Next Gen Character Rendering

Next-Generation
Character Rendering
Jorge Jimenez Javier von der Pahlen
Technical Director Director of R&D
Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard
© Activision Blizzard
Disclaimer
• Projectors don’t do justice to the details of our
renderings
• Similarly, slides are best viewed fullscreen, in order to
appreciate all the details and subtleties
• This presentation reflects R&D that ATVI is exploring
• This content is for presentation purposes only and
does not reflect actual design examples nor actual
game assets
• Full presentation with more details here:

– http://www.iryoku.com/stare-into-the-future
Jorge Javier von Etienne Bernardo Zbyněk Mike
Jimenez der Pahlen Danvoye Antoniazzi Kysela Eheler
Graphics R&D Director of R&D Technical Technical Art Modeler and Programming &
Director Director Texture Artist Support
Render
Our Previous Work
• [Jimenez2009] Screen-Space Perceptual Rendering of
Human Skin
– http://www.iryoku.com/sssss/
• [Jimenez2010] Real-Time Realistic Skin Translucency
– http://www.iryoku.com/translucency/
• [Jimenez2011] Enhanced Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing
– http://www.iryoku.com/smaa/
• [Jimenez2012] Separable Subsurface Scattering and
Photorealistic Eyes Rendering:
– http://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2012/index.html
On © Activision Blizzard
Off © Activision Blizzard
What’s going on?
• In the real world, nothing is perfect
• Too perfect renderings look unrealistic
• Fastest route to the uncanny valley
Art Surpassing Tech
• Ultra Detailed Meshes +
• Naive Technology =
• Uncanny Valley
Uncanny
High level features of the
renderer
• Linear lighting workflow
• Physically based lighting
• Heavy post-processing
• 1-5 procedural lights and 1 pre-filtered

probe light (256x256)
Skin Rendering
1. Skin Rendering
1. Skin Reflections
2. Human Pores
3. Global Illumination
4. Subsurface Scattering
2. Eyes Rendering
3. Post FX
The Skin
2. Specular Reflections
3. Subsurface
Scattering (SSS)
Specular Reflections
1. Skin Rendering
1. Skin Reflections
2. Human Pores
2. Eyes Rendering
3. Post FX
Regular shading © Activision Blizzard
Our Specular © Activision Blizzard
Physically based Specular
• Black Ops 2 physically based specular BRDF for direct lighting
– Improved version of Black Ops specular model, see [Lazarov2011] - Physically-based
lighting in Call of Duty: Black Ops
• Indirect specular using a pre-filtered cube map

– http://seblagarde.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/hello-world/
Thanks to Dimitar Lazarov and Sébastien Lagarde for sharing the code
Institute of Creative Technology Capture
Two Lobes Rendering (ICT
Reference)
Lobe 2
Lobe 1
Regular Microstructure BRDF Fit

From [Graham2013] Measurement-Based Synthesis of Facial Microgeometry
Two Lobes Rendering (Our
Render)
One Lobe Two Lobes

Two Lobes Rendering (Our
Render)
Lobe 2
Lobe 1
One Lobe Two Lobes

One Lobe © Activision Blizzard
Two Lobes © Activision Blizzard
Implementation Details
• Linear blend between two specular lobes:
– 85% for lobe 1
– 15% for lobe 2
• Specular power for lobe 2 derived from
first one (avoids using two gloss maps)
Performance
• Only two extra instructions per light for
vector-based architectures
Microgeometry Render
(ICT Reference)
Microstructure BRDF Fit

Microgeometry Render
(ICT Reference)
Microstructure BRDF Fit Microstructure Render

Sine-Based Tiled Procedural
Bump
Base Map Micro-Detail Map

Scale is exaggerated for illustration purposes
Microgeometry (Us)
Microgeometry (ICT Reference)

Two Lobes © Activision Blizzard
Two Lobes + © Activision Blizzard
Sine-Based Tiled Procedural
Bump
Height Map Normal Map

How to Blend Them
• Ideally the detail normal should perturb the
base normal (not just blend)
• Reoriented Normal Mapping (RNM) is
perfect for that!
– http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/blendi
ng-in-detail/
Thanks to Stephen Hill and Colin Barré-Brisebois for sharing the code/technique
Skin Gloss Map
• What is roughness?
Reflected light Incoming Light
Microfacets
From [Hoffman2013] Background: Physics and Math of Shading

Microfacets

Microfacets

Microgeometry are Microfacets
Skin Gloss Map
• Microstructure tiled
bumps convert to
roughness when
observed from far away
Micro-Detail Map
Tiled Bumps
Flat
Variance to Gloss
• Estimate normal variance, and use it as
glossiness
• More details on the reference below
From [Hill2012] Rock-Solid Shading: Image Stability Without Sacrificing Detail

