High quality mesh detail (Patreon)

In Yiffalicious, we're using something called DX11 tessellation. What this does is generating high quality meshes in realtime (in hardware) for basically zero performance cost. Of course, it requires you to have such hardware (GeForce 460+). The implications of this are manifold. For one, it will allow very high mesh quality (obviously), with nice, smooth silhouettes. But it also means authoring will become easier. Having very high poly models does make skinning (a process in preparing a model for a game) harder and more time consuming. By using DX11 tessellation, the models can be fairly low poly and can still be several orders of magnitude more detailed than high poly ones. What's more - if you have a low poly model and bring it into the game, it will look nice and smooth! Without any effort. We think this is an important step in providing a good environment for 3rd party assets. It makes it easier to author, it looks better and it increases performance [compared to having high poly mesh]. Also, it opens doors for meshes to grow (inflation) without causing hard edges.