The NVIDIA Blog

Bringing GameWorks Out of the Shadows with HBAO+

Posted: 05 Mar 2015 10:00 AM PST

Photographers and moviemakers know it's critical. Game designers do, too. Shadowing is a critical component of the visual arts, including video games.
Lighting and shadows add depth to a scene, drastically raising image quality. They can be an important part of game play, like the shadows you hide in while playing in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist, or a key part of setting a mood, like in the horror game Daylight.
Shadowing helps Paris come to life in Assassin's Creed Unity. And it makes the Dark Knight more ominous in Batman: Arkham Origins.

text — It took just an hour to add NVIDIA HBAO+ to *Warmachine: Tactics*.

That's why NVIDIA HBAO+ has quickly gained traction in the development community. The most recent example of a game using HBAO+ is Son of Nor. Launched this week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, it's the first Unity Engine-based game to feature HBAO+.

What is HBAO+?

HBAO+ is an advanced form of ambient occlusion; a technique used in film production to approximate the effect of environment lighting. Unlike the dull, flat look of local lighting models, ambient occlusion can add realism to a scene by accentuating small surface details and adding soft shadows.
Screen space ambient occlusion (SSAO) is the most commonly used method for rendering of AO effects in games. It approximates ambient occlusion by using the depth buffer to approximate the geometry in the scene.

What does HBAO+ look like? In this image, each shaded pixel comes thanks to HBAO+. Without Ambient Occlusion all you would see, with the exception of the fire effect, is a white screen. — What does HBAO+ look like? In this image, each shaded pixel comes thanks to HBAO+. Without ambient occlusion all you would see, with the exception of the fire effect, is a white screen.

NVIDIA’s HBAO+ is the most advanced form of SSAO, providing significantly higher quality and less visual artifacts, for less cost in terms of performance.
Because it's middleware, HBAO+ is easy for developers to add to their games. NVIDIA has worked closely with Epic Games to make integration into games that use their popular Unreal Engine a snap through the GitHub code repository. (See NVIDIA Opens PhysX Code to UE4 Developers.)
WhiteMoon Dreams said it took about an hour to add it to their Unreal Engine 4 title Warmachine: Tactics.
HBAO+ works on GPUs from NVIDIA and its competitors and can be easily integrated into any major game engine. It has been used in games built with CryEngine, Dunia 2, IwGame Engine, Source, Unreal Engine 3, Unreal Engine 4 and many proprietary game engines. A full list of titles that use HBAO+ can be found here.

WOWHBAO — NVIDIA HBAO+ now enhances *World of Warcraft: Warlord of Draenor*.

Recently, big name titles have used HBAO+ to upgrade graphics to games that have already shipped. Just last week World of Warcraft upgraded image quality by releasing a patch that included HBAO+ support for gamers to enjoy. The patch updated the render, so HBAO+ was added to the latest expansion, World of Warcraft: Warlord of Draenor, and previous expansions such as Mists of Pandaria and Cataclysm.
So now that you know what HBAO is, look for more of it in upcoming games, as well as updates to old favorites.
More coverage of our announcements at GDC: Latest PhysX Source Code Now Available on GitHub, New NVIDIA Titan X GPU Powers Virtual Experience “Thief in the Shadows” at GDC, Why We’re Building SHIELD, the World’s First Android TV Console.

The post Bringing GameWorks Out of the Shadows with HBAO+ appeared first on The Official NVIDIA Blog.

SHIELD Tablet: The Best Keeps Getting Better

Posted: 04 Mar 2015 02:58 PM PST

Big trade shows. Big product announcements. There's a lot of news coming out of the Game Developers Conference and Mobile World Conference this week.
But the tablet that holds the graphics performance throne is proving tough to topple.
Credit the SHIELD tablet's 192-core Tegra K1 chip. And while SHIELD's spot atop the performance charts has gone unchallenged, we're not resting. SHIELD was among the first non-Nexus devices to update to Android 5.0 Lollipop. And we continue to support SHIELD tablet with new features and improvements via monthly over-the-air updates.
But there's more to it than just the speeds and feeds.

GRID

The GRID game-streaming service SHIELD fans have enjoyed for over a year on both tablet and portable is receiving a major upgrade. As announced by our CEO Jen-Hsun Huang on Tuesday night, GRID ushers in the future of gaming. And you can enjoy it now on your SHIELD tablet.
With GRID, you can experience the awesome performance of a high-end GeForce GTX GPU-powered PC in your hands. You can enjoy our entire library of GRID games on our SHIELD tablet and portable. Coming soon: brand new AAA titles such as Dying Light and Metal Gear Solid V. An update to SHIELD hub (now available) enables the cool new content and features on SHIELD tablet.
The service will continue to be free to anybody who owns a SHIELD device until June 30, 2015.

Dabbler

We'll now be able to deliver updates to our ultra-realistic painting application, Dabbler, directly through the Google Play store. So you'll receive the latest features in Dabbler that much faster.
The first update to Dabbler, for anybody who owns a SHIELD tablet, will be coming in just a few weeks.
The new Dabbler will have even better oil and watercolor painting effects. That's made possible by an all-new GPU-accelerated simulation engine. We've also enhanced the user interface to improve the workflow for artists.
You'll be able to customize the position of various UI elements, easily access different tools and also scale individual layers of your artwork. Finally, based on community feedback, we now let you watercolor and oil paint on the same canvas.
Our users have been creating masterpieces on their SHIELD tablets. And we've been showcasing them on our deviantART gallery. Join the gallery and see what others are creating. Or show off what you've been doing with SHIELD tablet and Dabbler.
With SHIELD tablet, the best just keeps getting better.
To learn more and buy, visit shield.nvidia.com/gaming-tablet/.
The post SHIELD Tablet: The Best Keeps Getting Better appeared first on The Official NVIDIA Blog.