What the Heck is Tessellation?!

- Here's to another episode of the Minute Science playlist! If there's anything else you'd like me to test or explain in this category, let me know in the comments below. The moral of this story: tessellation + displacement mapping makes things look REAL!
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[@PrimeVirtualReality]

Only thing i ever noticed with Tesselation in GTA V is the palm trees bark.

[@jasondailey9402]

Prime Hardware you beat me to it! Everything I’ve read says Tesselation is only used for the trees in GTA V

[@blanchbacker]

The rocks and all terrain uses it too.

[@Gilbertify1]

I knew what tessellation was, but I didn't know it made THAT much of a difference. That's neat. Nice video!

[@GregSalazar]

I appreciate it!

[@leerman22]

I think it's because it's "hardware tessellation" so the GPU is doing more solo work and doesn't need the CPU much other than loading displacement maps.

[@AdelAlqadi1]

Just something I think needs clarification with the gtav comparison: the game's tessellation is very selective. First off, if you're in a fast moving scenario, tessellation turns itself off via a blast processing method. Also, not everything is tessellated. If you're looking at a car in gtav for example, the only thing being tessellated is the wheels and nothing else. A great comparison scenario is standing next to palm trees or cacti, being in the ocean, looking at rocky ground, looking at the characters hands in first person, etc. That's why in your gtav comparison 1) you don't notice a difference and 2) framerates are rather consistent.

[@NeuroPulse]

This is the first explanation that has answered my unanswered questions. Thank you!

[@ryanhtran]

Thank you Savage Studio, I have one great thing before I go to school.

[@ryanhtran]

2 hearts in 2 days? I'm on fireeee

[@stratisskapinakis9773]

looool its summer here rip

[@ryanhtran]

Stratis Skapinakis yeah I start school on Monday.

[@voltadynam7cs705]

rip

[@jjaurrgui]

*Is that Tessellation increasing in my pants?*

[@Ccodebits]

I can't tell it is looking very flat, maybe you need to adjust your D... isplacement map.

[@computer-qy4je]

Minute science is the type of thing I like to bingewatch, yay for more binging.

[@travishemming3783]

Best explanation I've seen by far. Thank you!

[@quanwashington1115]

You ever thought about explaining or giving a brief overview of Linux?

[@bad001bd]

Quan Washington Levelonetechs

[@quanwashington1115]

BAD Ben I know, but I want him to do it.

[@ccmaster86]

Nah, people using Arch are the nerds. They call Ubuntu users plebs.

[@quanwashington1115]

ccmaster86 But I haven't insulted anyone for using Ubuntu :)

[@pm5k00]

ccmaster86 I like Ubuntu beacuse of how accessible it is, I can install it on a new machine much faster than Arch and do all he same things. I have used arch for a number of months but didnt care for pacman or yaourt. Arch users be like " compiling is too hard, I just like using the AUR..." ... whatever you wanabee nerds. edit:words

[@MrStarpeto]

Listening to "high hopes" from pink Floyd just right before watching this video, only good choice from science studio! Thank you for learning with us!

[@GregSalazar]

Rock on! Thanks for watching.

[@ShadowriverUB]

Small correction, the extra verteces generated by this process are modified by vertex shaders, displacement mapping is one way of using it

[@faezlimpbizkit]

well done, hope you can keep this up and keep em coming more. i love stuff like this 😍

[@GregSalazar]

faez Will do!

[@SteelSkin667]

I already knew about this but I liked the straightforward explanation. Good stuff.

[@GregSalazar]

SteelSkin667 Glad you enjoyed it!

[@dookbear7893]

actually always wondered about this, great video

[@mennser]

Excellent video, thank you Greg!!

[@xavierssounds3232]

I love these videos. Insightful. Thank you

[@GregSalazar]

Stacy Schauls Thanks for watching!

[@jijingebob]

I just love this series

[@h1tzzYT]

Nice chill music at background!

[@12chrisrob]

Nice T-shirt! And good video as always. Cheers from QC Canada

[@timerertim]

This was of so second nature when talking about displacement mapping that I never really thought of it.

[@godtactics1463]

Excellent video. Perhaps in a separate video or series, more examples could be given of visual and performance impact of tessellation and displacement in a few popular, specific games, with a few common nvidia and amd graphics cards, if the results are notable at all.

[@alexandrucampina]

hey Greg, thanks a lot. Very well explained!

[@ecromancer]

Talking about triangles while wearing an pink Floyd shirt. I LIKE IT!

[@TheRobDog]

Very informative, Bless your soul

[@FrankieHiltz]

Aye thanks for this. I had a relatively good understanding of it, but this clarified somethings I didn't know :D

[@rafaellopez3422]

What the heck is heck?

[@froggy937]

Killer Droid what the heckinlinkity

[@HaseoSpeedruns]

good to know that it doesn't have a huge impact on performance. thanks, greg!

[@GonzaloAroles]

Love the explanation, love the T-shirt.

[@rachitbhatt40000]

Your videos are great with proper explanation. Well, can you make one for Shader too?

[@AG-ld6rv]

For those interested, you might wonder, "Why can't I just store all these details in the 3d model being rendered and send that to the video card? Why do I have tessellation at all? (Keep in mind tessellation produces a model with a ton of triangles, so it's not like the technique helps by reducing the number of triangles in the final result. So why not just send those triangles in the first place?)" We go through the trouble of having tessellation shaders on our GPU, because the act of tessellation avoids a common bottleneck in the rendering pipeline. In other words, it's to make things more efficient and give you more FPS for a similar amount of detail. The reason this happens relates to the speed we can transfer data to a video card versus the speed at which the GPU's little processors can do calculations once the data is present. In general, computers are quite slow at transferring data around -- much slower than a processing unit doing calculations. So you might spend 80% of your cycle to generate a frame in a video game sending around data and 20% doing calculations on that data to produce the frame. If you were to simply store all those details in the model, meaning a model with more triangles, you'd have to transfer all those triangles over to the GPU. And due to data transfer being a bottleneck, that might really, really hurt your FPS. Take those stairs as an example. Instead, of having tons of triangles to represent the steps and bumpiness of the stones, we just send over a flat ramp. That is waaay less data than if we were sending over the steps and all the bumps from the rocks. Once the data is in the GPU's pipeline, we then use little processors on the GPU to calculate / derive additional triangles for additional detail. That higher detail model with many more triangles is then pumped forward into the pipeline so that the result can be viewed.

[@thomsnvykovski6135]

this is such a crazy good explanation its actually insane

[@ashxxiv]

I can't wait for games to have life like tessellation with photorealistic graphics running at 250fps in 8k.. it'd be so beautiful.

[@StandTallTx]

I come from the future and we're getting close!

[@darkflightdreamer1698]

@@StandTallTx yes

[@Tinchor.15]

The video is cool, I should watch it again though, but I thumbed up because of your t-shirt!

[@Imkaranvalvi]

This is Science Studio ...Good Work Bro.

[@santeciaprice6146]

Thanks dude. The reason why because I remembered an awesome old cartoon called Cyber Chase and there was an episode that had tessellation. I just want a refresh on what the word means.

[@unrealdevon]

I love these videos. Also that pink floyd T-shirt is real cool.

[@pavelpipovic5656]

Love your shirt !

[@Gamer-df9xt]

I think your thumbnail says it all. Tessellation makes surfaces bumpy.

[@josechavarria5941]

Thank you for putting tesselation in a real-world environment. I am taking a math course, and I am to explain what tesselation is with an example. I will link this video to my discussion. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@MrBoggy101]

Awesome video.

[@1337ghomri]

@Sience Studio -> You can see tessellation i GTA 5, if you stand very close to a palm tree, or you are driving in the mountain with dirt roads. The dirt and stones pops out. The same goes for the palm tree, you can see a lot of shapes in the wood. But the tessellation drawing distance is very narrow in GTA 5. When you are driving on a dirty road, you can actually see when the tessellation starts and end while driving.

[@dsmdallas2466]

GREAT VIDEO. Thanks you.

[@ChubyX]

Thank you. That tessellation thing had me spinning.

[@Brian_Buckley]

thank you for this Greg!!!!

