Graphics on Jendrik Illner - 3D Programmer

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 277 - March 6th, 2023

Sun, 05 Mar 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Float Compression 7: More Filtering Optimization

the article continues the series on float compression topics
presents how to optimize the process by redesigning the system to take advantage of SIMD instruction sets
shows how much of a performance difference the usage can make

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PIX 2303.02: You asked, we listened! A bumper PIX release

new release of PIX contains a vast list of new developments
some examples are RayGen debugging, the ability to show selected draw objects, pix capture diffs, improved memory allocation view, and much more

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Understanding Vulkan device buffer address alignment

the article explains the alignment requirements of buffer loads from VK_KHR_buffer_device_address
provides a walkthrough of the generated SPIR-V and explains why the issue occurs by explaining the spec requirements

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Real-time Cluster Path Tracing for Remote Rendering

the presentation covers a real-time cluster-based path-tracing renderer
discusses how the architecture was designed to allow linearly scaling with the number of GPUs

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[video] Simple Lighting in Defold - Screen Space Light Maps

the video tutorial presents a simple lighting model that uses sprites to define light effects
this is done by defining lights as one render target and combining it with the base world
implementation using Defold is presented (using GLSL shaders)

Vulkan all the way: Transitioning to a modern low-level graphics API in academia

the paper explains the experience of transitioning university classes to be taught using Vulkan instead of OpenGL
discusses difficulties and advantages encountered
shows how it affects student learning, grades, and project results

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[video] How to Improve Shader Performance by Resolving LDC Divergence

the video discusses the problem of non-uniform constant loads within a single wrap
shows how to use Nvidia NSight to identify the problem
discusses in detail how to correlate counters, latency, and instruction traces
using Structured Buffers instead of Constant Buffers will be able to resolve the problem once identified

CUDA LOD Generation

the paper presents how to use GPU-based techniques to implement LOD construction of point clouds
discusses the different implementation approaches’ impact on performance and quality

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[video] Lighting // Terrain Rendering episode #5

the latest part of the video tutorial discusses how to apply lighting to a terrain using OpenGL
discusses standard diffuse lighting and Slope Lighting
provides a high-level overview of each technique and discusses the implementation

Thanks to Matt Pharr for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 276 - February 26th, 2023

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 04:00:00 +0000

How to render it. Ten ideas to solve Computer Graphics problems.

the article presents an overview of 10 aspects to consider when approaching solving a computer graphics problem
discusses the importance of understanding the working space, data representation, as well as time constraints
presents how to take advantage of generic data science techniques (such as data visualization/exploration, Numerical optimization, …) to gain new insights
additionally shows how ground truth and Machine learning techniques can be combined to develop an intuition of the limits of a given solution

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Setting up a bindless rendering pipeline

the talk describes to setup a bindless rendering pipeline using Vulkan, D3D12, and HLSL shaders
shows how to set up the CPU side management to allow GPU side validation
describes the emulations required for Vulkan

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Reading Veach’s Thesis, Part 2

the article continues a series of understanding the Robust Monte Carlo Methods for Light Transport Simulation master thesis
this article focuses on the understanding of multiple-importance sampling
explains the insights required to better understand the balance heuristic especially

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Two-pass Gaussian blur coeffifients generator

the article provides a calculator that generates offsets and weights for a separable Gaussian blur filter
allows the specification of a couple of settings (radius, sigma, filtering mode, …) and generates GLSL code
explains the underlying logic and shows how to implement the filter in GLSL

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WebGPU Error Handling best practices

the article describes the error handling techniques that are available when using WebGPU
defaults will print detailed errors to the console, but developers can define scopes to collect information from the program and attach additional information to objects
additionally presents how to collect detailed information from shader compilation errors

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Vulkanised 2023

the official website collects the links to the videos and slides of the talks presented at the Vulkanised 2023 conference
not all talks have slides at this time

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An Open Letter to ARM / Mali: Please stop doing this

the article presents issues with the ARM/mali GPU device IDs and how they relate to GPU performance for game setting tweaking
shows how that reusing the same ID for multiple chips with large performance delta makes it challenging to identify capabilities correctly

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Thanks to Aras Pranckevicius for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 275 - February 19th, 2023

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Impressions from Vulkanised 2023 Conference

the author presents his impression from the Vulkanied conference
presents an overview of the topics covered, what discussions revealed during panel discussions, and what are common issues

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[video] Vulkanised 2023

the playlist of video recordings of the talks presented at the Vulkanised 2023 in Munich
covers a large number of topics such as Mesh Shader best practices, source-level shader debugging, performance optimizations
ranges from mobile and desktop to virtual reality

Teardown Teardown

the article presents a breakdown of how Teardown is being rendered
shows all stages of the pipeline required for the final frame
shows how the G-Buffer is drawn, how details are applied to the voxel
additionally presents how the weather effects, lighting, as well as denoising are implemented
additionally covers many more steps of the frame pipeline

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Swapping Colours

the article provides an overview of different techniques to adjust object colors from objects
shows how to implement the presented techniques using Unity visual shader language as well as in HLSL

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[video] Calculating Ray-Sphere Intersections

the video tutorial explains how to implement ray-sphere intersection testing
discusses the mathematic derivation of the technique
shows how to implement the intersection testing using GLSL in shadertoy

Fast Real-Time Shading for Polygonal Hair

the paper presents a technique to approximate hair lighted by an environment map, direct lighting, or a global illumination
build around the modeling of obstruction around each hair using spherical harmonics instead of requiring deep opacity maps

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Float Compression 6: Filtering Optimization

the blog post continues the series on float compression techniques
investigates how SIMD instruction sets can be used to optimize
presents how it affects the results

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[video] Parallax Occlusion Optimization - Advanced Materials - Episode 15

the video discusses the difference between Parallax Occlusion and normal mapping
presents how to optimize the implementation to adjust the steps only for cases where precision is required
implementation is shown in both Unity and Unreal

Thanks to Aras Pranckevicius for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 274 - February 12th, 2023

Sun, 12 Feb 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Screen Space Indirect Lighting with Visibility Bitmask

the paper proposes an expansion of Horizon-based indirect illumination by using visibility bitmasks instead of horizon angles
stores (occluded / un-occluded) of N sectors uniformly distributed around the hemisphere slice instead
meant to improve results for thin surfaces

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Raymarching Clouds

the post provides a walkthrough of how to implement raymarching for volumetric clouds
provides an implementation using shadertoy
additionally discusses further issues and further steps

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GM Shaders Mini: Blendmodes

the short tutorial shows how to recreate photoshop blend modes using GLSL shader code
contains a link to a GLSL implementation of additional blend mode implementations

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A fast and precise triangle rasterizer

the article presents how to implement a software triangle rasterizer
discusses how to evaluate if pixels are inside a triangle
covers how to deal with edge cases, how to improve constant precision through the use of a fixed-point number representation
additionally presents performance optimizations

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Getting Started with Vulkan Compute Acceleration

the tutorial explains the basics of compute shader usage with Vulkan by implementing a compute-shader-based particle system
shows how to load compute shaders, bind resources and interact with graphics resources
additionally covers how the hardware executes compute shaders by explaining concepts such as workgroups and invocations

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Technically Art: Issue 138 (11.02.2023)

a collection of tech art tweets covering topics such as procedural modeling, volumetric motion blur, skin shader, VFX and visual shader WIP reports

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[video] Texturing // Terrain Rendering episode #4

the video tutorial explains how to apply textures to a terrain system
provides a recap of texture mapping techniques and how to apply textures based on the height of the terrain
expands upon the techniques to tile texture across the terrain
additionally shows how to use mipmapping and how it improves the quality of the results

Thanks to Wiktor Czosnowski for support of this series.

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

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 04:00:00 +0000

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

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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

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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

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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

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[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

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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

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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

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Thanks to Top-OR for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 272 - January 29nd, 2023

Sun, 29 Jan 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Teardown Frame Teardown - Rendering analysis

the article presents a rendering analysis of the game Teardown
shows a look at video captures of the game to develop an intuition before diving into RenderDoc
shows that the game objects are drawn using a 3D Sprite concept
the game uses a volumetric shadow map that is updated from the CPU
additionally covers Lighting, Compositing as well as Post-Processing

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Accelerated Photon Mapping for Hardware-based Ray Tracing

the paper presents how to take advantage of ray tracing hardware for progressive photon mapper
shows how ray tracing–based collection outperforms hash-based GPU photon mapping algorithms
additionally introduces Photon Culling, a technique to reduce the number of photons stored per iteration

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Bringing Nanite to Fortnite Battle Royale in Chapter 4

the article explains updates required for Chapter 4 of Battle Royale
shows how increasing triangle counts of the mesh tented is better than masked materials and techniques to preserve vegetation density
discusses how to handle object animation and improve culling

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Introducing Compressonator v4.3

the new release introduces support for the Brotli-G lossless compression format
additionally adds support for RGBA_10101002, R8 and 16-Bit PNG File support

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[video] Image-based Lighting (IBL) of PBR Materials [Shaders Monthly #11]

the video presents how to implement image-based lighting of the Cook-Torrance microfacet BRDF
contains how to derive the Ground Truth Solution and shows how the Split Sum Approximation can simplify the equation
presents how to implement the required shaders using GLSL

Infinite Quadtrees – Fractal Coordinates

the article introduces the idea of expression quadtrees in terms of a collection of square grids
this allows the space to grow indefinitely as the used spaces change (movement or zooms)

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Learn WebGPU

the WIP guide covers how to use the WebGPU graphics API from C++
at this time, presents how to create a render a basic 3D mesh
additionally shows how to load and apply textures

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The LookAt Matrix

the article presents how to implement a camera look-at matrix
visually shows how the components combine to form the result
mentions the difference between rasterization and ray-tracing workloads

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Lumen brings real-time global illumination to Fortnite Battle Royale Chapter 4

the blog post describes what changes were required to make Lumen work in 60 FPS mode for the new season of Fortnite
discusses how a reverse lookup structure is used to accelerate per-mesh surface cache information for sharper reflections and lighting when using software ray tracing at low resolutions
shows how spatiotemporal blue noise was able to improve results from the same number of rays

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Virtual Shadow Maps in Fortnite Battle Royale Chapter 4

the article explains the issue that needed to be solved for Virtual Shadow Maps at 60fps
explains common issues that are often encountered when trying to cache sun shadow maps
additionally explains a collection of techniques required to improve performance and quality for the Fortnite art style

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Thanks to Bruno Opsenica for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 271 - January 22nd, 2023

Sun, 22 Jan 2023 04:00:00 +0000

[video] SIGGRAPH 2022 - Advances in Spatial Hashing

the video explains how Spatial hashing applies to storing sparse spatial data
presents how to extend the technique for cache coherence using view-dependent effects using world-space temporal filtering
additionally presents how to improve quality by using visibility-aware environment sampling

Fast, Near Lossless ‘Compression’ of Normal Floats

the article explains a method to compress 32-bit floats into 24-bits
shows how IEEE floats are defined and how to take advantage of conventions to further compress them for constrained ranges
HLSL and C++ code is provided

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High-Performance Graphics 2023 - Call for Participation

the High-Performance Graphics 2023 conference is open for submissions
the pages list topics covered and important dates for the submission

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Jobs

Graphics Engineer (m/f/x)
Darmstadt/Germany (partly remote possible)

YOU are looking to revolutionize the world of 3D in industrial environments and enjoy working in a highly innovative team?

Develop next-gen rendering technology, create high-performance pipelines and write complex real-time shaders. We are guaranteed to have interesting topics for YOU!

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Announcing GFXReconstruct (v0.9.17) with DirectX®12 and DirectX® Raytracing support

the article announces that the GFXReconstruct now supports D3D12 (previously was Vulkan only)
explains how to use the tool to record D3D12 applications
additional shows workflows to reduce capture size and increase playback speed

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[video] Midpoint Displacement // Terrain Rendering episode 3

the video explains a second technique to generate terrains taken from the Focus on 3D Terrain Programming book
provides a high-level overview of the algorithms as well as an OpenGL implementation
additionally, details on how to deal with edge cases of the technique

Rotation with three shears

the article shows how to rotate a 2D sprite using 3 shear operations
discusses the properties and advantages of this method

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Thanks to Michael Hazani for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 270 - January 15th, 2023

Sun, 15 Jan 2023 04:00:00 +0000

AMD RDNA™ 3 Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) reference guide is now available

the new AMD hardware guide for RDNA3 has been released
covers the shader execution model, the various wave execution models
as well as how the shader core interacts with the memory hierarchy

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Approximate projected bounds

the article shows techniques implement conservative techniques to project bounding boxes and spheres into screen-space
these techniques are optimized for use in culling use cases as it affects the meaning of near-z clipping
presents trade-offs between the techniques in terms of computational cost and culling efficiency

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Use.GPU Goes Trad

the article describes how the Use.GPU level of abstraction is continuing to evolve
presents how scene management can be natively expressed as part of the same pass-based architecture
shows how the same high-level logic allows switching between deferred and forward rendering easily
additionally discusses strange limitations in the graphics APIs that make switching work between texture formats, pixel shaders, and compute shaders more difficult

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Jobs

Graphics Engineer (m/f/x)
Darmstadt/Germany (partly remote possible)

YOU are looking to revolutionize the world of 3D in industrial environments and enjoy working in a highly innovative team?

Develop next-gen rendering technology, create high-performance pipelines and write complex real-time shaders. We are guaranteed to have interesting topics for YOU!

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Tangent Spaces and Diamond Encoding

the article provides an overview of Tangen Space Encodings
covers how to use Octahedral Encoding and further compress it with Tangent Angle
from there, develops the suggested Diamond Encoding technique that extends the Octahedral approach into the tangent angle space
additionally provides a brief section on rethinking how tangent space encoding might be better expressed on a mesh(let) level on modern hardware

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Optimize Your Graphics with RenderDoc Meta Fork

the article presents the Meta Quest exclusive features of the RenderDoc fork
the extensions allow the visualization of the tiled-based hardware binning into screen tiles and how they are executed
allows drawing call tracing to gather the latency of draw calls
additionally allows the collection of hardware statistics of shaders through KHR_pipeline_executable_properties

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An Introduction to Vulkan: A Full Day Tutorial

during the Vulkanised 2023 conference in Munich, a full-day tutorial will take place
this post explains the target audience of the course and the associated price

Water Wave Simulation

the article aims to develop an intuition for FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) and how it’s underlying the math of waves
provides a large number of interactive examples to experiment with the effects of different parameters
contains a high-level introduction to complex numbers and how they relate to rotation and scaling

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Random thoughts after moving from GLSL to HLSL

the author describes the personal experience with GLSL and HLSL gained through moving AnKi 3D between the shading languages
mentions why HLSL seems like a better bet for the long-term future
also mentions shortcomings of using HLSL when developing Vulkan applications

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Min/Max Buffer Precision Improvement

the blog post explains how to improve the precision when encoding min-max per tile
the author suggests storing only one as an absolute value and a delta to reconstruct the other

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How to accelerate AI applications on RDNA 3 using WMMA

the article covers how Wave Matrix Multiply Accumulate (WMMA)
presents how to use the intrinsics available in the HIP framework to accelerate the matrix operations typically found in machine learning work

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Thanks to Peter Kohaut for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 269 - January 8th, 2023

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Practical Tips for Optimizing Ray Tracing

the article provides techniques to speedup raytracing workloads
discusses techniques to integrate “importance sampling” for dynamic objects that are off-screen but still contribute to effects
how to optimize shader table updates
additionally presents the idea of aligning TLAS boxes so that bounding boxes are aligned with the world axis

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Snowglobe

the article presents a breakdown of how a Snowglobe can be implemented using Unity
shows how to set up glass sphere refraction/reflections
additional covers on how to simulate the snow using particles

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Let’s talk about (GPU) crashes

the article presents a discussion of different sources of GPU hangs
shows techniques that can be used to track down the cause of hangs
techniques available in D3D12 and Vulkan that can be used to develop techniques to track down the source of the issue

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[pptx] Deep Dive into FidelityFX Super Resolution 2

the presentation contains a step-by-step walkthrough of the FSR implementation
shows how the API is structured and what updates have been made from FSR 2.0 to 21

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Updates in d3dx12.h: Nuget Packaging, Header Bloat Reduction, and D3DX12GetCopyableFootprints

a new version of the D3D Agility SDK has been released
includes the d3dx12 headers, and those have been split into separate headers so users can only include what they need
additionally, the implementation of GetCopyableFootprints has been open-sourced

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[video] Fault Formation // Terrain Rendering episode 2

the video shows how to implement a Fault Formation algorithm for a procedural terrain using OpenGL
additionally presents how a (Finite impulse response) FIR filter can be used to smooth the results
presents an overview of the filter, visualize the effects using Excel, and shows how to implement it using GLSL

[video] niagara: Culling optimization

another part of the Vulkan series that implement GPU culling
this part focuses on optimizations and cleanup tasks
presents the effects on the performance of the different techniques covered

Experimenting with fp16, part 2

the blog post continues the discussion of the effects of using 16-bit floating point values in the temporal resolve shader from the FidelityFX SSSR sample
looks into AMD hardware instruction generated by the compiler
shows how why the VGPR usage is so different
presents alternative ways to express the work and how it affects the generated code

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Requiem for piet-gpu-hal

the article discusses the reasoning why Vello (a GPU compute-centric 2D renderer) choose to transition to WebGPU
discusses the choices made during the implementation
looks at strengths and open issue
additionally provides a look at more advanced features and how WebGPU limits are affecting the project

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Thanks to Unai Landa for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 268 - January 1st, 2023

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Experimenting with fp16 in shaders

The article discusses the use of 16-bit floating point numbers (fp16) in shaders
Using fp16 can reduce the memory and bandwidth requirements of a shader
The article presents the results of experiments and how it affects the generated code

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Improving color quantization heuristics

the article discusses techniques for improving color quantization algorithms
presents several heuristics for improving the quality of quantization
the article discusses the trade-offs involved in using different heuristics and provides examples of the results

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Implement MacOS Monterey screen saver in shadertoy(less than 100 lines of code)

the tutorial shows how to implement an effect that recreates the color and wave pattern of the screensaver found in macOS
presents how to create the different aspects using shadertoy and how to combine the effects

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Screen-space Variable Rate Shading in Unity with DirectX 12.

The article discusses screen-space variable rate shading (VRS), a technique that can improve performance
VRS allows the shading rate to be varied across the screen
code examples show how to use the technique from Unity

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Column Major and Row Major Vectors and Matrices (for games)

the article explains the difference between row-major and column-major matrices
discusses the relationship between matrix storage format, matrix layout, and operation order
presents that the choice of storage format can affect the performance of matrix operations

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[video] Hexagonal Tiling Explained!

The video explains how to create a hexagon using SDFs in shadertoy
expands the concepts to show how to tile the grid of hexagons
demonstrates how to expand on the concepts to create more complex shapes

Unity Mobile Game Performance Optimization: Balance between Graphics Performance and GPU Pressure

the article discusses strategies for optimizing the performance of mobile games in Unity
presents the importance of tradeoffs between quality and performance
shows techniques for improving performance, such as reducing draw calls, minimizing overdraw, and using batching and instancing

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Thanks to Leonardo Etcheverry for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 267 - December 25th, 2022

Sun, 25 Dec 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Two-Pass Occlusion Culling

the blog posts describes how Hierarchical Z-Buffer (HZB) Occlusion Culling uses a depth buffer to improve culling efficiency
describes two possible solutions that can be used to solve the problem that a depth buffer of the view is required to accelerate the rasterization of the same view
focuses on a technique that uses information about which objects have been visible in the previous frame to accelerate the current

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Ghost of Tsushima SIGGRAPH Talks

summary of two Siggraph talks by the author covering Ghost of Tsushima
the talks cover Lighting, Atmosphere, Tonemapping as well as PBR Shading in Ghost of Tsushima

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Some News About the 4th Edition of Physically Based Rendering

the post announces that the new edition of PBR will be released on March 28, 2023
chapter 11 - Volume Scattering and Chapter 14, Light Transport: Volume Rendering are available as PDF download already

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[video] niagara: Triangle culling

the stream covers the implementation and exploration of triangle culling into a GPU culling pipeline
discusses trade-offs of different techniques and locations in the pipeline
shows the effects of different culling techniques on the number of primitives that need rasterization

Path tracing workshop

Intel released a Path tracing workshop of 76 minutes of videos and ShaderToy exercises
shows how to implement a ray tracer, the path tracer
how to speed up the algorithms through the use of importance sampling

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rust-gpu v0.4

a new version of rust-GPU that allows Rust code to generate SPIR-V has been released
this release adds support for raytracing
additional contains many new APIs such as support for ByteAddressableBuffer or debug_printf

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[video] Coding a Bezier curve from scratch!

the video presents how to implement Bezier Interpolation
shows how curves are defined, visualizing how the factors are combined to create the final curve
all implementations are presented in ShaderToy

Introduction of the Raytracing Technology Part 2

the article continues the series by covering an overview of raytracing techniques
covers the Path Tracing Equations, Direct Lighting (single and multiple lights), Indirect Illumination
Additionally covers high-level approaches such as Bidirectional Path Tracing and Metropolis Ray Tracing

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Meshlet sizing theory

the article presents metrics to calculate to judge the optimal size for meshlets
compares the AMD and Nvidia limits to see how they might affect the choices

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[video] Compute Shaders in Bevy

the video presents how to integrate a compute shader into the Rust-based bevy engine
shows how to integrate the compute pass into the render graph system
additionally shows how to read back simulation results back to the CPU

Deferred Shading

the article provides an explanation of deferred shading
discusses the issues with forward shading and how deferred shading can solve them
shows how deferred shading can be implemented, including techniques to reduce memory and bandwidth usage for the technique

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Stream compaction using wave intrinsics

the article presents how to use wave intrinsics to reduce the number of atomic operations required when compacting sparse arrays into packed arrays
presented technique is based on FidelityFX’s SSSR implementation

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Thanks to Vivitsu Maharaja for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 266 - December 18th, 2022

Sun, 18 Dec 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Introducing AMD Render Pipeline Shaders SDK

This article provides an overview of the Render Pipeline SDK design and implementation
it shows how the SDK can reduce the complexity of render graph implementations
presents that it’s able to manage resource barriers and transient memory
additionally presents a demonstration of the performance effects that could be observed from real game workloads
video version is available

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Introduction of the Raytracing Technology Part 1

the article provides an overview and history of raytracing
it covers different styles of raytracing, common elements
additionally provides a brief on how different phenomena can be simulated

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[video] Heightmaps // Terrain Rendering episode 1

the video is the start of a new video series to render a height map using OpenGL
shows how to load and render a terrain from a textural heightmap

[video] World Normal Mix Shader in Godot

the video tutorial shows how to implement a shader in Godot that mixes two textures into a single material based on the normal directions of the mesh
explains all the necessary vector space transformations, how to unpack normals as well as combine normals

[video] CUDA 12 New Features and Beyond

the video discusses new features in Cuda 12 and a look at future developemnts
covering Dynamic Parallelism (GPU side task launching), lazy loading to reduce load time and memory usage
additionally covers updates to the CUDA compiler, math library updates as well as compability updates

GM Shaders Mini: Fluids

the article presents a technique to improve the look of a particle based fluid system
uses Metaballs to more smoothly blend the particles together as well as simple Refraction model
implementation is provided in GLSL for Game Maker

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Bringing Nvidia® and AMD support to oneAPI

the article explains how the oneAPI API can be used to target intel, nvidia and AMD GPUs
presents a high level explanation of the technical implementation and goals for the future

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Thanks to Jon Greenberg for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 265 - December 11th, 2022

Sun, 11 Dec 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Resolving Long Standing Issues with Vulkan Windowing System Integration (WSI)

the blog post explains two new extensions that have been added to Vulkan to improve interaction with windowing systems
applications can now better be sure when to release swap chains, clean up the deletion flow as well as added additional flags to open the opportunity for driver optimizations during swap chain resize operations

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Understanding The Math Behind ReStir DI

the in-depth article explains the mathematics behind the original ReStir and an in-depth analysis of why it works
covers the preliminary knowledge required (Multiple)Importance Sampling, Sample Importance Resampling (SIR), Resampled Importance Sampling (RIS) as well, as Weighted Reservoir Sampling (WRS))
uses the information to develop a mental framework for understanding ReStir (Reservoir Spatio-Temporal Importance Resampling), how it works and why it’s an unbiased technique

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UE5.1 - New shading models and changing the GBuffer

the article presents how to integrate a custom toon shading model into UE5.1
explains the necessary C++ modifications and shader work to integrate it
presents the complexity and limitations connected to the integration

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[video] Live Coding: 3d Truchet Weave

the video presents a walkthrough of how to replicate a Truchet Weave pattern using ShaderToy
covering how to define an SDF for a Grid, Truchet, or Weave pattern and combine everything for the final result

Fast CDF generation on the GPU for light picking

the blog post explains how to build a cumulative distribution function (CDF) to accelerate the sampling of lights in a real-time ray tracer
explains the high-level concept of a CDF and shows how to implement this on the GPU
presents how to optimize the implementation to better take advantage of GPU hardware and utilize wave instructions for further optimizations

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[video] The Continuity of Splines

the detailed video explains splines and concepts derived/extended from these
covering Bézier Curves and Bézier Splines, explaining the underlying mathematics and concepts
provides an in-depth explanation of the concepts of continuity, yet again in a large number of contexts
with this information, the video dives deeper into extended concepts such as Hermite Spline, B-Spline, NURBS, and color splines (to name a few)

Area Lights

the tutorial explains how to implement area lighting using OpenGL
implements the “Linearly Transformed Cosines” technique as published originally in 2016

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[video] Shader Code and Maths to Node Graphs

the presentation focuses on how to approach the implementation of abstract code/math expressions to make it easier to work with
presents the importance of breaking down more complex expressions into sub-expression and visualizing individual components
shows the approaches by implementing randomized water puddle placement, a Gerstner Waves simulation, as well as using flow maps to displace water around obstacles

ECCV 2022 Tutorial - Neural Volumetric Rendering for Computer Vision

slides and videos for the Neural Volumetric Rendering for Computer Vision have been released
covering the fundamentals of Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs), how to apply them to Volumetric data sources
additional presents existing challenges as well as a brief walkthrough of a NeRFs workflow

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Behind the Pretty Frames: Death Stranding

the article provides a detailed look into a frame breakdown from the Decima engine-powered Death Stranding
shows how the frame is rendered in a large number of compute passes, showing what resources are used in each pass and how it’s combined
includes an overview of a large number of post-processing effects and how they appear to be implemented and combined to create the desired look

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Thanks to Graham Wihlidal for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 264 - December 4th, 2022

Sun, 04 Dec 2022 04:00:00 +0000

MIPNet: Neural Normal-to-Anisotropic-Roughness MIP Mapping

the paper presents a new method to calculate texture MIP maps that preserves compatibility with existing MIP mapping techniques
the technique uses neural networks to optimize the transfer of material appearance under varying view distances and lighting conditions
presents the results on two distinct BRDF models (Anisotropic GGX and Anisotropic Beckmann)

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[video] How Big Budget AAA Games Render Clouds

the video provides a summary of the cloud rendering techniques covered in Horizon: Zero Dawn and the FrostBite engine papers
shows the individual components visually and how they are combined to create the final cloud effect
a brief discussion of performance optimization possibilities

Studying 'Spectral Primary Decomposition'

the article continues the series on spectral rendering
this part focuses on methods to “upsample” sRGB colors to spectral representations
presents an implementation of Spectral Primary Decomposition for Rendering with sRGB Reflectance and discusses possible improvements

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[video] I Made a Game Entirely Within a Shader (almost) | Game Dev Challenge

the video presents how the author developed a pong game using only a pixel shader in Unity
shows how to use the alpha channel of the render target to store persistent state

[video] How I Made The World with SINE

the video focuses on the definition of a procedural terrain from a vertex shader
presents how to combine different noises and rotate patterns to create a planet

[video] [Episode 23] From Local to World Space (Model Matrix Transformation)

the video is the latest part of an OpenGL learning series that focuses on the explanation of vertex data transformation
explains the concepts of space transformations, focusing on how to change object positions in the world through the use of a world matrix
shows how to pass information from the C++ runtime to the OpenGL shaders

Shaders Explained: Dithering

the article explains how two implements two different types of dithering in metal shaders
presents and compares ordered and diffusion dithering algorithms

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[video] Why Did Link's Cel Shading Disappear?

the video does a deep dive into deferred shading techniques to explain why a graphical artifact in Zelda’s Breath of the Wild appears in a specific place
starting with a discussion of lighting techniques
shows how the scenes are rendered, what intermediate information is stored, and how it’s used for light calculations (including many visualizations)
finally, it concludes by showing how the error happened and why it’s localized to specific locations in the world

Announcing ComputeSharp 2.0 — run C# on the GPU with ease through DirectX 12 and D2D1!

the article presents the library that allows C# code to be executed via HLSL, D2D1, XAML, and more
shows the developer experience, explaining how the code is transformed for GPU execution
presents the two execution models that showcase performance vs. ease of use

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 263 - November 27th, 2022

Sun, 27 Nov 2022 04:00:00 +0000

VK_EXT_descriptor_buffer

discusses issues with the current Vulkan binding model
presents how the new descriptor buffer extension allows decoupling draw calls from the descriptor binding
presents how it helps with the D3D12 layer and can solve common issues with the current binding model
it additionally covers how this extension also allows GPU timeline descriptor copying

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How to make Sage's ice wall ability from Valorant

the tutorial explains how to create an ice wall VFX inspired from the game Valorant in Godot
covers the code setup, art asset creation as well as shader authoring

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Jobs

3D Tools Engineer
Remote Work

Marmoset, developer of the real-time rendering software, Marmoset Toolbag, is looking for an experienced developer to help build bigger and better software tools for 3D artists.

The responsibilities of a Tools Engineer on the Marmoset team will focus on technical design and implementation of UI systems, and refining the user experience for new and existing workflows in 3D art production.

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Technically Art: Issue 135 (25.11.2022)

contains a collection of tweets covering procedural texturing with MaterialX, shader VFX examples
WIP and prototype effects, as well as VFX breakdowns

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[video] Car Paint Shader - Advanced Materials - Episode 9

the video tutorial presents several techniques for creating a car paint shader
covers base coloring, the addition of sparkles, as well as a clear-coat layer
additionally presents how to implement a carbon fiber material
implementation is shown in Unity and Unreal visual shader authoring

Shader Reflection using the DirectX Shader Compiler

the article presents how to use the DXC library to compile and gather information from compiled D3D12 shaders
shows how to use the API to generate root signatures

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

Double Fine Productions is looking for a full time graphics programmer to join its San Francisco based development studio. Having recently shipped the award winning Psychonauts 2, we are looking to expand our graphics and systems programming team to support the development of our future titles.

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

Applicants should have a strong preference for working in a highly creative, innovative, and nimble development environment, where collaborating with design, audio, art, animation, tech, and other disciplines is standard.

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Brotli-G: An open-source compression/decompression standard for digital assets that is compatible with GPU hardware

AMD introduces a GPU-compatible implementation of the Brotli lossless compression algorithm
the SDK provides a CPU compressor and a compute shader implementation of the decompressor
code is released as open-source using the MIT license

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Introduction of the ASTC Texture Compression

the article provides an overview of the different ASTC Texture Compression formats available
shows the quality and file size that can be expected for gradients, normal maps, as well as facial albedo textures

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Thanks to Sondre Kongsgård for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 262 - November 20th, 2022

Sun, 20 Nov 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] But what is a convolution?

the video provides a great visual explanation of convolution filters
starting with random number examples, expanding to image progressing filters such as blurring and sharpening
additionally provides more details on methods to compute large convolution filters more quickly

Spherical Elevation Adjusting Arbitrary Normals

the article explains how to offset normals along spheres so that displacement doesn’t cause self-intersections
additionally shows how to adjust the normas/tangents to match the displaced normals

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Radeon™ Raytracing Analyzer source code available + meet amdrdf

the AMD Radeon Raytracing Analyzer has been open-sourced
it allows for visualization and inspection of Bounding Volume Hierarchies

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Jobs

3D Tools Engineer
Remote Work

Marmoset, developer of the real-time rendering software, Marmoset Toolbag, is looking for an experienced developer to help build bigger and better software tools for 3D artists.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Agility SDK 1.608.0: Enhanced Barriers and more

new agility SDK release contains Enhanced Barriers (no longer in preview SDK, removing the need for developer mode)
the Depth Bias and Index Buffer Strip Cut Value can now be changed after a pipeline has been set

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VK_EXT_descriptor_buffer

new Vulkan proposal outlines improvements to the management of descriptor memory
to allow descriptors to be treated more explicitly and managed alongside other buffer objects
shows how a form of GPU descriptor updates can be enabled

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

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[video] GCAP22 Highlights: Expert Level Debugging

the presentation provides an overview of x64 assembly
uses the presented information to show how to debug a stack corruption issue

AMD lab notes

the series of blog posts aimed to share the lessons learned from tuning applications for AMD GPUs
at this time, covering the Laplacian Finite Difference Method

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Decompiling Nvidia shaders, and optimizing

the article presents how to decompile NVidia OpenGL and Vulkan shader
shows which tools are required to unpack the Nvidia caches and remap to the source shader names
presented steps are Linux, but windows should follow similar procedures
additionally, it presents a couple of examples of optimizations and their effect on the generated assembly

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Technically Art: Issue 134 (18.11.2022)

a collection of tweets covering a flood filling, VFX breakdowns, unit shader books
blender geometry nodes and work-in-progress game showcases

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Thanks to Michael Hazani for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 261 - November 13th, 2022

Sun, 13 Nov 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Metal Shader - Advanced Materials - Episode 7

the video tutorial explains how to create a metal material
explains the effect of the metallic parameter, metal reflectance values as well as specular reflection
shows the implementation with both Unity and Unreal Engine

BC1 Compression Revisited

the article describes how to compress high-quality BC1 images efficiently
explains how the compression space is optimized
in-depth explanation of the vectorization process and how to efficiently use SSE, AVX, … to optimize the implementation

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Accelerating Load Times for DirectX Games and Apps with GDeflate for DirectStorage

the article presents an overview of GPU-based GDeflate compression
shows the influence of staging buffer size on compression speed
list several best practice recommendations

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Graphics API secrets: format casting

the article presents the API rules for casting between texture formats in both Vulkan and D3D12
discussing sRGB, BC(Block Compression), Depth and generic color format rules
additionally, it shows Sparse/Tiled resources can be used to alias textures

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Jobs

3D Tools Engineer
Remote Work

Marmoset, developer of the real-time rendering software, Marmoset Toolbag, is looking for an experienced developer to help build bigger and better software tools for 3D artists.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

GPU submission strategies

the presentation shows how submitting/recording commands lists from the API to the GPU affects performance
shows how to use GPU View and Radeon GPU Profiler to understand the execution behavior
presents different strategies and how they differ
additionally presents insights into the driver behavior by discussing the Open Source Linux driver behavior

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Implicit half edges

the presentation explains what Half edges data structure is
discusses use cases and issues
presents how to overcome some of the issues by using an Implicit half edges structure

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Triplanar, Dithered Triplanar, and Biplanar Mapping in Unreal

the article provides an overview of the implementation of three different techniques for procedural texture mapping (Triplanar, Dithered Triplanar, and Biplanar Mapping)
implementation is provided in UE5 visual shader code
explains the trade-offs of the different solutions

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[video] Physically Based Rendering // Intermediate OpenGL Series

the video provides an overview of a Physically Based shading model
discusses the Cook-Torrance BRDF model, Schlick GGX, and Fresnel
provides both the theoretical overview as well as the GLSL shader code implementation of the presented technique

Bindless rendering — validation

the blog post describes the design of a validation system for bindless shader resource access
shows how the shader code is protected against invalid resource usage
presents how shaders can report failures back to the CPU to be able to inform the user about the error

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

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[video] SIGGRAPH 2022 Real-Time Live!

recording of the Siggraph showcase of original, interactive projects of the year
includes Horizon Forbidden West, Unity-based machine learning character posing, hybrid VR, desktop sculpting, the cavern UE5 demo from the coalition, Unity Digitial Humans facial capture system, and much more

Nubis, Evolved: Real-Time Volumetric Clouds for Skies, Environments, and VFX

the slides for the Real-Time Volumetric Clouds of Horizon Zero West from SIGGRAPH have been released
covers the cloud modeling, authoring, and improved lighting implementation
additionally covers optimizations and presents performance numbers

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[video] Deferred Lights - Pixel Renderer Devlog #1

the video explains the implementation of a 2D deferred shading system
shows a breakdown of the individual steps of the lighting pipeline
presents how to render shadows using a stencil-based shadow approach
shows how to generate shadow mask extension meshes, update stencil buffers and deal with shadows overlapping multiple objects

GM Shaders Mini: Noise 2

the article explains how to generate Worley, Voronoi, and fractal noise in a GLSLS shader
ShaderToy example is provided

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Thanks to Jonathan Tinkham for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 260 - November 6th, 2022

Sun, 06 Nov 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Global Lecture with Ed Catmull - The Wild, Unexpected, Exponential Ride Through Computer Graphics

the lecture presents an overview of computer-graphics technology of the last 50 years as experienced by Ed Catmull
shows how individual developments combine over time and cause the speed of innovation to accelerate
contains a large number of anecdotes about the history of computer-graphics

GM Shaders Mini: Noise

the tutorial covers how to generate different noise type in shaders
covers a basic hash function, value noise as well as perlin noise
shader code is provided in ShaderToy

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[video] Shader Sauce: How to Use Shaders to Create Stylized VFX

the video talk introduces a collection of fundamental shader concepts and tricks aimed at the creation of VFX
some tricks covered are UV distortion, Masks, LUTs & Gradient Mapping, Debugging advice, and much more
code examples are provided in Unreal Engine 4

Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

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Vector text rendering in Unreal Engine

the article covers how to extend UE4 with a custom vertex format and shading pass
the provided example code is meant to replicate the logic required to implement the Slug text rendering library

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[video] Investigating and Dispelling Shader Myths... with Science!

the talk presents a set of common misconceptions about shader code patterns
shows what instructions are generated and how these patterns affect performance
examples are provided using UE 5.1 custom shader nodes
talking about multiply vs. divide, packing floats, use of Lut’s vs. Math, as well as the effect of exponential powers

Write your first GPU Kernel using Metal

the tutorial explains the basic steps required to execute a metal compute shader kernel
shows how to initialize the metal library, upload buffers, compile shaders and execute compute-shaders

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Unreal Engine Game Optimization on a Budget

the presentation provides an overview of essential concepts when optimizing an Unreal Engine game
explains the foundational settings that are required for correct profiling
covers how rendering performance can be optimized
touches on culling, draw distances, occlusion queries, shadow proxies
additionally provides a valuable list of debug commands

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Thanks to Jonathan Tinkham for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 259 - October 30th, 2022

Sun, 30 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000

MeshTaichi: A Compiler for Efficient Mesh-based Operations (SIGGRAPH Asia 2022)

the paper presents a mesh computation compiler that separates mesh operations from the data partitioning
the system partitions meshes into sub-patches and reorganize mesh data so that attributes can be accessed from local on-chip memory
presents performance results and compares against RXmesh, another system that tries to optimize mesh access patterns

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[video] ICC Colour Profiles, AdobeRGB & sRGB, and "Colour Management" on Windows. The Nightmare Part 1

the video shows the importance of color profiles
presents how in the absence of profiles, applications are free to interpret the results
shows how the most reliable way to get consistent results across applications is to convert from authoring color space into sRGB
additionally shows how to inspect color profiles

Jobs

3D Engineer
Darmstadt/Germany (remote possible)

As a 3D Engineer at Threedy, you develop our core system’s algorithms and data structures, always optimizing data representations for efficient and cutting-edge 3D data streaming and visual computing.