Tiled Gloss
Noisy
Thanks to Stephen Hill for this map example

Dealing with Detail Maps
• Combine base glossiness with detail
variance:
• Base glossiness assumed to contain base normal

map variance
– You will get sweaty heads when you are far away
otherwise!
• More details in [Hill2012] Rock-Solid Shading:
With Normal Map Variance to Gloss © Activision Blizzard
Without Normal Map Variance to © Activision Blizzard
With Geometry Variance to Gloss © Activision Blizzard
Without Geometry Variance to Gloss © Activision Blizzard
Gloss Map Authoring
• Normals:
– Normal map contain meso details (medium
frequency)
– Detail tiled noise normal map for micro details (high
frequency)
• Gloss:
– Only low frequency details
– High frequency details come from variance to
gloss (both from normal and detail normal maps)
• Improves the workflow

(First Lobe) Gloss Map
Spec. Power S Gloss G
(Scale=14)
Main 26.5 86
Lips 111.43 124
Upper Lip 18.37 76
Nose 38.49 96
Ear (Main) 10.07 61
Ear (Near the hole, wax) 61.1 108
Eye (Top) 44.22 100
Eye (Bottom) 80.63 115
Caruncle 31288 255
Eyelid (Top) 73.51 113
Eyelid (Bottom) 512 164
Small Area © Activision Blizzard
Big Area © Activision Blizzard
Harsh Probe Light © Activision Blizzard
Soft Probe Light © Activision Blizzard
Combinatory Parameter
Explosion
• Diffuse Albedo
• Specular Gloss (with visual changes depending on
light size, making it even harder to author)
• Specular Albedo
• Ambient/Specular Occlusion
• Easy to find a solution for a single lighting

configuration
• Extremely hard to find a solution that works all
time
Human Pores
1. Skin Rendering
1. Skin Reflections
2. Human Pores
2. Eyes Rendering
3. Post FX
www.theworldcloseup.com Photography: Steve Gschmeissn
Comparing with Reality
Render Photograph
Comparing with Reality
Render Photograph
Cavity Occlusion
What’s Going On?
• You cannot see the pore’s holes from
the side!
• Remove the cavity occlusion in that
case
• Theoretically, cavity is an occlusion
value:
– cavity * Specular(gloss) *
Fresnel(reflectance)
• However it can be cheaply removed at
grazing angles if used like this:
– Specular(gloss) * Fresnel(cavity *
reflectance)
• In practical terms, place cavity on the
reflectance slot
cavity * Specular(gloss, reflectance) © Activision Blizzard
Specular(gloss, cavity * reflectance) © Activision Blizzard
(Faking) Global Illumination
1. Skin Rendering
1. Skin Reflections
2. Human Pores
2. Eyes Rendering
3. Post FX
(Faking) Global Illumination
• Occlusion is crucial if (physically based)
HDR light probes are used for lighting
• Both for the eyes and the skin
Full © Activision Blizzard
No Occlusion © Activision Blizzard
+HBAO © Activision Blizzard
+Baked © Activision Blizzard
+Power Specular © Activision Blizzard
Thanks to Angelo Pesce for the ideas and support!
+Bent Normals © Activision Blizzard

Regular Color-
Bleed
+Color-Bleed AO
Combining SSAO with Baked
• We use the minimum of both:
AO
– finalAO = min(BakedAO, SSAO)
• Baked AO for long range, low frequency occlusion

• SSAO for mobile parts (which, coincidentally, are short-range for
faces)
• For animation, baked AO should contain the minimum occlusion

during the animation
– SSAO can then kick-in when mobile parts get more occlusion (like
mouth/teeth)
Power Specular AO
• Can be empirically derived from ambient
occlusion
– [Gotanda2011] Real-time Physically Based
Rendering - Implementation
• We opted for a more visually guided
approximation that worked well for our
assets
AO as Specular © Activision Blizzard
AO^8 as Specular © Activision Blizzard
AO as Specular Occlusion © Activision Blizzard
Specular Occlusion
Rationale Shader
• In many cases, it should only const float SpecularPow = 8.0;
float NdotV = dot(normal, view);
occlude at grazing angles, not float s = saturate(-0.3 + NdotV * NdotV);
return lerp(pow(ambientOcclusion, SpecularPow),
when viewed from the front 1.0, s);
• Assumes isotropic occlusion

AO^5
Power Specular Occlusion © Activision Blizzard
Bent Normals
• But unfortunately this is not enough for all
of the lighting configurations
• To further improve specular occlusion, we
baked bent normals per vertex
Thanks to Angelo Pesce for the ideas and support

Saturated AO
• Saturated AO [Driancourt2012] :
ao * pow(color, (1.0 + saturation) - saturation * ao)
• Regular AO:
ao * color
Color-Bleed AO
• We developed a multi-pass ambient occlusion
renderer that takes the color of blockers into account
• Rays are weighted:
– When a ray hits the sky:
• On all passes: float3(1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
– When a ray hits the geometry:
• On first pass: float3(0.0, 0.0, 0.0)
• On following passes: diffuse * previousAO
• Calculations and maps in linear space
– Critical for AO
Regular AO Color-Bleed AO
Color-Bleed AO
• For character heads, the difference is subtle enough to
be expressed with a gamma correction:
colorBleedAO = pow(regularAO,1.0 - strength)
• For Lauren:
strength = float3(0.4,0.15,0.13)
• Important for getting colored AO in the eyes

