Hair tomorrow, teased today: AMD to style TressFX 2.0 at developer summit

Imagine this, but with her hair made out of grass. I think.

I’m not sure why I find the idea of TressFX so funny. AMD’s hair-centric technology is supposed to make hair behave more luxuriously (or something,) which is a minor but welcome addition to graphics technology. Maybe it’s because it’s called ‘TressFX’ and that sounds like a strange brand of shampoo.

Anyway, TressFX is now old news. Get ready for TressFX 2.0: Tressier Than Ever. In the list of “agenda and sessions,” under “sessions” and “gaming summit,” (as noted by NeoGaf,) AMD will be ushering people into the graphics salon to talk about their roots. Here’s the talk summary:

TressFX is AMD’s realistic hair rendering technology which renders and simulates the physics of thousands of individual strands of hair. It was first used in Crystal Dynamic’s Tomb Raider, released earlier this year. Now AMD is introducing TressFX 2.0, a newer version of TressFX with better performance and easier integration into games. Additionally research is now being done to use TressFX for other things besides hair, like grass and fur. In this talk we will cover how TressFX rendering and physics works, the improvements made in TressFX 2.0, and the research which will be used in future products.

Better performance sounds good, as does easier integration. I support this noble quest to give in-game characters better hair (and, maybe at a later date, fur and grass.) Shine on, AMD.