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[video] Intel’s New AI: Amazing Ray Tracing Results!

the video presents a new upsampling technique developed by intel (Temporally Stable Real-Time Joint Neural Denoising and Supersampling)
presents a comparison against previous techniques
shows that the technique can significantly improve denoising and also upscale the image to higher output resolutions

Shader Tutorial: Enter The Matrix

the tutorial presents how to rotate a texture in 2D space
explains rotation matrices, how to rotate around different positions of the plane
additionally presents the necessary steps to integrate into Unity for demonstration

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Low Discrepancy Color Sequences

the article describes a possible solution to generate a color palette with neighboring colors being most different from each other
presents issues with some possible solutions
it additionally presents ideas about weaknesses of the offered solution and possible improvements

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Thanks to Marius Horga for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 258 - October 23rd, 2022

Sun, 23 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Performance Comparison of Bounding Volume Hierarchies for GPU Ray Tracing

the paper presents a comparison of a large number of methods for the construction of BVHs for ray tracing workloads
concludes by making suggestions for future technological developments that appear to offer the most potential at the time of writing

FSR 2.1 UE plugin enhancements part 1: Intro & improving foliage appearance using the base pass

the 5 part series provides a walkthrough of common issues when using the FSR 2.0 upscaler in Unreal Engine Projects
discusses why the issues occur, what solutions are available and how FSR 2.1 was improved to deal with the issues

binary search for sdfs - 2018, 2022

the article presents the story of how the author experimented with binary search in a shader for accelerating SDF tracing workloads
shows how to implement a stackless GPU-based traversal
presents why the binary search is unable to outperform the SDF raymarching loop

Godot SDFGI - Solving the accessible Global Illumination problem in Godot

the slides discussing the new GI solution implemented for Godot
the talk will happen on Friday, 28th twitter DM for signup
discusses how the technique is based on sphere tracing distance fields
how to generate the distance fields, trace lights
additionally spends a large chunk of the presentation on optimizations to make the technique viable

Jobs

3D Engineer
Darmstadt/Germany (remote possible)

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Opening HLSL Planning

the blog post announces that a new, more open model for HLSL language development
discusses what feature will be able to be discussed in public and how the process will work

SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 papers on the web

a collection of papers from SIGGRAPH Asia 2022
the list is updated every couple of days at this time

Snowy Rock Shader - Advanced Materials - Episode 4

the video shader tutorial series covers how to create a shader that allows procedural rock shading with snow support
previous tutorials covered how to create the individual pieces, and those are combined in this part
video shows the implementation in both Unreal and Unity visual shader authoring

GI-1.0: A Fast Scalable Two-Level Radiance Caching Scheme for Real-Time Global Illumination

the AMD paper presents the findings for a new dynamic GI solution
proposes the separation into a screen and world space cache that complement each other with additional information
provides a detailed description of the individual steps, performance results as well as known limitations

stanford - Computer Science cheatsheets

a collection of cheatsheets on the high-level concepts of topics such as AI, machine learning, and statistics

Ray Tracing: How NVIDIA Solved the Impossible!

the video presents a history of light transport algorithms development
shows a breakdown of each technique and improvements in each iteration

Emulating Double Precision on the GPU to Render Large Worlds

the article presents that the Godot engine supports compilation in double-precision mode
shows how to emulate double precision calculation on GPUs that don’t support double by using two floats
presents what limitations still exist with this solution

My mesh shaders talk at XDC 2022

the blog post provides the text version of the mesh shader talk presented
the presentation covers the issues with the classic graphics pipeline and how mesh shaders can address these
presents how mesh shaders are authored, limitations, and hardware preference differences

Thanks to Keith O’Conor for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 257 - October 16th, 2022

Sun, 16 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Better outline rendering using surface IDs with WebGL

the article presents how to improve an outline rendering technique by using surface IDs instead of normals
discusses which issues the use of normals can cause and how surface Ids can improve
presents what kind of data issues can occur and how to pre-process the data

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Improve Shader Performance and In-Game Frame Rates with Shader Execution Reordering

the article presents how the Nvidia hardware feature Shader Execution Reordering (SER) can be leveraged in D3D12 ray tracing workloads
shows how to integrate the API and the necessary Root signature and shader changes
presents how the new feature was integrated into UE5 Path Tracing and Lumen
additionally mentions when the feature should be used and what kind of speedups can be expected

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Transparent and Crystal Clear: Writing Unity URP Shaders with Code, Part 3

the article (and video) explains how to author and integrate shaders with transparency support for use in Unity
covers Alpha Blending, Alpha Cutouts, sorting as well as shadow integrations
presents code examples for all stages with detailed explanations

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Jobs

3D Engineer
Darmstadt/Germany (remote possible)

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DirectStorage 1.1 Coming Soon

the article presents that the next DirectStorage release will start to support GPU-based GDeflate decompression
drivers can provide optimized implementation, but a generic DirectCompute fallback will be provided
lists what hardware and software will support the feature

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[video] Sparkling Snow Shader - Advanced Materials - Episode 2

the video tutorial series covers how to build a complex rock shader
this episode shows the implementation of a snow shader in both UE and Unity with view-dependent sparkles
presents how to analyze source texture data and separate information so that smaller texture resolutions can be used without quality loss
shows how to pack textures and manually unpack them from the shader

Intel® Arc™ Graphics Developer Guide for Real-Time Ray Tracing in Games

the Developer Guide provides a functional description of Intel’s hardware ray-tracing implementation
additionally provides a list of guidelines for developers to allow them to maximize performance

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Upscale SDK comparison

the blog post provides a comparison of DLSS 2.4, FSR 2.1.1, and Intel XeSS upscaling techniques
provides uncompressed images of different scenes for better comparison

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

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[video] What is NVIDIA DLSS 3? | The Performance Multiplier

the video provides a high-level explanation of the DLSS 3 system
covering the hardware and system components required for the functionality
presents how motion vectors and optical flow are combined to generate intermediate frames

Lighting Test for Unreal Engine 5

a collection of simple test scenes for light conditions in UE5 and NVIDIA Falcor 5.2 Mogwai path tracer
contains Perfect Lambert Plane, Perfect Mirror Plane, Perfect Mirror Weak White Plane, as well as a Glossy Plane

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My take on shaders: Compute shaders

the article presents how to implement a compute shader that can be used to paint on vertex meshes in realtime
explains the fundamentals of compute shaders
shows how to integrate the system with code examples in Unity

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[video] How to blend skeletal animations // Intermediate OpenGL Series

the video explains how to implement blending between two skeletal animations
shows what information the ASSIMP library provides and how the data is structured
additionally presents how to update the OpenGL implementation to allow blending

Post-Processing – In-Depth Camera Distortion Effects

the article provides examples of different camera distortion effects (with code examples)
presents distortion, expansion/contraction, longitudinal/horizontal stretch as well as extrusion effects

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PIX 2210.10-preview: Initial support for Preview Agility SDK v706

PIX adds a separate preview branch of the tool that supports the Preview Agility SDKs
supports Enhanced Barriers, Independent Front/Back Stencil Refs and Masks, Triangle Fans
lists known limitations and considerations when starting to use the preview tool

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Thanks to Keith O’Conor for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 256 - October 9th, 2022

Sun, 09 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] How Ray Tracing (Modern CGI) Works And How To Do It 600x Faster

the video provides a walkthrough of ray tracing fundamentals
explaining the required concepts, such as BRDF and energy preservation, to understand the rendering equation
discusses patterns that cause raytracing techniques to require a large number of calculations
explains what the ReSTIR technique is and how it allows a significant reduction in the calculations required by taking advantage of spatial and temporal reuse

Progressive Material Caching

the paper introduces a progressive technique to cache material evaluations at runtime
presents the implementation details of updating a fixed-size hash table on the GPU
additionally shows the performance of the method and presents the effect of different cache sizes

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On AlphaTensor’s new matrix multiplication algorithms

the article discusses recent AlphaTensor’s discovery on matrix multiplication
explains what the algorithm applies to and how it compares to existing techniques
clarifies the performance results reported in articles

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Real-time distance field builder twitter thread

the Twitter thread summarises the real-time distance field generator used by AMD research work
can maintain the scene representation in < 0.5 ms each frame

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Fused BVH to Ray Trace Level of Detail Meshes

the paper presents a method to extend a mesh BVH with additional data so that it can be shared between multiple LODs
presents how to store the fused BVHs
shows performance and memory impact of using a different number of LODs

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Combining GPU Tracing Methods within a Single Ray Query

the paper presents a method that combines distance field tracing with hardware ray tracing
distance field generation is described in the “Real-time distance field builder Twitter thread” above
describes when to choose between hardware ray tracing and where to fall back to distance field

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Technically Art: Issue 128 (07.10.2022)

a collection of Twitter posts about a large variety of tech artist topics
breakdowns of techniques, tree animation breakdowns, and a showcase of effects

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Notes about Nanite in UE5.1 preview

the article presents an overview of ongoing Nanite developments the developer noticed in the UE5.1 preview
appears to start adding support for programmable pixel shader evaluation to allow masked materials
additionally, initial support for vertex modifications and existing culling limitations

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Simulating Wind on Procedural Terrain using GPU Accelerated Lattice Boltzmann Method

the blog post discusses a numerical method for fluid flow to simulate wind flow over terrain
discusses the underlying theory and how to mathematically express the simulation
shows how to implement the method using compute shaders in OpenGL

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Thanks to Denis Gladkiy for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 255 - October 2nd, 2022

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Notes on screenspace reflections with FidelityFx SSSR

the article provides an overview of the implementation underlying AMDs’ FidelityFx screen space reflection technique
discusses how the decision is made if to trace a screen space ray or to fallback to cubemap reflections
presents performance optimizations done across the different stages

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[video] Introduction to Raytracing with the Radeon Developer Tools Suite

the video provides an introduction to the AMD raytracing tool
shows how to use the tools to gather performance information about the raytracing passes
video explanation of the Improving raytracing performance with the Radeon™ Raytracing Analyzer (RRA) that was covered in the week 253

Screen Post-processing Effects: Gamma Space and Linear Space

the article provides a summary of two plots for the existence of gamma space related to CRT and human perception
presents how the workflows are integrated into Unity and Unreal
it additionally presents how rendering results are incorrect when done in the wrong space

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Screen Post-processing Effects: Color Models and Color Grading

the article discusses the RGB and HSV color spaces
presents how to convert between the two spaces
it additionally shows how to use the HSV model to implement fullscreen color adjustments effects such as desaturation

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[video] An In-Depth look at Lerp, Smoothstep, and Shaping Functions

the video presents visual explanations of lerp (linear interpolation)
takes the knowledge to extend how to visualize and shape the curve for different effects
presents standard functions and presents different use-cases
it additionally shows cases where linear interpolation is not enough (camera movement, rotations, ..) and how to resolve them

Bindless Rendering in DirectX12 and SM6.6

the blog post provides an introduction level guide to using the D3D12 bindless model
shows how RenderDoc and Nsight show the accessed resources for debugging purposes

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An Algorithm for Polygon Intersections

the article presents how to calculate the intersection between axis-aligned rectangles
extends the methods to cover rotated and more generic polygon shapes
interactive code samples provided in javascript

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[video] Nvidia DLSS 3 on RTX 4090 - Exclusive First Look - 4K 120FPS and Beyond

the video explains how DLSS uses motion vectors and optical flow fields to implement AI Frame Generation
presents performance and quality comparison
discusses the upsides and downsides of the new AI frame generation technique

Vulkanised conference - call for submissions

the 2023 Vulkanised conference has been announced for in-person in Munich in February
organizes are currently looking for speakers for the event

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Intel(R) Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) SDK

Intel has released the SDK for the XeSS upscaler
closed source release that exposes the API for D3D12-based applications

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 254 - September 25, 2022

Sun, 25 Sep 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Ray Tracing of Signed Distance Function Grids

the paper presents a comparison of traversal and voxel intersection testing of signed distance function grids
compares the performance of the different methods
it additionally introduces a new method for interpolating normals for smoother edges across voxel edges

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Color-Perception-Guided Display Power Reduction for Virtual Reality

the paper presents a method designed for VR applications that adjust colors to reduce display color consumption
shows how to develop a perceptual model to detect what color changes in the peripheral vision are acceptable without being noticeable

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Animation Retargeting

the blog post provides a method to allow the retargeting of animations between models that share a common rig setup
presented method is meant for offline (tool) processing of the 3D model files

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Jobs

Software / Graphics Engineer Unity 3D (m/w/d)
Darmstadt/Germany (partly remote possible)

Als Rendering-Geek bist du mit den komplexesten Konzepten der Unity3D-Engine (z.B. Scriptable Rendering Pipeline) bestens vertraut.

Bei uns hast du die Möglichkeit Next-Level-3D-Datenstreaming innerhalb komplexer XR-Szenarien in enger Abstimmung mit unseren Kunden umzusetzen.

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[video] Post Process VHS Filter Part 3 - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 62

the video tutorial presents how to implement a noise that recreates the interference of unshielded cables
shows how to generate white noise and animate it for movements

Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games 2022

the slides for the Siggraph 2022 Advances in Real-Time Rendering course have been released
covering runtime Catmull Clark Subdivision, Global Illumination and Ray Tracing in Unreal Engine 5, Unity hair system as well as water rendering in Horizon Forbidden West
missing slides for Volumetric Clouds in Horizon Forbidden West as well as Cluster Path Tracing for Remote Rendering

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Quaternions: a geometrical interpretation.

the article presents a visual interpretation of Quaternion mathematics
starting from 2D rotations and developing towards 3D rotations from there

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

[video] Easily Remaster Classic Games with NVIDIA RTX Remix

the video introduces the NVIDIA RTX Remix engine
the runtime allows the interception of DX9 applications
replaces the application renderer with the custom renderer
it additionally allows all assets to be intercepted and exported into a USD format where the assets can be modified and reloaded into the original game

[video] Soft Shadows - PCF & Random Sampling // OpenGL Advanced Rendering Series

the video tutorial explains how to improve an OpenGL shadow mapping implementation to allow softer edges
presents a Percentage Closer Filtering implementation, discussing weaknesses and limitations of the techniques
it also shows how to implement a method to improve the edge filtering by varying the sample positions

Thanks to Leonardo Etcheverry for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 253 - September 18, 2022

Sun, 18 Sep 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Improving raytracing performance with the Radeon Raytracing Analyzer (RRA)

the post provides insights into ray tracing BVH performance
shows how splitting BVHs, usage of instances, BVH splitting, and model creation can affect performance
the effect of deformations on update vs. rebuild
additionally presents a comparison of iterative and recursive ray tracing

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Vulkan Render-Queues and how they Sync

the article presents how a render graph gets updated to handle exclusive resource ownership between multiple GPU queues
examples are provided in Vulkan terms
explain the difference between binary and timeline semaphores
shows how to integrate swap chain synchronization into such a system

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[video] SIGGRAPH 2022 Talk - A Fast & Robust Solution for Cubic & Higher-Order Polynomials

the video presentation provides a walkthrough of methods to find the real roots of polynomials
presents an example of how to use the technique for hair rendering to calculate hair strand intersections

Defeat Banding – Part II

the article discusses a method to detect artifacts in video
applies the concept to detect banding artifacts and present a visual representation of the artifacts present over time

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Jobs

Software / Graphics Engineer Unity 3D (m/w/d)
Darmstadt/Germany (partly remote possible)

Als Rendering-Geek bist du mit den komplexesten Konzepten der Unity3D-Engine (z.B. Scriptable Rendering Pipeline) bestens vertraut.

Bei uns hast du die Möglichkeit Next-Level-3D-Datenstreaming innerhalb komplexer XR-Szenarien in enger Abstimmung mit unseren Kunden umzusetzen.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

[video] Pixelation Filter - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 61

the video tutorial presents how to create a fullscreen post-screen effect that pixelates the screen
provides a walkthrough of the implementation in Unity and Unreal using visual shader graphs

Fast Post-Processing on the Oculus Quest and Unity

a short article that shows an option to apply tone mapping in forward shading without wanting to use a separate fullscreen pass
discusses the shortcomings of the technique

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Screen Post-processing Effects: Depth of Field (DOF) and Its Implementation

the article provides an overview of depth of field effects
shows the effect of different camera parameters on the visual results
presents an implementation in Unity shader code

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[video] Practical Skeletal Animation // Intermediate OpenGL Series

the video tutorial provides a walkthrough of issues in supporting animated models
shows how to extend to larger support bone counts, dealing with zero bone influences as well as supporting multiple animations

Thanks to Mike Turitzin for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 252 - September 11, 2022

Sun, 11 Sep 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Visualizing General Relativity

the article explains a method to simulate and render different warped space-times
shows how to simulate the light to form a black hole

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Rendering my balls in a fragment shader

the blog post provides a walkthrough of how to render 2D billiard balls in a pixel shader
shows how to render a sphere, calculate normals, apply textures and specular lighting

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Parallel curves of cubic Béziers

the article describes a method to generate a cubic Bézier curve that is parallel with a defined offset distance to another curve
compares different methods and presents examples to experiment with the proposed techniques

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Improving Vulkan graphics state tracking in Mesa

the article discusses how API pipeline state maps onto different hardware types
presents how the open source Mesa stack provides solutions to the problem that can take advantage of the underlying hardware

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Technically Art: Issue 124 (9.09.2022)

a collection of tweets about tech art, VFX, and related topics
showcases in-progress developments and experiments

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Gradient-descent optimized recursive filters for deconvolution / deblurring

the post discusses infinite impulse response (IIR filter)
shows when one might want to use an IIR filter, discussing problems with the filters
proposes a solution that uses a gradient descent optimization process to learn an IIR filter

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[video] Post Process VHS Filter Part 2 - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 60

the second video of the series VHS filter series adds support for worn-out tape and tracking-out-of-phase effect
implementation is done using Unity and Unreal shader graph system

Thanks to Ken Russell for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 251 - September 5, 2022

Mon, 05 Sep 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Ray Marching, and making 3D Worlds with Math

the short video provides a great visual introduction to distance functions and ray marching
presents how to express shapes using implicit surfaces
showing techniques to combine different shapes and animate them

Lighting participating media with thousands of lights

the article shows the Grid-Based Reservoirs sampling technique for dynamic lights in participating media
this enables the temporal reuse of samples among neighboring rays
shows the different stages of the implementation and how different sampling and noise distributions change the results

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Mesh Shading for Vulkan

mesh shader support has been added to Vulkan through VK_EXT_mesh_shader
the article compares the API against D3D12 and the previous Nvidia extension
Khronos additionally provides several queryable attributes that developers can use to tune the algorithms for the hardware capabilities and requirements

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[video] Intel Arc Graphics | Intel Arc A-Series Graphics Ray Tracing Technology Deep Dive

the video starts with a visual overview of rasterization, raytracing, and hybrid rendering techniques
the talk focuses on how intel hardware is designed to efficiently support raytracing
contains benchmark comparisons of expected performance compared to an RTX3060

Progressive image stippling and greedy blue noise importance sampling

the article presents a method to generate Progressive blue noise samples that follow the image content
shows the implementation in python
discusses the effects of different parameters and how they can be used for the required results

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[video] Post Process VHS Filter - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 59

the video presents how to implement two VHS effects, interlacing lines and YIQ color grading, in a post-processing effect
walkthrough of the effect is provided in both Unreal and Unity

Compressing global illumination with neural networks

the blog presents the idea of using a simple neural network to encode diffuse indirect light for a scene
discusses the various steps in the experiment
presents the final results and discusses weaknesses of the approach

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[archive] Practical Aspects of Spectral Data in Digital Content Production - SIGGRAPH 2022

second year of the spectral rendering Siggraph course
focusing on the practical aspects of spectral rendering
shows the limitations of RGB and discusses the advantages of spectral rendering and workflows

Technically Art: Issue 123 (2.09.2022)

a collection of tweets about tech art, VFX, and related topics
showcases of in-progress developments and experiments

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Thanks to Giuseppe Modarelli for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 250 - August 28, 2022

Sun, 28 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Barycentric Quad Rasterization

presents why and when a quad is being drawn as two triangles can cause discontinuities along the edge
the paper presents a geometry shader implementation of generalized barycentric coordinates for quads
this concept was introduced in 2004 for CPU rasterization when hardware support was not available

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Practical Real-Time Hex-Tiling

the paper introduces an adaptation of the Heitz and Neyret texture tiling technique
the original technique required offline preprocessing to enable histogram-preserving tiling
the new method removes the requirement and presents the implementation in shader code only
presents how to apply the technique for color and normal maps

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Clip control on the Apple GPU

the blog post provides an insight into how the apple metal driver is separated into components
shows how it’s possible to call internal APIs and reconstruct hardware behavior
presents a discussion of OpenGL clip space mapping and limitations of different emulation behaviors

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[video] Creating an Outline Effect as a Post-Process in Unity

the video tutorial explains how to implement an outline effect in Unity
presents how to detect edges using the depth buffer, create an outline at the edges
it additionally shows how to adjust the effect so that objects behind objects get a separate show-through-wall effect

HPG 2022 Keynote: The Journey to Nanite - Brian Karis, Epic Games

the talk discusses the issues artist encounter and how Nanite goals are designed to resolve them
presents a large number of topics Brian Karis had researched along the way
shows a brief overview of the techniques, shortcomings, and reasons why they failed
discusses how to structure long-term research, focusing on challenges of the field and the importance of coding like a scientist

CoG 2022: Automatic Testing and Validation of LoD Reductions Through Supervised Learning

the paper introduces two convolutional neural networks (CNN) based techniques that can detect LOD transitions and the quality of that transition
two models are presented to solve these two issues separately
discusses the issue with the current approaches and how the presented techniques could be used to support artists

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Thanks to Daniel Fortes for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 249 - August 21, 2022

Sun, 21 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

The GPU Banana Stand

the article presents an overview of the composable declarative GPU authoring
shows how chain compute dispatches, handles historical data as well as visualizes temporary results
it additionally discusses how the tree representation allows internal composability and enables background optimizations

My personal hell of translating DXIL to SPIR-V – finale

the article continues the series of translating DXIL to SPIR-V for use with vkd3d-proton
the part covers how to convert structured control flow. DXIL is unstructured and needs to be converted into structured SPIR-V
discusses the limitations, oddities and solutions developed to make the conversion work and debuggable

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Exploring Shaders with Compiler Explorer

the article presents how to integrate new compilers into the compiler explorer infrastructure (which can be run locally)
discusses the DXC and AMD Radeon™ GPU Analyzer integration
shows the limitations of the existing integration

[video] Let There Be Light (And Shadow) | Writing Unity URP Code Shaders Tutorial [2/9]

the video tutorial presents how to write universal rendering pipeline shaders in HLSL
shows how to implement simple diffuse & specular lighting, explaining the render pipeline as the author goes along
it also shows how to integrate shadow rendering
additionally presents the debugging tools available

Deconstructing Bézier curves

the article explains the underlying theory for Bézier curves and shows how the different component interacts
presents how to express the curve mathematically so that intersections between a ray and the curve can be found
shows how to use the information to detect if a pixel is inside or outside of a shape

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Journey to Lumen

the article discusses the different approaches that were tried during the development of lumen
presents tradeoffs of the different techniques and how the decision was made on which one to use
it additionally shows how the arrival of Nanite changed several variables significantly and therefore made a new evaluation of approaches necessary

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[video] Resampled Importance Sampling: Foundations of ReSTIR

the video presents the foundation how to general ReSTIR sampling
this allows resampling with importance sampling for arbitrary domains
continues to show how to apply these concepts to allow ReSTIR for path-tracers
shows how to allow reuse across paths, discusses considerations and limitations

[video] Coding a crazy weave pattern

the video shows how to implement a Truchet effect using shadertoy
presents the whole implementation from start to finish, showing all intermediate steps
it additionally discusses how to extend the concepts and possible future extensions

Lightweight Multidimensional Adaptive Sampling for GPU Ray Tracing

the paper presents how to adapt multidimensional adaptive sampling for interactive real-time ray tracing
applies the technique to stochastic effects such as motion blur, depth of field, and indirect illumination
presents a performance comparison against Halton sampling

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[video] Fog Rendering - Part 2 // 'ShaderX2 In Practice' series

the OpenGL fog rendering series extends the previous works and implements Layered and animated fog
explains the underlying theory before showing the implementation using GLS

[video] Post Process Cartoon Outlines - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 57

the video tutorial shows how to implement cartoon outlines in screen space
discontinuities in scene depth and normals are used to detect edges
the resulting filtered edge mask is used to apply outlines around objects

Thanks to Aras Pranckevičius for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 248 - August 14, 2022

Sun, 14 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

NVIDIA Announces Full Open Source of Material Definition Language to Streamline Graphics Pipelines

Nvidia open-sources MDL distiller and the GLSL backend
MDL distiller is a system for automated shader simplifications
the GLSL backend enables the usage of MDL for Vulkan applications

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Physically Based: a Database of PBR Values for Real-World Materials

A database of physically based values for CG artists (materials, Light Sources, Cameras)
contains material information of familiar materials in a unified interface
materialX, unity, and unreal shader graphs are available for the different materials

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PIX 2208.10: SM 6.7 support, GPU and Timing Capture Improvements

new PIX release allows profiling to target different GPU clock rates (controlled by the hardware manufacturer)
added the ability to export metrics to CSV
additionally, added support trimming of captures

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Using performance budgets in the Timing Capture metrics view

the post explains how to set up budgets for pix metrics
can be defined for the user or system metrics

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Screen Post Processing Effects Chapter 1 – Basic Algorithm of Gaussian Blur and Its Implementation

the article explains the theory of a Gaussian blur algorithm
shows how the filter is defined, sample weights calculated
it additionally presents how to implement the technique using a Unity Pixel Shader

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Descriptors are hard

the article presents a description of the texture/buffer/sampler binding model supported by different hardware manufacturers
discusses how Vulkan and D3D12 models map onto the hardware
additionally discusses problems arising from the differences

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Real-Time Path Tracing and Beyond

the presentation provides a brief overview of the implementation details for the Nvidia path tracer and the level of optimizations required to archive the performance
presents open problems in data authoring, scene description, and material complexity
shows ideas on how techniques can be developed together to deliver improved results

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SIGGRAPH 2022 Links

a growing collection of content from SIGGRAPH 2022
presentations, slides, videos, and posters

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Beyond Linear Perspective: Art, Human Vision, and Computer Graphics

discusses the limitations of linear perspective and how classical artists rarely used it
present non-linear projection techniques and how they can be used
starts a discussion on how to computationally model and apply these methods

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Explosion Decals

the article presents a technique to generate explosion decals aimed at a 3D topdown game
based around forward shading, a projected 3D sphere with procedural noise

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[video] Bloom & Glow Post Process Effect - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 56

video tutorial shows how to implement a bloom effect using Unreal and Unity shader graphs
starts by showing visually how the effect works using photoshop before implementing the code
followed by presenting a walkthrough of the total effect

Thanks to Keith O’Conor for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 247 - August 7, 2022

Sun, 07 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

High-Performance Graphics 2022

the program has been updated with links to the recording of all talks
not all papers are available yet; only the author-released copies are available at this time

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Vertex packing

the article describes the trade-offs between storing vertex information in a single buffer compared to storing the data across multiple streams
presents how splitting can have a positive impact on cache usage as well as reduced power consumption

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Paper Digest: SIGGRAPH 2022 Highlights

a collection of papers presented at SIGGRAPH 2022 with a one-sentence summary
provides links to the ACM entries that provide access to the papers

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Comparison of single image HDR reconstruction methods — the caveats of quality assessment

the paper presents that common image metrics are not a great metric to detect the subjective quality of HDR reconstruction methods
shows that only significant changes in metric results are likely to be an improvement
suggests that color shifts are more noticeable to the human perception system than most metrics

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[video] Microfacet BRDF: Theory and Implementation of Basic PBR Materials [Shaders Monthly #9]

the video shows how to implement the Cook-Torrance microfacet BRDF
provides an overview of the theory first
shows how to implement the technique with GLSL

HLSL Shader Model 6.7

the spec for the new features of shader model 6.7 has been released
contains summaries and links to the detailed specification section for each feature

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Shaders Explained: Gradients

the article presents how to write a metal shader to generate a 1D gradient
this is taken as the basis and expanded to generate a 2D, radial, and angular gradients
source code is provided

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Porting AnKi to Android… again after ~8 years

the article contains a small overview of steps taken to port the AnKi engine to support Android
discusses how the problem was broken down, issues encountered, and workarounds required

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[video] Fog Rendering - Part 1 // ShaderX2 In Practice Series

the video tutorial presents how to implement 3 different methods of distance fogs from the ShaderX2 book (released in 2003)
implementation is shown in OpenGL/GLSL
presents a comparison of the three presented techniques

Thanks to Trevor Black for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 246 - July 31, 2022

Sun, 31 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Compute Shaders || Lou Kramer || AMD

the presentation introduces compute-shaders, explaining the software and hardware concepts
expands upon the basis to explain execution patterns, memory, and cache hierarchies
texture reading/writing patterns as well as common mistakes

Introducing our brand new tool: Radeon™ Raytracing Analyzer 1.0

new tool from AMD to provide more insights into the performance of raytracing applications
show much memory is used, if redundant information is stored, all geometric axis aligned, etc
video presentation covering the information available is linked

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Synchronizing Present Calls Between Applications on Distributed Systems with DirectX 12

the article presents an Nvidia API extension that allows multiple buffer swaps (between windows and applications) to be synchronized
shows the D3D12 API and discusses the usage, conditions for correct usage as well as limitations

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Best Practices for Using NVIDIA RTX Ray Tracing (Updated)

Nvidia has updated the performance best practices for RTX usage
contains new recommendations enabled with shader model 6.6, updated guidelines for inline ray tracing
and many more minor updates across the categories

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GPU Memory Pools in D3D12

the detailed article explains the different memory pools available and how they differ between different types
shows how D3D12 exposes the memory management
discussing strategy for texture and buffer uploads
presents performance numbers for CPU and GPU reads/writes and uploads to different memory types

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A Rust shading language EDSL

the article discusses the Rust shades crate that allows writing Rust domain-specific language that can be used to generate GLSL code
explains the motivation, implementation as well as open issues
it additionally provides a comparison against other solutions

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A better point light attenuation function

the article presents a derivation of a light attenuation function to separately control the maximum intensity and radius
function is designed to reach zero influence to be used with clustered shading

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UVs and You

the article aimed at beginners explains how images are applied to 3D objects
presents what UV (Texture coordinates are) and how to visualize them
shows how to explore the relationship between mesh and UV coordinates from Unity shaders

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GL_EXT_fragment_shader_barycentric: Wireframe

the article presents an overview of barycentric coordinates
shows that barycentric can be interpreted as a distance field
derives how to render wireframe line rendering from these distances

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Adventures in Text Rendering: Kerning and Glyph Atlases

the article provides an overview of font rendering
looks at the different levels that cover glyph evaluation, line layouts, and antialiasing
presents rasterization constraints, how to cache glyphs for efficient rendering
additional covers how to deal with sub-pixel positioning

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[video] Generation of simplified representations of the city, characters and vehicles for Cyberpunk 2077

the presentation video discusses the LOD generation used in Cyberpunk 2077 (3D models and materials)
discusses the different algorithms that were used for different types of models and materials
provides an overview of the pipeline and infrastructure integration

Adventures with deferred texturing in horizon forbidden west

slides for the GDC presentation talking about the deferred texturing solution has been released
summary in week 231

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zig-gamedev project

a growing collection of graphics samples and libraries for the zig programming language
the provided samples cover how to use the released libraries

Thanks to [Michael Hazani] for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 245 - July 24, 2022

Sun, 24 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Efficently rendering glTF models

the article discusses how to load and process glTF models for efficient execution
presented techniques aimed at WebGPU but mainly applicable to D3D12/Vulkan as well

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Behind the Pretty Frames: Resident Evil

a super detailed analysis of the RE Engine used by Resident Evil
shows the passes, what data structures are used, and detailed breakdowns of the effects of the passes

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[video] Shadow Mapping Unleashed! // Intermediate OpenGL Series

the video tutorial explains common shadow problems and why they occur
proceeds to present different solutions to the issues and compare the methods

Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

High Performance Graphics 2022 papers on the web

list of papers presented at High-Performance Graphics 2022
contains links to the projects, papers, and youtube videos if available

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[video] Rain Drips On The Lens Post-Process Effect - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 54

the video tutorial presents how to implement a fullscreen camera space rain effect
implementation is done using Unity and Unreal visual shader system

[video] Spartan Engine Livestream #2: FSR 2.0 Integration

the stream shows a practical example of how to implement FSR 2.0 into the authors’ personal engine
presents the complete process, including example project setup, engine integration, and testing

Swallowing the elephant into Blender

collecting of optimizations done to reduce the Moana USD scene import time into Blender from 3 hours to 1.5 minutes
includes generally applicable advice for performant CPU code implementations

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Some SIGGRAPH 2022 Info

a collection of advice for SIGGRAPH 2022 (virtual) attendees
list of links and events around the event

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Performance Boosts and Enhanced Features in New Nsight Graphics, Nsight Aftermath Releases

article presents improvements in the new Nsight and Aftermath releases
improved Ray Tracing Acceleration Structure Viewer and VK_KHR_graphics_pipeline_library extension support for Nsight graphics
Aftermath has better support for tracking page faults from data writes

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Thanks to Leonardo Etcheverry for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 244 - July 17, 2022

Sun, 17 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Procedural Grass in 'Ghost of Tsushima'

the GDC presentation covers how the grass is procedurally generated in compute shaders
how vertex shader animates the blades and wind influences the shapes
presents the LOD transitions, how shadows are processed
it additionally covers how artists can control the effects

Order independent transparency: endgame

the article presents a couple additional order-independent transparency algorithms
provides a brief overview of Weighted Blended Order-Independent Transparency (WBOIT) as well as Moment based OIT (MBOIT)
shows the influence of screen size, quality setting as well as render target formats on the performance of the techniques

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Jobs

Animation Engineer / Code Supremo
Remote working / Flexible hours

The Indie Stone, developers of Project Zomboid, are looking for AAA coders to join them on their quest for the ultimate zombie survival simulation.

The applicant would be in charge of maintaining and developing our game’s animation system for Project Zomboid using a custom built OpenGL engine, while also working with the animator to improve our output, systems and toolset. Initial tasks would deal with root motion, blending and masking – later moving on to integration of inverse kinematics and ragdoll physics.

The Zomboid team is small and have their fingers in a lot of pies, so there are many opportunities to get involved in other areas of the game too - depending on the applicant’s skillset.

Competitive salary and a prominent role in a tight, passionate team. Remote and flexible working, anti-crunch mindset.

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Advanced API Performance: SetStablePowerState

Nvidia presents best practices to achieve stable performance results on NVIDIA hardware
it recommends not only using SetStablePowerState as it doesn’t lock memory clocks
instead recommends using the NVidia-smi utility

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[video] HPG 2022 Monday, Day 1 (enhanced)

the video recording of the first day of the High-Performance Graphics conference
covers temporally stable upscaling and denoising, variance-guided filtering for motion blur, as well as virtual blue noise lighting
the recordings of the other days are available on youtube as well

Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

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Agility SDK 1.606.3: Shader Model 6.7 is now publicly available!

the article focuses on the new capabilities added in shader model 6.7
now supports integer border colors, dynamic programmable offset, as well as new quad all/any operations
adds support for writing to MSAA targets via UAV as well as more relaxed uint castable texture formats (same idea as Vulkan, creation time list of allowed formats)
it additionally adds support for raw gather instructions

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Preview Agility SDK 1.706.3-preview: SM 6.7, Enhanced Barriers and more

a new preview of the Agility SDK improves the enhanced barrier API support, significantly better debugging support
as well as it allows Independent Front/Back Stencil Refs and Masks

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AMD support for Shader Model 6.7 and enhanced barriers in the Agility SDK

a brief summary of the main features of shader model 6.7 and what is supported by the new AMD pre-release drivers

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[video] How do you use shaders to dissolve a sphere?

the video shows how to implement a custom material into the Rust-based Bevvy engine
presents the necessary Rust and Shader(WGSL) code required to achieve the effect of a dissolving object

Creating a physically-based path tracer

the article presents a brief overview of techniques that can be used to upgrade a simple raytracer to generate results that converge quicker
shows the effect of importance sampling and what possibilities exist

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Space Rangers with Cornrows

the short paper presents the Pixar technique for Modeling Braids and Curls

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 243 - July 10, 2022

Sun, 10 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

EGSR 2022 Presentation – Generalized Decoupled Shading

the paper discusses a decoupled shading implementation that separates rasterization from shading by shading pixels before they are rasterized
presents how it determines what pixels will need to be shaded
what space to allocate for storing the shading results and how to execute the shading
discusses strengths and weaknesses of the approach
presents performance comparisons against a forward shading implementation
it additionally covers numerous considerations that are required for a robust implementation

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Spatiotemporal Blue Noise Masks

the paper presents how to generate multiple 2D blue noise textures so that the blue noise is both spatially and temporally a blue noise pattern
the presented solution is a drop-in replacement for applications that are already using independent blue noise textures
discusses how to generate the textures and compare multiple methods
it additionally presents a comparison of the technique in multiple test cases and compares against other methods
take a look at the supplemental for more practical information for real-time use cases

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Jobs

Animation Engineer / Code Supremo
Remote working / Flexible hours

The Indie Stone, developers of Project Zomboid, are looking for AAA coders to join them on their quest for the ultimate zombie survival simulation.

The Zomboid team is small and have their fingers in a lot of pies, so there are many opportunities to get involved in other areas of the game too - depending on the applicant’s skillset.

Competitive salary and a prominent role in a tight, passionate team. Remote and flexible working, anti-crunch mindset.

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[video] Vulkan 1.3 explained

the 4-hour video stream discusses the evolution of the Vulkan API
discusses the underlying concepts, issues, and how the changes in Vulkan 1.3 try to improve
talking about pipeline management, render passes, new synchronization API
it additionally also covers the other more minor extensions added to the core

Temporally Stable Real-Time Joint Neural Denoising and Supersampling

the paper presents a neural network architecture that allows both denoising and supersampling to be applied as part of a single network
this is achieved by sharing a joint feature extractor
discusses the different stages of the network, what inputs are required and how they interact
presents a comparison against existing solutions and offers performance numbers

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GPU-Driven Real-Time Mesh Contour Vectorization

the paper presents a new GPU-based method to generate 2D contour strokes from 3D meshes
proposed solution uses a preprocessing step to analyze the adjacency and geometric information
discusses the different steps of implementation
it additionally shows how to further utilize the counter edge lines to support different patterns
example implementation in Unity is provided

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Volume Rendering for Developers: Foundations

the lesson provides the foundations of ray marching through a volume
explains how light interacts with a medium, introducing the required terms along the way

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

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Advanced Rendering Research Group at AMD

the new home for the AMD research team
provides a collection of publications, projects, presentations as well as blog posts

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Getting Started With DirectX Raytracing

the post provides a walkthrough of all the D3D12 elements that are involved in getting started with a raytracing workload
discusses the different concepts and how they relate to each other
shows how to author raytracing shaders
it additionally shows how the integration in Microsoft Mini Engine has been achieved

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Planetary Shadow-Aware Distance Sampling

the paper introduces a visibility-aware transmittance sampling technique for rendering atmospheric scattering
this is achieved by adjusting the sample locations along the view vector past the shadow boundary so that all samples contribute meaningful data
compares the solutions against others and presents cases where the proposed solution is not able to improve
it additionally provides an example of a CPU implementation

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 242 - July 03, 2022

Sun, 03 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Order independent transparency, part 2

the second part of the blog series that talks about order independence transparency
this week focuses on techniques that aim at solving transmittance contribution first and then applying the factors while shading
shows how Rasteriser Order Views (ROVs) can be used to implement custom blending operations
presents performance implications of the proposed techniques

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Seperation of mesh types

the Twitter thread discusses the terminology that applies to meshes
presents the difference between static, dynamic, deformable, and procedural meshes

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[video] Creating Portals in Unreal for Psychonauts 2

the Xfest presentation discusses the portal implementation for Psychonauts 2
covers how portals are represented in the world, how to render the portal world, discusses issues encountered and how they have been overcome
it also presents essential performance optimizations
it additionally covers how to calculate the required transformations and solve system interaction problems

Jobs

Senior Graphics Programmer
San Francisco, CA (remote work is an option)

You will be responsible for developing rendering features, optimizing game performance and memory usage, and building low level systems on PC and Xbox.

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Single-pass stratified importance resampling

the paper presents a new method for stratified resampling
shows a single pass solution to inverse CDF sampling (similar to reservoir sampling)
extends the presented solution to other domains and compares it against existing techniques

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[video] Giving Personality to Procedural Animations using Math

the video presents how to use second-order systems to allow dynamic motion control in procedural animation scenarios
presents the mathematics and an example implementation in Unity

Fog for Top-Down Games

the article presents how to combine multiple tricks to create the appearance of volumetric fog
combines a height map-based mesh with depth & translucency fading to create the illusion
discusses the steps required and provides examples in C++ / Unreal visual script

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Jobs

Senior/Lead Rendering Engineer
Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal or San Mateo

We have several project openings for a Senior/Principal or Lead Rendering Engineer to work on new/all original IP’s, which are being developed in Unreal 5 and are true cross-play multiplayer games on PC, Console & Mobile.

You will work collaboratively with artists, designers and engineers to realize our beautiful, stylized visual target.

The ideal candidates are broadly experienced with optimization & profiling CPU/GPU on multiple platforms, creating content workflows/pipelines and experienced with both R&D and production systems/features.

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Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games - 2022

overview of the talks that will be presented at the Advances course as part of Siggraph 2022

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Advanced API Performance: Vulkan Clearing and Presenting

the article presents Nvidia’s best practices for clearing textures and depth buffers
clarifies what methods are preferred and how clear values can influence performance
it additionally presents the tradeoffs between the different presentation modes

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[video] Underwater Post-Process Effect - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 52

the video tutorial presents how to create a post-processing effect that simulates an underwater look
covers depth-fog, distortion, lens distortion, and caustics
presented using Unity and Unreal visual shading system

Icosphere From Octahedron to Icosahedron

the article presents how to generate a procedural Icosahedron mesh
shows and discusses the differences in point distribution compared to other sphere mesh structures

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Boosting Application Performance with GPU Memory Access Tuning

the article presents how to improve compute shader performance when workloads are memory limited
presents how to detect if a CUDA shader runs into register limits
it additionally shows how CUDA launch bounds (promises on work sizes) can give the compiler more information for more aggressive optimizations

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 241 - June 26, 2022

Sun, 26 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Order independent transparency, Part 1

the article presents how to use per-pixel linked lists to implement order-independent transparency
presents performance and memory results of the solution
it additionally discusses limitations and a look at alternatives to reduce memory overhead

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Physical Units for Lights

the article presents a discussion of the different physical Units used for light description
provides explanations for each unit and the relationship between them
it includes a handy summary graphic as a cheat sheet to remember the relationships

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Comparing BCn texture decoders

the article compares BC decompression libraries
compares the level of format support, decoding performance, and build complexity

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Jobs

Senior/Lead Rendering Engineer
Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal or San Mateo

You will work collaboratively with artists, designers and engineers to realize our beautiful, stylized visual target.

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DirectML Plugin for TensorFlow 2 is here

the blog posts announce the release of a first preview of the DirectML backend for the TensorFlow 2
this allows workloads to be executed on generic D3D12 capable GPUs (AMD, Intel)

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It’s time to see the FSR 2 source code!

AMD released FidelityFX™ Super Resolution 2 (FSR2) to the public
source and documentation about the integration is available
it additionally provides information about the different modes and provides comparison images in different scenes

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Khronos cross-vendor mesh shader extension update

Khronos is sharing the first details about what the cross-vendor Vulkan mesh shader extension will look like
presents what the differences to the VK_NV_mesh_shader will be and what to take into consideration when designing a solution today

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[video] NVIDIA’s Ray Tracer: Wow, They Nailed It Again!

the paper presents an overview of the NVidia Fast Volume Rendering with Spatiotemporal Reservoir Resampling paper
video compares against previous results and how ReSTIR techniques can help to reduce noise and require a large reduction in sample counts

Thanks to Peter Kohaut for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 240 - June 19, 2022

Sun, 19 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0000

How to build a BVH – part 9b: Massive

the last part of the series covers how to extend the ray-tracing onto the GPU using OpenCL
presents the extensions necessary to render hundreds of Stanford Dragons with reflections and lighting

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[video] What is 'Filmic' and how to fix broken digital photography. Part 1.

the video discusses the importance of color transformations to final images
shows how color shifts can make for very unnatural behavior
shows how filming tone mapping can resolve these issues
it additionally presents an overview of how filmic tone mapping curve controls in the darkroom tool

The Case for Use.GPU - Reinventing rendering one shader at a time

the article presents work done to make GPU operations reactive, declarative, and composable and remove many of the tedious manual boilerplate work required
presents the problems and motivation for the suggested solutions
the code and demos using WebGPU are available

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Jobs

Senior/Lead Rendering Engineer
Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal or San Mateo

You will work collaboratively with artists, designers and engineers to realize our beautiful, stylized visual target.

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[video] 16 - Simulation on the GPU

the video explains how to implement a positional-based cloth simulation on the GPU
presents how to use NVIDIA Warp to use Python to author the simulation code
it mainly focuses on mapping the algorithm onto the GPU for efficient and valid execution

[video] Fullscreen Masks - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 50

the video shows to create 3 types of fullscreen masks (square-edge, round-edge, and distance)
then presents how to use them to mask off areas where an effect should not be applied
it additionally presents how to apply a vignette effect
implementation is shown using the visual shader authoring system in both Unity and Unreal

Zero-waste single-pass packing of power-of-two textures

the article presents a method to pack individual power-of-two textures into a texture array
discusses the placement rules and how to pack them
it additionally includes a brief code sample implementation

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[video] Shadow Mapping Strikes Back // Intermediate OpenGL Series

the video tutorial explains how to use an orthographic projection to implement directional light shadows
explains the mathematical understanding behind orthographic projections and how to create a matrix for the projection
it additionally shows the difference between left/right-handed coordinate systems
presents the C++ and OpenGL implementation code required

The latest Vulkan SDK now ships with Vulkan Memory Allocator (VMA)

the Vulkan Memory Allocator is now included as an optional component in the Vulkan SDK
can be installed directly from the SDK installer

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 239 - June 12, 2022

Sun, 12 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Real-time rendering - past, present and a probable future.

the article presents an overview of the problems and solutions of real-time game graphics technology
what aspects have been solved/standardized, and what open problems remain
presents the author’s proposal for future directions for the industry

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A Gentle Introduction to D3D12 (2022)

the article introduces D3D12Lite, a library that is meant to streamline the introduction to D3D12
the tutorial explains the necessary steps to get started, draw a triangle and advance to drawing a textured cube
it additionally shows how to integrate ImGUI into the application

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Jobs

Senior Software Engineer
United Kingdom

If you’re looking to broaden out your existing knowledge of real-time GPU rendering, then this role is potentially a great fit.

You’ll be joining a small centralised technology team, working closely with a real-time rendering Architect and graphics team lead to deliver GPU technology solutions to product teams across the Foundry portfolio.

Good C++ and GPU graphics programming knowledge are essential to the role, but you will have access to domain experts to help you level up your expertise. Experience in software development lifecycle and knowledge of software engineering best practices in a commercial context are also key requirements.

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QMC(Magic square, Glois field, QMC)

the article presents a method to generate stratified samples of arbitrary dimensionality
the method is based on Magic Square Sampler
discusses the origin of the technique, how to implement it, and a brief comparison against other methods
written in both English and Japanese

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Discover Metal 3

the presentation provides a summary of new features in Metal 3
new API to allow direct loading from file storage into GPU buffers using a command-based API
allow binary shader generation at build time to remove runtime shader compilation
introduction of mesh shaders, improved raytracing with indirect command buffer support

WWDC22 - Metal sessions

list of all metal sessions at WWDC22
covering new metal features, HDR/EDR handling, bindless resource model, machine learning, optimizations, and more

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Jobs

Senior/Lead Rendering Engineer
Los Angeles, Vancouver, Montreal or San Mateo

You will work collaboratively with artists, designers and engineers to realize our beautiful, stylized visual target.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Writing Unity URP Shaders with Code Part 1: The Graphics Pipeline and You

the text and video tutorial is the start of a new beginner-focused shader authoring tutorial for Unity
the first part shows how to implement a text-based shader for the Universal Render Pipeline (URP)
provides an overview of the pieces of the general rendering pipeline theory required to be able to render a textured sphere

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[video] Basic Post-Processing Effects - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 49

the video tutorial shows the steps required to set up to create post-processing shaders using shader graphs in both Unity and Unreal
presents color tinting and screen warping examples in both engines

[video] God of War PC: AMD FSR 2.0 vs Nvidia DLSS Image/ Motion Quality Face-Off

the Digitial Foundry video provides an in-depth comparison between FSR 2.0, native TAA as well as DLSS upscaling solutions for God of War
shows how they handle camera movement, object movement, transparency as well as hair and vegetation

Bridging the synchronization gap on Linux

the article discusses why the explicit synchronization nature of Vulkan is a significant problem on Linux
presents solutions possible today and what side effects they cause
shows the more modern solution that is possible now and how it allows more efficient explicit synchronization support

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sRGB, Pre-Multiplied Alpha, and Compression

the article clarifies the meaning of sRGB encoded textures
presents how they interact with (pre-multiplied) blending
it additionally presents issues that exist with the combination of block compressed textures

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 238 - June 5, 2022

Sun, 05 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Overview of global illumination in kajiya renderer

the article provides a high-level description of the techniques used
based on a meshless camera-aligned irradiance cache
heavily relying on ReSTIR for many of the techniques
animations help to explain the processes involved
discusses what situations are well suited for the technique as well as what are the limitations

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[video] SIGGRAPH 2022: Technical Papers Trailer

video showing an overview of some of the papers to be presented at Siggraph 2022
covering fluid simulation, sound generation, physics, learned locomotion, and much more

How to build a BVH – part 9a: To the GPU

the article presents the first part on how to convert a C++ raytracing kernel to OpenCL
presents the differences between the language semantics and how to convert C++ code step by step
it additionally provides a quick start guide to the provided OpenCL template code

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[Twitter Thread] D3D12 - specialization constants

the Twitter thread discusses a restricted version of specialization constants for D3D12 usage
presented method is based on patching DXIL and letting the native compiler optimize the instructions when converting to native instructions

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Jobs

Senior Research Engineer
United Kingdom

This role is a fantastic opportunity to work on the development of an exciting research project in Virtual Production as part of our Real-Time Research team.

The role involves developing new tools and adapting existing Foundry technology for real-time workflows in Virtual Production and the visual-effects industry.

The project will work closely with clients in film to bring the tools from concept through to market.

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An Idea for Visualization of Frame Times

a short article that discusses some ideas to represent frame time in graphs
showing issues with different methods and suggesting rectangles proportional to frame time taken

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[video] Hex Grid Normal Tiling - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 48

the video tutorial shows the issue when hex-tiling (as discussed in the previous part) is applied to normals
presents how to resolve the normal map orientation mismatches
implementation is shown using Unity and Unreal visual shader languages

OpenGL Introduction - GPU Computing

a beginner level focused article that introduces OpenGL compute shaders
shows how to fill a texture with a scrolling color gradient

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[video] NVIDIA Renders Millions of Light Sources!

the video paper summary presents the ReSTIR introductory paper
presents a comparison between previous techniques as well as the biased and unbiased version of ReSTIR
it additionally presents how it interacts with upscaling techniques

[video] How to turn your 2d fractal into 3d!

the video shows how to extend a 2D Koch curve SDF into 3D using shadertoy
presents a walkthrough of the implementation of 2 different methods
implementation is done using shadertoy

Thanks to Warren Moore for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 237 - May 29, 2022

Sun, 29 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Accelerating raytracing using software vrs

the article presents how to use compute-shader based Variable Rate shading techniques to reduce the cost of raytracing
shows how to decide on the shading rate per-tile
compares a thread based rejection efficiency against wave-based rejection

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How to build a BVH – part 8: Whitted-Style

the article extends the BVH constructed over the last couple of posts to implement a more complete raytracer using it
shows how to extend the barycentric coordinates to implement texture sampling and generate per-pixel normals
it additionally shows how to implement reflections and recursive raytracing

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Removing blur from images – deconvolution and using optimized simple filters

the detailed post presents the basis knowledge required for a single image deconvolution (remove blur) filter
it discusses the theory, algebraic, and frequency domain approaches
it additionally shows how to combine all the elements to create filters for linear deconvolution

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PIX 2205.24: Unlocking Arm and Qualcomm development

the blog post presents that PIX is now supported on Arm devices
additionally, Qualcomm added a plugin to allow hardware counter collection on many devices

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Basic Shadow Mapping // Intermediate OpenGL Series

the video tutorial presents how to implement shadow mapping using OpenGL
shows the necessary theory underlying the technique
then proceeds to show the different aspects of the implementation
additionally, it presents common problems of the algorithm and how to resolve them

Meshlets and How to Shade Them: A Study on Texture-Space Shading

the paper presents the idea of the usage of a meshlet atlas for texture space shading
the presented technique is based on meshlets and transforms per-meshlet information into texture space where shading for the samples will take place
shows how to use meshlets as the basis for texture space management to use the available texture space efficently
additionally compares quality and performance against other methods

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WebGPU Buffer upload best practices

the blog post describes the different methods WebGPU offers to upload data from the CPU to the GPU
shows different use patterns and what the advantages/disadvantages of each method are

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Behind the Pretty Frames: Elden Ring

the article presents a frame breakdown of the PC version of Elden Ring
shows the different passes, from color passes to post-processing, and finally UI composition

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 236 - May 22, 2022

Sun, 22 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] The Road to Vulkan: Teaching Modern Low-Level APIs in Introductory Graphics Courses | EG 2022, Reims

the video provides a summary of the findings of teaching both OpenGL and Vulkan as part of the Introductory Graphics Courses
compares the challenges and experiences of students, as well as the workload required
it additionally provides pointers on how to teach Vulkan to beginners in the most efficient way

[video] Rust Graphics Meetup 2

the second edition of the Rust graphics developer meetup
covers the WGPU implementation of resource lifetime tracking and barrier detection logic
Additionally covers performance optimizations required to speed up these systems

[video] Texture Tiling Without Repetition - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 47

the video explains how to use hexagonal texture sampling/blending to create a shader that allows less noticeable texture tiling
presents the logic, explaining step by step how to create the shader
using visual shader graphs using Unity and Unreal

DirectStorage speculations & myths

the article shows what the DirectStorage API enables on PC
presents what workloads can be accelerated by using the API and what API limitations exist
additionally presents workloads outside of games that could benefit

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Permutation Coding for Vertex-Blend Attribute Compression

15 min video explaining the concept has been added
discussed in more detail in week 231

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How to build a BVH – part 7: Consolidate

the article expands the the previous BVH implementation with the necessary logic to support UV and Normals
shows how to calculate the intersection point Barycentrics coordinates and how to interpoliate vertex arguments
additonally points out the importance of data seperation for good performance

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[video] I3D 2022 Day 1 — Tuesday, May 3

video recording of the I3D 2022 conference, all 3 days are available
covering a large amount of topics, including soft shadows, vertex compression, interactive plume, machine learning for humanoid models, …

[video] AMD's Ray Tracing Research

the video provides a summary of AMD rayracing research
covering global illumination sampling and multi-resolution geometric representation, stochastic light sampling
additionally introduces the Orochi library to unify CUDA and AMD HIP gpu execution

Advanced API Performance: Variable Rate Shading

the article provides a brief overview of VRS modes available
performance advice for how it affects hardware limits
additionally gives some recommendations on what workloads can benefit from VRS usage

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Thanks to Daniel Fortes for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 235 - May 15, 2022

Sun, 15 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Advanced API Performance: Clears

the article presents performance advice from Nvidia for clear operations
shows that the number of different fast clear colors per frame is hardware dependent

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Integrating VRS in The Riftbreaker

the article discusses how the AMD FidelityFX Variable Shading library was integrated into The Riftbreaker
presents how the shading rate is selected per-tile
it additionally suggests that classification variance cutoff values should be adjusted based on screen resolution

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Comparing .obj parse libraries

the article compares several .obj parsers for loading speed and memory usage
presents a comparison table of supported features

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Reading list on ReSTIR

the post presents a list of articles/papers that discusses Reservoir-based Spatio-Temporal Importance Resampling
starts from the introduction of the technique, applications of the technique to issues
a collection of techniques that improve upon the original technique
additionally presents remarks about the limitations of the technique

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How to build a BVH – part 6: All Together Now

the article expands the capabilities of the BVH construction to support a more significant number of instances
discusses an improved algorithm for the efficient updating of BVHs
it closes with a look at performance and the next steps

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[video] GPU Texture Compression

the video shows a summary of block compressed formats and why they are a good fit for GPUs
discusses the different formats, showing strengths and weaknesses of the different BC[1-7] variations

[video] Vulkan Synchronization | Understand Fences, Semaphores, Barriers,... | Vulkan Lecture Series Ep. 7

the video lecture contains a detailed description of Vulkan Synchronization topics
provides visual explanations of the different concepts to make understanding easier
discusses limitations of binary semaphores and what timeline semaphores enable

Render Graph 101

the article describes a how a system can derive execution order from rendered resource dependencies
presents how the dependencies create a graph that can then be analyzed and used for barrier placements, memory reuse
shows how to express the API in Rust

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[video] Toon Shading & Rim Lighting // OpenGL Beginners Series

the video tutorial explains the theory of toon shading and rim lighting effects
presents how to implement the effect using OpenGL and GLSL

Thanks to Leonardo Etcheverry for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 234 - May 8, 2022

Sun, 08 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Derivatives in compute shader

the article discusses how to calculate UV derivatives in compute-shaders
presents issues that will occur at the geometry edges and how to resolve them

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Let’s Stop Calling it GGX

the blog post raises the point that GGX was introduced in a 1975 paper by Trowbridge and Reitz
discusses why we as a community should prefer to use the original term

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How to build a BVH – part 5: TLAS & BLAS

the article presents how to extend the BVH structure to allow multiple objects in the same structure (TLAS)
explains the necessary knowledge of matrix (inverse) transformations

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High Performance Graphics 2022 - Student Competition

the High-Performance Graphics conference is running a student contest
students are asked to implement the highest quality path-tracer within a performance limit

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Various analytic expressions for collimated light scattered in fog (participating media)

the article presents the underlying mathematical modeling commonly used to represent volumetric effects (such as the earth’s atmosphere)
presents different approaches and derivations to model different effects

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Efficiency-aware multiple importance sampling for bidirectional rendering algorithms

the paper presents a method to adapt the set of sampling techniques in multi importance sampling to an input scene automatically
the aim is to remove the need for manual tweaking of distributions
based on a scheme for estimating the second moments of different sample allocation strategies

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Sampling the hemisphere

the blog post explains the derivations of importance sampling schemes for multiple functions
covers uniform, Cosine-weighted, Power cosine-weighted, Microfacet-BRDF, Blinn-Phong, as well as Beckmann derivations

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ReSTIR El-Cheapo

the article presents the idea of using ReSTIR for a checkerboard style pattern for shadow ray generation
only every other pixel would sample new; others would reuse the reservoir of nearby pixels

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Increasing wave coherence with ray binning

the article presents the implementation of a ray-binning technique
the technique aims to improve performance by processing rays that are likely to hit similar objects together

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Generalized Resampled Importance Sampling (GRIS)

the paper introduces a generalized approach to resampled importance sampling for correlated samples with unknown PDFs
presents the results in an interactive ReSTIR path tracer

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[video] Sprite Batching In OpenGL // Uniform Buffer Objects

the video shows how to pack sprites into a 2D texture atlas to reduce the number of draw calls required
presents how to set up the vertex data and shader stages to unpack the data
it additionally explains uniform buffer objects and presents the effects on performance

Thanks to Stephen Hill for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 233 - May 1, 2022

Sun, 01 May 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Faster Visibility Buffer/Deferred Material Rendering via Analytical Attribute Interpolation using Ray Differentials

the post presents a method for reducing the size of visibility output buffers and the effect on performance
shows that it’s more efficient to recalculate ray differentials than it is to rely on hardware differentials to be stored in additional channels

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How to build a BVH – part 4: Animation

the article presents how to update a BVH tree for an animated mesh
introduces the refitting technique to allow fast adjustments of an existing BVH tree for changing triangle data

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Identifying Shader Limiters with the Shader Profiler in NVIDIA Nsight Graphics

the article presents a walkthrough of how to use GPU Trace Analysis and GPU Profiler to identify performance issues in a shader
presents examples of cases that show different limits

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A Dataset and Explorer for 3D Signed Distance Functions

the paper presents a database of 63 optimized and regularized SDF functions of varying complexity
additionally, a tool for viewing and inspection is provided

A driver on the GPU

the article discusses the complexities of implementing ExecuteIndirect from a driver’s perspective
presents what kind of functionality is affected and how it affects driver maintainability
presents a look at the capabilities of VK_NV_device_generated_commands

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[video] Using Ray Casting To Move 3D Objects

the video on how to implement ray-casting from the cursor position into a 3D world to allow the movement of objects
discusses the necessary mathematical transformations
presents how to implement the technique using OpenGL

Agility SDK 1.602.0

the blog post presents the new capabilities of the agility SDK
new optional features allow the reduction of alignment requirements
it additionally clarifies the copy behavior between resources of different dimensionality

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Twitter Thread: Games for the original #PS1 had a unique visual look

the thread explains the history of the PS1 hardware and how it defined the look of the games of the generation

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Windows Graphics News – 2022 Q1

a collection of news from the graphics windows development world
covering PIX, OpenGL on ARM, Dynamic Refresh Rate, as well as win11 updates

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 232 - April 24, 2022

Sun, 24 Apr 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Shader compiler tools

the article presents an overview of the shader compilation pipeline in Wicked Engine
presents how to track header dependencies when using the DXC shader compiler and how to detect changes to trigger recompilation
presents pointers on how to unify Vulkan and D3D12 shaders as much as possible

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A remake of the famous Sponza scene for open, collaborative and reproducible research

the Sponza rendering scene has been updated
it now contains 4K PBR texture sets and high-resolution geometry
optional packages such as curtains, ivy, trees, and emissive candles are available too
additionally, a fully rigged and animated knight model has also been released

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Dynamic, Noise Free, Screen Space Diffuse Global Illumination

the article presents the screen space solution for Global Illumination
presents the four steps of the process and how the individual results combine
code examples for different steps are provided

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Compute shaders in graphics: Gaussian blur

the article presents the authors’ first experience with writing a compute shader to implement a Gaussian blur
presents the different stages of the experiment, presenting performance numbers for different work sizes and execution patterns
this shows how writing pixel shaders can outperform unoptimized compute shaders by a large margin

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How to build a BVH – part 2: Faster Rays

the article presents how to use a Surface Area Heuristic (SAH) to improve the quality of the BVH generation
shows how much speedup can be achieved with the use of the heuristics
it additionally covers additional performance optimizations through ordering changes and the usage of SSE

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Radeon™ GPU Profiler 1.13 and Radeon Developer Panel 2.6

the article presents improvements to the new profiler version
contains support for raytracing performance counters and inline raytracing
additionally, searching in the ISA of the pipeline is directly supported now

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How to build a BVH – part 3: Quick Builds

the article presents how to reduce the time required for the presented BVH build from seconds to milliseconds
shows an alternative split plane and binning algorithms to speed up the process

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Moving, Rotating, and Scaling UVs - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 43

the video tutorial explains how to modify UVs from a shader graph in both Unity and Unreal Engine 5
explains the concepts step by step and presents the results

Slang Shading Language Advances

the talk presents the Slang Shading language
presents how generics and interfaces are implemented in an efficient way for GPU execution
shows how the language has been deeply integrated into the Falcor material model
explains the building blocks for cleaner parameter binding logic across APIs

i3D 2022 - Program

program for the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games has been released
the conference will take place Tuesday, May 3, through Thursday, May 5, in a virtual setting

Unreal Engine 5 Matrix City Sample PC Analysis: The Cost of Next-Gen Rendering

the Digital Foundry video analyses the performance of the UE5 Engine
presents a comparison between hardware-accelerated and software only Lumen in terms of performance and quality
shows how CPU limited the demo tends to be

Modern OpenGL Tutorial - Tessellation Shaders

the video provides an overview of tessellation shader concepts
shows how to implement a basic tesselation shader using OpenGL
the example presented shows how to adjust the tessellation level of a plane dynamically around the curser

My personal hell of translating DXIL to SPIR-V – part 5

the article introduces standard terms and concepts used in compiler literature
applies the concept to start explaining the conversion from unstructured control flow into structured control flow
discusses common patterns and issues found in the DXIL generated from DXC

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 231 - April 17, 2022

Sun, 17 Apr 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Eurographics 2022 papers on the web

a collection of papers to be presented at Eurographics 2022
a large number of topics are covered, including terrain authoring, spherical harmonic lighting, radiance transfers

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Adventures with Deferred Texturing in 'Horizon Forbidden West'

the GDC presentations talk about the implementation of the Deferred Texturing
developed to reduce the vegetation rendering cost
a very detailed look at the different implementation stages
how it integrates into the Decima rendering pipeline and a look at the performance improvements achieved
it additionally presents how to implement a variable rate solution on hardware without native support

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Permutation Coding for Vertex-Blend Attribute Compression

the paper presents a new approach to compressing vertex data at a fixed bit-rate
the paper presents error analysis, compares against existing solutions in terms of prevision and performance
up to 13 per-vertex skinning weights can be compressed into 64bits with included code

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My personal hell of translating DXIL to SPIR-V – part 4

the article presents a detailed look at how different D3D12 ConstantBuffer patterns are mapped into SPIR-V
shows how the patterns are mapped onto the hardware in RDNA2 ISA
discusses how non-uniform resource influences the code generation
additionally discusses quirks/limitations of ByteAddressBuffers and RWStructuredBuffer

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Exponentially Better Rotations

the article presents a summary of different methods to express rotations
presents interactive visualizations of the methods
shows the behavior of linear interpolation, discussing the limitations of the methods
it additionally shows the mathematical derivation of the methods

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[video] Taking the Slang Shading Language from Research to Production

the video presents an overview of the challenges in shader development
discussing how Slang can address these challenges
shows the decisions made to adjust the project development to prioritize adoption over publication from the start
a brief look at how it matches into raytracing shaders and a look at upcoming developments

Introducing HIP RT – a ray tracing library in HIP

AMD released a library to enable applications that use Heterogeneous-Computing Interface for Portability (HIP) to access ray tracing hardware
this enables general C++ GPGPU computing workloads to take advantage of raytracing shaders on Nvidia and AMD GPUs

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How to build a BVH – Part 1: Basics

the article describes how to construct a BVH from a collection of triangles
axis-aligned bounding boxes are used as the foundation of the structure
shows how to build and traverse the BVH

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Bringing Linearly Transformed Cosines to Anisotropic GGX

the paper introduces an LTC (Linearly Transformed Cosines) approximation to anisotropic GGX using 4D lookup textures
the demonstration video shows the importance of anisotropy for metal surfaces
example code is provided

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ReSTIR GI for Specular Bounces

the blog posts demonstrate how to implement ReSTIR (Spatiotemporal reservoir resampling)
presents the implementation for Lambertian diffuse
shows how to extend the concepts also to support specular sampling
additionally presents the author’s technique to combine the influences

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Realtime Fluid Simulation: Projection

the article provides a showcase of the importance of a projection solver for a real-time fluids
presents the Jacobi method and compares it against the Multigrid algorithm

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[video] Interactive Graphics 24 - Refractions, Transparency, Blending, & Alpha Testing

the video explains the concept of refraction and existing techniques to implement the effect
covers how to draw transparent objects and how it’s expressed in the rendering pipeline
shows the importance of drawing order when using rasterization and presents techniques for order-independent transparency
presents alpha testing and limitations with mipmapping alpha testing
it additionally covers solutions to ensure that objects look correctly under minification