Regular AO © Activision Blizzard
Color-Bleed AO © Activision Blizzard
Variable-Penumbra Shadow
Maps
• High quality shadows are highly relevant
for character rendering
Hardware Shadows © Activision Blizzard
PCF Shadows © Activision Blizzard
PCSS Shadows © Activision Blizzard
Subsurface Scattering
Reflectance Part
1. Skin Rendering
1. Skin Reflections
2. Human Pores
2. Eyes Rendering
3. Post FX
BRDF © Activision Blizzard
BSSD © Activision Blizzard
BRDF vs. BSSRDF
4D 8D
BRDF BSSRDF
From [Eon2007] Advanced Techniques for Realistic Real-Time Skin Rendering

Diffusion profiles
4D 8D 1D [Henrik2001]
BRDF BSSRDF

Irradiance Map

Approximating profiles with
Gaussians

Problems
• Still not practical for games:
– Blurring in texture space is costly
– Six Gaussians are still expensive
Blurring in Screen Space
Gaussian 0 Gaussian 3 Gaussian 5
Texture Space
Screen Space
Problems
• Still not practical for games:
– Blurring in texture space is costly
– Six Gaussians are still expensive
Separable Approximation
Non-Separable Convolution 5 Gaussians = 10

Passes
Separable Convolution 1 Convolution = 2 Passes

More Details
• Original NVIDIA SSS technique worked in texture space, with
10 passes (5 Gaussians):
– [Eon2007] Advanced Techniques for Realistic Real-Time Skin
Rendering
• We shifted it to screen-space:
– [Jimenez2009] Screen-Space Perceptual Rendering of Human
Skin
• Then, we reduced it to 2 passes, in our separable SSS

technique:
– [Jimenez2012] Separable Subsurface Scattering and
Photorealistic Eyes Rendering
Improving the Performance
float4 colorM = colorTex.Sample(PointSampler, texcoord);
if (initStencil)
if (colorM.a == 0.0) discard;
float depthM = depthTex.Sample(PointSampler, texcoord);

float2 finalStep = colorM.a * step / depthM;
float4 colorBlurred = colorM;

colorBlurred.rgb *= kernel[0].rgb;
[unroll]
for (int i = 1; i < N_SAMPLES; i++) {
float2 offset = texcoord + kernel[i].a * finalStep;
float4 color = colorTex.Sample(LinearSampler, offset);
#if FOLLOW_SURFACE == 1
float depth = depthTex.Sample(LinearSampler, offset);
float s = saturate(0.5 * width * abs(depthM - depth));
color.rgb = lerp(color.rgb, colorM.rgb, s);
#endif
colorBlurred.rgb += kernel[i].rgb * color.rgb;

}
return colorBlurred;
From [Jimenez2012] Separable Subsurface Scattering and Photorealistic Eyes Rendering

Improving the Quality
• In the separable SSS
technique, we’re using
a non-symmetrical
separable kernel to
approximate a radially
symmetric non-
separable kernel
– In tight close ups, this
can lead to cross-like
patterns
– Accentuates banding
Per Pixel Random Filter Axis
• In [Huang2011]
Separable
Approximation of
Ambient Occlusion, a
per-pixel jitter is
applied to rotate the
axis for SSAO
searches
Randomization
Good for high frequency details (bumps) Bad for low frequency ones (shadows)
Hybrid Jittered-Separable
Approach
Without Random Filter © Activision Blizzard
With Random Filter © Activision Blizzard
Applying the randomized
rotation
...
float2 jitter = samplingNoiseTex.Sample(WrapSampler, svPosition * (1.0 / 64.0));

float2x2 rotationMatrix = float2x2(jitter.x, jitter.y, -jitter.y, jitter.x);
float2x2 identityMatrix = float2x2(1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);
for (int i = 1; i < SSSS_BLUR_SAMPLE_COUNT; i++) {

float2 offset = kernel[i].a * finalStep;
float2x2 tapMatrix = identityMatrix;

[flatten]
if(abs(kernel[i].a) < jitterRadius)
tapMatrix = rotationMatrix;
offset = mul(offset, tapMatrix);
float4 color = colorTex.Sample(LinearSampler, texcoord +

float2(aspectRatio, 1.0) * offset);
...
colorBlurred.rgb += kernel[i].rgb * color.rgb;

}
Performance
• Depends on screen-space coverage of skin pixels
• Very fast if far way, slower in tight macro shots

