New NVIDIA HFTS shadows in The Division

The Division is the latest title Ubisoft that is taking in recent days MMO players. Based on some mechanical typical game of Ubisoft titles like Watch Dogs makes itself heard above all for the excellent reconstruction of the city of New York, shattered by the consequences caused by a smallpox epidemic. The Division, for this, also makes mention for its high-end graphics.

With Hybrid Frustum Traced Shadows NVIDIA wants to ensure that the marking of the shadows is correct depending on the distance of the object occluding the passage of light and creates the shadow. Thanks to HFTS, then, we will have more harsh shadows when you are near the object occluding and softer in the long run. We talked about it already during the reveal of proprietary suite Gameworks 3.1.

The algorithm is an interpolation between the hardest and geometrically true variant of the shadows and PCSS (percentage closer soft shadows). This hybrid technique that combines frustum tracing, screen-space anti-aliasing filters and variable type of soft shadow twilight, and allows the gradual transition in real time from a harsh shadow geometrically accurate to the super soft shadow. The approach is also studied to overcome any type of aliasing problem, peter-panning, acne and overlapping blocks.

HFTS is enabled only during the daytime phases of The Division, while at night is supplanted by the previous generation PCSS technique. This fact handles better the lighting conditions that occur after sunset. For the best performance, in addition, you need to associate more and HFTS to SMAA Ultra regarding the anti-aliasing setting.

One of the historical problems in computer graphics has always involved the generation of accurate soft shadows, which sfumassero in a timely manner along the edges as a function of the light source position and occluding object. PCSS calculates the gradient layer of each pixel in the gray area on the basis of all these parameters.