Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 273 - February 5th, 2023


Float Compression 0: Intro

  • the start of a series of blog posts that explores the space of compressing floating point data
  • this post explains the source of the data and patterns of the underlying data
  • series compares a large number of techniques, compression solutions, and libraries


GM Shaders Mini: Normal Maps

  • short tutorial explains the concept of normal maps and how it influences the lighting computations
  • shows how to interpret the meaning of the colors
  • additionally shows the importance of normal map orientation


Shader Tutorial: Subsurface Scattering

  • the article explains how to create a shader in Unity that gives an object a subsurface scattering effect
  • shows what effect subsurface scattering has on the lighting model
  • presents how to integrate it into the standard surface shader


Compute Shader thread index to 2D coordinate

  • the blog post explains how to convert a one-dimension threadIndex from compute shader into a 2D coordinate
  • shows how to use Quad-wide Shuffle Operations to reduce reliance on group-shared memory


[video] Sand Shader - Advanced Materials - Episode 14

  • the video tutorial shows how to adjust Unity and Unreal Shading models to be more fitting for Sand rendering
  • shows how to adjust textures sources for efficient usage from shaders


WebGL / WebGPU Jan 2023 meetup highlights

  • the article presents a summary of what was discussed at the WebGL / WebGPU meetup
  • lists new extensions coming for WebGL and the state of WebGPU rollout
  • shows how the most significant obstacle for ThreeJS to adopt WebGPU is the requirement of WGSL shader language


The Energy Distance as a Replacement for the Reconstruction Loss in Conditional GANs

  • the paper presents an alternative way to deal with the instability of generative adversarial networks (cGANs)
  • suggests replacing the reconstruction loss with the energy distance
  • paper contains a one-page summary of the technique


PS2 Vector Unit Lighting on Shadowman2

  • the article presents a look back at the Shadowman game implementation for the PS2
  • describes how to implement and optimize the four-point light setup while staying within PS2 limitations


Thanks to Top-OR for support of this series.


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