– Due to poorer texture cache utilization, caused by the
per-pixel jittering and the bigger filter size on the tight
macro shot cases
– Given that we only jitter the inner part of the kernel
the performance drop is still minimal in the general
case
Performance
• Compared with the original SSS technique, for a
portrait shot at 1080p:
– Up to 13% slower for closer setups
– For far away setups, the jitter has negligible
performance impact
• But note that because the kernel is jittered, we can
also lower the sample count more aggressively
and still get visually appealing results.
User Interface
• Customizable SSS filter
is a desirable feature
• We tried to break the
original kernel into
pieces:
– A narrow Gaussian
– A wide Gaussian
– A blend weight between
them
User Interface
• Three parameters:
– Wide Gaussian RGB radius in world space
– Narrow Gaussian radius in world space
– RGB blend weight between the two Gaussians
• Visually tweaking these parameters, we were able to match the three-layer multipole SSS
profile ([Eon2007] Advanced Techniques for Realistic Real-Time Skin Rendering)
• Calculating the convolution weights is simple:

D3DXVECTOR3 SeparableSSS::profile(const D3DXVECTOR3 &radiusRGB,
float narrowRadius,
const D3DXVECTOR3 &narrowStrength,
float r) {
D3DXVECTOR3 wideVariance = radiusRGB * radiusRGB;
D3DXVECTOR3 narrowVariance = (narrowRadius * radiusRGB) * (narrowRadius * radiusRGB);
return gaussian(wideVariance, r) * (D3DXVECTOR3(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f) - narrowStrength) +
gaussian(narrowVariance, r) * narrowStrength;
}
Texture Size
• The question always asked
• Scary: we’re using 2k x 4K

textures
• But Bernardo Antoniazzi

developed an optimized UV layout
that manages to keep most of the
detail in 1K x 2K
2Kx4K © Activision Blizzard
1Kx2K © Activision Blizzard
Normal: 1Kx2K Diffuse: © Activision Blizzard
Where SSS Matters
• Not essential: • Crucial for:
– Low resolutions – High resolutions
– Far camera setups – Cinematic shots
– Ambient-like lighting – High-contrast lighting
– Smooth skin – Wrinkled/Bumpy
characters
– Softening material
boundaries (eyes and
skin)
Integration Issues
• For best results you need to MRT skin
objects:
– Diffuse lighting
– Specular lighting
– Albedo
• SSS should be applied only to the diffuse
lighting (recall: specular doesn’t enter the
skin)
• Also, applying it before texturing helps to
preserve texture details
Subsurface Scattering
Transmittance Part
1. Skin Rendering
1. Skin Reflections
2. Human Pores
2. Eyes Rendering
3. Post FX
Introduction
• Approaches discussed:
– Single-Sample Transmittance:
[Jimenez2010] Real-Time Realistic Skin
Translucency
– Multi-Sample Transmittance: natural
evolution of [Jimenez2010].
– Spherical Harmonics Transmittance:
transmittance encoded using SH4.
Previous Work
Single-Sample © Activision Blizzard
Single-Sample Transmittance
Problems
Z XY

Multi-Sampled Transmittance
• Skin is not glass: transmitted light cannot be,
in general, accurately represented by a single
sample
• In certain configurations, this results in
artifacts
• Solution: numerically integrate the

transmittance on the fly
• Problem: taking multiple samples is
expensive
• Solution: jitter them spatially, like soft
shadow techniques
– Globally, using uniform registers with Poisson
disk samples
– Per-pixel, by rotating randomly via a jitter
texture
// Calculate position in light coordinates:
float4 shadowPosition = mul(float4(positionW, 1.0), lightViewProjection);
shadowPosition.xy /= shadowPosition.ww;
float shadowDepthNormalized = shadowPosition.z / lightFarPlane;
Uniform Values Jitter Texture // Fetch per-pixel jitter:

float2 jitter = SSSSSampleWrapL0(samplingNoiseTex, svPosition * (1.0 / 64.0));
float2x2 rotationMatrix = { jitter.x, jitter.y,
// Poisson disk random samples: -jitter.y, jitter.x };
static const float2
SSSSPoissonOffset[] = { // Do shadows...
// 1
float2( 0.402211, 0.126575), // Calculate transmittance:
// 2 float2x2 transmittanceRotationMatrix = transmittanceBlurScale * rotationMatrix;
float2( 0.297056, 0.616830), [unroll]
float2( 0.298156, -0.001704), for (int j = TransmittanceStart; j < TransmittanceStart + transmittanceSampleCount; j++) {
// 4 float2 pos = shadowPosition.xy + mul(SSSSPoissonOffset[j], transmittanceRotationMatrix);
float2( 0.019369, 0.395482),
float2(-0.066918, -0.367739), float blocker = SSSSSamplePointL0(shadowTex, pos);
float2(-0.955010, 0.372377), float thickness = transmittanceScale * max(lightFarPlane *
float2( 0.800057, 0.120602), abs(shadowDepthNormalized - blocker),
... minTransmittance); // To avoid artifacts
} float light = exp(-thickness * thickness);
shadow.rgb += transmittanceColor * light;