[@nootnoot8287]

Helpful video

[@WillVRam]

Tradução para em PT-BR para brasileiros. Não manjo muito de inglês mas fiz oque pude: -Você pode pensar em Tesselation como a divisão literal de polígonos os quais compõem os objetos que vemos em jogos e outros efeitos especiais. -Quanto mais dividido a superfície é, mais detalhado entre aspas("quote-unquote") a superfície será retratada, desenhada no jogo. -Se um objeto é dividido em vários triângulos, então cotando cada triangulo na metade essencialmente dobra o Fator Tesselation .mas isso sozinho não muda nada. Se vc adicionar so mais triangulos sme fazer nada mais dinâmico com eles vc só estará sobrecarregando a GPU pra nada. .duplicar numero d formas não muda nada se metade das formas sao fisicalmente inalteradas das originais. 1:04 essa imagem 2D mostra melhor isso 1:10 DISPLACEMENT MAPPING muda e inclina essas novas formas criadas. .nvidia descreve Tesselation como uma textura que armazena informação de altura que ou dará aparência de um "blocky wuithout tesselation" ou uma suavidade lisa nao-realistica sem o Dispalcing Mapping. ... 1:30 Antigamente técnicas tradicionais de mapeamento d textura envolviam um nível de Oclusão, explica nesse vídeo (link) .em resumo, alguns pixels são sombreados numa tentativa de enganar o visualizador de pensar que a forma é mais dinâmica do que realmente é .adiciona um nível de profundidade artificial 1:46 Imagem mostrando bem isso .explica imagem que é auto explicativa. 2:04 Basicamente, Tesselation sem Displacement Mapping não mudaria nada no objeto, e Displacement Mapping sem Tesselation tornaria a aparência do objeto extremamente "blocky"(em bloco(?)) Então ambos são necessários para os jogos parecerem reais. 2:15 GTA V: -Em alguns casos como em GAT V, polígonos ja estão incorporando alto nível detalhes, então aumentando Tesselation não muda nada -Vc será pressionado("hard-pressed") agora para tentar ver a diferença nessa comparação entre 2 jogos com Tesselation máximo e sem. 2:32 a variação d FPS tbm é minúscula. 2:33 HAVEN BENCHMARK -Oferece forte contraste de Tesselation(""stark" tesselation contrast") entre presets Max e Off. .a escada parece uma rampa sem Tesselation. O dragão também é completamente diferente (mas nao mostrou) -ENtão dependendo de como so jogos são desenvolvidos, Tesselation é uma das cosia que você pode manipular e drasticamente impactar a aparência e sua percepção("feel") . -Geralmente maximizar Tesslation não causará muito impacto no seu jogo, mas usar benchmarks te dará uma informação mais aprofundada disso.

[@azza009]

That T-shirt 👍 Great video. I thought tessellation and bump mapping were one and the same

[@psucalculator7179]

Awesome!

[@clairevicidomini3199]

so basically, instead of creating a high definition mesh (that would always remain at high definition, thus wasting resources even if it's far away) you use a medium polygon count mesh with a texture map that decide in which way vertices must be displaced after the it has been enhanced by the tessellation shader. This way you can tessellate it only when it's near the camera, while it will be its lower res counterpart in the distance, so you can save gpu resources. Is this correct?

[@leechamberland6773]

thank you for tell us about tessellation always wanted to know what it was

[@gingaleanda]

Good video, cheers:)

[@brendinventer6407]

These videos are the best 👌🏼🤓

[@Jorba4]

Do more of these! I'm new to pc gaming and some settings and stuff I just don't get 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@desu38]

I've been seeing "parallax occlusion". It looks like it tries to achieve a similar effect, but by warping the textures or stacking it, something like that. How does that work?

[@realHenryBayman]

Could you do smart phone touch screens? Including these with edges. Would be awesome!

[@doubleas88]

You sir gained a subscriber, nice video

[@tigercloud6945]

In less then 5 years I would love everything to be able to run this in everything looks great.

[@nathings]

4 years later how was it?

[@HelixBrightstar]

Great video, Greg. I also love that shirt, Pink Floyd is my most favorite band. 👍😀🎵

[@metamancer2775]

You should explain ambient occlusion next because a lot of people out there think it's useless

[@Jomenaa]

Tesselation is very noticeable in Metro games, holy shit those nosalises and librarians look fucking terrifying up close! :D

[@NineToFiveGamer]

Love the shirt, man.

[@cinnamonbun115]

I love minute science

[@WillVRam]

1:05 "backdoor process" what does it mean ? I used google translated but got nothing. 2:33 How do you build graphics like this?

[@jbizz1320]

What happen to your sound bar speaker? what model was it.

