Informatic interview links if you want to know what can be done these days with sm3.0:
http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/fm05/p2/
If you missed part 1, you can read it here:
http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/fm05/p1/
We will introduce a plethora of new and improved effects in the next 3DMark. HDR is maybe one of the coolest new effects that we have done. We know that there are some games out already using HDR, but we wanted our HDR to “go to eleven” (one louder). We are using a very complex and advanced post-processing effect for our HDR rendering which makes it look absolutely amazing, and it really works like a charm. You should be able to see some of it in the screen shot we have provided for this interview. Of course we also use tone mapping, which is essential in order to make HDR look correct. But we didn’t stop there. We also wanted to create some other mind-blowing effects such as subsurface scattering effect in the shaders, HDR refraction & reflection water shaders with depth fog, heterogeneous fog, realistic sky model with cloud blending, Strauss lighting model etc. A lot of new things we haven’t had in previous 3DMarks. Of course we also made a lot of work with the shadows, so we will be introducing an even better approach to dynamic soft shadows for every object on screen than we have in 3DMark05.
The current implementation in the next 3DMark is using shadow maps, but we are using a different technique than we did in 3DMark05. In 3DMark05 we used something called LiSPSM (Light Space Perspective Shadow Maps), whereas in the next 3DMark we use something called CSM (Cascaded Shadow Maps). In the next 3DMark we use 5 pieces of 2048x2048 shadow maps (in 3DMark05 we only use 2). The two approaches are great, but CSM seems to be even better and more robust than LiSPSM.
To make those shadows smooth, we use 16 samples of a randomly rotated kernel for every pixel. I am not sure if anyone has done this before in any games/apps, but it works great and you really get smooth edged shadows for every pixel. Of course we would like to use even higher numbers of samples, but when we did some research in using higher amounts, it really killed the performance. 16 seem to be the sweet spot for today’s high-end graphics card, for which the next 3DMark is targeted. This smoothing technique wasn’t possible to do in SM2.0.
There's also nice collection of screenshots from the previous (and coming) 3DMarks:
http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/fm05/p2/index.php?p=06
http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/fm05/p2/
If you missed part 1, you can read it here:
http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/fm05/p1/
We will introduce a plethora of new and improved effects in the next 3DMark. HDR is maybe one of the coolest new effects that we have done. We know that there are some games out already using HDR, but we wanted our HDR to “go to eleven” (one louder). We are using a very complex and advanced post-processing effect for our HDR rendering which makes it look absolutely amazing, and it really works like a charm. You should be able to see some of it in the screen shot we have provided for this interview. Of course we also use tone mapping, which is essential in order to make HDR look correct. But we didn’t stop there. We also wanted to create some other mind-blowing effects such as subsurface scattering effect in the shaders, HDR refraction & reflection water shaders with depth fog, heterogeneous fog, realistic sky model with cloud blending, Strauss lighting model etc. A lot of new things we haven’t had in previous 3DMarks. Of course we also made a lot of work with the shadows, so we will be introducing an even better approach to dynamic soft shadows for every object on screen than we have in 3DMark05.
The current implementation in the next 3DMark is using shadow maps, but we are using a different technique than we did in 3DMark05. In 3DMark05 we used something called LiSPSM (Light Space Perspective Shadow Maps), whereas in the next 3DMark we use something called CSM (Cascaded Shadow Maps). In the next 3DMark we use 5 pieces of 2048x2048 shadow maps (in 3DMark05 we only use 2). The two approaches are great, but CSM seems to be even better and more robust than LiSPSM.
To make those shadows smooth, we use 16 samples of a randomly rotated kernel for every pixel. I am not sure if anyone has done this before in any games/apps, but it works great and you really get smooth edged shadows for every pixel. Of course we would like to use even higher numbers of samples, but when we did some research in using higher amounts, it really killed the performance. 16 seem to be the sweet spot for today’s high-end graphics card, for which the next 3DMark is targeted. This smoothing technique wasn’t possible to do in SM2.0.
There's also nice collection of screenshots from the previous (and coming) 3DMarks:
http://www.beyond3d.com/interviews/fm05/p2/index.php?p=06