}
shadow.rgb *= 1.0 / transmittanceSampleCount;
// At grazing angles there should not be any transmittance contribution:

shadow.rgb *= saturate(0.3 + cosineAngle); // dot(light, -normal)
• 16 samples per pixel still too expensive
• 2 samples leads to noisy results
• But the SSS reflectance blur will take care
of the noise!
Multi-Sample Transmittance without SSS Blur
Multi-Sample Transmittance with SSS Blur © Activision Blizzard
Single-Sample © Activision Blizzard
Multi-Sample © Activision Blizzard
User Interface
• Using the multipole diffusion profile
[Eon2007] :
– Is expensive
– Lacks customization possibilities
float thickness_2 = -thickness * thickness;
float3 transmittance = float3(0.233, 0.455, 0.649) * exp(thickness_2 / 0.0064) +
float3(0.1, 0.336, 0.344) * exp(thickness_2 / 0.0484) +
Fromfloat3(0.078, 0.0,
[Jimenez2010] 0.0) Realistic
Real-Time * exp(thickness_2 / 7.41);
Skin Translucency
Improving the Interface
• Too many Gaussians to control
(interface problem)
• Too many Gaussians to calculate
(performance problem)
• Both problems have the same solution:
Use one!
Six Gaussians © Activision Blizzard
One Gaussian © Activision Blizzard
Improving the Interface
• The interface is simple:
– Transmittance scale
– Transmittance color
• And the code as well:
thickness *= transmittanceScale;
float3 transmittance = transmittanceColor * exp(-thickness * thickness);
Spherical Harmonics (SH4)
Transmittance
• Excellent visual quality in some cases
• On others, light leaks because of
transmittance lighting lagging behind the light
direction when using 2 bands (SH4), or even
3 (SH9)
– Light may be on the back of the head, but the
transmittance in the nostril may still be in effect
• Stored in a uncompressed 8-bit RGBA
texture
SH4 Transmittance © Activision Blizzard
Multi-Sampled © Activision Blizzard
Single-Sample Multi-Sample SH4
Pros Pros Pros
• Simple • Robust • Simple
• Scalable1
Cons Cons Cons

• Artifacts • Noise • Needs baking
• Hard shapes • Depends on • Light leaks
shadow map • Extra textures
resolution • No shadow occ.
Ambient Subsurface Scattering
• We can use SH4
• If the lighting is not very directional, SH1 is
more than enough
– Ambient term of spherical harmonics
Eye Rendering
1. Skin Rendering
1. Skin Reflections
2. Human Pores
2. Eyes Rendering
3. Post FX
Eye Render
Anatomy Features
• Reflections
• Wetness
• Reflection Occlusion
• Screen-Space
Reflections
• View Refraction
• Light Refraction
• Two-Layer Eye Shading
• Eye Redness Shading
• Ambient Occlusion
Reflections (Motivation)
No © Activision Blizzard
Mirror reflections © Activision Blizzard
Our Reflections © Activision Blizzard
Reflections (Motivation)
Reflections Sharp Reflections
on the cornea
Height Map Normal Map

Our Reflections © Activision Blizzard
Mirror reflections © Activision Blizzard
Wetness
• How wetness reflects on the eye
appearance?
• To discover that, we captured the eye:

– Normal condition
– Dry: eye after blowing air onto it for a minute
– Wet: eye after we stop blowing air
Thanks to Chris Ellis and David Bullat for the photography session
Low Wetness Mid Wetness High Wetness
Low Wetness Mid Wetness High Wetness
Low Wetness High Wetness
Wetness Geometry Blendshape
• We created three different geometries for
wetness
• We “blend shape” and render them using soft
particles
Low Mid Hi
No Wetness Geometry © Activision Blizzard
Wetness Geometry © Activision Blizzard
No Wetness Geometry Wetness Geometry
No Blur © Activision Blizzard
Blur © Activision Blizzard
The Sparkle of the Eye
• We have covered just two aspects that give clues about eye
wetness:
– Tear fluid distortions
– Tear fluid accumulation on eyelids
• But there’s more to it:
– There is evidence that reflection intensity changes depending on
wetness:
• [Goto2011] The Sparkle of the Eye: The Impact of Ocular Surface Wetness on Corneal
Light Reflection
– However the reason is not yet known
• Gloss change due to different tear composition?
• Reflectance change due to a multilayer thin film?
• Thintofilm
Thanks interference?
Sébastien Lagarde for the countless conversations about the topic
Reflections Occlusion (Motivation)
Baked Reflection Occlusion
Reflection Occlusion Map Shader
#if EYE_REFLECTION_OCCLUSION_PARALLAX == 1
viewW.y = -viewW.y;
texcoord -= 0.14 * viewW.xy;
texcoord -= 0.01 * normalT;
#endif
return aoTex.Sample(AnisotropicSampler, coord).g;
On
Screen-Space Reflections (Motivation)
Screen-Space Reflections (Motivation)
Screen-Space Reflections
• In harsh lighting configurations, local
reflections are important
• We explored the possibility of using
screen-space reflections for the eyes (see
[Kasyan2011] Secrets of CryENGINE 3
Graphics Technology)
Thanks to Xian-Chun Wu for implementing this

