Character shading of Uncharted 4

Abstract

The challenges of character shading in Uncharted 4: volumetric feeling of the hair, using shader packages for different surfaces, performance for main characters and crowds, dynamic wear and tear. The Naughty Dog team debated which should be more important: image quality or creativity of character design, since it's already challenging enough to make sure everything is running in real time. Eventually, after deciding that gameplay should always be the first priority, they tried many different approaches and rewrote different shaders several times to achieve a result that seemed impossible when they began the project.