GPU Driven Effects of The Last of Us Part II by Artem Kovalovs || SIGGRAPH 2020

Previous Naughty Dog titles have used standard effect authoring, where particle emitters were manually placed on the environment or attached to character joints. In addition to this, there were render targets assigned to characters for the ability to apply blood, wetness, and other effects as part of the character rendering, but any particle rendering within them would be predetermined. The Last of Us Part II introduced more detailed interactions between effects and the rest of the world. In addition, the effects were GPU driven, making them more efficient and allowing for bigger particle numbers. The effects required much less manual placement from the artists and utilized world information for spawning, and could attach to and simulate on geometry efficiently, following gravity and surface properties on animating geometry. Check out more SIGGRAPH 2020 Presentations on the Naughty Dog Research Blog: