EVE Online: PhysX & DirectX 11 Tessellation Effects Demonstrated

[Stefan]

EVE Online commands a loyal following, and each year the space-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game's biggest fans assemble in Iceland to attend Fanfest, an event that culminates with a live demonstration of the innovations and additions players can look forward to.

During this year's keynote, Tony Tamasi, NVIDIA's Senior Vice President of Content & Technology, took to the stage of one of Europe's largest opera houses to reveal a special EVE Online tech demo. Developed by NVIDIA's Iain Cantlay, in partnership with EVE Online creator CCP, the demo opened with a close-up of Sansha Nation's recognizable Revenant Mothership. Following a few further shots, it was revealed that the Revenant was now tessellated, adding a significant level of extra detail and fidelity to the ship in realtime.

To demonstrate, DirectX 11 tessellation was toggled on and off in wireframe mode, revealing the massive amount of extra detail to audience members. Talking through the development process, Tony and CCP's Halldor Fannar stated that Normal Maps, introduced by the Trinity expansion, had been used to create Displacement Maps, meshes that tell the game engine where to add extra tessellated detail.

read more...

[source]