Assassin' Creed - impressive vertex deformation effect

Unity Engine
1

Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone out there might have some ideas about how to go about producing a similar effect to the one see from about 1:15 in this video from Assassin’s Creed:

It’s really impressive effect. The part that I’m mostly interested in is the how the vertices unfold based on the character (or camera) proximity. It appears that other objects and planes rotate, scale and generally tween into place quite quickly, but I’m guessing the geometry is being deformed with a vertex shader. I do have a basic understanding of how to write shaders, but I’m just not sure where to start on producing this effect. Anyone have any clues or other ideas about how this might be done would be greatly appreciated, thanks!!

Jason Rawlings

2

Change vertex Y based on distance. Seems simple to me. Since its very limited in what it effects (a cube) they probably have this effect separate from the cube spawn, which generally moves up or just appears. So you just need that carpet laying effect first. If you wanted to be cheap and quick, you’d probably just make a boned animated mesh for it.

3

This is really interesting to get that effect running properly… I tried doing it with vertex shader… Its not that easy to do this! Was anyone able to make it work properly ?