Graphics Pipeline, Techniques, & Algorithms in Vortice

the visual graph provides a visual representation of the different passes from the fluid simulation of the iOS application
provides short overviews of the implementation of the different passes
it additionally provides a visual representation of the visible state of the textures involved at the different stages of the pipeline

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 230 - April 10, 2022

Sun, 10 Apr 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Painting a Landscape using Mathematics

the video provides a complete walkthrough of the creation of a large outdoor environment using shadertoy
presents how to implement a terrain using fractal surfaces, sun lighting, atmospheric scattering, clouds, grass, and trees
it additionally shows how to apply color adjustments for artistic expression

Raytracing, a 4 year retrospective

the article presents a retrospective of raytracing experiments done using compute shader implementations
shows an introduction for every experiment and how they present a continuous research space
providing links to an article covering each experiment

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Bindless rendering — Templates

the article presents an abstraction system to allow shaders to author bindings without having to be aware of binding details in an abstracted method
shows how to emulate Shader Model 6.6 ResourceDescriptorHeap functionality in Vulkan where it’s not yet available

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Entropy decoding in Oodle Data: Huffman decoding on the Jaguar

the article provides an in-depth look at the core loop optimizations of the Oodle decoding step for AMD jaguar CPUs
discussing hardware details of the CPU cores and how they define the decoder design

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[video] Unreal Engine 5 Guided Tour | Feature Highlight | State of Unreal 2022

the 30min video provides a summary and examples of the new features in Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) to build an example scene
covering things like Niagra particles, fluids, landscape modeling, object material blending, nanite, etc

[video] 10 Shaders in 10 Minutes - Unity Shader Graph

the video tutorial shows how to implement ten different effects using UnityShader graphs
covering outline, dithered transparency, and vertex waves

[video] Tessellation and Displacement - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 41

the video shader tutorial shows how to use tessellation and displacement to create dynamically detailed meshes
presents how to control the displacement amount from a height texture
it additionally shows how to control the amount of tessellation only to add extra detail when needed on the silhouettes

[video] Interactive Graphics 22 - Global Illumination

a high-level overview of what Global Illumination is, the importance for the rendering results
presents several techniques that exist for the calculation of GI
these include radiometry, lightmapping, Path tracing, Voxel Cone Tracing as well, as Virtual Lights

[video] Interactive Graphics 23 - Ambient Occlusion & Soft Shadows

discusses what Ambient Occlusion is, provides how it fits into the rendering equation and what it cannot express
presents a high-level overview of an existing screen space technique to calculate the effect
it additionally covers why in most cases, soft shadows are expected and techniques to approximate the effect

[video] Procedurally Generating A Hexagon Grid in Unity

the video tutorial shows how to generate a procedural hexagon shape mesh
extends the generation to logic to support 3D hexagon shapes and combine them into a grid
implementation is shown using Unity C# code

Thanks to Matt Pharr for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 229 - April 3, 2022

Sun, 03 Apr 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Reducing Draw Time Hitching with VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library

the blog post describes the functionality of the new pipeline library extension and how to use it to reduce draw-time shader compilation stalls
the extension breaks up PSO compilation into four distinct areas Vertex Input Interface, Pre-Rasterization Shaders, Fragment Shader, Fragment Output Interface
these separate aspects can then be linked together to create the PSO
link-time optimizations are optional to trade compilation time for runtime performance

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Software Rasterization of 2 Billion Points in Real Time

the paper presents an improvement of compute shader-based point cloud rasterization
presents LoD structures for point clouds
introduces the concept of per-batch Adaptive Vertex Precision that allows each batch to use three different position precisions relative to the center of the batch

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PIX 2203.30: Export to C++, UI changes and more!

the blog post details the changes in the new PIX version
enables exporting captures into C++ so that users can simplify or experiment with making changes to the generated code

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Authoring Efficient Shaders for Optimal Mobile Performance

the GDC talk presents the Mali Offline Compiler and how to use it to analyze shader performance at authoring time
discusses the importance of understanding your target hardware to make informed decisions
presents how much instruction costs might vary between different hardware generations
highlights the importance of choosing the correct variable precision

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[video] Interactive Graphics 20 - Compute & Mesh Shaders

the video lecture explains the concepts of compute shaders
covering how to bind resources, compile and use shaders from OpenGL
it also covers the execution model covering execution groups, threads, and how it matches onto hardware cores
it additionally covers how mesh shaders fit into the graphics pipeline
covering the high-level concepts and presenting demos of mesh shaders

[video] Toon Shader Specular Highlights - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 40

the video tutorial shows how to implement specular highlights for a toon shader
extends the shaders from the previous part of the series
implementation is shown in both Unity and UE4 visual shader editor

[video] Interactive Graphics 21 - Deferred, Variable-Rate, & Adaptive Shading

the video lecture presents deferred shading, discussing the problems of forward shading and how deferred can help to overcome them
it also covers a brief overview of anti-aliasing techniques
it additionally covers how Variable Rate shading can be used to reduce the shading rate for a group of pixels to reduce shading cost further
it additionally presents an overview of Deferred Adaptive Compute Shading

Texture sampling tips

the article provides a collection of performance advice to consider with texture sampling
discusses how helper lanes are required for MIP selection
presents different ways that can allow reduced energy consumption on Mali GPUs

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[video] How to Select 3D Objects With The Mouse Using OpenGL

the video explains how to use render-to-texture to enable object selection
draws out an object id and primitive ID to a texture
this texture is read back to the CPU to allow the detection of which object has been selected

Discover 3D content optimization with Simplygon

the talk provides an overview of different LOD concepts
how different Level of Details modes can be used to achieve improved performance

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 228 - March 27, 2022

Sun, 27 Mar 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Raytraced global illumination denoising

the article provides an overview of a denoising solution for raytraced global illumination based on the findings of Metro: Exodus
presents how to improve temporal accumulation through blue noise and geometry aware blurs
it additionally sounds how the ambient occlusion term can be used for further improvement

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Rendering realtime caustics

the article discusses a method for a simple non-PBR method to implement underwater caustics
implementation uses a projection volume for multiple tiling textures
code examples are provided using Unity

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Skybox tutorial part 1

the article presents a walkthrough of the implementation of a complete skybox model, including time of day, moon, sun, and stars
it additionally shows how to integrate support for lunar and solar eclipses
the implementation of the sky colors is implemented as a function of the sun position to sample multiple gradients

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Announcing Vulkan Memory Allocator 3.0.0 and Direct3D 12 Memory Allocator 2.0.0

the article describes a large number of changes and improvements made to the AMD and Vulkan Memory allocator
the changes include new allocation algorithms, improved statics, support for custom pools as well as support for defragmentation
additionally, the allocator can now be used when sub-allocating from a single large buffers resource

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AMD - GDC2022

a collection of slides and videos from AMDs talk at GDC 2020
covering raytracing, FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0, game rendering effects as well as CPU optimization advice

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1.3 Vulkan Loader Improvements

Vulkan loader has been improved with more debugging capabilities and improved documentation
additionally improved the testing framework to ensure more consistent behavior across layers

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WebGPU and Graphics on the Web

podcast discussing the development and design of WebGPU
talks about the restrictions, design goals, and how it fits into the broader graphics ecosystem

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Intel at the 2022 Game Developers Conference

the page contains links to the presentations (slides and video) to the talks given by Intel at GDC 2022
covering upscaling, optimizations, VRS, machine learning as well as optimization advice

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NVIDIA Hopper Architecture In-Depth

the article provides in-depth details about the new Hopper GPU architecture for data center usage
shows performance numbers, new capabilities, improvements as well as new

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[video] Interactive Graphics 19 - Bump, Normal, Displacement, and Parallax Mapping

the video presents an overview of techniques to represent more geometric details without having to use high geometric tessellation levels
explains the differences between the different techniques, how they are related explaining strengths and weakness

Mach v0.1 - cross-platform Zig graphics in ~60 seconds

the blog explains the graphics foundations of Mach, a zig graphics foundation layer
provides an overview of the unified API abstractions that use WebGPU and WGSL internally

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Fast Non-Uniform 3D Frame Representation

the paper presents a derivation of a representation for rotation and non-uniform scaling in a compact representation
HLSL code for the implementation is provided
contains a performance comparison against quaternions and matrix operations on RDNA2 hardware instruction costs

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 227 - March 20, 2022

Sun, 20 Mar 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] HOW TO DEBUG Your OpenGL Code

the video tutorial provides a starting guide to OpenGL debugging
starts by covering CPU side error detection and apitrace (capturing tool for all API calls)
additionally provides a collection of helpful tips to apply when trying to debug GPU side issues

Transforming “noise” and random variables through non-linearities

the article recaps the effects of linear transformations of random variables
describes three different methods of estimating the effects of nonlinearities on mean and variance/standard deviation
shows practically how color spaces can affect the behavior of operations such as blurs

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[video] Live Coding an Alien Orb - God Rays & Translucency

video tutorial presents a walkthrough of implementing volumetric god rays and subsurface scattering into a shadertoy
all presented techniques are based on SDF rendering of a 3D sphere orb-like structure

PIX-2203.07: Support for DirectStorage

the new release of Pix supports DirectStorage visualization on the timelines
article shows what is supported and how it’s represented in the UI

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DirectStorage API Now Available on PC

Microsft has released the first public version of DirectStorage
the release contains the API and basic simples about the usage of the API

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How to add thousands of lights to your renderer and not die in the process

the article presents an introduction into Reservoir-based Spatio-Temporal Importance Resampling
shows the basics of the technique building on the ideas of Resampled Importance Sampling
clarifies how reservoirs work and how reservoirs can be intelligently combined to allow the sampling of large light counts with bounded performance impact

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[video] Interactive Graphics 17 - Geometry Shaders

the video course provides an understanding of the geometry shaders’ capabilities
reviews the OpenGL primitives and presents the new adjacency types added for primitive shaders
shows how to use the GS from GLSL
additionally shows examples of Geometry Shader usage

[video] Toon Shader Paint - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 38

the video tutorial explains how to implement toon shading
presents multiple approaches on how to achieve the desired look
technique implementation is shown using visual scripting in Unity and UE4

[video] Interactive Graphics 18 - Tessellation Shaders

the video tutorial covering Tessellation shaders
explains how vertex count can be the bottleneck of the GPU pipeline and how tessellation can solve the problem
shows how tesselation shaders are integrated into the rendering pipeline and how they are used from GLSL and OpenGL
additionally presents a few examples of tessellation shader usage

Thanks to Marius Horga for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 226 - March 13, 2022

Sun, 13 Mar 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Fast, GPU friendly, antialiasing downsampling filter

the article present how to derive a downsampling filter that uses eight bilinear samples
shows the process how to create the desired response and optimize the weights
includes a shadertoy implementation

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Optimizing Oklab gradients

the article presents an overview of sRGB, Linear, and Oklab gradient interpolation
shows how to optimize the linear and Oklab calculations to get a lot closer in terms of performance compared to direct sRGB interpolation

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Abstracting the graphics api for a toy renderer

the article discusses the authors’ decision for a home renderer abstraction layer
focusing on ease-of-use for experimentation over performance

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Bindless rendering — Setup

the article presents the implementation of a bindless binding model using D3D12 and Vulkan
discusses the decisions, trade-offset as well (API) implementation-specific details
code examples are provided in Rust

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A Better Approach to SDF Decomposition

the article presents a compiler approach that takes an SDF representation and generates shaders for cheaper execution on parts of the mesh
lists several recommendations to consider when implementing
additionally provides a few use cases for the SDF Evaluator

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Stochastic Light Culling for Single Scattering in Participating Media

the paper extends the ideas of Stochastic Light Culling to compute single scattering in a homogeneous media
presents how combining reservoir sampling with the introduced technique can improve performance

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Multi-Resolution Geometric Representation using Bounding Volume Hierarchy for Ray Tracing

the paper introduces a technique to lower the cost of ray tracing by using approximated geometry for shadow rays
additionally proposes a stochastic material sampling for material blending
presents how to combine the techniques in a path-tracer implementation

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Mali-G710: a developer overview

the article presents hardware and shader compiler improvements for the new Malig G710 GPU
provides details into how the improvements compared to previous generations
additionally provides updated best-practices for best performance

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[RFC] Adding HLSL and DirectX support to Clang & LLVM

the forum post presents the proposal to integrate HLSL and DXIL support into clang/LLVM
discussion presents insights into the tradeoffs in the compiler backend and difficulty with GPU architectures

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WebGPU — All of the cores, none of the canvas

the article provides an introduction to WebGPU for compute shader workloads
starts from the basics and walks through all steps required to implement a simple 2D ball physics simulation
shows how to upload readback data from the GPU

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AMD at GDC 2022

the page contains information and links to all the talks that AMD will present at GDC22
lists what new tools and libraries are going to be announced
number of talks will be freely accessible on GPUOpen

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 225 - March 6, 2022

Sun, 06 Mar 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Exposure Fusion – local tonemapping for real-time rendering

the article presents an explanation of common tone mapping issues, comparing multiple local tone mapping solutions
discusses the Exposure fusion technique in detail
the technique combines multiple exposed images with varying radii based on the frequency changes in the image
present a WebGL demo implementation of the technique

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Variable Rate Compute Shaders on Xbox Series X|S

the presentation talks about techniques to use VRS (Variable Rate Shading) to reduce the cost of lighting calculations for deferred shading
presents implementation details for PC/Series X and presents performance comparisons of the techniques
additionally introduces a technique to reduce block artifacts

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Variable Rate Shading, Tales from the Trenches on Series X|S

the presentations cover the experience of implementing VRS into Doom Eternal and Gears5
contains lessons learned, performance expectations as well as implementation details
additionally covers how VRS performance with UE5 Nanite pipelines

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How Does Perspective Work in Pictures?

the article discusses the effect that human perception and images appear different
presents shortcomings of linear perspective
shows how different types of focal lengths and perspectives create different effects

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Picking Fairly From a List of Unknown Size With Reservoir Sampling

the article presents a collection of code samples that allow the selection of random samples from a list of items
shows different cases from known/unknown sizes, weight vs. unweighted sampling
additionally presents how to combine multiple lists into a coherent sampling strategy

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Improved Accuracy for Prism-Based Motion Blur

the paper presents a method for improving the quality of motion blur on dynamic triangulated objects
it approximates the nonlinear depth, normal, and UV functions
the adaptive solution is based on prism volume and will adapt based on the motion and features

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Vulkan SC: Overview - and how it is different from the Vulkan you already know

the article presents Vulkan for Safety-Critical applications
presents how Vulkan SC 1.0 differes from Vulkan 1.2
main differences are pipeline lading and more rigid memory allocation requirements
all pipelines need to be compiled ahead of time into caches. No runtime compilation is allowed
provides tools to inspect the compiler cache outputs

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Beyond Sand & Spice: The VFX of Dune | DNEG Deep Dives

the video panel discussion presents a look at the VFX development for Dune
discussions about the processes, improvements and the effects of the sand screen compared against classical blue screen techniques

Sampling in Floating Point (1/3): The Unit Interval

the article presents a method to uniformly sample floats in the [0, 1) range
shows how floating-point precision can introduce biasing from integer division
shows alternative ways that improve the uniformity

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[video] Interactive Graphics 16 - Shadow Mapping

the video tutorial explains the concepts required for shadow mapping
explains the foundational concepts, discussing transformations
presents how to implement shadow mapping using OpenGL

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 224 - February 27, 2022

Sun, 27 Feb 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Tiling simplex noise and flow noise in two and three dimensions

the paper presents a tileable implementation of simplex noise for 2D and 3D cases
discusses quality considerations as well as performance
code is provided
additionally provides WebGL examples on how to use the noise to create desired results

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Real-time Shading with Free-form Planar Area Lights using Linearly Transformed Cosines

the paper proposed a real-time shading calculation for area lights defined by cubic Bezier curves
extends the polygonal area lights via linearly transformed cosines techniques
sample code is provided

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Using Semaphore and Memory Sharing Extensions for Vulkan Interop with NVIDIA OpenCL

the article presents a new set of OpenCL and Vulkan extensions to allow interaction between the APIs
shows how to use the extensions to import semaphores, memory, and images between OpenCL and Vulkan

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[video] Clipping and viewport mapping in OpenGL

the video tutorial explains the process that vertices passthrough after vertex processing
shows how vertices are projected onto the screen, clipped to the window
additionally shows how the mapping onto the viewport is archived and how it can be used to have multiple viewports

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Untangling Direct3D 12 Memory Heap Types and Pools

the article shows how GPU memory is exposed to D3D12 application developers
presents a detailed view into how heap types are only a convenient high-level summary and how they map onto heap properties
shows how to get access to memory budgets, available memory and how it changes with integrated and external GPUs

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Why you can’t update Android’s GPU drivers like on your PC

the article presents an overview of the Graphics driver development model on Android devices
discusses Google and OEM initiatives to improve the situation and what problems need to be solved
presents a look at how emulators can load custom user-mode drivers to resolve driver limitations

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Building a new graphics engine in Rust - Part 2

the article presents the authors’ API decisions while developing a D3D12 based graphics engine using Rust
shows why API decisions are made as well as what difficulties were encountered during development
shows that Rust developers still need to be very careful when interacting with unsafe D3D12 calls

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[video] Random Noise - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 35

the video tutorial explains the concept of a noise hash
allows random number generations from other data sources
applies the concept as part of an interior Mapping effect to allow randomized rooms inside of a building
presents the concepts inside of UE4 and Unity

[video] Live Coding and Alien Orb - Modeling & Shadows

the video tutorial presents a coding session of an extraterrestrial inspired Orb object
shows the modeling and shadowing technique based on Signed Distance Fields

Ben Cloward - book recommendations

the author presents his list of recommended books for technical artists

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 223 - February 20, 2022

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Interactive Graphics 12 - The Rendering Equation

the video lectures cover the history and motivation of the rendering equation
discusses all components that form the equation, the effects of the components
additionally presents the generalized form that also covers Emissive material, BSDF, Sub-surface scattering, Refractions

Shader translation benchmark

the article presents a performance benchmark of the naga shader translation system
presents comparisons for translations between different shading languages and compares against other translators
includes comparisons against tint, Glslang, and SPIRV-Cross

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Jobs

Web Graphics Engineer
New York / Remote

We believe that the future of media creation is collaborative and accessible. We’re looking for a strong engineer with the right mindset of craftsmanship and experimentation to help us solve those challenges. You’ll be working closely with our frontend engineering and design teams to develop high-performance graphics primitives to power Runway’s video and image synthesis interfaces

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Cube Sphere Going from Cube to Sphere

the article discusses an alternative way to procedurally generate spheres from a cube base division
presents how alternative distributions can improve the uniformity of the point distribution

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LunarG Releases New Vulkan 1.3.204.0 SDKs with Profiles Toolset and New Extensions

new Vulkan SDK updates allows application developers to create their own profiles
can be used to define a standard set of extensions and capabilities that should be simulated
could be used to restrict all developers to be able to test on min-spec hardware independent of the hardware in the machine

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Exploring the Vulkan 1.3 Software Development Kit (SDK)

Vulkan webinars about Vulkan 1.3 on March 10th
covering Validation Layer Performance and Vulkan Profiles Toolset

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A Review of Shader Languages

the updated article presents a comparison of HLSL, GLSL, MSL, and WGSL
compares the syntax, resource binding, and shader interface
also shows how to compile shaders ahead of time, during runtime
additionally shows how to transpile between the different languages

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Jobs

Senior Compiler Engineer
Fort Collins, Colorado, US, or remote

LunarG, a US-based, independent software consultancy, is looking for talented compiler engineers to help us deliver world-class, 3D-graphics solutions.

If interested, contact Karen Ghavam at jobs@lunarg.com

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[video] Modern OpenGL - Compute Shaders

the video tutorial explains the necessary concepts to use compute-shaders with OpenGL
starting with simple examples, it explains the logic, how to load and execute compute-shaders
covers how to improve performance, communicate and store results in memory

Light transport matrices, SVD, spectral analysis, and matrix completion

the article presents light transport matrices and how they relate to light transport concepts
expressed this way, computing incident lighting becomes matrix-vector multiplication

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Updates in Graphics and Gaming

the article presents a new windows insider feature that will allow DX10/DX11 games to take advantage of the DXGI flip-model
feature is available by default on DX12 games, but older games can take advantage of it from a Windows level opt-in toggle

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Thanks to Ken Russell for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 222 - February 13, 2022

Sun, 13 Feb 2022 04:00:00 +0000

In the works: HLSL Shader Model 6.7

the blog post presents the new features of shader model 6.7
improved texture operations such as Raw Gather (unmodified retrieval of the 4 samples from bilinear sampling)
writable MSAA textures, quad-level operations
additionally introduces programmable offsets for load and store from runtime variables instead of compile-time constants

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Super Imposter shader: my journey to make a high quality imposter shader

the article provides an overview of the development process of using a texture-based imposter system using raymarching
shows the different steps in the development process, quality improvements along the way
additionally discusses what ideas the author tried, what did and didn’t work, and discusses why they didn’t work

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[video] Real-Time Ray Tracing | RTX ON in Vulkan | Vulkan Lecture Series Ep. 6, Real-Time Rendering Course

Video lecture series of the real-time rendering course at TU Wien
this part covers how to use hardware-accelerated ray tracing from Vulkan
covers everything required to render a static scene, accelerations, ray traversal, shader bindings as well as processing hits
additionally presents ray queries to allow ray tracing from any shader stage and discusses the limitations

A Shader Trick

the article discusses a problem with effects caused by loss of floating-point precision when game-time is growing
presents a method to reset periodic timers cleanly and still allow for continuous motion
the suggested solution uses integer multipliers with required precision to make resetting motions natural from an effect tweaking perspective

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Jobs

Senior 3D Software Engineer
Darmstadt (GER), alternatively remote

You are helping our core team to develop cutting-edge 3D data optimization technology, being used in production pipelines to process millions of 3D data sets each year, fully-automatically. You are performing research on 3D mesh processing, texture baking, UV mapping, optimization algorithms and ML-based algorithms for 3D data optimization and QA.

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Technically Art: Issue 121 (11.02.2022)

a collection of tweets about tech art, VFX, and related topics
showcases of in-progress developments and experiments

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[video] How Shaders Work (in OpenGL) | How to Code Minecraft Ep. 3

video introduction tutorial to shader programming with OpenGL
provides a conceptual overview of how to author, load, and use shaders GLSL shaders from OpenGL
discusses vertex transformations required project vertices onto the screen
shows how to access information from the CPU in shaders
presents multiple examples to show the practical usage

[video] Interactive Graphics 10 - Textures on the GPU

the video session explains Texture set up for usage from GPU shaders
covering texture types, addressing, tiling, texture filtering
shows how to access the data from the GPU and the necessary OpenGL setup steps
additionally provides an overview of the Mesh Color technique and how to represent it as texture maps

Ray-tracing in 10ms: Ambient occlusion

the article provides an overview of using raytracing to generate ambient occlusion
recaps of ambient occlusion techniques for rasterization, high-level representation of raytracing based implementation

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WebGPU January 2022 meetup — takeaways

a roundup of WebGPU topics discussed at the January meetup
contains references to best practices, new extensions as well as community work showcases
additionally contains information about the state of support across browsers

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Thanks to Mike Turitzin for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 221 - February 06, 2022

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Speeding up Blender .obj export

the article presents a walkthrough of the process that leads to the blender obj exporting being sped up by 10x
shows how to use the Superluminal profiler to spot the problems and iteratively improve the exporter

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SIMD in the GPU world

the article provides an overview of how SIMD execution models evolved over GPU generations
presenting how the changes in architecture affect the way shaders would be authored to provide better performance mapping onto the hardware
defines the standard terms such as swizzling/component masking and wave operations

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The road to 16-bit floats GPU is paved with our blood

the article provides an overview of the state of 16-bit floating-point support in drivers, compilers tools, and hardware
discusses how to take advantage of the hardware feature
shows effects and tradeoffs to consider when moving shaders to use 16-bit floats

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Two Low Discrepancy Grids: Plus Shaped Sampling LDG, and R2 LDG

the article discusses more noise distributions functions, presents grid-based noise definitions based on pixel positions alone
shows the derivation of the noise function
compares the function against White, Blue, Bayer, and more noise functions
presents strengths and weaknesses of the distribution

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Direct Light 2: integrating shadow rays into a path tracer

the article presents why direct lighting computation should be separated from emitted light
an approach to separate light emitters from other objects without tracking additional ray logic booleans is presented in the comments

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Jobs

Senior 3D Software Engineer
Darmstadt (GER), alternatively remote

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Direct Light 3: what goes in the direct light function?

the article presents components are defining the direct lighting component
shows the integral that needs to be solved, a brief explanation of the different aspects
discusses problems with the presented technique
additionally provides suggestions on how to deal with multiple lights

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2021 Vulkan Ecosystem Survey Results are in!

the Vulkan survey presents a summary of the results and presents what next steps will be taken to address the feedback
more investment into the Validation layer, macOSX support, more complete learning materials, and dropping VS2015 support

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[video] Star Citizen Live: Graphics Engineering Q&A

the developer interview answers a large number of user questions
discussing the status of the new Vulkan based renderer, dealing with the constant evolution of graphics requirements and effects on the art pipeline,
many more topics, such as HDR motion blur, are covered

[video] Interactive Graphics 08 - Lights & Shading

video lecture presents an introduction explaining how surfaces are light from lights
shows the components that affect the calculation
covers the Lambertian, Phong, and Blinn material model
explains the transformations required to move between spaces, explaining how normals need special treatment

[video] Skeletal Animation In OpenGL using Assimp - Part 5

the final video of the skeletal animation series using OpenGL and Assimp
the tutorial series explained the whole process required to load information from the file format, interpret the data, and apply the necessary transformations to get animations in an OpenGL example application
the last part discusses how to integrate the animation updating into the runtime

FXAA, SSAA, MSAA, and TXAA comic summary

4 slides for a brief summary of the 4 common anti-aliasing techniques
presenting the technique summary, discussing strengths and weaknesses

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Thanks to Panagiotis Tsiapkolis for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 220 - January 30, 2022

Sun, 30 Jan 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Direct3D 12: Long Way to Access Data

the article presents the flow of data when a CPU generated value is accessed from an HLSL shader
explaining the differences between the available approaches as well as the implications on memory lifetime

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UE5 Lumen Implementation Analysis

the article provides a summary of the Lumen implementation found in UE5 (Unreal Engine 5)
discusses the offline and runtime stages of Lumen (dynamic GI solution)
shows the Acceleration Structure tracing approach as well as probe placement
presents how the scene is represented using MeshCard (Proxy) approximations and distance fields
additionally shows a detailed walkthrough of all the logical stages that compose the system

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Vulkan 1.3 and Roadmap 2022

the article provides a summary of the features that are mandatory in Vulkan 1.3
(removing requirement of render passe, better pipeline creation control, as well as direct buffer addressing support and more )
additionally introduces the new Vulkan roadmap, this will provide guidance on what hardware/software support the group will focus on
the 2022 roadmap will require bindless support as well as more consistent subgroup operation support

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Jobs

Core 3D Software Engineer
Darmstadt (GER), alternatively remote

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

In defense of NIR

the article explains the history and evolution of the mesa shader compiler (internal representation) NIR
discusses the historical reasons and experience of using it instead of LLVM
presents problems and advantages over a CPU focused IR system

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Advanced Kernel Profiling with the Latest Nsight Compute

the new version of the Nsight Compute allows a better understanding of memory traffic and cache eviction decisions
additionally adds new guided optimization support that detects unfused floating-point operations as well as uncoalesced memory access

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What is direct lighting (next event estimation) in a ray tracer?

the article why randomly tracing rays leads to noisy results
presents the mental model to improve this in a simple scene

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WebGPU Best Practices

the presentation contains a collection of best practices when working with WebGPU
covering compressed textures, debug label usage, data uploading, pipeline creation as well as bind group usage

[video] Useful functions for game designers - Cosine Interpolation

the video explains the derivation of Cosine Interpolation
discusses how the individual components are derived and how they are connected for the final result

Thanks to Marius Horga for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 219 - January 23, 2022

Sun, 23 Jan 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Shader tips and tricks

the article contains a collection of 53 tips & tricks to consider when writing shaders
contains performance advice, common pitfalls, as well as optimization advice

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Removing Banding in Linelight

the article discusses how noise can help to reduce banding in light gradients
presents the effects of noise on the visual perceptions
shows how to implement the required noise operations in a Unity shader

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[video] The Unreasonable Effectiveness of JPEG: A Signal Processing Approach

the video provides a great introduction to image compression topics
covering Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), YCbCr Color space as well as Run-length/Huffman Encoding
explained in the context of jpeg but applicable to other data compression problems

Jobs

Core 3D Software Engineer
Darmstadt (GER), alternatively remote

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Behind the Pretty Frames: God of War

the WIP article presents a walkthrough of a frame of God of War (PC version)
explaining wind and GPU particle simulation
shows how snow deformation has been achieved in more detail
additionally presents a view at how UI rendering is mainly implemented with grey-scaled source textures

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Visualizing VGPR Pressure with Radeon™ GPU Analyzer 2.6

the article presents the new VGPR Pressure Visualization view
the tool can show how many VGPRs are used on each line and how usage needs to be reduced to see a benefit

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The Perlin Problem: Moving Past Square Noise

the article presents the shortcomings of Perlin noise and what causes these
shows how to implement simplex noise that can archive better results
additionally discusses how to improve the information that is shared with the community at large to improve teaching and information sharing

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[video] Tech Focus: Nvidia DLDSR - What Does AI Downsampling Actually Do?

the video presents super sampling techniques
showing the issues introduced if super-sampling is done with a scaling factor that is not evenly dividable to the downsample target
presents how the NVidia DLDSR improves upon image quality
shows the comparison of different settings against native 4x downsampling as well native 1080p images

[video] Talk - Practical Pigment Mixing for Digital Painting

the paper presents the novel mixbox model for natural color mixing that matches the painting of oil colors
explains how color mixing in digital software behaves
presents why previous models were impractical to be implemented and how it was improved

Radeon™ GPU Profiler 1.12 released

the article presents the new debug views that can visualize the wavefront execution patterns
able to show execution latencies for each instruction
show how many cycles of latency could be hidden by SALU and VALU work

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Viewing DirectX® 12 Named Resources with Radeon™ Memory Visualizer 1.3

the article presents how to show resource name usage in the AMD memory visualization
additionally contains a Troubleshooting section as Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) is required to collect the necessary information

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Thanks to Robert Wallis for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 218 - January 16, 2022

Sun, 16 Jan 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Texture Gathers and Coordinate Precision

the article presents a deep dive into a gather related artifact
discusses texture filtering, how fixed point is involved and how many bits of sub-pixel precision is used on different GPU vendors
shows the necessary parts in the Vulkan and D3D spec to understand why an offset is required to match the hardware behavior

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Instant Neural Graphics Primitives with a Multiresolution Hash Encoding

the paper presents a multi-resolution hash table of trainable feature vectors
the presented system focuses on the task-independent encoding of relevant details and can be applied to a variety of tasks
shows the ideas applied Gigapixel images, Neural SDF, NeRF, as well as Neural volumes

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[video] Triplanar Projection Improvements - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 29

the video improves the tri-planar projection shader (allows texture mapping without UVs)
shows how to make sure that texture directions are correct on all sides of the projection
additionally shows how to convert the node graphs into a single node to make it usable from other shaders more easily

[video] Interactive Graphics 01 - Introduction

introduction to a university course that covers the fundamental concepts of real-time rendering on the GPU
the course is project-based, explaining the concepts and applying them in OpenGL examples

[video] Useful functions for game designers - Lagrange Interpolation

the video explains how to derive the Lagrange Interpolation functions
presents how to use desmos to visualize the derivation process

Technically Art: Issue 119 (14.01.2022)

an extensive collection of a large variety of tech art tweets collected into a single post
contains VFX, demos, art showcases, and a large number of exciting demonstrations
also contains an example that visualizes GPU execution patterns

[video] New Weather Simulator: Almost Perfect!

Two Minute Papers video summary of the Weatherscapes: Nowcasting Heat Transfer and Water Continuity paper
shows a new model to simulate weather effects using the microphysics of water

VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering tutorial

the tutorial shows how to use the VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering extension in Vulkan
shows the steps required to load the extension, use it, and how it affects related components such as pipeline creation

[video] Shader Coding for Beginners 2022 [Part 1]

the first part of a shader coding course (6 hours!) focusing on textual shaders using Unity
explaining the fundamentals of the rendering pipeline, focusing on applicable knowledge across engines

Thanks to Panagiotis Tsiapkolis for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 217 - January 9, 2022

Sun, 09 Jan 2022 04:00:00 +0000

[video] PhD Thesis Fast Forward 2021

the video contains the summary and overviews of Siggraph PhD thesis
covering a large spectrum of resources from collision sounds, AR prototyping, Subsurface scattering and more
each summary is less than 3 minutes long

Cache and Bandwidth Aware Real-time Subsurface Scattering

the PhD thesis provides an overview of Subsurface scattering techniques and proposes a taxonomy of techniques
the thesis introduces a real-time adaptive sampling algorithm for Monte Carlo sampling using temporal reuse
additionally shows how to counteract oversampling in dynamic scenes

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Sphere Scene in Unity URP

the article explains how to set up an effect that allows meshes to appear cut at the boundaries of a sphere
shows how to not render pixels outside the sphere and deal with special effects for the inside of objects
code implementation is done using Unity

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[video] You Might Be Thinking About Shader Performance Wrong

the video focuses on visualizations of GPU performance considerations
focusing on memory latency hiding and memory access optimizations in the context of a water simulation system
one small correction, the author says cache coherency but actually means cache locality

Mali GPU Training

a collection of video resources for GPU development
contains generic resources such as an explanation of GPU rendering pipeline, and best practices
provides information about the Mali tools and optimizations that are hardware-specific

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[video] Skeletal Animation In OpenGL using Assimp - Part 2

the second part of the series explains the mapping between vertices and bones
focuses on explaining a step to step approach that visualizes the data to allow functionality confirmation

Insider guide to tech interviews

the article provides an in-depth discussion of the interview process for more experienced developers
discussing the different interview styles, kinds of questions, tasks
additionally provides an insight into how to discuss previous work, interview process, and clear communication about expectations

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Thanks to Daniel Fortes for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 216 - January 2, 2022

Sun, 02 Jan 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Temporal AA and the quest for the Holy Trail

the article presents a very detailed look at temporal anti-aliasing
shows each component of the technique visually and explains how it solves the problem
provides alternative solutions and presents a link to the sources of the technique

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Reader Question Answered 1 - Learning D3D12

the article provides a high-level learning guide for getting started with D3D12
providing a starting point for getting started quickly as well as detailed learning articles
contains sources for performance advice from the different manufacturers
additionally contains information where to find the official D3D12 specification to clarify uncertainties

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Finding Your Home in Game Graphics Programming

the article presents a high-level view of the graphics programming world
shows that the specialization has separated into multiple distinct sub-categories
presents resources for getting started in the different specializations

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Interleaved Gradient Noise: A Different Kind of Low Discrepancy Sequence

the article presents the characteristics of IGN(Interleaved Gradient Noise) that make it a good fit for TAA (Temporal Antialiasing Techniques)
compares against Bayer, white and blue noise
showing visual explanations to show the Low Discrepancy properties

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Notes on occlusion and directionality in image based lighting

the article presents the findings of the importance of directionality and occlusion for IBL(Image-based lighting)
presents comparisons between ray-tracing ground truth, as well as various versions of screen space GTAO( Ground Truth Ambient Occlusion)
shows how to bake the directional aspect into Spherical harmonics
additionally contains a follow-up post about the technical implementation details

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What is an uber shader?

the article presents a look back at the emergence of the term uber shader
showing how a single shader that supported a flexible BRDF evaluation instead of pre-defined categories
the comments contain an insightful discussion about the further historical developments of the term

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Not All Blue Noise is Created Equal Part 2

the article compares different techniques to generate blue noise
presents the quality of the generated noise
providing ideas for future development

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The History of Retro Game Consoles for Programmers

the article provides a history of game consoles in the First Generation 1972 to modern-day consoles
presents what new hardware was added with each generation and how constraints and programming environment evolved

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Branching on a GPU

the article presents branching on GPUs, clearing up that the cost of a branch depends on the kind
shows shader code helpers that allow the visualization of the branching patterns
additionally presents that extra care is required if branching around texture reads

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Stalling a GPU

the blog discusses dependent texture reads and the impact on GPU performance
shows why it affects performance and discusses tradeoffs to consider

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Mixed Precision Algorithms in Numerical Linear Algebra

the paper presents a look at the half/single/double and quad precision for floating-point calculations
provides an analysis of different linear algebra tasks to derive precision
suggesting which types of tasks might be more suitable to reduced precision

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[video] The small detail behind Breath of the Wild's Thousands of Trees - Quick Answer #shorts

one-minute long video shows the impostors used for far away vegetation in Zelda Breath of the Wild

Global shaders in Unreal without engine modification

the article shows how custom shader effects can be integrated into the UE4 pipeline
presents a method that doesn’t require engine modification but uses undocumented private classes

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Digital Dragons 2021: Adam Sawicki - Efficient Use of GPU Memory in Modern Games

talk discusses the available memory types in D3D12/Vulkan
discussing ways to upload data to the GPU, including the new hardware Smart Access Memory (Resizable BAR)
shows performance advice for usage patterns for the different memory types to achieve optimal performance

Debugging For Graphics Programmers

the article provides a collection of advice to help with debugging GPU issues
broken down into sub-categories based on the appearance of the bug
additionally contains a list of helpful debug infrastructure elements that should be set up to accelerate the process

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Thanks to Lesley Lai for support of this series.

