the method deals only with the highest LOD. Also, the implementation is everything else but optimal because it is the original research code.

A good approach would be to use the shown approach as an additional highest LOD together with what Crytek is doing for example, this should be able to render with a framerate >30fps on a high end graphics card.

[str1kerfswc]

@KarenRei I still don't see anything like this being at all practical in real game environment.

Sure, we can always go say that implementing this in a proper engine will take years, and by then we'll have great graphics cards, but that's not relevant to my point that it just wouldn't render fast enough in a game with what we have now.

[KarenRei]

@str1kerfswc

But that's irrelevant to my point that you can't just wish this into a game as it exists now. By the time you got this into a game engine, performance would be sufficient to add in paging and still keep a good framerate.

HirniNG:

In addition to my earlier comment (about incorporating this into a rendering engine, or whether the code is available), have you considered using a lower LOD on the shadow pass than on the rendering pass? I'm not so sure it'd be that noticeable.

[str1kerfswc]

@KarenRei Meh, fair enough.

Guess we'll all be waiting for a while.

[Kustl]

Hi,

I am one of the authors of this video.

The leaf rendering shader was developed in 2007, and it ran at 60 FPS back then at a resolution of 1280x720. So I guess modern graphics cards should have no problem with that.

The most expensive part of our rendering pipeline right now is the grass, which is just a huge number of billboards.

Of course, you always need good LOD techniques to simplify geometry and shaders in order to render a large number of trees at once.

[popsuplol]

omgomg

[popsuplol]

omgomg

[Dominus357]

Life is beautiful =D

[KarenRei]

Astounding work, HirniNG. Truly incredible. Have you considered incorporating this into a rendering engine like Ogre so that it's more widely available for people to use? Or is the code available for others to incorporate?

[ChainedImmortality]

THIS IS REAL LIFEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

[coolie405]

this is unbeleiveable. I can't imagine all the work that must have gone into creating even this simple scene.

[thomasdeliot95]

Yeah, Elder Scrolls V, it would be amazing with such graphics ^^

[clojap]

How long before we can see a game like oblivion with this kind of quality do you guys think?

[Pyritie]

oh my god this is amazing.

[lodmanizded4eva]

i would seriously sit and watch that for hours, it looks perfect just like real life

[lecochonbleu]

Great potential for screens in nice bars and hotel lobbies - very relaxing.

[qwercz1]

Totally awesome, incredibly lovely!

How much would framerate drop after adding 2 or 3 more trees? :-)

[HirniNG]

@qwercz1

Depends on the hardware availible, the animation would not suffer much with 2-3 more trees, but one also needs to calculate shadow maps and all the shading for additional trees wich would have quite some impact on the framerate. A good LOD system should be combined with the high resolution models to render an arbitrary amount of trees(mayb I will do this this year).

[K20009]

habs in der presse gelesen und sofort auf youtube das video angesehen! nicht schlecht, gratuliere :)

[olivercento]

what program did you use to make this?

[HirniNG]

Everything is programmed from scratch in a DirectX 10 framework. The trees were generated using xfrog. But it is possible to integrate it into game engines as long as shader 3.0 is supported.

[naborghsoj08]

@HirniNG how? and how long to make it?

[luisfable]

mmm is veri acurate :D

i love it :)

[mat967]

just a quick question:

do your technique support colision with player and object? or its just wind?

if no, can it be easy to implement (or possible)?

[HirniNG]

No, it is a stochastic/spectral methods, otherwise it would not be possible to animate 100,000 leaves plus a full branch hierarchy.

It is possible to simulate only the branches that interact with a scene object, blending between the stochastic method and a full integration of the equations of motion, but I have not tried anything in that direction.

[DeXtmL]

The animation is very soft and fluid, thumbs up!

However, i cant say the rendering is very "next-gen" considering the low fidelity video compression.

[mat967]

i dont think he was thinking about ¨next-gen¨ rendering when showing is method to render tree. :P

[HirniNG]

Try the HD button, you do not see all the high frequency structures in the low version.

[STALKERms1]

AWESOME.

what game and engine is it?

[STALKERms1]

AWESOME what game is it?

[freemanlou20]

Better than Crysis tree?

[SaberTanker22]

I Wish oblivion 2 looks like this.

[SystelCyrus]

Elder Scrolls V, bro. xD

[slayer1944]

very nice trees!

[starwarsguy9]

How could these trees be put into say, Morrowind? I'd love to start making trees like these instead of billboards.

[conradhw]

Possibly the best trees I've seen so far (better than Farcry 2 even, altho FC2 has superior grass). Very nice.

[RaptorZX3]

you can see the framerate is dropping sometimes, and it's kinda normal with such details!

[HirniNG]

What can be perceived as frame drops is because of youtube, not because the demo runs slow.

The demo runs steady at 60-80 fps@720p on a GTX 280.

[RaptorZX3]

ah yes, with a GTX 280...so this kind of rendering and details wouldn't be good for 3D games, unless it use a very optimized 3D engine like the Unreal Engine 3.0

[HirniNG]

The research is targeted for future generations of hardware. With the next generation if GPUs, it will run at 200 fps, that is when the methods are applyable. The methods can be imlemented in pretty much any game engine rather easily.

[starwarsguy9]

On a GTX 280? Isn't that like one of the best video cards you could get nowadays? How would the demo run for someone with say a 9400 GT, such as myself?

[madzane94]

crysis trees look better i thikn

[mat967]

no...

[VEGETADTX]

I refuse to believe this is realtime :S

If it is, just WOW.

[CheckeredDemon310]

WOW. Absolutely awesome.

[glacierise]

Breathtaking! Are you working on an implementation for some DCC package?

[musikdoktor]

Hey man This is awesome!!

5 stars..

There's any demo for testing? :)