View Refraction (Motivation)
View Refraction
• Parallax mapping
• Physically based refraction
Mesh UV Layout
View Refraction
Left Front
Parallax Refraction
Physically based
Parallax Refraction Refraction
float2 viewL = mul(viewW, (float3x2) worldInverse); float cosAlpha = dot(frontNormalW, -refractedW);
float2 offset = height * viewL; float dist = height / cosAlpha;
offset.y = -offset.y; float3 offsetW = dist * refractedW;
texcoord -= parallaxScale * offset; float2 offsetL = mul(offsetW, (float3x2)
worldInverse);
texcoord += float2(mask, -mask) * offsetL;
Parallax Refraction © Activision Blizzard
Physically based © Activision Blizzard
Parallax Refraction © Activision Blizzard
Physically based © Activision Blizzard
Limbus Rendering
• References point to sigmoid
functions
• [Iskander2006] A Parametric
Approach to Measuring
Limbus Corneae From Digital
Images
Light Refraction (Motivation)
Precomputed Light Refraction
• [Francois09] Image
Based Modeling and
Rendering of the Human
Eye
• Analytical eye model
• Baked using photon
mapping
• The key difference with
previous work is in using
a non-flat iris
Precomputed Light Refraction
• Precompute using • Integrate all directions
photon mapping into for probe lighting
a 3D texture
(128 slices of 256x256)
←Inclination angle→
Schematic View
Shadow Mapping Tips
• Light refraction generates lit surfaces at
angles where shadow mapping is completely
blocking light
• No trivial way to refract shadow rays using
shadow mapping
• Solution: don’t render eyeballs into the

shadow maps, so that they don’t block the
caustics
Sclera Wrap
• Linear lighting produces very hard transitions in spherical objects
• This accentuates the fact that we’re not taking sclera SSS
transmittance into account
• Using energy-conserving wrapped lighting helps
– http://blog.stevemcauley.com/2011/12/03/energy-conserving-wrapped-
diffuse/
• Adding a longer tail with a pow makes the transition closer to a SSS
profile
– http://blog.stevemcauley.com/2013/01/30/extension-to-energy-
conserving-wrapped-diffuse/
– float3 wrappedDiffuse = LightColour * pow(saturate((dot(N, L) + w) /
(1.0f + w)), n) * (n + 1) / (2 * (1 + w));
Thanks to Steve McAuley for extending the wrapped diffuse normalization to the power case
Redness Shading (Motivation)
Redness Shading
• Independent control
for veins and sclera is
desirable
• Coincidentally, the
blue channel of the
sclera looks like a
veins mask
Post FX
1. Skin Rendering
1. Skin Reflections
2. Human Pores
2. Eyes Rendering
3. Post FX
Full HD
• The higher the resolution

• The harder the challenge
• At 720p/1080p renders quickly become synthetic
Post FX
– Post effects are a useful tool to combat this
perfection
– Probably the most important purpose of post
effects is making the image less predictable
• It’s challenging to reverse-engineer a photograph
• In general, easy to reverse-engineer CG images
Imperfections for Perfect Photorealism
• Blurring • Noise
– Scattering – Film grain
– Depth of Field – Digital noise
– Motion Blur
– Bloom
Antialiasing
• SMAA T2x (Subpixel Morphological
Antialiasing):
– Morphological AA for the jaggies
– Temporal AA for supersampling and image
stability
• More details in [Jimenez2011] Enhanced
Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing:
– http://www.iryoku.com/smaa
Temporal Antialiasing
• A quick explanation for
two samples:
– Jitter the scene at subpixel
level over alternate frames
– Blend current image with
previous one
– Avoid ghosting by using
reprojection/velocity
weighting
Supersampling Jittered Techniques
• Probably the biggest advantage is that it enables
supersampling jittered techniques:
– Separable Subsurface Scattering
– Subsurface Scattering Transmittance
– Shadow Mapping
– Ambient Occlusion
– Screen-Space Reflections
• For SMAA T2x, this effectively
doubles the sample count for free!
1x © Activision Blizzard
SMAA T2x © Activision Blizzard
Final Comments
• Our technology runs at 180 FPS on a
GeForce GTX 680 (@720p)
• When a face is covering most of the screen,
focus the GPU resources to it, as we are very
sensible to human faces
• Prerecording the cinematics at 1080p when
possible can be a big difference for faces
Takeaways
• The key for character rendering is on the
details
• Perfection is the enemy of photorealism
• Overcoming the uncanny valley can

increase empathy
Animation
Animation
1. Data Capture and Tracking: Institute of Creative Technologies of
USC
• 30 High Resolution Scans ~ 4M pts.
• Mid Resolution Tracking ~ 30K pts.
2. Fitting Deformation and Animation to Game Rig

