Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 140 — July 12, 2020


WWDC20 - What's new in Metal and the Apple GPU

  • the article summaries the changes announced at WWDC
  • Apple will transition from Intel CPUs / GPUs to custom hardware
  • the article shows an architecture overview, best performance practices, new hardware, and API features
  • including improved GPU debugging, shader compilation pipeline, raytracing and windows based tools


Retro RenderMan: reflections in ‘ratatouille’

  • a look back at how RenderMan handled blurry glossy surface reflection in 2007 for Ratatouille
  • using a technique called Brick maps, a form of 3D radiance caches


A trip through ZOOBA’s bush rendering

  • the blog post explains a CSG algorithm implementation based on using the depth and stencil buffer
  • the technique is used to implement player visibility in bushes


Drinking from the Firehose: Learning Computer Graphics Techniques and Programming

  • the author provides an overview of the mindset, technique, and requirements for learning graphics programming
  • additionally contains a list of resources to books, videos, web, etc. about the topic


Graphical glitch detection in video games using convolutional neural networks

  • the master thesis looks at Machine Learning techniques to discover visual issues, such as stretched textures, missing textures in a game environment


PIX 2006.26 – Fence Signal/Wait Arrows in GPU Captures

  • this PIX upgrade adds support for signal wait visualizations and improved buffer visualization


Shader Graph : Stylized Skybox

  • the Unity tutorial explains how to implement a stylized skybox with sun, moon, and clouds using the visual shader graph system

Using Radeon™ GPU Analyzer with Direct3D®12 Compute

  • the article presents how to use the AMD GPU Analyzer for compute shaders
  • the tool allows the collection of low-level information such as the ISA disassembly, register usage, etc


Using Radeon™ GPU analyzer with DirectX®12 Graphics

  • the article explains got to use the AMD GPU ANALYZER to get low-level information about graphics workloads
  • shows what additional information is required to describe the required pipeline state


Resolving Metal GPU timers

  • the article explains how to collect GPU timestamps and synchronize the CPU and GPU timestamps


Barebones WebGL in 75 lines of code

  • the article explains the basics required to render a triangle with WebGL
  • focused on clarity to show only the WebGL functionality and not provide any higher-level abstractions


Deep dive into OpenGL over DirectX layering

  • explanation of the architecture of executing OpenGL on D3D12 using a Mesa-based implementation
  • presents the development of the implementation and how performance was increased at each step


Spectral Path Tracer

  • the article explains how spectral rendering can be implemented in a DXR based path trace
  • shows what needs to be adjusted from a classical path tracer
  • additionally shows how to convert existing data from textures into spectral data for rendering


Technically Art: Issue 59 (10.07.2020)

  • collection of tech art and VFX twitter posts, including a look at facial animation tech of the Last Of Us 2


Thanks to Sondre Kongsgård for support of this series.


Would you like to see your name here too? Become a Patreon of this series.