[@FunTimeGhz]

Keep up the good work and please, ignore the people who love to inject the others with negative feelings.

[@grantlauzon5237]

Does tessellation add polygons? I grasp the concept of bump mapping but I don’t understand where the depth comes from in tessellation.

[@mauriliodsb]

nice video 👍

[@AbdelhakEssbai]

I like how this video is quick and dirty, can you follow up with videos about MSAA/ FXAA and all that confusing stuff please.

[@GregSalazar]

Abdelhak Essbai Already have...

[@wajihbec1087]

i like things that are straight to the point.

[@user-rs3lg6un4n]

Awesome shirt!

[@GregSalazar]

Ggaming Gavin Thanks!

[@psnKnowledge]

Enjoyed the explanation. We need you to work at Nasa man! Or whatever's your preferred science company 👊

[@AdnanCucak]

Where DO you get your shirts?

[@6ndre99]

I've literally searched this on google like an hour ago

[@abcdefg9613]

A bit of tech trivia:tesselation was introduced to gpus by amd and not Nvidia. It was available in the Radeon 2000 series and onward but was not implemented by Microsoft in dx10/10.1. It was available in OpenGL though.

[@dtgulab]

What is triple buffering? Do you need it with Vsync? Do you need it with GSync?

[@UnacceptableViews]

god damn I love your outro :D

[@komradwide4660]

Where can I find tessellation setting in nvidia control panel?? Its breaking my squad gameplay experience :(

[@Madchris8828]

So I don't know if it was a mistake but the hyperlinks in the descriptions are only able to be copied and pasted not directed to the sites; including your patreon.

[@Chbond00765]

Do you think you could do a video on game engines? There are quite a few out there and I would like to know the difference between them, how they work and what exactly they are. Also would like to know if they are related to each other or are they all based off one "engine". I just want to know why one company makes the crytek engine and the unreal engine, the havok engine, etc. thank you.

[@johnkobs6086]

I feel like this video could have been better with a short history of why tessellation used to be a bigger deal when graphics were blocky chunks jammed together. Pretty sure faces aren't octagons, but that looked better than squares.

[@ZeroFilth]

That was a great choice in t-shirt =)

[@Witnaaay]

How does parallax mapping fit into this?

[@Freddan9700]

Could you explain what pagefile is?

[@TheAHMADJALLAD]

Did you received your thread ripper kit from AMD ????

[@Pioqueug000]

"What in tessellation!"

[@GemuTabi]

Now that was a Fast explanation why im lagging a little in my Budget setup everytime enemy appear. i turn it off now, the game run smooth now

[@TedKeyboardify]

Greg, none of the links in the 'video description below' are links.

[@GregSalazar]

TedKeyboard So copy/paste :P

[@lapadaa]

why not just add before them so people can click them?

[@NippyKindLangur234]

So the "tessellation" settings in games usually mean tessalation + displacement mapping?

[@Puremindgames]

2:36, I'd rather walk on the path on the right

[@duckseverywhere8119]

...and will it kill your frame rate? This, is 4 minute Science!

[@nythpill]

DTSOM shirt. Nice!

[@suppusthesnaxe7864]

How does it work for volumetric lighting like in Fallout 4?

[@IFreakedHer]

Damn greg, Back at it again! 😍😂

[@Zeloverevolution]

Tessellation is advanced bump/normal mapping. There, didn't need a video to explain that.

[@roax206]

what about a video showing the huge difference in hardware requirements between gameplay mechanics(crafting, world interaction, stats, equipment, etc) compared to graphics and lighting these days and why devs probably shouldn't focus so much on the number of polys in a game.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Never forget Radeon 8500 TruForm. DirectX 8 Tesselation FTW!

[@waddoo1234]

Hey, remember to hyperlink the links so they are clickable. A small addition for a long way of convenience.

[@hypershadow5g]

So as far as GTA V goes, what has a bigger, if any, impact on the looks of the game as well as gpu performance, tessellation or texture quality?

[@Stoynov666]

do the consoles have this feature?

[@rodhervan-860]

I missed those super speedy talks only Greg does well 😉

[@smithwillnot]

Isn't the "dynamic tessellation" most important thing about tessellation? Btw dynamic tessellation works based on distance, so closer objects end up having more polygons while objects in the background have fewer and that changes depending on distance between "point of view" and every visible object...