• Fitting Deformation to Bone Animation and Bone weights.
• Normals, Displacement and Diffuse Maps
3. Game Data Driving

• Standard Bone driven animation
• Stress blended Normal, Displacement and Albedo.
Source Data Capture
Data was scanned and tracked by Graphics Lab of the
Institute of Creative Technologies of USC using
Lightstage X
• 30 high resolution expressions scans @~ 4M pts +

textures
• Mid resolution performance tracking @ ~ 20K pts
Oleg Alexander, Graham Fyffe, Jay Busch, Ryosuke Ichikari, Abhijeet Ghosh, Andrew
Jones, Paul Graham, Svetlana Akim, Xueming Yu, Koki Nagano, Borom
Tunwattanapong, Valerie Dauphin, Ari Shapiro, Kathleen Haase, Paul Debevec
Specular Albedo
Diffuse albedo Specular

Normals
(30) 4M point stretch

mesh scans Red Normals Green Blue Normals
Specular Albedo
Diffuse albedo
(30) 4M point stretch

mesh scans
Driving High-Resolution Facial Blendshapes
with Video Performance Capture, Siggraph
2013 Talk
Graham Fyffe, Andrew Jones, Oleg Alexander,

Driving High-Resolution Facial Blendshapes
with Video Performance Capture, Graham Fyffe
Fitting Deformation and Animation
to Game Rig
1. Low Frequency Deformation:
Fitting Deformation to Bone Animation and Bone
weights
2. High Frequency Deformation:

Extraction of Normals, Displacement and Diffuse
Maps
30K point tracked 1K point game mesh
mesh
Animation Compression
1. Fitting Deformation to Bones
Given a reference deformation or vertex array
stream, we want to represent it with standard
skinning deformer at a lower resolution mesh.
a. Transfer animation to a game resolution
mesh
b. Optimize Skinning Weights
c. Optimize Bone Animation
Iterate( b, c )
Weight Optimization
• Given
– an initial bone animation which tracks the closest point on the high-
resolution mesh and
– initial weights simply computed by distance from a larger set of bones
(8)
• For each vertex, we want to find the 4 bone weights to minimize the error.
• We use NNLS (Non-negative Least Squares) to solve:

2
2 𝑓𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑠 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠
min ෍ ෍ ෍ ෍ 𝜔𝑖,𝑏 ∗ 𝐵𝑏,𝑓 ∗ 𝐿𝑖,𝑏 𝑐 − 𝐴𝑖,𝑓 𝑐

𝜔
𝑐=0 𝑓 𝑖 𝑏
𝑐 =[𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧]
Weight Optimization
Related work
• Softimage Face Robot 1.5 Game Export, 2006.
• Poisson-based Weight Reduction of Animated Meshes,

Landreneau & Schaefer 2009.
• Fast and Efficient Skinning of Animated Meshes, Kavan et al.

2010
Bone Animation Optimization
For each frame, for all bones, we want to
find the best transform such that the set of
points weighed to the bone have the
minimum mean squared distance to the
reference animation.
For each bone, we compute the weighted

3D point registration, and we iterate a few
times through all bones.
Reference: Dual quaternion method, based

on "Estimating 3-D location Parameters
Using Dual Number Quaternions", Walker
et al 1991
High Frequency Deformation
Normal, Displacement & Diffuse
Maps
Given a set of high resolution meshes and/or textures we need
to represent their effect on deformation by blending as few maps
as possible.
We use a standard game technique of computing vertex stress

to blend the maps in realtime.
Our strategy is to use the same technique to create the maps as

it will be later used to blend them.
High Frequency Extraction of
Normal Displacement and Diffuse
maps
We need to find the minimum set of maps to
closely match the high resolution.
Our strategy is to utilize the same technique

to extract the maps that we will later use to
blend them: vertex stress.
Vertex Stress Techniques
Displacement
1D Stress, Strain: normalized ratio of area/area at rest.
2D Stress, Strain projected on UV axes
5D Stress, 2d Strain and Displacement (Wa Chun Ma et al. 2008)

Taking PCA of 5D stress axes and projecting major 2 Axes on UV space can be
used to determine axes of strain, deformation flow of a surface.
Strain can be computed by average edge length or using standard deviation of

point neighborhood
1. Find stress for each vertex for each frame
2. Find the frames of maximum stress for each
bone region
3. Compute maps using high resolution data
4. Composite all maps weighed by skinning
rest stretch compress
Diffuse albedo
corresponding to
each scan
Thanks for your attention!
Special thanks to (in alphabetical order):
Angelo Pesce, Carl Schnurr, Chris Codding, Chris Ellis,
Colin Barré-Brisebois, David Bullat, Dimitar Lazarov, Lee
Perry, Jennifer Velazquez, María López, Sébastien
Lagarde, Stephen Hill, Steve McAuley, Xian-Chun Wu.
For more information:

YouTube Channel: ActivisionRnD
Blog: www.iryoku.com
Render Bonus Slides
SMAA Improvements
• Merged neighborhood blending pass with
the temporal resolve one for better
performance
SMAA Improvements
• SMAA Velocity Weighting:
w = SMAA_VELOCITY_WEIGHT *
sqrt(abs(currentVelocity - previousVelocity))
0.5 - 0.5 * SMAASaturate(w)
• When in full effect, it disables blending, which

leads to flickering
SMAA Improvements
• Solutions:
– Disable velocity weighting for slow-moving
objects:
w *= SMAA_ENHANCED_REPROJECTION_WEIGHT * currentVelocity;
– Remove SMAA jitter in the vertex shader

depending on velocity weighting (better, but
more intrusive)
Depth of Field
• We use a simple scatter as you gather approach
– The blur width modulated by the pixel’s circle of confusion
• Typical ways to avoid bleeding :

– Compare depth to avoid bleeding of unfocused pixels in the
background onto the focused foreground
– Weight each sample by its circle of confusion, to avoid bleeding
of focused pixels in the foreground onto the background
– As in [Scheuermann2004] Advanced Depth of Field.
• Still artifacts on some cases

Depth of Field
• Depth of field many times looks like bloom
– Object edges don’t dilate realistically according to
circle of confusion
• How can we mitigate this problem?

– Weight taps by saturate(tapCoc - offset)
– Instead of simply weighting by tapCoc
Weight: tapCoc Weight: saturate(tapCoc -



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Next-Generation

• Full presentation with more details here:

• 1-5 procedural lights and 1 pre-filtered

• Indirect specular using a pre-filtered cube map

Regular Microstructure BRDF Fit

One Lobe Two Lobes

One Lobe Two Lobes

Microstructure BRDF Fit

Microstructure BRDF Fit Microstructure Render

Base Map Micro-Detail Map

From [Graham2013] Measurement-Based Synthesis of Facial Microgeometry

Height Map Normal Map

From [Hoffman2013] Background: Physics and Math of Shading

From [Hoffman2013] Background: Physics and Math of Shading

From [Hoffman2013] Background: Physics and Math of Shading

From [Hill2012] Rock-Solid Shading: Image Stability Without Sacrificing Detail

Thanks to Stephen Hill for this map example

• Base glossiness assumed to contain base normal

• Improves the workflow

• Easy to find a solution for a single lighting

+Bent Normals © Activision Blizzard

• Baked AO for long range, low frequency occlusion

• For animation, baked AO should contain the minimum occlusion

• Assumes isotropic occlusion

Thanks to Angelo Pesce for the ideas and support

• Important for getting colored AO in the eyes

From [Eon2007] Advanced Techniques for Realistic Real-Time Skin Rendering

From [Eon2007] Advanced Techniques for Realistic Real-Time Skin Rendering

From [Eon2007] Advanced Techniques for Realistic Real-Time Skin Rendering

From [Eon2007] Advanced Techniques for Realistic Real-Time Skin Rendering

Non-Separable Convolution 5 Gaussians = 10

Separable Convolution 1 Convolution = 2 Passes

• Then, we reduced it to 2 passes, in our separable SSS

float depthM = depthTex.Sample(PointSampler, texcoord);

float4 colorBlurred = colorM;

colorBlurred.rgb += kernel[i].rgb * color.rgb;

From [Jimenez2012] Separable Subsurface Scattering and Photorealistic Eyes Rendering

float2 jitter = samplingNoiseTex.Sample(WrapSampler, svPosition * (1.0 / 64.0));

for (int i = 1; i < SSSS_BLUR_SAMPLE_COUNT; i++) {

float2x2 tapMatrix = identityMatrix;

float4 color = colorTex.Sample(LinearSampler, texcoord +

colorBlurred.rgb += kernel[i].rgb * color.rgb;

• Very fast if far way, slower in tight macro shots

• Calculating the convolution weights is simple:

• Scary: we’re using 2k x 4K

• But Bernardo Antoniazzi

From [Eon2007] Advanced Techniques for Realistic Real-Time Skin Rendering

• Solution: numerically integrate the

Uniform Values Jitter Texture // Fetch per-pixel jitter:

shadow.rgb += transmittanceColor * light;

// At grazing angles there should not be any transmittance contribution:

Cons Cons Cons

Height Map Normal Map

• To discover that, we captured the eye:

Thanks to Xian-Chun Wu for implementing this

• Solution: don’t render eyeballs into the

• The higher the resolution

• Overcoming the uncanny valley can

2. Fitting Deformation and Animation to Game Rig

3. Game Data Driving