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Reader Question Answered 1 - Learning D3D12

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 04:00:00 +0000

There are a lot of tutorials and articles on Vulkan. I found very few tutorials for D3D12. Do you have some recommendations on how to start learning D3D12?

Quick Start

To get started with the API quickly, I can recommend the following resource: Raw DirectX 12

Provides a starting point repository that implements all the necessary elements to render a triangle into a window. The blog post walks through the code and briefly explains all used concepts.

If you have experience with other APIs, keep A Comparison of Modern Graphics APIs bookmarked to compare as you go along.

API detailed walkthrough

If you enjoy reading an in-depth walkthrough of the API and concepts, I recommend the 3dgep series.

Part 1 and 2 give an introduction to the D3D12 API itself and how it interacts with the Windows environment.

Part 3 builds on top and presents possible implementations for higher-level abstractions. This also covers several related topics, such as memory management and resource state management.

Part 3 - Framework

Part 4 explains texturing in detail. This does not only cover the API but also explains related concepts such as texture filtering. Additionally presents how to use compute-shaders to generate mipmaps (smaller versions of textures) using the GPU.

Part 4 - Textures

API specification

Questions about the specifics of the API? Or what the intended behavior should be? Start by looking into the official specification. These are available on GitHub.

DirectX-Specs

What isn’t covered in the D3D12 specification can typically be found in the Direct3D 11.3 Functional Specification as many concepts still apply.

Applied uses

Interested in how others applied the concepts for their own engines and frameworks?

Articles about the D3D12-based implementation of Diligent Engine.

The Microsoft Samples contain several samples to learn more about specific features you might be interested in the DirectX-Graphics-Samples

Especially the mini-engine. This provides a good starting point for experimentation as well as looking into how aspects got implemented.

Performance Best Practices

With the power of the API also comes the responsibility to think about performance. Each manufacturer has recommendations on how best to take advantage of their hardware.

Below is a collection of some resources:

Manufacturer	Link
AMD	RDNA2 - Performance Guide
Nvidia	Game Works - DX12 Do’s And Don’ts
Intel	Optimization Guide for Graphics Gen11

The road ahead

This should give an excellent starting point to keep you busy on your D3D12 learning journey. There is a lot more information out there. But I hope with the provided information it will be easier to find.

For example, take a look at my Graphics Programming Article Database to find some of them.

Is anything missing, or do you have a question about something else? Feel free to reach out on Twitter @jendrikillner, and I will try to find the information and expand the guide so everyone can benefit.

Inspired by https://www.hanselman.com/blog/do-they-deserve-the-gift-of-your-keystrokes

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 215 - December 26, 2021

Sun, 26 Dec 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Christmas Decoration for Graphics Engineers

the article describes a setup to use a software rasterizer to create winter decorations for tiny projectors to make Christmas decorations
happy christmas :)

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Debugging Your Renderer (4/n): End-to-end tests (or, why did that image change?)

the post presents the importance of testing images that allow the testing of a renderer
discusses the different kinds of test images, how to gather them and compare if they remain unchanged
presents heuristics to judge if changes that introduce image changes are valid or problematic

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Debugging Your Renderer (5/n): Rendering Deterministically

the article discusses sources of nondeterministic rendering in PBRT-3
presents how the renderer was made deterministic
additionally presents what advantages and debugging abilities determinism enables

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Homegrown rendering with Rust

the article presents the release of the kajiya experimental renderer written in Rust
discusses the design and implementation choices, targetting the Vulkan API and Rust for shader authoring
additionally presents a look at the future direction of the project

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[video] Triplanar Projection - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 28

The shader video tutorial shows how to create a shader that projects textures from the top, front, and side (Triplanar projection) without UV coordinates
implementation is shown in both Unity and Unreal visual shader authoring system

Improved Triplanar projections

the article presents how to use barycentric coordinates to improve triplanar projections
done by blending between smoothed and flat normals
presents how to use virtual triangles to generate barycentric coordinates for terrains if not available on the target system

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[video] Digital Foundry's Best Game Graphics of 2021 - PC, Xbox, PlayStation - Another Amazing Year!

video discussing the best graphical releases of the year
presenting the most prominent innovations of the year, showing how the expectations of next-generation have evolved
additionally discussing oddities of the year

Vulkan: Why some GPUs expose a dozen of identical memory types?

the article discusses why Vulkan drivers expose a single heap with multiple memory types
explains how resource compatibility should be handled in resource allocation

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From GLSL to WGSL: the future of shaders on the Web

the post describes the differences between the new WebGPU Shading language and GLSL
shows the explicit nature of the language
highlighting the difficulty in translating between the languages

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Thanks to Jasper Bekkers for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 214 - December 19, 2021

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Triangle Grid Triangles and Hexagons

the article presents alternative mesh structures to generate grid structures
shows why two-right angle triangles are problematic under motion transformation
discusses Rhombuses and Hexagons as alternatives

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Rendering in Real Time with Spatiotemporal Blue Noise Textures, Part 1

the article introduces a technique and generated textures that enable the use of Spatiotemporal blue noise
the article discusses the importance of Spatiotemporal blue noise, presents comparisons against existing techniques
additionally presents several use cases for the presented technique

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Rendering in Real Time with Spatiotemporal Blue Noise Textures, Part 2

the article discusses Spatiotemporal blue noise in more depth
showing best practices for several scenarios
additionally shows how to extend the provided blue noise texture for other use-cases

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[video] Coding the Game of Life - Part II

the second part of the game of life shadertoy implementation focuses on the improvement of the visuals
additionally adds the ability to interact with the simulation using the mouse

[video] Pipelines and Stages - Inside Graphics, Compute, Ray Tracing Pipes - Vulkan Lecture Series, Ep. 5

the video of the Vulkan lecture series introduces the stages of the graphics, compute, and raytracing pipe using Vulkan
explains the stages, how the order is maintained as well as how the stages are essential for a correct understanding of synchronization
providing an overview of the new Synchronization2 system in Vulkan and how it differs from the previous iteration

Frickin' Shaders With Frickin' Laser Beams

the author presents the design for a composable GLSL system based on the idea of closure
discusses the difference of binding models, how to connect CPU and GPU components in a composable system
shows how the runtime being aware of all GPU data enables rendering only if any data changes could generate a different image

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How to Read Research Papers: A Pragmatic Approach for ML Practitioners

the article discusses advice for new research on how to effectively read research papers
written from the perspective of machine learning, but the lessons apply to computer graphics as well

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Technically Art: Issue 118 (18.12.2021)

a collection of tweets covering a large variety of tech art topics such as
interior mapping, shading for 2d games, VFX showcases, as well as a rule-based terrain texturing system

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Modern (Bindless) Sprite Batch for Vulkan (and more!)

the article describes how to use a Vulkan bindless setup for 2D sprite batching
presents how to pass the necessary texture index into the shaders
shows the importance of nonuniform qualifier at texture sample time
additionally presents how to integrate the technique into imGUI

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 213 - December 12, 2021

Sun, 12 Dec 2021 04:00:00 +0000

World-space spatiotemporal reservoir reuse for ray-traced global illumination

the paper presents a technique that performs reservoir-based spatiotemporal importance resampling in world space
caches in the cells of a hash grid built on the GPU along the path vertices

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AMD GPUOpen - Publications

list of AMD research publications
contains papers starting in 2010

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Godot Rendering Pipelines

the article shows how to write data into an offscreen target and process it in a full-screen pass
additionally provides a walkaround for missing multi-channel output

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Enhanced Barriers

Microsoft released the spec for the Enhanced D3D12 barrier API
discusses the problems with the current API
presents how the new API resolves these problems, expected behavior as well as open issues

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D3D12 Enhanced Barriers Preview

the blog post provides an introduction to the new enhanced barrier preview for D3D12
presents how developers can test the API at this time

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Experimental Analysis of Multiple Scattering BRDF Models

the paper presents an analysis of multiple scattering BRDF models
shows the microfacet distribution function is most important for smooth materials
shadowing and masking term increases with roughness
shows how a mix of lambert and GGX can approximate a large number of materials

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Announcing HLSL 2021

the article presents the new features released as part of the DXC update for December
added support for templates, overloadable operators, bitfield members for data types
additionally also introduces Operator Short-Circuiting as well

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Announcing new DirectX 12 feature – Video Encoding!

the blog post presents the video encoding API that has been added to d3d12
supports H264 and HEVC
shows how the API exposes the hardware and fits into D3D12 design

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Introduction to Tessellation in Metal

the article presents an overview of tesselation shaders
shows how to implement the necessary steps to implement drawing of a tesselated sphere using Metal

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How to Build a Compute Rasterizer with WebGPU

the article presents how to implement 3D mesh rasterization in a WebGPU compute shader
additionally provides additional steps to get a better understanding of the implementation

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 212 - December 05, 2021

Sun, 05 Dec 2021 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Swizzle & Channel Manipulation - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 25

the video tutorial introduces swizzle operations
shows how to emulate functionality in Unity that is available natively in UE

fma: A faster, more accurate instruction

the article presents the shader multiply/add operation (fma/mad)
discusses how it’s mapped onto the hardware and allows more efficient and precise operations
shows example use cases, discussing the impact on the precision of the calculation results

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The Definitive Weta Digital Guide to IBL

the tutorial describes the capturing process for image-based lighting
IBL probes are omnidirectional representations of lighting information captured from high dynamic range images of a location
shows how to capture the images and set up the pipeline to integrate the captures into the renderer
explains how all captured with different exposures are combined into a single IBL probe

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Building a PS1 style retro 3D renderer

the article describes the hardware characteristics of the PS1 renderer
shows a visual demonstration of the effect of sub-pixel rasterization and perspective correct interpolation
additionally shows how to emulate the hardware shortcomings to create a PS1 style look on today’s hardware

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Tiled Reservoir Sampling for Many-Light Rendering

the paper introduces a combination of tile-based stochastic light culling and reservoir sampling
this reduces the variance for lights close to surfaces such as common in Virtual Point Lights (VPLs) based indirect illumination systems

Gradients in linear space aren't better

the article shows how gradients differ with different color spaces
compares sRGB, linear, and Oklab color spaces

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Arm Best Practice warnings in the Vulkan SDK

the article presents the Vulkan SDK layer architectures
introduces how to enable Arm performance warning layer
additionally shows how to run the layer on RenderDoc captures to gather information

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Why gamers and developers should care about ray tracing

the article provides an overview of use cases for ray tracing
discussing disk and memory space-saving, shadows, reflection
also mentions the effects on user-generated content

Debugging Your Renderer (3/n): Assertions (and on not sweeping things under the rug)

the article discusses the importance of asserts for debugging a renderer
shows how asserts are implemented in PBRT
additionally presents an example from the PBRT development where asserts helped to catch a performance issue

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Understanding Graphs in GPUView and RGP

the article explains what information GPUView and Radeon GPU Profiler show
shows how items are progressing through the queue over time
additionally shows how to see how utilized the GPU is over time

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Custom Bloom Post-Process in Unreal Engine

the article provides an overview of the bloom technique and implementations
comparing the technique implemented by UE and Call of Duty and how the suggested solution is a combination
shows how to integrate a custom implementation into the UE4 codebase

Skeletal Animation In OpenGL using Assimp - Part 1

the video tutorial provides an overview of the skinning animation technique
explaining the process of how data is authored, animated, and encoded in a GPU friendly format
additionally shows how to set up, compile and use Assimp to parse the initial skinning poses

Thanks to atyuwen for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 211 - November 28, 2021

Sun, 28 Nov 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Denoising Sprite Fright

the article presents the noise issues encountered when rendering out animated camera tracks
shows result comparisons between different sample counts and supersampling
presents how the noise issue was solved by projecting static rendering onto proxy geometry

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[video] Reflection and Refraction Vectors - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 24

the video shows a visualization of reflection and refraction vectors
shows how to combine reflection and refraction into a single effect
presents how to use these vectors for effects within Unity and UE4

Lossless Image Compression in O(n) Time

the article presents the overview of a small and simple lossless image compression
benchmark against libpng and stbi are available here: benchmark

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Floating-point in mobile shaders

the article presents an overview of fp16 (16-bit floating-point data types)
shows what range and precision is available
discusses 7 tricks to keep in mind when working with fp16 numbers in shaders

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Tessellation-Free Displacement Mapping for Ray Tracing

the paper presents a new approach that decouples displacement from the tessellation of the base mesh
a displacement-specific acceleration structure is mapped onto the mesh, and tesselation factors are encoded seperate
the BVH for the displaced geometry is computed instead of loaded from memory

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A quick breakdown of lighting in the restir-meets-surfel branch

provides a rundown of the different stages of a WIP experiment combing surfels and ReSTIR for rendering
shows images of the different passes, what they contribute and how they form the final result

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Shader Assembly and D3D12 Root Signatures

the article presents a look at the RDNA2 assembly generated from a simple pixel shader that outputs a color from a constant buffer
compares D3D12_ROOT_PARAMETER_TYPE_DESCRIPTOR_TABLE, D3D12_ROOT_PARAMETER_TYPE_CBV, D3D12_ROOT_PARAMETER_TYPE_32BIT_CONSTANTS
presents pros/cons of each technique

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Debugging Your Renderer (2/n): Unit Tests

the article presents a starting point for developing unit tests for rendering algorithms
shows the importance of small test cases
additionally presents two real examples from pbrt-v4 and how unit tests helped to solve them

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 210 - November 21, 2021

Sun, 21 Nov 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Adventures in Hybrid Rendering

the article presents an overview of the implementation for various techniques found to mix raytracing and rasterization
discussed the implementation of Spatiotemporal Variance-Guided Filtering for Denoising
show how to apply this for Soft Shadows, Ambient Occlusion, Reflections, Indirect Lighting as well as a probe-based Global Illumination
presents optimization and quality improvement steps

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Vulkan Pills 1: Bindless Textures

the article presents the quickest way to implement fully bindless shaders using Vulkan
shows how to implement the whole process from querying support, descriptor management as well as the shader side

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Advanced Shading Techniques with Pixel Local Storage

the article shows how Pixel Local Storage can be used on ARM GPUs to implement Translucency and Order Independent Transparency
additionally presents the Shader Frame Buffer Fetch to allow access to the render target color and depth stencil from within an active pixel shaders

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Getting started with Metal-cpp

the article presents the official C++ interface for Metal
shows how to integrate it into an application
additionally offers how to generate a single header version

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How to Level Up Your Profiling With RenderDoc for Oculus

the article describes the RenderDoc fork for use with Oculus devices
presents what effects on performance the tool has
shows how to visualize tile usage and collect performance counters for application optimizations

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Prefix sum on portable compute shaders

the author presents his experience trying to run a prefix sum sorting algorithms portably using WebGPU
discusses the limitations and issues encountered
explains what synchronization primitives are missing to allow the most efficient variation using WebGPU

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From NVIDIA DLSS 2.3 To NVIDIA Image Scaling: NVIDIA’s Full Stack Of Scaling Solutions For Gamers

update on Nvidia scaling solutions
the NVIDIA Image Scaling SDK now provides an open-source spatial upscaler
can be used on hardware where Nvidia DLSS is not available
presents the Image Comparison & Analysis Tool that allows comparison of up to 4 images and videos

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Jump flooding with bgfx

the article shows an example of implementing a flood filling algorithm using the BGFX abstraction library
provides a brief discussion of issues encountered in getting started with the library

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Strange Attractors on the GPU, Part 1: Implementation

the article presents how to implement GPU particles with movement tails without CPU interaction
all particle simulations happen in pixel shaders, and results are copied into ring buffers expressed as rows of textures
implementation is provided using WebGL (regl)

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How to draw styled rectangles using the GPU and Metal

the article presents how to render rectangles with rounded edges
shows the distance field based shader implementation using Metal
additionally covers anti-aliasing and gradient rendering

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The Repackaged Windows Vulkan SDK

the Vulkan SDK has been repackaged and now separates between core and optional components

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 209 - November 14, 2021

Sun, 14 Nov 2021 04:00:00 +0000

NVIDIA GTC: A Complete Overview of Nsight Developer Tools

provides an overview of the available Nvidia developer tools
includes a brief summary of each tool and references to further information

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Streamlining Render Passes

the post summarizes the new VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering extension
enables Vulkan render passes without render pass or frame buffer objects

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[video] Intro to Graphics 22 - Signal Processing

the video tutorial provides a beginner introduction to signal processing
starts the explaining with audio signals to clarify the concepts
afterward transfers the ideas onto raster images
presents how aliasing and image filters can be explained using signal processing concepts

[video] Jonathan Ragan Kelley: Organizing Computation for High-Performance Visual Computing

the talk presents a discussion of performance tradeoffs
proposes the idea that algorithms should be separated from how they are executed
introduces the halide language/compiler that decouples algorithms from the mapping onto hardware execution models

[video] (Ab)using RTX for Element Point Location

provides an explanation of point queries and why point queries on unstructured data is a lot more complex compared to grid-based data
the paper presents different methods to offload more work onto the RT cores with increasing complexity
shows memory and performance results on different hardware and test cases

Rendering text

the article provides a history of text rendering techniques
provides summaries and references of the presented techniques

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[video] Rendering Lines in a Game Engine // Game Engine series

the video tutorial explains how to render lines using OpenGL
extends the techniques to draw oriented rectangles

Shaded vertex reuse on modern gpus

the article presents results comparing the vertex post-transform cache behavior on intel and Nvidia hardware
presents that they have very different behavior

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 208 - November 7, 2021

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 04:00:00 +0000

New Quest Rendering Tech Promises Massive Gains in App Performance

summary of Occlulus Quest 2 Application SpaceWarp technology
technology that allows an application to render at half of the target frame rate and “upscale” to the target frame rate
uses the application provided depth, image buffers, and motion vectors to generate in-between frames

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Shadow outlines tutorial

the Unity tutorial shows how to sample shadow maps and implement an edge detection filter
extending the concepts to show how to apply outline shadows

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Stencil Portal in Unity — VFX Breakdown

the article explains how to implement a portal look into a separate world using stencil buffers for filtering
shows why the technique was used and how rendering passes have been structured
additionally covers other the aspects of the demo, such as the volumetric fog and candles

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Technically Art: Issue 115 (05.11.2021)

weekly round-up of tweets from a large variety of technical art and VFX topics

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My personal hell of translating DXIL to SPIR-V – part 3

the article presents the details of the D3D12 binding model and discusses the differences to Vulkan
presents a detailed look at all the possible binding possibilities
discussing problems, limitations, and how it maps to hardware

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Working Around Constructors in HLSL (or lack thereof)

the article presents how constructor like functionality can be implemented in DXC HLSL
relies on variadic macros support in the compiler frontend

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[video] Intro to Graphics 20 - Shadows & Reflections

class in introduction to computer graphic series focusing on shadows
explains the fundamental of shadow casting and presents practical implementation notes that are required for correct implementations
covers ray tracing and rasterization based implementations
shows the logic required for reflections and the derivations from the rendering equation
additionally covers a small discussion of the different ray types, names, and usages

[video] How Computers Draw Weird Shapes

the video tutorial explains how to implement metaball rendering
presents how to approach the approach to the problem and derive the final marching square solution
focusing on how to transform a problem into solvable sub-problems

[video] A Deep Dive into Nanite Virtualized Geometry

the video for the SIGGRAPH 2021 presentation about UE5 Nanite has been released
will explain how the mesh-based data structure is built, streamed, decompressed, culled, rasterized, and shaded

VK_KHR_dynamic_rendering

Vulkan extension that allows the use of render passes in Vulkan using a D3D12 style objectless model
already being reported as supported on first Nvidia drivers

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[video] Spot lights in OpenGL

video tutorial explains the concepts of spotlights and develops a mathematical model to describe the effect
presents how to implement these concepts using GLSL and OpenGL

Thanks to Sondre Kongsgård for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 207 - October 31, 2021

Sun, 31 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

[video] SIGGRAPH 2021 Rendering Engine Architecture course

the videos for the excellent SIGGRAPH 2021 Rendering Engine Architecture course have been released
covering Unity / Roblox / Activision rendering architectures
as well as the Activision geometry rendering architecture

The curious case of slow raytracing on a high end gpu

the article shows that out of bounds access reduced rendering performance by 25x
shows how to use NSight Graphics to help investigate performance issues

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Practical Gaussian filtering: Binomial filter and small sigma Gaussians

the article discusses the Binomial and Gaussians filter
presents what a Binomial filter is and how it compares against a gaussian
additionally provides details about how a Gaussian filter behaves with different kernel sizes

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Advanced API Performance: Command Buffers

the article covers a few high-level points on how command buffers allow parallelization of CPU rendering work
provides best practices, and pitfalls to watch out for

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Advanced API Performance: Memory and Resources

the blog post provides recommendations for memory management using D3D12 on
provides information on how to receive information about the available budget and manage residency
provides suggestions on which resource should be allocated together
additionally provides information on tiled resource usage

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Advanced API Performance: Mesh Shaders

the article provides information about what practices are recommended for getting good mesh shader performance and what are not
additionally mentions how the Vulkan extension allows potentially less usage of shared memory

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[video] How Link's eyebrows go over his hair - Quick Answer #shorts

short 1-minute video that explains how masking with disabled depth testing allows the eyebrows to be drawn above the hair at all times

Thanks to Nathan Reed for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 206 - October 24, 2021

Sun, 24 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Scalable global illumination for O3DE

the presentation presents an overview of different Global illumination techniques
discussing strengths and weaknesses
presents the solution implemented in O3D and looks at problems and future developments

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Interactive Exploration of Homogeneous Coordinates and Rational Splines

the article provides an explanation of Homogeneous Coordinates
showing a visual explanation of the mapping into Cartesian coordinates
presents how these concepts can be used for spline interpolation

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Vulkanised 2021 - Fall

the slides and video recordings from the Vulkanised 2021 conference have been released
covering Synchronization, layer building, portability, shader pipelines, and texture compression

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[video] HLSL shaders compilation pipeline in BG3

discussing how the mapping from D3D to Vulkan binding semantics was implemented using SPIR-V patching
reflection and code generation is used to implement constant and resource binding in C++ code

Interactive Volumetric Fog With Fluid Dynamics and Arbitrary Boundaries

the article presents a method to generate and simulate real-time interactive fog
based on fluid simulations
presents how to generate a boundary mask from arbitrary meshes using Unity

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Swapchains and frame pacing

the article presents an in-depth overview of the pipeline required to display a image on screen
shows how a frame traverses the pipeline to be presented onto the screen
explains how different methods affect latency and fluency of animations
compares different methods and presents a look at more modern approaches

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Advanced API Performance: Barriers

collection of best practices for NVidia hardware regarding buffer management

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Advanced API Performance: Async Copy

the article discusses considerations when to use async copy queue, async compute, or serial copy engines on NVidia hardware

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Advanced API Performance: Async Compute and Overlap

the article presents a collection of Nvidia advice for getting good performance from async compute workloads
shows examples of two workloads that can be combined efficiently

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 205 - October 17, 2021

Sun, 17 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Recovering Real-World Reflectance Properties and Shading From HDR Imagery

the paper presents how using HDR and 3D scan data, it’s possible to reconstruct the material BRDF parameters
shows how to estimate the diffuse lighting, surface albedo and use this information to treat it as an optimization problem to match the original image

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Creating a Foliage Shader in Unity URP Shader Graph

the tutorial covers a walkthrough of a foliage shader in Unity
covering double-sided materials, translucency, normal adjustments for more natural diffuse shading, and wind deformations

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[video] How To Render CIRCLES (OpenGL/Vulkan/DirectX/Metal)

the in-depth video tutorial explains how to render a circle using shadertoy
explains the required math and implementation in shader code

The Shader Permutation Problem - Part 1: How Did We Get Here?

the blog introduces the topic of shader permutations and why they end up being common issues
discussing not only the compilation side but also runtime implications
additionally presents a list of questions that a programmer might ask when creating a new shader permutation

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The Shader Permutation Problem - Part 2: How Do We Fix It?

the article dives deeper into the issues related to shader permutations
covering several possible solutions, discussing the tradeoffs of the different methods presented
additionally presented a brief look at the future with callable shaders or function pointers
closes with an overview table of the different methods, advantages/disadvantages, and what platform it’s supported on

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NeRF at ICCV 2021

collection of Neural Radiance Field papers that will be presented at Intl. Conf. on Computer Vision
starts with a brief summary of what Neural Radiance Fields are
includes a small single sentence summary for the content of papers for each

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Frame Analysis - Control

frame breakdown of a single frame from the game control (as video and text)
covering shadow rendering, ray tracing passes
denoising, tech art passes, as well as Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS)

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Graphics Twitter - send me links for stuff explaining modern GPU architecture (PS5,RTX etc)

Twitter thread asking for GPU architecture information
the replies are full of fantastic resources

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Linking DXIL Binaries Using DXC

the article shows how recent versions of DXC can link DXIL shaders for all shader stages
presents the API as well as discusses existing restrictions

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AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution: the Digital Foundry interview

interview with Nick Thibieroz, Director of Game Engineering at AMD
discussing AMD FSR objectives, design considerations, the impact of Machine Learning
additionally provides a few pointers at what different engine integrations could be considered

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 204 - October 10, 2021

Sun, 10 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Gentle Introduction to Realtime Fluid Simulation for Programmers and Technical Artists

the articles provides a beginner friendly introduction into fluid simulation
starts by developing the readers intuituin and improves from the natural solution
additionally includes advice on a number of topics such as caustics, reflections, and boudnary handling

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GPU BCn decoding

the article explains how BC format encodind differs between hardware vendors
presents how AMD, Nvidia and Intel implemented the logic

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Improving GPU Memory Oversubscription Performance

the post presents an overview of the performance characteristics for nvida applications related to memory oversuscription
shows how different access paterns influence
comparing a number of hints, allocation models and the influence on performance

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[video] Specular Lighting in OpenGL

the video tutorial extends the Phong lighting model with the addition of specular lighting
explains the derivation of the specular model in a generic way
additonally shows how to implement the required functionallity using GLSL

Instanced Line Rendering Part II: Alpha blending

the article demonstrates how to implement line segment rendering so that the segments are not overlapping
WebGL implementation is provided

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Ray Tracing versus Animation

the blog presents performance number for Bottom-level acceleration structure when using D3D12 raytracing with animated characters
compares nvidia, amd and metal timing in different scenarious

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New Graphics Books, Fall 2021

collection of 5 new graphics programming books
fundamentals, Vulkan, OpenGL and a history of computer graphics book

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 203 - October 3, 2021

Sun, 03 Oct 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Fast temporal reprojection without motion vectors

the paper proposes a new technique to enable the temporal reuse of samples in scenarios where motion vectors are not enough / available
core algorithm of the paper is patch-based correspondence detection within a hierarchical

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An OpenEXR Layout for Spectral Images

the paper provides an overview of Spectral Image Representation and Bi-spectral Reflectance
explains what kind of materials require the information for correct representation
proposes a way to store the data in the OpenEXR format

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[video] Blub - Interactive GPU fluid solver

the video provides an overview of a GPU based fluid solver
written with WebGPU and Rust
primarily focusing on the implementation details of the simulation

Dynamic flowing foam in Unity

the Unity tutorial shows how to implement a basic flow system in Unity
implemented using a projection of 3D shapes into clip space
flow is implemented using a double buffering approach using compute shaders

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Shader Tutorial: Self-Drawing Lines

the Unity tutorial explains how to implement a 2D effect where a mask controls the visibility of a line over time
presents the code and unity setup necessary to implement the effect

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[video] How to think about 3D rotations

the video explains how to develop a mental model of 3D rotations
based around the change of orientation from one coordinate space to another
presents an overview of different ways to express rotations
additionally shows how to use the techniques in Unity

Khronos KTX 2.0 Textures Enable Compact, Visually Rich, glTF 3D Assets

Khronos released the texture format 2.0, which now supports Basis Universal compression
additionally, the new gltf KHR_texture_basisu extension allows the usage in gltf models

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My personal hell of translating DXIL to SPIR-V – part 2

the blog post describes the details about parsing DXIL (the output from the Microsoft Shader Compiler)
shows how to parse various opcodes, details with SPIR-V
provides an overview of the capabilities of the LLVM based encoding

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 202 - September 26, 2021

Sun, 26 Sep 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Creative Use of GPU Fixed-Function Hardware

the article presents a few examples of how GPU fixed function hardware is used for other purposes besides the intended use-case
including examples from nanite and an example of a point list was used for histogram generation
the author is looking for user submissions of other examples

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Gentle introduction to GPUs inner workings

the article provides an introduction to more hardware level information about GPU execution
presents an overview for Nvidia, AMD, and intel information
discussing many topics such as occupancy, register file, cache, scalar, and vector work
additionally presents performance pitfalls and explains why they happen

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Understanding Metal Enhancements in the A15 Bionic GPU

the article provides a summary of the new hardware features in Apple GPUs
covering lossy compression, sparse texture support, and SIMD improvements

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[video] NVIDIA’s New Technique: Beautiful Models For Less!

the video provides a paper summary from NVidia that uses differentiable rendering to simplify geometry
shows several examples, including a Disney island vegetation reduction to less than 1% of source vertex count

CodeGen Performant Convolution Kernels for Mobile GPUs

the article presents how to use MLIR (Multi-Level IR Compiler Framework) for efficient SPIR-V code generation for convolution filters
shows how to take the logical expression of the task and transform it into patterns that are efficiently executed on ARM Mali GPUs

GPU Dashboards in Jupyter Lab

NVidia provides an open-source dashboard for Jupyter and a standalone Boker server
these dashboards are python based and expose real-time graphs for metrics such as memory usage, utilization, or memory traffic
the article shows how users can extend the dashboards

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[video] Diffuse Lighting in OpenGL

video tutorial that explains lambert diffuse lighting function
additionally also covers the required coordinate space transformations,
finally shows how to implement the lighting model into OpenGL + GLSL

Thanks to Manish Mathai for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 201 - September 19, 2021

Sun, 19 Sep 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Discover advances in Metal for A15 Bionic

the video presents what is new with the A15 GPU
added support for lossy compression
in addition to bandwidth, it also saves 50% memory usage (quality will be dropped to fit)
improved sparse texture support with support for depth/stencil
as well as support for SIMD shuffle operations

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Compute versus Hardware

the article presents a comparison of triangle throughput for indexed buffer rendering, mesh shader usage, MultiDrawIndirect, and custom compute shader rasterization
comparison is made for depth-only rendering
results are presented on Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, and Apple GPU

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Creating Portable Vulkan Applications Using DevSim

the whitepaper explains how to use DevSim to simulate lower spec devices on higher-end devices
the Vulkan device simulation layer will adjust the return values of capabilities queries
the paper shows how to use the tool, how it fits into the architecture, and what settings can be adjusted

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Digital combat simulator: frame analysis

the frame breakdown covers the flight simulator scenes
presents how the gbuffer by a texture array with MSAA enabled
how reflections, environment maps, and shadows are drawn
covers how transparent elements in the cockpit are drawn
additionally contains a brief look at post-processing and volumetric clouds

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Developing Ray tracing content for mobile games

the article discusses lessons learned by ARM’s approach for developing raytracing support for Mali GPUs
implemented as software implementation that can be loaded as Vulkan layer
presents best practices for mobile performance and battery usage

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[video] Smoothstep - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 15

the video shows the smoothstep node in UE5 and Unity3D
covering the math, and examples of how it is used

[video] The FUTURE Of Graphics | Mesh Shaders, Ray Tracing & Vulkan with Neil Trevett of Nvidia & Khronos

video in-depth interview with VP of developer ecosystems at Nvidia
discussing Khronos technologies such as Vulkan, upcoming standards
as well as how gaming graphics might be developing with new techniques and hardware capabilities

Custom Lens-Flare Post-Process in Unreal Engine

the in-depth article shows how to implement a custom physically based lens flare effect as post-process
presents what lens flares are, how they are used in games and movies
finally shows how to implement them into the UE4 pipeline and replace the build-in effect

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Fast Volume Rendering with Spatiotemporal Reservoir Resampling

the paper presents how to extend spatiotemporal reservoir resampling to multi-dimensional path space such as volumetric media
combines cheap approximations for transmittance with unbiased methods for per-pixel evaluations

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A Token Based Approach To Ordering Transitions

the author suggests a method D3D12 state transition system for multithreaded command recording
based around per-resource tokens that use CPU side fences to synchronize access to previous state transitions

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 200 - September 12, 2021

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Physical Light-Matter Interaction in Hermite-Gauss Space

the paper proposes a formal model to describe how surfaces/media respond to incident radiation
introduces a hybrid matter model for a locally stationary stochastic process

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ray_tracing_motionblur

the Vulkan tutorial shows how to use the Vulkan VK_NV_ray_tracing_motion_blur extension (exposed by Nvidia)
shows how to extend a static ray tracer implementation with the necessary information to support motion(blur)
contains API extensions for time-dependent tracing, motion support in acceleration structures, and support for changing vertex positions

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Okhsv and Okhsl

the article presents a derivation of new color spaces designed for more uniform color picker behavior
discusses the different tradeoffs and how a perfect solution is not possible
presents an overview of existing methods (HSV, HSL, HSLuv), discussing the tradeoffs, weaknesses, and strengths
additionally provides an interactive implementation of all the color pickers

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SDF Decomposition

the article presents a method for the rendering of static Constructive solid geometry SDFs
breaks down an SDF into several sub-trees, with shader specialization for each
requires a static source SDF; however, it could still change positions

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Say hello to shadergarden

article introduces a prototyping system aimed at making multi-pass shader experiments easier
implemented using Rust and GLSL
presents how to implement several systems such as a path tracer, the game of life using the system

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Vulkanised 2021

signup and schedule for the Vulkanised conference has been published
combination of talks and Vulkan layer authoring tutorials

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The Fog of Random

the article presents a look at the making of the fog lost in random
shows how the visual style was achieved
based on volumetric or screenspace fog based on the platform capabilities

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Perceptual Model for Adaptive Local Shading and Refresh Rate

the paper introduces a new metric, CaMoJAB
this considers how the judder, aliasing, and blur artifacts introduced by VRS are masked by the sensitivity limits of the visual system
presents how to use the metric to derive VRS shading rate as well as required refresh rates

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Thanks to Warren Moore for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 199 - September 5, 2021

Sun, 05 Sep 2021 04:00:00 +0000

My personal hell of translating DXIL to SPIR-V – part 1

start of an article series discussing DXIL with the intended usage of conversion to SPIR-V
first part starts with simpler examples to explain the principles of DXIL
library developer speaking from experience developing vkd3d-proton and the dxil-spirv library

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Vulkan’s Best Practice layer now has AMD-specific checks

AMD published a Vulkan layer that analyzes the API usage
checks against the recommendations from the Performance Guide

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Vulkan Layer Symbiosis within the Vulkan Ecosystem

the whitepaper provides an overview of the Vulkan layer validation tool
presents how the different components of the layer infrastructure combine and interact
shows how layers are defined, settings exposed, and user control presented

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Access modern GPU features with WebGPU

WebGPU is slowly rolled out into mainstream Chrome versions
article presents the timeline as well as reading starting points
developers are looking for feedback and developer testing

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Technically Art: Issue 108 (03.09.2021)

collection of Tech Art tweets
covering procedural animation, waterfall simulations, particles, and much more

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Thanks to Nathan Reed for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 198 - August 29, 2021

Sun, 29 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

The Rendering of Mafia: Definitive Edition

in-depth frame analysis of a nighttime scene in Mafia, a d3d11 based deferred rendering engine
covers g-buffer, occlusion culling, decal blending, GI
cars use a precalculated shadow texture to cast AO
heavy use of stencil usage for volumetrics, sky, as well as the minimap rendering

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Optimizing AMD FSR for Mobiles

the article presents optimizations to the FidelityFX Super-Resolution by AMD
shows multiple steps, what gains got achieved and hints at what quality reductions can be expected

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Compressed GPU texture formats – a review and compute shader decoders – part 3/3

the article presents how to implement a shader-based ASTC decoder
shows what different modes are supported, how to encode parts
pointing out the complexities and special cases of the format

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My Takeaways from WebGPU July 2021 Meetup

the article contains a brief summary of the content presented at the WebGPU meetup
covers WebGPU performance advice, new glTF extensions
additionally shows how batching and multi-draw techniques can improve performance

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Stylised Grass with Shaders in URP

the shader tutorial presents how to implement a grass shader using the Universal Render Pipeline in Unity
using Geometry Shaders to generate blade meshes and tessellation shader to control the grass density
presents how to deal with a nonplanar surface, supporting rotation and bending
additionally shows how to control grass painting onto the world, wind and shadow integration

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Technically Art: Issue 107 (27.08.2021)

collection of tweets covering an extensive range of technical art topics
VFX, breakdown of scenes, showcases of visual effects, …

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Linux in a Pixel Shader - A RISC-V Emulator for VRChat

article presents a project that emulates a Linux in a pixel shader running in VRChat
emulates a RISC-V CPU in an HLSL pixel shader
shows how the emulation was implemented
a few pointers on performance improvements made throughout the process

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Thanks to Deepak Surti for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 197 - August 22, 2021

Sun, 22 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Temporal Antialiasing Starter Pack

the article presents a collection of TAA resources
provides a step by step explanation of how to use the resources to implement a basic TAA solution
also provides pointers at possible problems and what could be improved
additionally provides a collection of links to other open TAA implementations

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[video] The Beauty of Bézier Curves

the video shows how bezier curves are defined, how they are used
explains how to derive the formulation and aspects of these curves with very helpful visualizations

Writing Portable Rendering Code with NVRHI

Nvidia open-sourced their internal abstraction layer on top of D3D11, D3D12, and Vulkan
the article explains how resource lifetime is managed with ref counting
pipeline binding layout, state tracking, and resource upload management
additionally, it contains a tool that can generate shader permutations from a text file with shader options

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Jobs

Senior Render Programmer
Prague, Czech Republic, remote work considered

We are searching for a highly skilled and experienced Senior Render Programmer.

You could be developing state-of-the-art rendering solutions for our in-house game engine VRAGE, games such as Space Engineers or new, unannounced projects.

You’ll be working as part of the Rendering team, working closely with the Art and Design teams to help them achieve the artistic vision for our games.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

SIGGRAPH 2021 Links

collection of links to Siggraph 2021 content
Courses, papers, posters, …

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Better GPU Hash Tables

the paper presents three different variations of static hash tables for GPU usage
comparing bucketed cuckoo, bucketed power-of-two-choices, and iceberg hash table implementation

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5 ways to draw an outline

the articles shows Rim Effects, Vertex Extrusion, Blurred Buffer, Jump Flood Algorithm, and Edge Detection
shows examples of each technique, discussing the implementation, advantages, and disadvantages of each technique

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PIX 2108.18: New programmatic capture APIs and much more

new PIX for windows APIs that allow applications to take a capture programmatically without having to run the application through pix
improved Acceleration Structure Viewer

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Jobs

Software Engineer, Game/Game Engine Developer
remote

Pilotier is a startup tackling one of the toughest outstanding engineering challenges: autonomous urban driving. We are taking a camera-first approach and are designing for hardware that is two to three years out. If you like big challenges and working with smart people, join us on our quest.

Your job will be to collaborate with simulation and deep learning engineers and help us build a ground-breaking product from scratch.

You have an eclectic background. You’ve delved deep into the graphics pipeline. You’ve worked with game engines. Maybe you’ve built your own. You’ve written many lines of C++ (even though maybe you secretly can’t stand it). You like solving hard problems, startups, and working with smart people. Nothing scares you. Vulkan? Hah! Maybe you’ve dabbled with functional programming languages, like Erlang or Elixir. Perhaps even Haskell. You’re independent and self-motivated. You love learning new things. Nothing is impossible, some things just take a bit longer to figure out. It’s just code.

We are based in Montreal but are all remote, so your physical location is not an issue.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Read My Chapter in Ray Tracing Gems II!

the article provides a summary of the Using Bindless Resources With DirectX Raytracing chapter from Ray Tracing Gems II
the author emphasizes additional points about bindless and the impacts on rendering engine design

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Thanks to Deepak Surti for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 196 - August 15, 2021

Sun, 15 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

[pptx] Geometry Rendering Pipeline Architecture at Activision

the talk presents how Activision had to rethink the geometry pipeline when moving from tightly controlled levels to open worlds
focusing on the shipped F+ and experimental V+ implementation
shows what mesh types use what technique and explains the reasons
showing how the GPU based pipeline has been implemented around bitmasks and data expansion
presents performance numbers, final F+ culling pipeline reduces rendering time significantly
additionally contains a look at a possible tile-based V+ / F+ hybrid pipeline

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[video] Anti-Racist Graphics Research (SIGGRAPH 2021)

the video discusses biases and assumptions that are baked into the graphics research
discussing the biases in terms such as skin, hair, flesh tones, human face
presents a look at history and how the same biases developed, and how it has been repeated
suggests future developments to address these biases going forward

Optimizing DX12 Resource Uploads to the GPU Using CPU-Visible VRAM

the article presents a new D3D12 Nvidia extension that enables a developer to allocate CPU-Visible VRAM memory directly
this allows developers to write directly into VRAM from the GPU
explains what tools are available to detect cases where it would be beneficial
additionally shows how to detect possible performance problems caused by reading from the CPU

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Jobs

Senior Render Programmer
Prague, Czech Republic, remote work considered

We are searching for a highly skilled and experienced Senior Render Programmer.

You could be developing state-of-the-art rendering solutions for our in-house game engine VRAGE, games such as Space Engineers or new, unannounced projects.

You’ll be working as part of the Rendering team, working closely with the Art and Design teams to help them achieve the artistic vision for our games.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

SIGGRAPH 2021 Talk- Unbiased Emission and Scattering Importance Sampling for Heterogeneous Volumes

the paper presents a new distance sampling method
presents an extension for the null-collision integral formulation that improves efficiency for low-order heterogeneous (such as fog)
additionally presents an approach using a spatial guiding data structure

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2D Lighting with Hard Shadows

the article presents a polygon extension-based method for the generation of 2D shadows
explains the necessary math and how to generate the required mesh data
also discusses problems, performance implications, and optimization techniques
additionally presents two alternative techniques

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2D Lighting with Soft Shadows

the blog post extends the previously discussed hard shadow method to support penumbra based soft shadows
presents how to generate the mesh data to include the penumbra and be able to derive the falloff from linear operations
presents the shader implementation using GLSL

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Introducing a New API for Checking Feature Support in Direct3D 12

the blog post presents a new helper class (CD3DX12FeatureSupport) that unifies the D3D12 feature checking into a single class
part of d3dx12
aims to unify the patterns and behavior across the different existing methods in stock d3d12

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Introduction to Caching Shading Information in World Space using Implicit Progressive Low Discrepancy Point Sets

the article presents an overview of a master thesis about caching shading information in world space
technique is based on implicit point generation and accumulation into global hash tables
the presented example shows the technique applied for ambient occlusion

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Jobs

Software Engineer, Game/Game Engine Developer
remote

Your job will be to collaborate with simulation and deep learning engineers and help us build a ground-breaking product from scratch.

We are based in Montreal but are all remote, so your physical location is not an issue.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Advances in Real-Time Rendering in 3D Graphics and Games - Siggraph 2021

course page for the content of Siggraph 2021
covering Spatial Upscaling through FidelityFX, Concurrent Binary Trees for Large-scale Terrain Rendering
Nanite Virtualized Geometry, Large-Scale Global Illumination
Lighting, Atmosphere, and Tonemapping in Ghost of Tsushima and Global Illumination Based on Surfels

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Rendering Engine Architecture Course - Siggraph 2021

a new course happening for the first time in 2021
focusing on the architectural aspect of real-time rendering engines
currently publicly released slides include
Activision Engine Architecture and Geometry Rendering Pipeline
Roblox / Unity Rendering Engine Architecture,

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Graphics Showcase: Using Vulkan Subpasses in UE4 for Performant Tone Mapping on Quest

article presents how tone mapping can be implemented into UE 4 using Vulkan sub passes
shows how much more efficient the implementation is on Quest2 when using sub passes vs. an additional render pass

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Thanks to Matt Pharr for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 195 - August 8, 2021

Sun, 08 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Ray Tracing Gems II Available Today as Free Digital Download

free 800+ pages on raytracing
a large number of topics is covered, including the following
summary of photographic terms, sampling textures without automatic derivatives, visualizing and communicating errors in rendered images, multiple importance sampling 101, ray-traced decals, LODs, and much more
source code is available

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Paper Digest: SIGGRAPH 2021 Highlights

list of 149 accepted SIGGRAPH-2021 papers
containing a machine-generated one-sentence summary for each paper

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EXR: Lossless Compression

short blog post that tests EXR compression/decompression speed for the different available options

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Engineer
Germany (remote possible)

Threedy is a young Fraunhofer spin-off with a considerable number of high-profile customers in the german automotive sector.

We develop the Visual-Computing-as-a-Service platform instant3Dhub to enable our customers to leverage the true value of their 3D data in industrial applications – any data, any device, any size.

instant3Dhub has a strong focus on CAD data visualization, from browser-based to mixed reality applications and delivers out-of-the-box collaboration and augmented reality features.

We are looking for graphics programming enthusiasts to support our core development team for the 3D streaming with a focus on the evolution of our web frontend build on WebGL.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

A call to brute force

author shows that path tracers are fundamentally simple if relying on pure brute force approaches
starting a discussion if a global rendering network would make it possible to render objects that are easily modeled with microgeometry but difficult to render efficiently

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Swallowing the Elephant (Part 12): A Postscript On Disk Bandwidth

discussion of loading performance in pbrt-v4
showing how IO and CPU performance bottleneck change
comparing uncompressed and different compression options

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A Little Bit About PRNG Stuff

article presents an in-depth discussion of Pseudorandom Number Generators
presenting different non Cryptographically generators
code examples are presented in Rust

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Unity at SIGGRAPH 2021

overview of Unity at Siggraph
Unity is providing access to a basic level SIGGRAPH pass

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Some Books

author suggested 3 books for computer graphics
covering raytracing, introduction to computer graphics as well as deep learning

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Jobs

Senior Rendering Engineer & Rendering Engineer
Liverpool based/remote work considered

We are looking for a Rendering Engineer with experience in developing high-quality, high-performance software: in games or otherwise.

This role will suit someone who is keen to take the next step forward in their career and in interactive tech. We are working on core immersive technology that spans the full range of XR, and this is an opportunity to help shape the future of spatial computing.

Simul is an established leader in real-time graphics middleware; the company’s customers include Bandai Namco, Microsoft Game Studios, Sony, and Ubisoft. In 2020, Simul won the TIGA 2020 Best Technical Innovation Award for our work on trueSKY, the leading real-time weather SDK. We have a culture of agile development focused on quality, performance and precision. We believe in equal opportunity and a diverse, inclusive and supportive workplace.

You will be:

Researching and developing new immersive technologies,
Working in an agile team,
Finding and fixing bugs and performance issues,
Profiling and optimizing CPU, GPU and network code,
Representing Simul at technical and non-technical events, in-person and online.

The benefits Simul offers are:

Flexible remote working,
Regular salary reviews and career progression,
22 days holiday + bank holidays,
Dedicated self-development time.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Thanks to Erika for support of this series.

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

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 194 - August 1, 2021

Sun, 01 Aug 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Free Ray Tracing Gems II Chapter Covers Ray Tracing in Remedy’s Control

presents how all ray-tracing based effects were implemented in the game Control
opaque and transparent reflections, near field indirect diffuse illumination, contact shadows, and denoiser tweaks

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Visibility TAA and Upsampling with Subsample History

extension of the previously presented Decoupled Visibility Multisampling technique
underlying idea is to see 8xMSAA as a 2x2 group of pixels with 2xMSAA each
using the sample information for TAA upsampling

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Swallowing the Elephant (Part 10): Rendering on the GPU—Finally

part of the series that discusses how GPU support for the Moana Island scene was added to pbrt-v4
presents an overview of ptex approaches chooses by others and shows the currently basic Ptex approximation used
shows a comparison between the CPU and GPU version
additionally discusses performance and optimizations

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GPGPU, ML Inference, and Vulkan Compute

the blog discusses Vulkan usage for GPGPU workloads, in particular for machine learning
presents the varying requirements for machine learning and how Vulkan can be used to satisfy them
discusses how it interacts with the business aspects (OEM, platform holders, …)
additionally shows the authors view onto the current challenges and future developments

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Engineer
Germany (remote possible)

Threedy is a young Fraunhofer spin-off with a considerable number of high-profile customers in the german automotive sector.

We develop the Visual-Computing-as-a-Service platform instant3Dhub to enable our customers to leverage the true value of their 3D data in industrial applications – any data, any device, any size.

instant3Dhub has a strong focus on CAD data visualization, from browser-based to mixed reality applications and delivers out-of-the-box collaboration and augmented reality features.

We are looking for graphics programming enthusiasts to support our core development team for the 3D streaming with a focus on the evolution of our web frontend build on WebGL.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Real-Time Shading with Polyhedral Lights using Silhouette Detection

a Bachelor thesis that presents a method for GPU based silhouette generation from Polyhedral lights
uses an algorithm based on binary space partitioning for storing precomputed silhouettes for every point in the scene
additionally presents how to use Silhouettes for Solid Angle Sampling

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[video] The Making of “Alpha Point”—UE5 Technical Demo | GDC 2021

GDC talk presents a walkthrough of the technical creation aspects of the demo
shows UE5 was used, discussing nanite limitations and how the different systems can be combined
additionally, art pipeline implications and findings
presenting performance numbers of lumen, nanite, upsampling, virtual textures, virtual shadow maps, …

Color Matching Function Comparison

the post compares different Color Matching Function (CMF) for use with spectral rendering techniques
provides an analytical approximation for the CIE 2006 CMF and provides how to calculate the D65 white point

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2D Lighting Techniques

the article presents an overview of numerous techniques that can be used to implement lighting for a 2D game
discusses pros/cons of each technique
additionally shows limitations of the techniques

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Vulkan Hardware Database updates

the Vulkan hardware database has been updated
texture format view now has a breakdown of what tiling mode is supported for each format
improved filtering, cleaned up data and color space added for surface formats

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Thanks to Erika for support of this series.

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

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 193 - July 25, 2021

Sun, 25 Jul 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Software VRS with Visibility Buffer Rendering

the article discusses how Visibility Buffer can be combined with Variable Rate Shading (VRS) Techniques
shows how careful selection of sample positions can archive convergence towards the reference non-VRS image
presents the performance of VRS usage for forward, deferred, and visibility approaches. Comparing different pixel densities
additionally discusses techniques how the sparse g-buffers might be integrated into other rendering passes

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There is no S in SDF without the Distance Fields!

the article explains how to express SDFs in Unity and Unreal
shows the basic steps for a circle SDF
extends this to show how to animate, combine and blend shapes

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Real-time ray traced caustics

the preprint from Ray Tracing Gems 2 covers two techniques for caustics
One focuses on the caustics around metallic and transparent surfaces
the second is for caustics cast by water surfaces

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Processing aware image filtering: compensating for the upsampling

the article presents the idea of compensating for shortcomings of an upsample technique in the downsampling step
shows the development of an improved downsample filter to compensate for bilinear upsampling
discusses how this is related to the typical sharpening of mipmaps done as part of game art pipelines

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Engineer
Germany (remote possible)

Threedy is a young Fraunhofer spin-off with a considerable number of high-profile customers in the german automotive sector.

We develop the Visual-Computing-as-a-Service platform instant3Dhub to enable our customers to leverage the true value of their 3D data in industrial applications – any data, any device, any size.

instant3Dhub has a strong focus on CAD data visualization, from browser-based to mixed reality applications and delivers out-of-the-box collaboration and augmented reality features.

We are looking for graphics programming enthusiasts to support our core development team for the 3D streaming with a focus on the evolution of our web frontend build on WebGL.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Reducing Acceleration Structure Memory with NVIDIA RTXMU

the NVIDIA RTX Memory Utility is an open-source (MIT License) SDK designed for reducing the complexity of memory management for Raytracing on Vulkan and D3D12
shows how to use the utility to integrate acceleration structure memory reduction techniques
additionally presents how much memory can be saved on different scenes (very scene dependent)

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[video] Arm Mali GPU Training Series Ep 1.2 : The rendering pipeline

the video discusses the rendering pipeline
presents the geometry and pixel processing pipeline
shows how mali hardware implements the API pipeline for more efficient execution

[video] Arm Mali GPU Training Series Ep 1.3 : GPU architecture

explains how the rendering pipeline translates into GPU hardware
comparing immediate-mode vs. tile-based GPUs
presents the pros and cons of both models and why mobile GPUs are tile-based

[video] Arm Mali GPU Training Series Ep 1.4 : Hardware shader cores

the video discusses the hardware essentials
presents how CPUs are designed
followed by how the design for GPUs is adjusted to take advantage of the graphics workloads

GPU architecture types explained

the article discusses tile-based and immediate-mode rendering GPUs in detail
exploiting how they work
discussing strengths/weaknesses
additionally covers how these influence the efficiency of rendering algorithms such as shadow map rendering

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Using Debug Printf

whitepaper that discusses how to use printf in Vulkan shaders
presents how to use shader printf from HLSL, GLSL, and SPIR-V shaders
additionally covers RenderDoc and validation layer integration

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3D SDF Primitives in WGSL

a collection of Signed-distance field primitives (Cylinder, cubes, …) expressed in WebGPU Shading Language (WGSL)
additionally contains Boolean operations, displacement, positioning, and rotations for SDFs

[video] Tech Focus: Global Illumination - What It Is, How Does It Work And Why Do We Need It?

the video provides an overview explanation of Global Illumination
presents an overview of the fundamental concepts
covers several techniques that have been used to approximate it
discussing advantages and disadvantages of the techniques

My toy renderer, part 4: Ray tracing

the article goes into detail on how to implement physically correct and affordable ray traced soft shadows for individual polygonal or linear lights
presents an overview of the concept of ray queries (rays that can be inline at each shader stage)
shows in-depth the steps required for area lights, including importance sampling, diffuse, specular, and texture integration

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Thanks to Erika for support of this series.

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

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 192 - July 18, 2021

Sun, 18 Jul 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Decoupled Visibility Multisampling

presents a method that decouples geometry samples from shading samples
explains the difference of human vision between the ability to detect edge aliasing and internal aliasing and why geometric frequency is required to be higher
explains performance implication of triangle sizes and MSAA
shows how TAA, MSAA, and Decoupled Visibility Multisampling (DMV) compare in performance and quality

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Slope Space in BRDF Theory

the article presents a refresher on the concept of slope
shows that slope space is a representation for unit vectors in the upper
presents the properties of slope space, what advantages it has
additionally discusses how slope space is used in normal distribution functions (NDF)

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Dynamic destruction in Radio Viscera

the article explains how the destruction system was implemented
based around a world map damage textures that contain a mask to mark destroyed areas
this mask is then sampled during a geometry to cull and transform geometry to represent the destruction

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FBM detail in SDFs

the article presents a natural SDF based detail mapping / Fractal Noise displacement mapping
technique presented uses spheres of varying radius to represent a varying level of octaves to represent the details
presents how to combine the different layers and suggests alternative possibilities
additionally presents a video that shows a clear visualization of the different layers being combined

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Jobs

Principal Technical Artist
Farnborough, England

nDreams is a world-leading virtual reality game developer and publisher, combining innovation with excellence. Our projects are a leap forward for VR and for the studio and we are looking for talented people to help turn them into a reality.

We’re the studio behind the #1 Selling, Best of E3 Award-winning, Phantom: Covert Ops and we’ve got several exciting projects planned for 2021 and beyond, including Fracked, our recently announced PS VR exclusive. Once you’ve seen what we’re up to, we’re convinced you’ll want to be involved…

Our artists believe in the power of VR to immerse and entertain players like no other medium can. We are seeking a Principal Technical Artist to collaborate with and support the team, ensuring their content looks great in-game whilst adhering to the technical constraints of projects and hardware. Whether you are a games industry veteran or an experienced VFX Technical Artist/Director who’d like to make a change, we’d love to hear from you.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Technically Art: Issue 106 (16.07.2021)

collection of tweets about technical art
covering particles, stylized shading, portfolios, and game breakdowns

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Signed Distance field (SDF)

a collection of resources, links, papers, discussions about SDFs

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My toy renderer, part 3: Rendering basics

the article explains how a visibility buffer approach is used
presents how the shading pass has been implemented (Frostbite BRDF, tangent frames, …)
covers area light implementation using Linearly transformed cosines and compares different representation and discuss the tradeoffs
additionally covers different noise types and the effect on denoising

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[video] Arm Mali GPU Training Series Ep 1.1 : Introduction to mobile systems

the first part of the series discusses where mobile GPUs are used
presents how the hardware design is setup
shows how power usage and thermal efficiency budgets are influencing all systems on a chip

Weighted reservoir sampling: randomly sampling streams

pre-release chapter from ray tracing gems 2
presents weighted reservoir sampling, a technique for the efficient sampling stochastic data
shows how optimized variants of algorithms exist to sample with different properties, weighting behaviors, or duplicate output behavior

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AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) source code is now available here on GPUOpen

the source code for the technique has been published on Github
also contains a sample implementation of how it can be integrated
the technique only relies on color buffer information for the upsampling pass

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Thanks to Jens Hartmann for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 191 - July 11, 2021

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Visibility Buffer Rendering with Material Graphs

the article presents an overview of The Visibility Buffer approach
compares the technique against forward and deferred shading at varying texture densities
presenting performance results
including a discussion of derivative calculation and the effect on helper lanes
additionally discusses several considerations and future developments

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HPG 2021 Keynote: Alex Evans (NVIDIA), Optimising for Artist Happiness

Alex covers many ideas and algorithms
classical tools require the artist to deal with technical aspects at all time
removing soft constraints allows the artist to focus on the art
presents how cluster culling and LOD selection removes the polygon count soft constraint
shows different ways to work with SDFs
closes with a look at the volumetric rendering and Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF)

Raytracing tidbits

collection of ray tracing experiments and presentation of results
covering ray divergence, hybrid global illumination, shadow mapped GI
additionally shows the effect of second bounce GI as well as improved reverse z-buffer precision

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Jobs

Principal Technical Artist
Farnborough, England

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The reference path tracer

first free chapter from ray tracing gems 2 has been released
discusses the implementation of a path tracer that is aimed at being us as a reference renderer for in-engine integration
source code is provided

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Automated Testing of a Ray Tracer

author presents an introduction to automated visual testing
discusses how to reduce the combinations that need to be tested
how to make sure that runs are deterministic
additionally provides source examples of how to use python to run the visual testing

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Comparing images in frequency domain. “Spectral loss” – does it make sense?

the blog post discusses if it makes sense to compare images in the frequency domain
presents a few typical approaches, discuss their shortcomings and recommendations

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HPG 2021 Papers Preview

preview video if a view of the papers presented at HPG 2021
see the video presentation of the papers in day 1

WebGPU for Metal Developers, Part Two

second part of the series explaining the WebGPU basics by presenting the equivalent concepts from a metal perspective
shows how to apply displacement mapping onto a plane to approximate a terrain
covers how to load and sample textures
resource binding, pipeline setup for 3d depth testing enabled

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Relighting and Material Editing with Implicit Representations

the article presents a brief overview of NeRF (neural radiance fields)
then presents 3 methods that enable the relighting
discussing differences and tradeoffs between the techniques

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 190 - July 4, 2021

Sun, 04 Jul 2021 04:00:00 +0000

NVIDIA Research: NeRF-Tex: Neural Reflectance Field Textures

the presents the use of neural fields to model materials such as fur, fabric, and grass
model a layer of mesoscale structure, such as fur or grass, on top of a triangle mesh using neural reflectance fields
NeRF textures are volumetric textures that use neural nets instead of voxels

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What is Vulkan Compute?

author presents the subset of Vulkan API related to compute workloads
covering GPU discovery, resource management, compute pipeline management, synchronization, and object lifetime management

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An Initial Inspection of FidelityFX Super Resolution

blog post presents a comparison of AMDs FSR, CAS against other upscale techniques
shows results from Dota 2, The Riftbreaker
showing how quality and sharpening values influence the final results

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MMPX Style-Preserving Pixel Art Magnification

the paper presents a filter for magnifying pixel art (such as 8- and 16-bit sprites)
covering observations on pixel-art filtering, test data, and evaluation methodology
shows a comparison against other filters and shows when to use what filter
code and demo application is provided

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Basic Shader Math - Shader Graph Basics - Episode 4

the video tutorial explains how to use the add, subtract, multiply, and divide nodes in UE5 and Unity
showing how the nodes behave and the difference in the UI between UE5 and Unity visual shader editors

Jobs

Senior Rendering Engineer & Rendering Engineer
Liverpool based/remote work considered

We are looking for a Rendering Engineer with experience in developing high-quality, high-performance software: in games or otherwise.

You will be:

Researching and developing new immersive technologies,
Working in an agile team,
Finding and fixing bugs and performance issues,
Profiling and optimizing CPU, GPU and network code,
Representing Simul at technical and non-technical events, in-person and online.

The benefits Simul offers are:

Flexible remote working,
Regular salary reviews and career progression,
22 days holiday + bank holidays,
Dedicated self-development time.

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MatMorpher: A Morphing Operator for SVBRDFs

the paper presents a new operator for blending BRDF texture maps
based on a transport mechanism that is feature aware
preserve details by mixing the material channels using a histogram-aware color blending combined with a normal reorientation

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[video] EGSR 2021 Day 1

stream of the first day of Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2021
all recordings from the 4 days are available

Moving Basis Decomposition for Precomputed Light Transport

paper presents the Moving Basis Decomposition framework
this generalizes many existing basis expansion methods and efficient, seamless reconstruction of compressed data
this is introduced as the foundation for a global illumination system
compares the method against existing Blockwise PCA, Windowed blockwise PCA, and clustered PCA (PCA, Principal component analysis)

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My toy renderer, part 2: Scene management

the article discusses the scene structure of the authors’ renderer
focuses on how to efficiently handle scene export/loading as flat data
data quantization, materials, reproducible results, …
iteration time from changing code to getting a render is below 5 seconds

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ReSTIR GI: Path Resampling for Real-Time Path Tracing

paper presents a new path sampling algorithm for indirect lighting
based on the screen-space Spatio-temporal resampling principles of ReSTIR (Spatiotemporal reservoir resampling for real-time ray tracing with dynamic direct lighting.)
enables important paths to share contributions time, space

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The Missing Guide to Modern Graphics APIs – 2. PSOs

the article presents an overview of why Pipeline State Object was introduced to allow predictable performance
shows differences between hardware and drivers and explain why the old D3D11 model was unpredictable
presents the concepts in Vulkan, D3D12 and Metal

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[video] Live Coding: Making the American flag with math!

the video tutorial shows a walkthrough to render the USA flag using shader toy
shows how to render a star, stripes and combines the components
covers how to animate the flag and apply antialiasing between the features
additionally adds some shading to the flag

Thanks to Dirk Dörr for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 189 - June 27, 2021

Sun, 27 Jun 2021 04:00:00 +0000

An Unbiased Ray-Marching Transmittance Estimator

in-depth analysis of the sources of variance in state-of-the-art unbiased volumetric transmittance estimators
propose several new methods for improving the efficiency
improving truncated power-series estimators based on U-statistics

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NVIDIA Research: An Analytic BRDF for Materials with Spherical Lambertian Scatterers

the paper presents a new BRDF for porous/dusty materials
these surfaces exhibit back-scattering and saturation that is missing from other BRDFs
based on a volumetric BRDF derivation based spherical Lambertian particles

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Implementing Gamut Mapping

the article discusses how to implement gamut clipping into a render pipeline
compares different methods and presents the results with different lighting setups

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Jobs

Senior Research Engineer, Real-time Rendering
London/Dublin/UK-REMOTE

We are looking for a Senior Research Engineer to work on real-time rendering algorithms for visual effects, animation, and post-production software.

The role is about creating the next generation of artists and production tools, with a focus on virtual production. There is a focus on the role of improving, optimizing, and expanding the graphics capability within real-time renderers.

We are looking for people with a strong track record in graphics and real-time rendering with the desire to build real-world solutions for our artists.

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i3D 2021 Keynote: Trace All The Rays!

describes the state of raytracing in games
presents a high-level overview of a Decoupled Real-Time Ray Tracing pipeline
shows where raytracing is used in games and what new problems it introduces
additionally presents 4 open problems in raytracing and how it interacts with other developments

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Real-time Neural Radiance Caching for Path Tracing

the paper introduces a neural radiance caching method for path-traced global illumination
uses a self-training process to train the neural network at runtime

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[video] Drawing Boxes and Rectangles in URP Shader Graph with 2D SDFs!

the video tutorial explains how to draw Squares, boxes, and rounded rectangles as SDFs
presents how to derive the SDFs and presents the extension into rotated shapes
additionally shows how to use rectangle SDFs to implement a brick wall

[video] Advanced Graphics Tutorial: Wakes, Explosions and Lighting: Interactive Water Simulation in Atlas

discusses how to generate ocean displacement, buoyancy,
rendering of the ocean as micro facets, how to calculate moments from the displacement
reflections (specular and environment), masking/shadowing, and light scattering inside the water surface
additionally covers interactions with the water, explosions, etc…

Deferred shading on mobile: An API overview

the article discusses local tile memory and mobile GPUs
presents how different usage patterns affect the ability to achieve optimal bandwidth usage
shows some OpenGL extensions that enable tile local memory usage
additionally, it shows how Vulkan Subpasses allow the driver to optimize shaders transparently

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VK_EXT_multi_draw released for Vulkan

a new Vulkan extension that adds vkCmdDrawMultiEXT vkCmdDrawMultiIndexedEXT
these allow applications to provide an array of draw call arguments in CPU visible memory
for uses cases where applications would call vkCmdDraw multiple times in a loop without changing state
tests indicate that a doubling of draw call processing rate can be observed

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Thanks to Jasper Bekkers for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 188 — June 20, 2021

Sun, 20 Jun 2021 04:00:00 +0000

BRDF Importance Sampling for Linear Lights

the paper presents a method for importance sampling linear lights such as fluorescent tubes
rendering unbiased, nearly noise-free diffuse and specular shading by sampling a linearly transformed cosine (LTCs)

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How to get the most out of Smart Access Memory (SAM)

article describes how AMD Smart Access Memory allows applications full access to GPU local memory
provides information on how the memory is exposed
additionally provides performance advice on the usage

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Supporting Native HDR Monitors

the article provides an introductory overview of HDR concepts
covering color spaces, color primaries, Transfer functions
presents the integration into our machinery
additionally covers blending, precision, and other common issues

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A Polarizing Filter Function for Real-Time Rendering

the paper presents a polarizing filter function for specularly reflected light
support for direct and image-based light sources
presents integration into Falcor rendering framework

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What’s new in Metal at WWDC21

the article shows an overview of new features and changes presented at WWDC21
covering raytracing integration into tile memory, motion blur, shadows, and improvements to raytracing debugging
additionally presents bindless binding, improved debugging tools as well as texture compression library

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Using asynchronous compute on Arm Mali GPUs: A practical sample

the post shows how the Mali hardware operates and exposes multiple graphics queues
presents how to run multiple graphics and compute workloads in parallel
discussing performance and hardware considerations

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Perceptual Lightness for Game Graphics

the blog presents a comparison between color’s luminance and lightness
shows that colors with the same luminance are perceived differently (The Helmholtz–Kohlrausch Effect)
presents different models that can express this
closing by presenting a few ideas the author thinks the models could be used to improve results

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[video] All Blend Modes! Looking at the Shader Graph Blend Mode Filters

the video presents an overview of all blend modes supported from the shader graph node
shows the equation for each blend mode and discusses the effect

Thanks to Neil Bickford for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 187 — June 13, 2021

Sun, 13 Jun 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Stable Geometric Specular Antialiasing with Projected-Space NDF Filtering

the paper introduces an improvement for specular antialiasing
normals distribution function (NDF) is filtered in orthographically projected space instead of slope space
presents an approximation solution and provide source code
additionally presents an isotropic NDF-filtering technique for deferred and forward rendering

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[video] Lumen | Inside Unreal

Lumen presentations starts at 10:00 minutes
presents what Lumen supports, what limitations exists
shows an in-depth look at the implementation that uses hybrid tracing techniques
looking at the scene representations, surface cache, and the different passes required
additionally presents content examples, provides optimization advice, and answering user questions

Future geometry pipeline

article discusses alternative approaches for geometry pipeline design
moving more work into the pixel shaders, following the patterns of ray tracing shader
presents performance comparison of the presented approach and limitations

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VFX Notes: Ep 1 – Actor replacement, UE5 and what exactly is gamma?

new podcast about VFX in film, TV, and games
discussing Resident Evil Village and UE5
how game technology is evolving and reaching a collision point between real-time and offline techniques

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[video] Drawing a Line Segment in the URP Shader Graph with 2D SDFs!

the video tutorial explains how to draw a line segment in pixel shaders
shows how to derive the point to line segment formula
additionally presents how to combine multiple lines

Brief Analysis of Nanite GPU Culling

the article presents a look at the implementation details of nanite GPU culling
discusses how the compute shader cull on the sub-instance level
shows how clusters are culled and the depth buffer from the previous frame is used

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BRDF Importance Sampling for Polygonal Lights

the paper presents how to sample polygonal area lights proportional to linearly transformed cosines
offers significantly reduced noise and unbiased diffuse and specular shading
displays nearly noise-free results at 2 spp

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[video] Explore bindless rendering in Metal

the video explains the motivation for the bindless model and explains the concept
presents how this can be expressed in metal using argument buffers
explains memory residency and how this influences what resources can be used
additionally explains what synchronization considerations need to be dealt with

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Thanks to Neil Bickford for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 186 — June 6, 2021

Sun, 06 Jun 2021 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Nanite | Inside Unreal

interview discussing the demo project, lessons learned, discussions about future directions, and many insights into the design considerations
overview of nanite is starting at 52:15
presents an overview of the system, hierarchical LOD cluster selection, data compression
presents in-game debug views and further looks at the demo content

WebGPU for Metal Developers, Part One

the article presents the fundamentals of the WebGPU API required to draw a colored triangle
also provides an overview of the WebGPU Shading Language (WGSL)

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[video] Compute shader 101

the talk provides an overview of compute shaders
comparison of different technologies (Cuda, OpenCL, Compute shaders)
shows the execution model, explaining common terminology, and hardware variations

Bringing Vulkan Raytracing to older AMD hardware (Vega and below)

the article discusses the implementation of ray-tracing support into the open-source RADV driver
discusses what RDNA hardware supports and how to emulate it without hardware support

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Fewer Samples per Pixel per Frame

the blog post presents a history of sampling techniques, how it was used and how it changed over time
presents different use cases, strengths, and weakness
the author additionally provides a look at how the field might develop in the future

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Jobs

Senior Rendering Engineer & Rendering Engineer
Liverpool based/remote work considered

We are looking for a Rendering Engineer with experience in developing high-quality, high-performance software: in games or otherwise.

