Developed by graphics card manufacturer AMD, TressFX is a new system for rendering hair, allowing developers to scrap blocky hair-like geometry for more finely detailed… hair-like geometry. It’s on display in the PC version of Tomb Raider, though, as we can see in the video below, while impressive, it does reveal that we’re still not in the world where video game characters can sport loose plaits, mullets, and long flowing locks without issues.
See it at work after the break.
It seems a little on the floaty side and it doesn’t seem to conform too well to Lara’s geometry, flicking all over the place, and snapping about as soon as it touches her back.
The video was recorded by Youtuber EzioCroft who says that the framerate trouble they experienced largely decreased after they overclocked their card. Also, that once Lara left the cave system and began to walk standing up straight a lot of the issues on display were diminished.
Still it’s a darn sight better than what we’ve had come before.