TressFX 4.1, Engine Integration with Unreal 4.22 and Radeon™ Cauldron

January 27, 2020

We are delighted to announce our TressFX 4.1/Unreal® Engine integration and our TressFX 4.1/Radeon™ Cauldron framework implementation. The TressFX library is AMD’s hair/fur rendering and simulation technology. TressFX is designed to use the GPU to simulate and render high quality realistic hair and fur.

This latest version – TressFX 4.1 – is designed to be a performance and feature enhancement of TressFX 4.0. Highlights include further optimization of the physics simulation shaders, new rendering features, documentation and tutorials, and an updated TressFX Exporter for Autodesk® Maya®.

This release also demonstrates TressFX integration with Unreal Engine (4.22). This is a minimal integration to improve ease-of-use with multiple TressFX components, features, and rendering and simulation materials. Developers wishing to further the integration or customize it for their own requirements may find this basic level of integration a helpful first step in that process.

TressFX/Radeon™ Cauldron demonstrates how TressFX can be cleanly dropped into an existing codebase.

TressFX features

Hair and fur support, designed for high quality anti-aliasing
Animation/skinning support
Unreal Engine (4.22) integration
TressFX/Cauldron implementation (source code)
Maya plugin provided for hair/fur and collision authoring
Source code provided

New in TressFX 4.1

TressFX/Unreal engine integration (patch under Epic Games Unreal GitHub repository) with multiple components, rendering and simulation material support
TressFX/Cauldron implementation with source code (DirectX® 12 and Vulkan®)
Optimized physics simulation shaders can allow more hair to be simulated in real-time
New rendering features (StrandUV and Hair Parameter Blending)
New Level of Detail (LOD) system
Documentation and tutorials
Updated Maya Exporter with new UI and new features/error checking

Prerequisites

AMD Radeon™ GCN-based GPU (HD 7000 series or newer) or AMD Radeon™ RDNA-based GPU (5000 series or newer)
- Or other DirectX® 11/12 compatible discrete GPU with Shader Model 5 support
64-bit Windows 10
Visual Studio 2017 or equivalent recommended

TressFX/Unreal Engine integration is available as a patch on Epic Games Unreal Engine GitHub repository. Developers will need to sign the Epic Unreal EULA in order to gain access to Epic Games Unreal Engine GitHub repository.

Unreal Engine Resources