You will be:

Researching and developing new immersive technologies,
Working in an agile team,
Finding and fixing bugs and performance issues,
Profiling and optimizing CPU, GPU and network code,
Representing Simul at technical and non-technical events, in-person and online.

The benefits Simul offers are:

Flexible remote working,
Regular salary reviews and career progression,
22 days holiday + bank holidays,
Dedicated self-development time.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

How to use debugPrintf in Vulkan

the article presents how printf is supported in Vulkan Shaders
what extensions are required, how to integrate them into the shader pipeline
additionally shows how to actually print the messages in application code

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Compute shader glossary

the article provides an overview of compute shader terminology and how they differ between APIs
how resources are bound, synchronization and memory models

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Neural material (de)compression – data-driven nonlinear dimensionality reduction

the article discusses continues exploration in compressing a set of textures
presents how to use neural network for compression
showing techniques that can be used to improve compression discoverability
additionally presents ideas on how this can be further developed and used for other use cases

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[video] Live Coding:Bending Light

the video tutorial shows how to implement refraction into a shadertoy
explains the index of refraction, how different materials create different effects
additionally shows how to deal with rays that don’t leave an object

Data-Driven Analysis and Design of Vulkan Ray-Tracing Applications using Automatic Instrumentation

the master thesis presents a SPIR-V based instrumentation framework
shows how to use instrumentation to gather information about the execution of ray tracing shaders
additionally presents RayScope, a system for the visualization of collected instrumentation data
shows examples of problems that the system helped to identify

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Brief Analysis of Nanite

the article provides an analysis of the Nanite cluster algorithm
presents how clusters are generated, hierarchical tree structure, and LOD selection
shows where in the engine code the relevant code can be found

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Thanks to Steven Cannavan for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 185 — May 30, 2021

Sun, 30 May 2021 04:00:00 +0000

A Macro View of Nanite

the article presents an overview of the Nanite Rendering pipeline using RenderDoc
shows how meshes are rasterized with adaptive cluster LODs
pipeline is based around visibility buffers, presents how materials are handled and integrated into the GBuffer
presents how a material depth buffer is used to speed up the material shading step

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Unbiased VNDF Sampling for Backfacing Shading Normals

the paper presents an improved normalization for the Smith–GGX BRDF visible normal distribution function (VNDF)
previous methods cause brightening bias because of the mismatch between shading normals and geometry normals

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[video] Basics of Mipmaps in Unity Part 2! Shaders, Bias, and Texture2DLOD!

the video tutorial shows how to implement the MIP selection algorithm using shader code
shows the effect of texture bias and presents possible use cases

Reliable Feature-Line Driven Quad-Remeshing

the paper presents a new algorithm for the semi-regular quadrangulation of arbitrary input surfaces
focuses on ensuring that all feature-lines are represented as patch boundaries

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Infinite Grassland: Ray Traced Rare Semi-Uniform Entity Manifolds for Rendering Countless Discreta

the article presents a proof of concept stage technique to render grass using a screen-space ray-tracing based technique
shows how the entities are derived during the shading step from tracing into a grass area

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[video] Introduction to Ray Tracing - Class 1

introductory Siggraph class about ray tracing
including an opening interview with Peter Shirley
overview of rendering equation and 2d shadertoy implementation

Triangle Grids

the article presents triangle grids
discussing what a triangle grid is, why to use them and how to use it

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Thanks to Graham Wihlidal for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 184 — May 23, 2021

Sun, 23 May 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Writing Shader Code in Universal RP (v2)

the article provides an overview of authoring shaders in HLSL
shows the building blocks of the language
additionally shows how to integrate it into the different Unity systems

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Tech Art Chronicles: What Are SDFs Anwyay?

the article explains what Signed Distance Fields (SDFs) are
how they are used and what kind of effects can be achieved from a single SDF texture
additionally shows the implementation of the effects in Unreal visual shader graph

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The technical art of sea of thieves

the video recording from the Siggraph 2018 has been released
covering ocean foam generation, shallow water simulation, and flowing water
cloud rendering based around geometric shapes, blurring, and pixel shading on the projected volumes
how to generate and simulate the 3D ropes based around parabolics
tentacle animation driven from exported vertex animation data, with runtime partial resimulation
brief look at the lightning implementation based on L-Systems

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A VR Frame’s Life

the blog post presents the setup of a frame for VR rendering (Oculus Quest)
presents the techniques applied for latency reduction

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Distributing Monte Carlo errors as Blue Noise in Screen Space, Part 2 - Retargeting Pass

the article presents how to distribute Monte Carlo errors as blue noise in screen space
storing precomputed permutation with runtime retargeted seeds
includes a compute shader implementation of the retargeting pass

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Graphics Pipelines for Young Bloods

the post presents an overview of different rendering pipeline architectures (Forward, deferred, visibility, …)
discussing the different trade-offs of the techniques
additionally clarifies the choosing the proper techniques depends on many factors and need to be analyzed for each game/team

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Hash Functions for GPU Rendering

suggests using a PCG hash function as default for GPU based hash/random functionality
brief introduction to the techniques
additionally provides a link to a paper that goes into more detail about various techniques

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[video] Basics of Partial Derivative Shader Funcs in Unity! DDX, DDY, FWidth

the video explains how partial derivatives are calculated in pixel shaders
theses partial derivates are used for UV level selection
additionally presents for what kind of effects these functions can be used

Inherited Viewport Scissor Sample

the article presents an overview of Vulkan secondary command buffers
clarifying what restrictions exist
shows how the extension relaxes the restrictions and allows secondary command buffers to inherit the viewport state

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[video] Beautiful Glitter Simulation…Faster Than Real Time

Two Minute Paper presenting an overview of Procedural Physically-based BRDF for Real-Time Rendering of Glints (covered in the week 150)
shows the different demo applications and how it compares against non-realtime techniques

Studying Gamut Clipping

the author presents his learning about Gamut Clipping
based on the Oklab color space
additionally provides an interactive shader toy to allow experimentation with the technique

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Fast Divergence-Free Noise Generation in Shaders

the post presents a divergence-free noise generation technique (such as curl noise)
the presented technique needs only 2 gradients (curl noise needs 3)
shows how to optimize the technique and compares it to other noise types

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Tips: Acceleration Structure Compaction

the article shows how to compact DXR acceleration structures
the process is run on the GPU over a few frames
presents how the process works, what synchronization and lifetime factors need to be considered

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 183 — May 16, 2021

Sun, 16 May 2021 04:00:00 +0000

In-depth technical dive into metro exodus pc enhanced edition

the article provides an overview of raytracing in rendering pipelines, how it has developed over time in the game development
how it has been integrated into metro exodus
shows the effect of the different components and how it affects the final rendering

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Experiments in hybrid raytraced shadows

the blog post discusses how to combine raytraced and shadows from shadow maps
detect areas where shadow map resolution is too low to represent the edges and trace rays instead
presents different methods, compares performance and quality
additionally presents a summary and comparison against the AMD hybrid raytracing shadows technique

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Shader translation benchmark on Dota2/Metal

the blog post presents a performance comparison of Naga (rust based shader translation library) vs. SPIRV-Cross in Dota2
measures CPU time taken for shader translation in Dota2 from SPIRV to MSL (Metal shading language)
takes around 1ms per shader stage

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Jobs

Senior Graphics Engineer - Mobile
Remote from the USA or paid relocation to Montana (no work visa sponsorship)

Are you passionate about the outdoors? Want to combine that passion with your mobile graphics expertise?

We’re looking for a talented Senior Software Engineer with 3D graphics and mobile experience to help us take our off-pavement mobile GPS experience to the next level. (more information)

You’ll be our second hire on this new and exciting team focused on a greenfield, cross-platform 3D map viewer. You will work closely with our lead engineer on this project to create a beautiful and efficient 3D map viewing experience for millions of loyal customers.

As our second hire, you’ll work on our core 3D engine (written in C++) and serve as our mobile graphics subject matter expert.

If you’re a linear algebra wiz, love maps, have mobile development experience and can wrangle quaternions in your sleep, this job might be just what you’re looking for.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

Radeon Rays v4.1 is now available – with open source!

Radeon Rays v4.1 (ray intersection library for D3D12 and Vulkan) is now open source

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The stack monoid revisited

the article discusses a technique for parallel processing of stack-based operations
designed for a clip stack in the usage of a compute-centric 2D GPU renderer
single-pass process with bounded memory usage within a thread group

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[video] Basics of Mipmaps in Unity Part 1! Import Settings and Custom Mipmaps!

the video presents an explanation on mipmaps, presenting what effects it has on the visual appearance
explains how to use unity to automatically generate mipmaps
shows how to generate custom mipmaps
additionally provides some ideas on how to use custom generated mipmaps to achieve water caustics implementation

[video] Raymarched Reflections

part 3 of the newton cradle tutorial series
shows how to implement reflections using raymarching; this enables the object to be reflected in itself
implementation is done using ShaderToy

[video] SIGGRAPH 2021: Technical Papers Preview Trailer

4-minute trailer presenting a brief look at many papers that will be presented as part of SIGGRAPH 2021

Thanks to Aras Pranckevičius for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 182 — May 9, 2021

Sun, 09 May 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Temporally Adaptive Shading Reuse for Real-Time Rendering and Virtual Reality

the paper investigates how shading reuse is perceived when visibility and shading rate is decoupled
presents that even in dynamic scenes, it’s possible to reuse a large amount of shading information
shows different methods that can be used to predictively shade, compares the results, and present limitations

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Scaling Probe-Based Real-Time Dynamic Global Illumination for Production

the paper presents extensions and improvements to the probe-based irradiance-field-with-visibility representation technique
presents a multiresolution cascaded volumes representation to support large worlds
improved probe pruning, faster convergence through perception-based irradiance encoding
additionally presents how to use irradiance probes to shade glossy reflection rays

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[video] Basics of White Noise! Random Numbers for Shaders and ProcGen in Unity

the video explains how to generate 2D Perlin noise and how to use it in Unity
provides sources for other noise kinds
additionally presents a few examples of how to use Noise

Jobs

Senior Rendering Engineer & Rendering Engineer
Liverpool based/remote work considered

We are looking for a Rendering Engineer with experience in developing high-quality, high-performance software: in games or otherwise.

You will be:

Researching and developing new immersive technologies,
Working in an agile team,
Finding and fixing bugs and performance issues,
Profiling and optimizing CPU, GPU and network code,
Representing Simul at technical and non-technical events, in-person and online.

The benefits Simul offers are:

Flexible remote working,
Regular salary reviews and career progression,
22 days holiday + bank holidays,
Dedicated self-development time.

Would you like to advertise your job openings here too? More information

[video] It Just Works: Ray-Traced Reflections in Battlefield V

presents how D3D12 Raytracing support was implemented in Battlefield V
mix of screenspace reflections and raytracing
shows the pipeline implementation, adaptive ray count selection, ray defragmentation, binning, and denoising
techniques to improve BVH updates, culling hierarchies, partial updates,
how to deal with shader graph authored shaders, integration with shading, particles, and vegetation

Graphics API abstraction

the article presents a walkthrough of the API abstractions on top of D3D11, D3D12, and Vulkan used in the Wicked Engine
shows the resource, pipeline, command list, queues, and barrier abstractions
discussing some limitations of the current approach and how it might develop in the future

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A Debugging Story

an interactive article about debugging a C++ crash
more about C++ than graphics, but I really liked the interactive article :)

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Generating Primitive Shapes in C++

the article shows how to generate planes, cones, cylinders, and a torus
implementation provided in C++

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Direct Delta Mush Skinning Compression with Continuous Examples

the paper presents a novel model that splits a Direct Delta Mush into two layers
this can approximate the deformation with improved runtime performance and lower memory requirement
the video shows a comparison against other methods
additionally presents performance numbers for the technique

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Antithetic Sampling for Monte Carlo Differentiable Rendering

the paper presents antithetic variance reduction technique used to estimate the interior integrals
shows the usage of the technique for Monte Carlo differentiable rendering of glossy and BSDFs
antithetic sampling is the use of negatively correlated samples instead of independent samples

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[video] Burning Down Virtual Trees... In Real Time!

Two Minute Paper provides an overview of the Interactive Wood Combustion for Botanical Tree Models paper from 2017
shows what parameters are exposed, what kind of effects it can generate

Thanks to Adalberto Bruno for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 181 — May 2, 2021

Sun, 02 May 2021 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Newton's Cradle: Setting up Materials

part 2 of the video tutorial that adds material support to the SDF based Newton Cradle implemented using ShaderToy
presents how to classify the objects into separate materials
adds support for cube map environment maps and reflections on the objects of the scene

The case of the curiously slow shader

the article presents a walkthrough how the author analyzed the slow shader performance on the GPU of the Pixel 4
shows how to detect occupancy, get access to the assembly instructions
ultimatly presents how reading the assembly showed the source of the performance problem, how it connects to shader memory model and how to possibly resolve it

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Projective Geometric Algebra - Wiki

WIP wiki about Projective Geometric Algebra, specifically the four-dimensional Clifford algebra
a mathematical model that incorporates common computer graphics operations in a single algebraic structure

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How to Obtain Stable GPU Measurements on Quest

the article presents how to setup UE and Unity to disable dynamic motions, user specific parts from profiling test
what system passes to disable to get stable GPU times

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Technically Art: Issue 96 (30.04.2021)

collection of tech art tweets
covering UE4 weather systems, GPU instancing with Unity shader graphs
entries of tech art challenge, vegetation shading, and much more

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Creating a Card Shader with 3D content

the article presents a walkthrough how to create a card shader
covers how to use stencil buffers to limit the 3d content
shows how to implement the view direction dependent parralax and reflctions

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[video] NEW – Video: Radeon GPU Profiler v1.10

the video provides a summary of the new features in the radeon GPU profiler
covering cache counters and raytracing integration

Graphics technique names

twitter thread author provides summaries of 3 common technques
covering Ambient occlusion, Shadow pancaking and Waterfall loop

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Hashing Space Hashing in an Arbitrary Grid

the tutorial explains how to generate consistent hashes based on integer positions
covering how to vectorize position and normal calculations
additionally presents how to correctly update normals to deal with non-linear scaling

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 180 — April 25, 2021

Sun, 25 Apr 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Announcing HLSL Shader Model 6.6

64-bit integer atomics are now supported
some new capability bits got introduced as not all views, sources support it on all hardware
dynamic resources allow indexing into a single array of descriptors,
explains what helper lanes are and how they relate to lanes and quads
compute shader derivatives and how they are derived from thread group layout
Wave Size attribute allows shaders to specialize shaders for wave sizes

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Supermassive black hole tutorial

the tutorial provides a walkthrough of a raymarching supermassive black hole shader
implementation is an approximated physically-based done using Unity
author presents the sources, approximations done and discusses limitations

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[video] RTXDI: Details on Achieving Real Time Performance

Talk discusses how the performance of the ray-traced direct illumination was greatly improved
presents an overview of what ReSTIR importance sampling algorithm
shows to the memory coherence and bandwidth was reduced through pre-randomization of input lists
additionally discusses how the number of rays could be reduced by decoupling shading, reuse, and visibility

[video] Denoising Raytraced Soft Shadows on Xbox Series X|S and Windows with FidelityFX

explains shadow denoising process
broken down into 5 blocks that are explained individually
shadow mask creation, local neighborhood, occlusion, reproject, and spatial filters
first covers the functionality of these blocks
afterward shows optimizations applied to each stage

[video] Tier 2 Variable Rate Shading in Gears

overview of Variable Rate Shading (VRS), what is supported with Tier 1 and 2
edge detection run as part of the tone mapping step, generating two shading images (default and conservative)
VRS shading rate image is also read in compute shaders for reduced shading rate for compute shaders
presents performance numbers

Inverse Z-Buffer

visual representation that shows why inverted depth buffer range with floating-point formats improves precision

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i3D 2021 - Posters

list of posters presented at I3D
covering Linearly Transformed Spherical Harmonics, Style-Preserving Pixel Art Magnification, Rendering of Many Lights with Grid-Based Reservoirs and others

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ShaderQuest Part 5: Shader code syntax & Colors

part 5 of beginner-focused shader tutorial series
focuses on data types, representation of color
shows how to output constant colors in Unity shaders code, visual shader graph, and unreal engine

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The Graphics Codex

the Graphics Codex online textbox is now a free
covering an extensive range of topics, model of light, Rendering equation, camera, material models, path tracing, parallel architectures, and much more
additionally contains many references to further sources on the topics

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Rendering Decals and Many Lights with Ray Tracing Acceleration Structures

the paper presents a method that uses the AABS from hardware raytracing shaders to apply decals and lights
uses a zero-length ray to collect all overlapping decals/lights per pixel
compares performance against deferred decals

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 179 — April 18, 2021

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 04:00:00 +0000

A Survey on Bounding Volume Hierarchies for Ray Tracing

the paper presents comprehensive coverage of BVH hierarchies, especially focused on ray tracing
provides an overview of the basics, compare many state of the art algorithms for construction and traversal
provides a comprehensive overview of existing hardware and frameworks
additionally presents the most common techniques and recommendations for the different algorithms to be used

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[video] Newton's Cradle: Modeling & Animation

the video tutorial presents how to render and animate a newton’s cradle with SDFs
implementation is done using shader toy

Distinctive Derivative Differences

the article presents the difference between ddx/y ddx/y_fine
presents the history of these instructions in HLSL and how different hardware/API behaves
shows example use cases on how fine and coarse rasterization affect seamless sphere mapping
additionally presents how fine derivatives can be used for quad-level communication

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Jobs

Graphics Engineer
Remote

Marmoset is the developer of Toolbag, an industry standard 3D rendering and authoring suite. We’re looking for experienced programmers to work on challenging problems in rendering, texture authoring, baking, and more. If you’re interested in pushing a GPU as far as it can go, we’d like to meet you.

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An Introduction to Vulkan Video

Vulkan API now exposes video support
extended the concept of the queue to support decode/encode queues with different extensions for several codecs
the article presents a walkthrough of the API through the usage of an encoder example

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Pixel Art Filtering

the article presents an overview of why filtering for pixel art at non-integer values is vital to prevent artifacts
provides an overview of numerous filters and links to resources
additionally provides a demo application to compare the different filters

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Appearance-Driven Automatic 3D Model Simplification

the paper presents a machine learning-based approach that uses differential rendering to approximate several simplifications effects simultaneously
presents a model that can jointly optimize over shape, appearance, and animation parameters

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How to read shader assembly

the article provides an overview of shader assembly reading
focuses on GCN instructions
provides a brief overview of the hardware, the different operations, and how small changes can make significant differences in generated code

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Optimizing Triangles for a Full-screen Pass

the article presents two common approaches to fullscreen passes
using PIX shows why using a single large triangle is more efficient and describes why this is the case

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 178 — April 11, 2021

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Bindless Descriptors

the blog post provides a walkthrough of the bindless implementation in Wicked Engine for both Vulkan and D3D12
starting with an overview of what the bindless model is, how it interacts with subresource and different resource types
additionally presents the implementation considerations and device capabilities that need to be respected

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Skyboxes in UE4

the article shows how to integrate skyboxes into UE4
explains how cube maps are encoded and how to write the shader to render them
additionally covers how to generate and convert data into the suitable format

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Jobs

Software Developer, Emerging Technologies
Philadelphia, PA

With more than one million downloads and millions of end users, Cesium is defining the standard for 3D geospatial across industries from the construction site to the battlefield, from outer space to underground. We are in an extraordinary position and are looking for an extraordinary entrepreneurially-minded customer-focused JavaScript developer.

We need a skilled fast-moving JavaScript developer with experience in at least one tech stack using libraries and frameworks like Node.js, React, or similar.
A continuous learner who loves to explore emerging technologies, introduce innovations, and learn and improve their skill set.
Ability to work in a fast-paced environment, wear multiple hats, and juggle multiple high-profile projects with competing deadlines.

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Rendering large 3D tilemaps with a single draw call at 3000 FPS

the articles describes the evolution of a multiple layered tilemap renderer
starting at using the build-in Unity renderers, showing the incremental improvements
the final solution is a custom rendering stack that stores the layers as voxels, containing indices into texture array slices

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[video] The Basics of SmoothStep, a Useful Shader Function in Unity URP

the video explains the smoothstep curve visually
provides examples of uses cases, including a showcase of a simple toon shading implementation

how do you calculate correct normals when doing vertex displacement shaders?

the Twitter thread provides a detailed explanation on how to correctly calculate normal vectors from vertex displacement

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Jobs

Graphics Engineer
Remote

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Game Stack Live

registration for Microsoft’s online conference on April 20-21
includes talks about several new DirectX features, Xbox innovations, as well as talks from partners

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[video] rendering numbers single quad

the video provides an in-depth walkthrough of a debugging vertex ID shader
IDs are visualized by generating camera facing quads with applied digits from a texture atlas

NeuMIP: Multi-Resolution Neural Materials

the paper presents a neural-network-based approach that is aimed at encoding detailed patterns into mipmap style lower resolution representations
introduces the idea of neural offset for improved handling of parallax effects

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 177 — April 4, 2021

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Countering Racial Bias in Computer Graphics Research

the paper presents racial bias that can be found in the technical language and numerical measures used in skin and hair research
presents suggestion on how graphics research practices can be improved to include a larger spectrum of humanity

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[video] Create a Sand Dune Shader Graph in Unity URP! No Textures Needed!

the Tutorial presents how to generate sand dunes in pixel shaders using Unity
presents a normal vector based sand shine reflection
for more in-depth realistic sand, check out Sand Rendering in Journey

Radeon™ GPU Profiler v1.10 introduces GPU cache counters, Vulkan® ray tracing, and more

updated version supports reporting of memory, instruction, and scalar cache usage on RDNA hardware
article presents how the data is visualized

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Jobs

Software Developer, Emerging Technologies
Philadelphia, PA

We need a skilled fast-moving JavaScript developer with experience in at least one tech stack using libraries and frameworks like Node.js, React, or similar.
A continuous learner who loves to explore emerging technologies, introduce innovations, and learn and improve their skill set.
Ability to work in a fast-paced environment, wear multiple hats, and juggle multiple high-profile projects with competing deadlines.

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Managing Shader Code Complexity in NVIDIA Omniverse

the article provides an overview of the Slang Shading language and its use inside of NVIDIA Omniverse
Slang is HLSL based, can be used to generate SPIR-V, DXIL, and DXBC
the main additions are interfaces, generics, and modules

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Mean Squared Error is Variance

the article shows how to calculate the variance of a stream of values
only the average and average square value are required to be tracked
variance and standard deviation can be derived from these

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Baking Neural Radiance Fields for Real-Time View Synthesis

the paper presents a novel sparse Neural Radiance Grid representation
this representation allows Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) to be baked so that rendering can be archived in realtime

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Generating Meshes of a Sphere

the article presents 4 different ways to generate a sphere mesh
UV Sphere, Icosphere, Quad Sphere, and Goldberg Polyhedra

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 176 — March 28, 2021

Sun, 28 Mar 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Ray Tracing Lossy Compressed Grid Primitives

the paper presents a method that allows a 5−7× reduction in memory footprint compared to indexed triangle meshes
this is archived by converting vertices into vertex grids and using compressed displacement vectors to compress the vertex data
the additional work required to decompress the data adds around 15% of overhead

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Understanding Vulkan Synchronization

the blog posts provides an easy to understand summary of the Vulkan Synchronization
additionally includes information about what parts of the API have changed with Synchronization2

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Importance sampling visible wavelength

the article presents experiments with spectral rendering to find an importance sampled wavelength sampling approximation
presents comparisons of the different approximations

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Interactive Path Tracing and Reconstruction of Sparse Volumes

the paper presents a technique to allow path tracing through sparse volumes
based on NanoVDB with unbiased multiple scattering volume path tracing and neural denoising
able to render Disney Clouds in 60 ms

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[video] Compositional Neural Scene Representations for Shading Inference - SIGGRAPH 2020 Paper Presentation

video recording of the SIGGRAPH 2020 was released
the paper presents how to use a neural representation to infer additional results such as reflections and global illumination

Meshlete

open-source release of a tool to generate meshlets (for use with mesh shaders, GPU based culling, etc)
additionally can generate bounding sphere and visibility cones

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NVIDIA Vulkan Ray Tracing Tutorials

Vulkan Ray tracing tutorials have been updated
added new tutorials on how to use vkCmdTraceRaysIndirectKHR and how to ray cast ambient occlusion using ray queries

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Guided Visibility Sampling++

the paper presents a technique to discover a potentially visible set (PVS) of triangles visible from a region of space
this technique uses ray shooting guided by Adaptive Border Sampling and Reverse Sampling
provides an overview of how the method was implemented using Vulkan hardware Raytracing

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[video] Sparkling Grass Lawn in Shader Graph! Unity URP Procedural Material

the video tutorial explains how to generate a procedural stylized lawn shader
uses a combination of noises to create the shading
additionally adds support for sparking based on view angle

Twitter Thread - Valheim rendering performance

the Twitter thread presents a breakdown of the Valheim rendering pipeline (implemented using Unity)
shows the different rendering passes, what shaders are expensive, and usage patterns responsible for suboptimal performance
additionally provides pointers at possible improvements

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Technically Art: Issue 91 (26.03.2021)

collection of tech art tweets
covering art style demonstration, material creation, destruction, and much more

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Wall Cutout in Shader Graph and URP

the tutorial explains an approach how to implement cutting walls into 3D walls
used method uses a screenspace projected sphere that is placed on walls using raycasting
implementation walkthrough is using visual scripting in Unity

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 175 — March 21, 2021

Sun, 21 Mar 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Real-Time Geometric Glint Anti-Aliasing with Normal Map Filtering

the paper presents a Geometric glint anti-aliasing method that is compatible with LEAN mapping
this is archived by using mipmapping on the tabulated slope distribution function (SDF) of the microfacet BRDF
a slope correlation coefficient is additionally introduced to make it compatible with normal mapping

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Screen-Space Reflections Explained

the article provides an overview of the first steps required to implement screen space reflection into an OpenGL based renderer
shows what artifacts can be expected and what the author tried to improve but didn’t work out

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Jobs

Rendering Programmer
Nottingham, UK (remote to begin with)

Deep Silver Dambuster Studios is looking for a Rendering Programmer to join our Engineering Department to work on our high-end graphics pipeline.

You will be contributing towards the development of the upcoming AAA title, Dead Island, using Unreal engine.

For this role, we are looking for a regular level programmer (two years’ experience) or a very strong graduate with relevant qualifications and interests.

Experience with DXR and compute are a must, as you will be heavily involved in raising our visual bar on high-end platforms using the latest rendering technologies.

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How to reconstruct an image if you see only a few pixels

the article provides an introduction to Compressive Sensing
presents the basis of the underlying theory that allows the reconstruction from a limited set of data point
explains the fundamentals of the frequency domain

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Auto HDR Preview for PC Available Today

the article describes provides a brief overview of AutoHDR
the feature allows SDR games to be transformed to HDR transparently to the underlying game
additionally shows how to enable a split-screen feature that will render the game with SDR one half and HDR for the other

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[video] Adding Shadow Casting to Grass Baked with Compute Shaders

the video tutorial shows how to change grass to cast shadows using Unity
this presents how to generate double-sided grass geometry and output depth in the shadow pass

Distributing Monte Carlo errors as Blue Noise in Screen Space, Part 1 - Theory and Sorting

the blog post describes how blue noise can help to improve converge of ray tracing results
explains how to transform white noise into blue noise using a compute shader (code provided)
presents the limitations of the presented solution

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ShaderQuest Part 4: Shader Environment Architecture

the tutorial aimed at Unity beginners explained how shaders are set up and structured
additionally provides a brief look at visual shader creation experience in Unity and Unreal Engine

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Which color scale to use when visualizing data

the article series provides information about the role of color in data visualization
shows what kind of scales exits, how different colors should be used and how the way data is presented provides a further understanding of the underlying data
covers color scales, qualitative, quantitative, sequential, diverging as well as classed and unclassed scales

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i3D 2021 - Papers Program

list of all papers that will be presented as part of I3D 2021 in April

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Soft Foliage Shader Breakdown

the article presents how soft shading for foliage was implemented
using a combination of spherical normal generation and gradient remapping
additionally covers how to add wind to the tree

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Stochastic-Depth Ambient Occlusion

the paper presents a novel approach to screen space ambient occlusion that accounts for occluded geometry through the use of a stochastic depth map
Stochastic-Depth map is created through a global random that will discard pixels based on a tweakable cutoff value and store the results into separate samples per pixel

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 174 — March 14, 2021

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Shading the World of Anthem

the video for the GDC 2019 talk has been released
the talk presents a walkthrough of how the lava, weather, water effects were created
shows what references were collected, identified key steps that need to be replicated and how it was implemented into Frostbite

Fitting cubic Bézier curves

the blog posts discusses an approach for efficiently fitting bezier curves to an existing technique
presents prior art, distance metrics, as well as a novel approach that allows curve fitting to be done more efficiently

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[video] Unity Basics: Triangle Winding, Culling Modes & Double Sided Materials

the Unity video tutorial explains triangle winding order, how it connects to culling
presents how to adjust the culling mode in the different Unity rendering pipeline
how to set up double-sided meshes

Jobs

Principal Graphics Programmer
(Farnborough, Hampshire, UK)

nDreams is an award-winning independent developer and publisher, delivering world-leading interactive virtual reality experiences. We recently launched Phantom: Covert Ops, a stealth action game redefined for VR, and we couldn’t be more proud of what the team have achieved. We are seeking a Principal Graphics Programmer to join our growing team and help build the systems that let our artists and designers breathe life in to the VR experiences we create. We can’t wait to show you what we’re working on next …

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The Rendering of Jurassic World: Evolution

the article presents a frame breakdown of Jurassic World, a forward D3D11 based tiled forward renderer
covers grass movement, Tiled Forward Lighting, Atmospheric effects, Reflections, Shadows, AO, rain, temporal effects
additionally offers insights into post effects and TAA (temporal antialiasing)

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Visual debugging and profiling

the article presents an overview of the new debugging features in SHADERed
shows undefined behavior detector, variable inspectors, global breakpoint views
additionally presents a heatmap view of SPIR-V instructions executed

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OpenGL on DirectX: Conformance & upstreaming of the D3D12 driver

the article provides an overview of the state of OpenGL on D3D12; it’s now used to run OpenGL applications on ARM windows
provides insights into the problems when implementing APIs on top of existing API layers

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Making a Shading Language for my Offline Renderer

the blog post presents an overview of the custom shading language design for an offline renderer
the author presents the motivation behind the project, the design decisions, and an overview of the implementation
main building block of the language is similar to OSL (open shading language)

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shadertoy - Advanced tricks

the blog post shows a number of tricks for shadertoy development
covers signal difference aware subsampling, Smart Gaussian blur as well as mipmap generation

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3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development - Free Online

introductory math book released for free in updated form from the original release
focused on providing thorough coverage on fundamental 3D concepts

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 173 — March 7, 2021

Sun, 07 Mar 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Crash Course in BRDF Implementation

the extensive article provides an overview explaining BRDFs
shows the derivation of many standard models used in rasterization and ray tracing applications
explains the different terms and offers many sources for even more information
source code is also provided

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NAUGHTY DOG AT SIGGRAPH 2020

videos and slides from SIGGRAPH 2020 presentations by Naughty Dog
low-level optimizations, volumetric effects, the technical art, and lighting technology of the Last of Us Part 2

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Vulkan SDK Offers Developers a Smooth Transition Path to Synchronization2

the blog post presents an overview of improvements of Synchronization2
presents a path to upgrading to the new extension
using an incremental approach and relying on a new layer that translates Synchronization2 API calls to Synchronization1 (if required)

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New game changing Vulkan extensions for mobile: Timeline Semaphores

the article presents an overview of Vulkan timeline semaphores
presents the problems with VkSemaphore
shows what new uses cases timeline semaphores enable

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Jobs

Principal Graphics Programmer
(Farnborough, Hampshire, UK)

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Ray Traversal of OpenVDB Frustum Grids

the paper presents an incremental approach for the traversal OpenVDB frustum grids
explains the difference between frustum grids and uniform grids
shows how to deal with the non-linearity of frustums

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[video] Differentiable Material Synthesis Is Amazing!

the video provides a high-level overview of differential rendering papers
presents papers that can generate material graphics from reference photos

[video] Nioh 2 DLSS Analysis: AI Upscaling's Toughest Test Yet?

video comparison of DLSS 2.0 against a native 4k rendering
presents visual quality differences
additionally offers why Mip biasing is required when rendering at sub-resolutions

Computing gradients on grids of pixels and voxels – forward, central, and… diagonal differences

the post presents an overview of what gradients are, what they are used for
presents standard methods with cons and pros for each
additionally offers a look at the Frequency analysis of differences

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FXAA Fast approXimate Anti-Aliasing

the tutorial shows how to implement FXAA into a Unity custom scriptable render pipeline
explains the different components that define FXAA
presents the effects of controllable settings and how they affect visual quality and performance

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 172 — February 28, 2021

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 04:00:00 +0000

[video] The CRYENGINE Rendering Pipeline

the Video provides a 90-minute in-depth look at the rendering architecture used in CryEngine
providing an overview of the abstraction layers
discusses API abstractions, draw call generations, interactions with the higher-level rendering pipeline
provides an overview of the different rendering stages of the pipeline
covering GBuffer, shadows, tile shading, tone mapping, post-processing
additionally provides an overview of the shader system

Tech Breakdown: Hiding Water in Boat Interiors

the article presents two methods to hide water from the inside of boats
the first method uses an invisible inside mesh for the ship to draw depth before the water to block it from rendering
second method involves using the stencil buffer to mask out parts of the water
presents difficulties with either technique and how to deal with them
source code for use with Unity is provided

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Experimenting with Shader Graph: Doing more with less

the article presents an alternative way to pack PBR textures into a single 4 channel texture
albedo information stored as a gradient with gradient reconstruction, normals stored as height derivates, and linear smoothness
presents how this was integrated into Unity
shows the setup tested on a 6 material blend setup and presents performance comparison against the classical packing

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New game changing Vulkan extensions for mobile: Descriptor Indexing

the article shows how the Vulkan extensions enable bindless indexing on Android
presents an overview of dynamic indexing (and restrictions), update after bind, and GPU based validation

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Moving The Machinery to Bindless

the article presents how the bindless binding model has been integrated into The Machinery
shows the setup, lifetime management as well as integration with the shader system

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Jobs

Principal Graphics Programmer
(Farnborough, Hampshire, UK)

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[video] Shaders For Game Devs

10h Video online class about shader development
whole series covers an entire spectrum from basics, over lighting, mesh deformation, skyboxes, and image-based lighting
provides assignment and discusses different approaches to solve it

New game changing Vulkan extensions for mobile: Buffer Device Address

the article presents the buffer_device_address (BDA) extension for Vulkan
this extension adds pointer support for Vulkan resources
allows users to request the virtual memory address of each resource, operate on it, and even resolve it from within shaders
shows how to use a pointer in a shader
additionally covers debugging advice and how this is handled inside of SPIR-V

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Per-Texel Deferred Lighting

provides an idea on how to maintain a pixel art style with dynamic lighting in a 3D environment
technique uses position and UV derivatives to quantize the lighting results onto the center of the texel

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[video] Blade Grass! Generate and Bake a Field Mesh Using a Compute Shader

the video tutorial shows how to generate a grass mesh using a compute shader
animate the grass from the vertex shader to apply movement

[video] GODOT 2D Dissolve Effect : Visual Shader

the video tutorial shows how to implement a dissolve shader for 2D sprites using the Visual Shader language of Godot

Thanks to Aras Pranckevičius for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 171 — February 21, 2021

Sun, 21 Feb 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Bilinear down/upsampling, aligning pixel grids, and that infamous GPU half pixel offset

the article shows a few ways of doing bilinear upsampling and downsampling
explains why it’s essential to follow the same convention everywhere and verify that no unintended shifts are introduced
suggests that the same half-pixel offset convention as used by GPUs should also be followed in CPU code
discussing the different tradeoffs for performance/aliasing/smoothing

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second tech art thread on the stylized rendering of “Dungeons of #Hinterberg”

the Twitter thread presents details about how the outline rendering has been implemented
based on several different outline classification types are combined as a post-process
the edge detection for outlines is additionally leveraged for SMAA improvements

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Temporally Reliable Motion Vectors for Real-time Ray Tracing

the paper presents a new technique to generate more accurate motion vectors for shadows, glossy reflections, and occlusions
the key idea is to detect and track the source of the effect (for example, the object blocking the light) and use the change of the source to adjust the back-projection accordingly

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Jobs

Principal Graphics Programmer
(Farnborough, Hampshire, UK)

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More (Robust) Frustum Culling

the article presents Separating Axis Theorem for OBB (oriented bounding box) against the view Frustum
additionally covers how to use Intel ISPC to generate the SSE accelerated version of the algorithm
presents performance comparison with/without SEE and compares against the previous implementation from part 1

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New Vulkan extensions for mobile: Maintenance Extensions

the blog post presents an overview of Vulkan extensions added as part of Android R
lists the extensions, what problem it solves and how it works
covering uniform alignment rules, separate depth stencil views, SPIR-V support, loop control, 16-bit subgroup operations as well as imageless framebuffers

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OpenCL: Hide data transfer behind GPU Kernels runtime

the article presents how to use 3 parallel work queues in OpenCL to read, write and process a GPU kernel at the same time
presents source code for buffer creation, queue creation, and synchronization

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Minnaert For People Who Don't Know How To Minnaert

article presents how to integrate a custom shading model into the Unity rendering pipeline
implements the Minnaert shading model
this model makes the surface seem darker from certain viewing/lighting direction

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Vulkan Memory Types on PC and How to Use Them

the blog post discusses the different memory types and how applications should use them
provides overviews on what is reported on Intel, Nvidia, and AMD hardware
additionally explains how integrated and external GPUs expose different available memory

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VK_KHR_synchronization2 extension support in our latest developer driver

the AMD driver now supports the new Vulkan synchronization extension
post provides a brief overview of how the capabilities of the extension allow the drivers to be more efficient in reducing GPU cache flushes and stalls

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 170 — February 14, 2021

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Real-Time Physically Based Rendering and BRDFs

the blog posts provides a walkthrough of the Cook-Torrance shading model
starts with the Lambert shading model and then presents step-by-step how to arrive at the final model
shows results at each step with source code provided

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Using Radeon™ GPU Analyzer v2.4.1 with DirectX® Raytracing

the Radeon GPU Analyzer now supports DXR shader disassembly, live VGPR analysis as well as control-flow graph analysis
shows what of the two compilation models (fully inline vs. Indirect ) has been chosen by the runtime
also provides the disassembly for the driver generated acceleration structure traversal

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Visual Exploration Of Light Transport In Path Tracing

master thesis that covers a tool for interactive exploration of all contributing paths from a path tracer
including a heatmap visualization and area filters
show how to use the proposed visualization to help in debugging scenarios

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Jobs

Lead Graphics Programmer
(Helsinki, Finland)

Ubisoft RedLynx is a multiplatform game development studio located in Helsinki. Along with the hugely popular Trials series, we have developed and published more than 100 games and we are a passionate team of over 140 people of 21 different nationalities. We are seeking an experienced Graphics Programmer to join our core technology team in creating impactful game experiences

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RDO texture encoding notes

the author provides a list of lessons learned and advice that should be considered when working on rate-distortion optimization algorithms

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Unity SDF Generator – Part 2

second particle in articles series about SDF (signed distance field) generation with Unity
this part presents how to visualize an SDF using a pixel shader

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[video] Generate a Mesh Asset Using Compute Shaders in the Unity Editor!

the Unity tutorial explains how to generate meshes from a compute shader
in the process, it explains the fundamentals of compute shaders and read back data from the GPU

Linear Interpolation

the article provides a geometric interpretation of linear interpolation, range mapping, and how it relates to Bézier curves
provides links towards articles with further information on why lerp for colors and rotations doesn’t always work as expected

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Thanks to Deepak Surti for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 169 — February 7, 2021

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Implementing Bitonic Merge Sort in Vulkan Compute

Shows how to sort data on the GPU using Bitonic Merge Sort networks using GLSL/Vulkan compute
Derives how to non-recursively calculate per-thread index pairs for sorting networks
Explains how to orchestrate compute-shader dispatches for large input data
provides example implementation that sorts pixel by the brightness

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Ice Refraction in Shader Graph and URP

the article presents how to implement ice shading
uses an approximate for ice refraction controlled by textures and fresnel shading
effect is implemented using Unity Shader Graph

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Coding a fireworks effect

the video shows how to implement fireworks using fullscreen shader using Shadertoy

Jobs

Lead Graphics Programmer
(Helsinki, Finland)

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Fast Radius Search Exploiting Ray Tracing Frameworks

the paper presents a method that maps spacial search in a fixed radius into a ray tracing paradigm
this allows the ways to take advantage of ray tracing hardware to speed up the operations
presents an application for GI with progressive photon mapping and point-cloud registration of partial surface scans

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Crystal Shader Breakdown

the article presents a walkthrough of a stylized crystal shader implemented using Unity Shader Graph
effect is implemented as an unlit effect based on color gradient and uses a copy of the scene to implement a refraction approximation

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A Voxel Renderer for Learning C/C++

the article provides an overview of a GPU voxel renderer using raytracing
shows the data structure layout, how GPU and CPU updates are overlapped
presents a technique to archive interactive world updates by using incremental parallel updates
additionally offers advice to improve the performance of the multi-threaded implementation

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Exploring DLSS 2.0 in Unreal Engine 4.26

the article presents a comparison of DLSS 2.0 and the default TAA implementation of UE 4.26
comparing performance and quality

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Stylized rendering for Dungeons of Hinterberg

the Twitter thread presents an overview of the stylized g-buffer based rendering pipeline implemented using Unity
presents how each material ID written into the g-buffer is later used to adjust post effects based on the affected materials
lighting is applied in two stages with a second pass to toon ramp combined lights as well

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Godot 4.0 optimization progress report

the post presents an overview of optimizations done for Godot 4.0
list contains but CPU and GPU optimizations
offers a good starting point for everyone looking into optimizing their own renderers

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A simple path tracer on the GPU

the article presents an overview of a simple GPU based path tracer written in Zig
shows how to have two data layouts for changing scenes vs. static scenes
presents how to implement spectral rendering and how it affects objects made from glass

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 168 — January 31, 2021

Sun, 31 Jan 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Improved Shader and Texture Level of Detail Using Ray Cones

the paper introduces a new method for Mip level selection, including anisotropic filtering in a raytracer
presented technique is not based on screen space derivatives
extends the technique to apply to textures with different dimensions
shows how ray cones can be used to select LOD for shading too

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sRGB gamut clipping

the article presents an introduction to Gamut Clipping (mapping colors outside of the target color space back into valid colors)
presents different approaches for mapping techniques
shows how to apply these for the Oklab color space and presents comparisons of the results
code is provided

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Analysis-Driven Optimization: Preparing for Analysis with NVIDIA Nsight Compute, Part 1

first part of a three-part series that focuses on optimizing a CUDA workload
articles present the methodology, how to use the Nsight provided information to iteratively optimize the application

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Managing Memory for Acceleration Structures in DirectX Raytracing

the article presents how to reduce memory usage of bottom level acceleration structure (BLAS)
instead of using placed resources for each BLAS, it is recommended to sub allocate from one larger structure

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Jobs

Lead Graphics Programmer
(Helsinki, Finland)

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Rim Light Shader Graph in Unity URP! Moody and Atmospheric Lighting!

the Unity video tutorial shows how to implement rim lighting (an effect that only applies to the edges of a model)

Introduction to Computer Graphics

Video lectures for the Introduction to Computer Graphics Course at the University of Utah
more classes will be released over the next few weeks

Neural Geometric Level of Detail Real-time Rendering with Implicit 3D Surfaces

the paper presents a deep neural network to generate signed distance functions using a fixed network and sparse oct-tree
the network also generates the level of detail representations
shows real-time reconstruction and rendering with ray tracing

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Wrapping around the uv map in 80 frames

the article presents an overview of UV mapping
showing different mapping techniques, problems, and uses cases

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NVIDIA Announces Nsight Graphics 2021.1

updated tools adds support for inline raytracing and capturing applications that are not frame-based

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 167 — January 24, 2021

Sun, 24 Jan 2021 04:00:00 +0000

A Failed Adventure in Avoiding Temporal Anti-Aliasing

the author provides an overview of anti-aliasing solutions
what problems temporal techniques have, look at alternative solutions
and experience trying to avoid using temporal techniques in a game production

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Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, part II

the article discusses the progress on an open-source graphics stack for Apple M1
provides insights into how Apple GPU commands are expressed on the lowest level

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[video] Beyond Emitters: Shader and Surface Driven GPU Particle FX Techniques

the video from GDC 2018 was released
the talk presents different iterations of a system to allow particles emission from everything in the world
contains many examples, pro/cons of several techniques
shows how to unfold meshes so that particles can be emitted in a view independent fashion
additionally provides insights into particle workflows

All the Pipelines - Journey through the GPU

the presentation provides an overview of the rendering pipeline from mesh creation to screen output
focuses on the RDNA2 architecture, presenting what each piece of hardware in the pipeline is called and the function it serves
providing insights into why specific workloads can achieve better performance than others

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[video] Neon Noir – Raytracing on Mobile

talk provides an overview of the Crytek rendering pipeline
how a Micro-G buffer is used to reduce the bandwidth required
encoding, reconstruction errors, and performance comparison
how the raytracing is implemented using compute shaders
BVH data structures, using interlaced ray tracing for ray count reduction
data optimizations for BVH objects

OpenGL to Vulkan

the article explains the process of porting the NAP creative coding Framework to Vulkan
focuses on presenting the high-level concepts and considerations instead of API details
presents synchronization, main API objects, frame setup, descriptor set management, mesh and texture handling as well as coordinate space conversions

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Organic Variety Making the Artificial Look Natural

the tutorial shows how to create procedural fractals
enable color and position modifications
present performance comparisons

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Rendering dunes terrain in WebGL

the article presents how a sand dune wallpaper was implemented using WebGL
demonstrates how the scene was composed, dust particle implementation, wind simulation as well as texture
source code is available

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[video] How to calculate Normal Vectors in Shader Graph

shows why normals need to be recalculated if a mesh shape is changed in a vertex shader
presents how to re-calculate the normals by applying the same offsets to approximate neighbors and recalculating the normal from this
simplified video version of How to Calculate Shader Graph Normals

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 166 — January 17, 2021

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 04:00:00 +0000

RenderDoc ‘Ref All Resources’ + Vulkan + Memory Aliasing = Beware

the post shows how aliased resources can cause problems when doing render doc captures
aliased textures that are captured might need barrier transitions, which can corrupt other textures in the same memory range

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John Carmack - Essays

collection of articles/ blog post written by John Carmack on a variety of topics

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[video] Unity: Frosty Icicle Shader with Amplify [URP]

the video tutorial shows how to implement a shader for freezing objects
this includes blending ice material on top of existing objects, tessellation shaders to extend meshes to form icicles, and mesh normal generation

How stunning visual effects bring Ghost of Tsushima to life

the blog post shows the interactive particle implementation used in Ghost of Tsushima
particles are controllable through expressions and can react to runtime information
shows different use cases such as interactive leaves, candles, and crabs

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Step by step recipe for Temporal Anti-Aliasing

the tutorial shows how to implement Temporal Anti-Aliasing using an example OpenGL implementation
provides a walkthrough of all steps required
shows how to calculate velocity vectors, use history buffers, calculate jittering matrix
additionally shows how dithering can be used to create alpha-blended looks

Loading OpenGL With Win32

the Rust tutorial provides an extensive walkthrough of the steps required to use OpenGL using native rust
explains all the necessary interop to load OpenGL, initialize a swap chain, and start presenting

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Moving Gears to Tier 2 Variable Rate Shading

the article presents how VRS tier 2 shading was integrated into Gears
uses the previous frame color buffer results to run a Sobel edge detection compute shader to detect the shading rate
a conservative VRS allows systems to opt-in for special quality if required
contains advice on optimizations for VRS tile texture generation
additionally provides guidance on how to estimate performance using Tier 1
provides performance numbers for the savings from different render passes

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Gamedev Pronunciation Guide

the article contains a list of common graphics programming terms and how to pronounce them

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Transition guide from VK_NV_raytracing to (final) VK_KHR_raytracing!

the article provides a guide for porting from the original VK_NV_raytracing extension to official VK_KHR_raytracing extensions
show what changes are required for device creation, memory management, acceleration structure build, pipeline management

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Summer Fun with Creation Graphs

the article presents an overview of Creation Graphs and what it enables the user to create in The Machinery
an extensible node-based system that allows the flexible combination of data from different kinds of data to create new combinations

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[video] Stylized grass Tutorial || Houdini and Unreal Engine

the video tutorial explains how to create stylized grass in the Unreal engine
shows how to create the meshes in Houdini, textures in Unreal and integrate them into the rendering pipeline

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 165 — January 10, 2021

Sun, 10 Jan 2021 04:00:00 +0000

Rendering a Sphere on a Quad

the article explains in detail how to render a raytraced sphere that interacts with other parts of the Unity rendering pipeline
covers how to use a billboard to render there sphere, explaining how to calculate an optimal camera facing quad and texture mapping
extending to support shadow casting, receiving, and use of conservative depth output to enable early depth rejection

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Intro to Shaders

beginner-focused tutorial that explains how 3D data is structured in computer graphics
covers what shaders are, what type exists, and how they are used within Unity to define the look

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[video] Christmas special, making it snow.

the video tutorial explains how to create interactive snow on terrain and objects using Godot
interactive snow is implemented via a snow mask that is updated and blends between textures and modifies vertex positions
snow on objects is world space projected snow textures that also is interactive

A Diligent Approach to Ray Tracing

the article presents a walkthrough of a RayTracing abstraction layer that was implemented for D3D12 and Vulkan
provides a walkthrough of how to combine the elements to a example scene
shows what the different raytracing shaders are and what they contribute to the final image

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Radeon™ GPU Profiler 1.9 introduces support for Radeon™ RX 6000 Series

the updated tool allows an in-depth view into the raytracing details on AMD hardware
reveals that the driver might inline all shaders into a single shader or keep shaders separate
the new update provides a shader table view to see the relative cost of different stages
additional shows all shaders with costs, call count, and ability to see ISA

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[video] CUDA Memory Model

the video explains the CUDA memory model
covering the rules of how memory operations on shared memory from multiple threads are processed
looking at loading, reordering, barriers, etc.. and explains with examples (source code published)

ShaderQuest Part 0: Series Introduction

Overview for the start of a new shader tutorial series for beginners
starts by providing the motivation, approach, and topics that will be covered

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Ditherpunk — The article I wish I had about monochrome image dithering

the article focuses on providing a walkthrough of dithering techniques
provides an overview of what dithering is, use cases
showcase of different dithering patterns and what results they produce

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CVTT Texture Compressor Technical Breakdown

the article provides an overview of the CVTT compression techniques used (DirecXTex fork aims to be an experiment to improve state of the art)
shows how the different formats are compressed, common themes across formats, and lists possible improvements

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 164 — January 3, 2021

Sun, 03 Jan 2021 04:00:00 +0000

[video] How to texture a procedural object

the video tutorial explains the fundamentals of texture mapping in ShaderToy
describes how to apply a texture map to a 3D cube, sphere using tri-planar mapping
additionally describes how to animate a second texture set onto a sphere as well as displacement mapping

[video] Getting Started with Compute Shaders in Unity

this Unity tutorial aimed at beginners presents a starter guide for compute shaders
shows how to convert CPU based random cube generation tp GPU
demonstrates how much quicker even a simple GPU based version can be

Unorganized Unit Vectors Sets Quantization

the paper presents a new technique of on-the-fly quantization for unorganized sets of unit vectors
approach detects groups of windows that are then uniformly mapped onto the whole sphere surface before unit vector quantization is applied
the presented technique can archive better results than octahedral quantization with only 16 bits

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Render Scale - Scaling Up and Down

tutorial series about creating a custom scriptable render pipeline in Unity
decoupling the render resolution from the target resolution to allow variable resolution at runtime
presents how to deal with post FX and the difference between upscaling with different color spaces

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Basic Tessellation setup in URP

the Unity tutorial provides a starting point for how to use tessellation shaders
example shows to tessellate a simple terrain

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Graphics Studies Compilation

collection of articles that provide a breakdown of various games
contains links from analyses since 2015 from multiple authors

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Rendering Astronomic Stars

the article shows the steps required to use star databases to enable the correct rendering of stars
covers data parsing, dealing with different time reference frames, color conversion
provides sources and code for the implementation

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Best shots from 2020

Collection of impressive screenshots from Games (mostly PC, a few from PS4 Pro)

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Practical Hash-based Owen Scrambling

the paper presents an implementation of a hash-based Owen scrambling for Sobol sampling with nested uniform shuffling to enable multidimensional padding
presents practical considerations for use cases and provides an example implementation

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Thanks to Dirk Dörr for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 163 — December 27, 2020

Sun, 27 Dec 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Why are video games graphics (still) a challenge? Productionizing rendering algorithms

the article provides an overview of considerations when developing a graphics technique for video games
presents how game design, workflow, performance, artist controllability, … affect the possible solution space
provides a case studio from the vegetation system from The Witcher 2

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Frustum Culling

the article presents how to implement frustum culling and the effects on CPU and GPU performance

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Why Raytracing won't simplify AAA real-time rendering.

the blog post provides a look back at the evolution of graphics technology and how they affect game production
author expresses his view on how ray tracing will repeat history and complexity will continue to increase as we want to archive more complex goals

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RDNA 2 hardware raytracing

the blog posts takes a look at the RNDA ISA and presents how ray tracing has been implemented in AMD hardware
look at the instructions to accelerate ray/triangle and ray/BVH intersection logic in hardware

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A perceptual color space for image processing

the article presents a new perceptual color space
illustrates how the color space conversion is used and how it was derived
color space is designed to use D65 white point (easier interop with Rec202 and sRGB) with even transitions when used in blending

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States and Barriers of Aliasing Render Targets

the article presents an overview of D3D12 aliasing barriers, Discard/Clear semantics, and how they interact with resource states
presents three approaches to the problem
it appears no way exists that doesn’t trigger debug-runtime errors and archives optimal performance

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 162 — December 20, 2020

Sun, 20 Dec 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Hallucinations re: the rendering of Cyberpunk 2077

the article presents a breakdown of a Cyberpunk 2077 frame
looking at the different passes that create the final image, what techniques are employed
how the gbuffer is structured, volumetrics, decals, culling ….

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vk_mini_path_tracer

Vulkan tutorial that shows how to implement a Path Tracer in 300 lines of C++ using Vulkan compute shaders
broken into multiple chapters that explain the fundamental concepts of Vulkan and path tracing
additional chapters provide further information on optimizations, multiple materials, blurs, …

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SuperRT

the project that presents the implementation of a custom external raytracing card for use with the SNES

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Grass Geometry Shader with Interactivity (Part 1, the shader)

the Unity tutorial explains how interactivity between player and grass can be implemented for geometry shader based grass
additionally covers how to apply point light shading

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How To Create A Coiled Cable Shader In UE4

the article explains how to generate cables from cylinders
based on the Unreal Cable component for the physics simulation, but all visual effects are implemented as pixel shader
covers the spiral generation, normal generation, silhouette handling, and support for stretching

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to z-prepass or not to z-prepass

the article presents an overview of what a Z-pre-pass is
what benefits and drawbacks this technique has
additionals discussion of techniques that can benefit from having access to a full scene z-buffer early in the frame

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[video] Cyberpunk 2077 PC: What Does Ray Tracing Deliver... And Is It Worth It?

in-depth Digital Foundry comparison between Raytracing and classical rendering features on PC
presents what Raytracing adds to the final look of the game
comparison of performance with different settings and the importance of DLSS

Thanks to Joakim Dahl for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 161 — December 13, 2020

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Cameras and Lenses

the article gives an understanding of how different types of camera and lenses work
provides many interactive examples that explain the various elements, aspects and how they interact

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[video] Glyphs, shapes, fonts, signed distance fields.

the video tutorial provides an overview of signed distance fields
explains how to use SDFs for font rendering
provides an example implementation of multiple font effects (thickness, feather, outline color)

[video] Moving Mobile Graphics - SIGGRAPH 2020 Course

video recording from all talks in the Siggraph 2020 course in a single video
covering Intro to Moving Mobile Graphics, Mobile Graphics 101, Vulkan on Mobile Done Right, Deferred Shading in Unity URP,
Large Voxel Landscapes on Mobile, High Quality, High-Performance Graphics in Filament are covered below in more detail

Physically Based Rendering - Phong BRDF

introductory slides for physically based rendering course
provides an overview of fundamental terms and concepts
explaining how the different ideas fit together to create a basic physically based shading implementation

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[video] Grass Fields in Unity URP! Procedurally Generate Blades with Compute Shaders | Game Dev Tutorial

the video tutorial shows how to generate grass blades that swing in the wind
LODs are supported, reducing the number of segments for each blade of grass when it’s further away from the camera
implemented as compute shaders using Unity

Shockwave Shader Graph

the video tutorial explains how to implement a ripple effect
first implements a sprite-based effect, extends this afterward to support 3D mesh deformation
implemented using Unity shader graph

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Debugging refraction in a ray tracer

short blog post that provides advice on how to debug refraction in a raytracer
provides what values to expect when debugging refraction on a glass sphere

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Texture Compression in 2020

the article presents an overview of different compression formats and libraries
comparing quality and compression speed for several texture types

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Generating Ray-Traced Caustic Effects in Unreal Engine 4, Part 1

the article explains the implementation of Caustics using a photon mapping technique that takes advantage of DXR capabilities
the first part focuses on caustics from meshes (such as bottles, glasses)
additional provides a performance comparison between Nvidia GPUs
part 2 focuses on water-based caustics

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Using Mesh Shaders for Professional Graphics

the article shows examples of how to use mesh shaders (code examples in GLSL)
show how different data types and models influence the performance
gives advice on best-practices when designing a solution for Nvidia hardware
additionally provides pointers on what might be different on other hardware

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AMD RDNA™ 2 Instruction Set Architecture

the RDNA 2 Instruction Set has been released
shows that RDNA 2 supports dedicated instructions for BVH intersection to accelerate ray tracing workloads

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Radeon™ Memory Visualizer is now Open Source

AMD released the source code for the Memory Visualizer
tools support Vulkan and D3D12 to provide insights into memory usage

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Softening polygon intersections in Blightbound

the article shows how fading our transparent objects when getting close to an intersection helps them to appear more volumetric
technique presented in the article uses the depth buffer information from opaque objects to fade out the transparent

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Accelerating Unstructured Mesh Point Location with RT Cores

the paper presents the results of research into using the RTX raytracing hardware for unstructured point rendering
presents multiple iterations from a reference CUDA implementation to more complex RTX solutions
comparing performance for the different approaches

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[video] SIGGRAPH 2020 — High Quality, High Performance Rendering in Filament

video for the talk has been released, was covered in the week 147
how to take advantage of tiling GPU architecture and enable the use of fp16 math
cloth shading, reduction of energy loss for rough metals, multi-bounce AO

[video] SIGGRAPH 2020 - Large Voxel Landscapes On Mobile

the talk explains the Voxel-based terrain system used in Roblox
voxels store material id and material occupancy (0,1) range
how to generate meshes from the sparse voxel representation
texture mapping, tiling reduction, water considerations, and various performance advice

Thanks to Robert Wallis for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 160 — December 6, 2020

Sun, 06 Dec 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Black skin in your stylized dimly-lit video game

The article presents how important reflectivity of Black skin is for believable results
it shows how to adjust textures and the Unity PBR shaders (specular workflow) to decouple specular color from the glossiness

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Open Problems in Real-Time Rendering

the talk from Digital Dragons looks at open questions in rendering
walkthrough of the various assumptions and approximations and raises the question of the most significant source of error in modern rendering pipeline?
presenting a look at the higher-level view at how are rendering and production pipeline might evolve
discussing tradeoffs and how a more holistic view of rendering might lead to more productivity and better results

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Angelo Pesce - Rendering the Metaverse across Space and Time

the talk provides an overview of Roblox and how the philosophy creates an environment with very different technical challenges
a tech that favors scalable over optimal and how it’s been able to evolve existing data to take advantage of new device abilities
provides an overview of the engine architecture and a walkthrough of a large number of rendering systems (clustering, lighting, shading)

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Particles Color and Depth Textures

part of tutorial series about the Unity scriptable rendering pipeline (SRP)
covers how to support soft and distortion particles
determining depth for orthographic and perspective projections

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Robin Taillandier & Jon Valdes - Every Strand Counts: Physics and Rendering Behind Frostbite’s Hair

presentation shows the in-progress state of the new Frostbite hair rendering system in the context of FIFA
covering both the strand simulation and rendering
rendering is done using a custom line rasterize, order-independent transparency, and strand space shading (texture space shading)

The Spraycan

the articles discusses how the voxel rendering in teardown uses an 8-bit color palette for voxel materials and still allows coloring
this is archived by precalculating multiple color variations for each material
if not enough slots are available similar materials will be merged

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Linearly Transformed Spherical Harmonics

the Bachelor thesis introduces Linearly Transformed Spherical Harmonics
A technique for computing specular shading from to polygonal area lights
compares the method against linearly transformed cosines, and it’s able to produce higher quality results

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Memory types of discrete GPUs

the article explains a different kind of memory that exists
how AMDs Smart Access Memory fits into the picture
additionally covers considering of performance when using a device or host-local memory

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Intel View in Mafia III

the article presents how the effect was implemented that allows objects to be colorized/silhouetted to make them pop out of the scene
this is implemented by rendering AABB with per-object depth into a separate render target, marking tagged objects via stencil
and using post-processing to apply the outline effect

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Michał Olejnik - Raytraced Shadows in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

video recording of the talk covered in week 154
the presentation explains how the raytracing for shadows has been implemented into Call of Duty
covering acceleration structure separation, performance, denoising implementation, and supporting multiple local area lights

Thanks to Peter Kohaut for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 159 — November 29, 2020

Sun, 29 Nov 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Daniel Jones has made a video summary of the articles included in this article available on Youtube

[video] Painting a Selfie Girl, with Maths

the video presents an in-depth walkthrough that shows how to use signed distance fields (SDF) to create an animated girl
explains all used primitives as SDW, how they are combined, and the lighting implementation
implementation is done in shadertoy

Reverse engineering the rendering of The Witcher 3, part 21 - the painted world

the article shows how The Witcher 3 implements a fullscreen effect that gives the world a painterly look
presents a step-by-step walkthrough, showing all components that define the noise generation
author provides a shadertoy implementation of the effect

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biplanar mapping - 2020

the post presents a bi-planar mapping as an alternative to tri-planar mapping using only two texture fetches
starts by giving an overview of the tri-planar mapping
followed by an explanation of the bi-planar mapping technique, presenting strategies to improve the quality and how the quality compares

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Depth

a very detailed article about depth buffers
focusing on Unity, but most of the information is engine agnostic
explains the different spaces, storage formats, and precision considerations
additionally shows how to calculate world space positions from the depth buffer

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[video] Endless Fields of Grass in URP with a Compute Shader! | Unity 2020.1

A Unity video tutorial that explains how to generate grass meshes using Compute shaders
covers the setup, mesh generation, and LOD selection

Multiple Importance Sampling in 1D

the article shows how Multiple Importance Sampling in 1D is used to improve the convergence of stochastic algorithms
presents multiple experiments and shows how different techniques can reduce the sampling error

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Baking a Realistic Renderer from Scratch and other resources for Beginners in Computer Graphics

a collection of resources (books, talks, websites) the author recommends for beginners to get started with graphics programming

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DirectX 12 Ultimate - Variable Rate Shading

the presentation provides an overview of Variable Rate Shading (VRS), the different features levels
provides insights into VRS performance, features that disable VRS, and what bottlenecks will cause VRS to not offer performance improvements
additionally shows how to integrate the AMD helper library to generate the VRS screenspace map

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AMD FidelityFX Denoiser

the presentation explains the ray tracing denoising technique developed by AMD
shows what inputs are used, how the algorithm uses these to decide ray count, and how to use temporal reprojection to further reduce sample counts
the code for the technique is provided, and the website includes comparison pictures and images of the intermediate results

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Vulkan Ray Tracing Final Specification Release

the post explains what changes have been made to the Vulkan raytracing extension since the preview specification
extension has been split into 3 layers (acceleration structure, raytracing shaders states, and ray queries)
walkthrough of each stage of the extensions
in contrast to DXR, Vulkan offers the ability to generate acceleration structures on the CPU

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Exploring ray tracing techniques in Wolfenstein: Youngblood

the article presents an overview of how Vulkan raytracing has been implemented into Wolfenstein
provides a brief overview of the different API concepts and how they are used

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In the works: HLSL Shader Model 6.6

the article contains an overview of the new features that will be included in shader model 6.6
64-bit Integer Atomic Operations, Dynamic Resource Binding, Compute Shader Derivatives and Samples, Packed 8-Bit Operations and variable Wave Size

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 158 — November 22, 2020

Sun, 22 Nov 2020 04:00:00 +0000

D3D12 APITrace - Capture and Replay

the blog posts describes how APITrace can intercept D3D12 applications (even complex AAA games such as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla)
presents how the layer deals with Persistent Memory Mapping, Capturing and Replaying Descriptors, Fences, and Synchronization
additional describes what issues are still left unsolved

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[video] Realistic Clouds - Sapiens Devlog 54

the dev vlog explains how the 2D billboard based clouds are implemented
cloud volumes are generated in Blender, directional light information is baked into textures using single color lights along the principal coordinate system axis
these directions are blended at runtime to integrate into the in-game PBR lighting system

[video] Devlog 1: How we built the toon shading | Open Projects

the devlog presents a walkthrough of the implementation of a toon shader
contains a comparison between a toon shading model and a more realistic model
the implementation is done using the Unity Universal Render Pipeline (URP) and ShaderGraph

[video] Introduction to Compute Shaders in Unity URP! Replace Geometry Shaders | Game Dev Tutorial

the video tutorial explains how to take an input mesh and use a compute shader to generate additional geometry
provides an overview of compute shader concepts, showing the HLSL based implementation and how to integrate it into the Unit rendering pipeline
additional explains how to use DrawIndirect to draw the results directly from the GPU timeline

Top Fire Shader Graphs

the article presents three different approaches to archive a fire effect using Unity
show a sprite-based flipbook effect, procedural shape generation for a toon, and more realistic shape
the implementation is done in ShaderGraph

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d3d12 - Vulkan

unrolled Twitter thread presenting an overview of differences between D3D12 and Vulkan
the aim of the comparison is to be able to support both APIs

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Technically Art: Issue 76 (20.11.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 157 — November 15, 2020

Sun, 15 Nov 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Daniel Jones has made a video summary of the articles included in this article available on Youtube

CasCmdLine - Few Technical Details

brief article that shows how to create a D3D11 device without a window
presents that the FXC compiler can export compiled shader to a C compatible header

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Practical Tips for Implementing Subsurface Scattering in a Ray Tracer

the article presents techniques to improve Subsurface Scattering (SSS) implementation based on the model used in PBRT
presents a basic overview, how to importance sample the model
shows several improvements that aim to reduce Fireflies, optimize the implementation
additionally covers the material system that allows blending between materials that have SSS influence and not

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Frostpunk Heatmap

the Unity explains how to implement a heat map view to visualize the temperatures in Buildings
this effect is based on Frostpunk, the shader implemented as compute shader

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Resource uniformity & bindless access in Vulkan

the article provides a brief overview of different kinds of array indexing types in shaders
presents Vulkan caps required for a bindless access pattern
shows when extra annotations are needed for correct results and how these interact on different hardware

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What is shader occupancy and why do we care about it?

the blog post explains what shader occupancy is and how it connects to vector registers usage
provides a brief overview of GCN hardware details showing how shader compilers deal with data loading

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Retro CRT Shader — A post processing effect study

the article explains how to implement a CRT rendering effect using GLSL
implements screen curvature, scanlines, and edge darkening

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Combining 2D and 3D in Blightbound's VFX

the article explains how the 2D VFX effect has been integrated int the 3D world of Blightbound

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Introducing OWL: A Node Graph Abstraction Layer on top of OptiX 7

article introduces OWL, an abstraction build on OptiX 7
presents the difference abstraction difference between OptiX 6 and 7
shows several projects using it and samples on how to use it

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The Bright Side of Ray-Traced Global Illumination in Unity

the article presents the difference between baked, screen-space rasterization and Ray-traced GI of unity
shows how many visual influences can be expected from the different techniques
brief look at the performance of the other techniques

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 156 — November 8, 2020

Sun, 08 Nov 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Generating meshes procedurally in Unity

the post explains how to generate a procedural mesh
describes how to approach the development of an algorithm, provides a list of common mistakes
lists advice on how to debug procedural mesh generation issues

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Vulkan Ecosystem & SDK Survey - 2020

Vulkan survey to gather information about user experience, platform support, and future developments

[video] Procedural Water Ripples in Unity using Shader Graph Only

a Unity video tutorial that shows how to implement a water ripple effect

Linear Algebra Shenanigans: Gizmo Repair

the article presents how to resolve issues with movement widget logic
starts with an explanation of the problematic cases
shows how extra debug visualization helps to understand the 3D problems to simplify debugging

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[video] SIGGRAPH Asia 2020 – Technical Papers Trailer

overview of technical papers that will be presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2020

Normalizing the Phong Specular BRDFs

the paper presents an energy normalization derivation of the Phong lighting model
provides a C++ implementation of the technique

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Projective Geometric Algebra

collection of resources by Eric Lengyel covering geometric algebra (this includes Grassmann algebra)
mathematical model incorporates many common concepts (including homogeneous coordinates, quaternions) into a consistent model

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Compute Shaders Rendering One Million Cubes

the article explains how to use a compute shader to render moving cubes
explains the basics of compute shaders and presents
presents how to use the Unity profiler to validate the performance

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A summer sprint: bringing near-native performance to Zink

the blog post presents an overview of the development progress of Zink(OpenGL on Vulkan layer)
able to achieve 95% performance of native OpenGL in the Unigine Heaven

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 155 — November 1, 2020

Sun, 01 Nov 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Adding support for two-level acceleration for raytracing

the second part of the blog post series covering raytracing implementation with compute shaders presents the results of splitting the acceleration structure into two levels
presents an overview of the implementation, performance comparison
additionally shows that two-level separation provides additional flexibility advantages

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Khronos Vulkan Working Group Releases Shading Rate Extension to Increase Rendering Performance and Quality

Vulkan extension for Variable Rate Shading (VRS) has been released as VK_KHR_fragment_shading_rate
adds the necessary API and SPIR-V extensions

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PIX 2010.26 – Updated Command List Execution View & Descriptor Heap Viewer

latest PIX update adds support for visualizing the GPU execution of command list from a single ExecuteCommandLists call
adds support for showing the resources that belong to each descriptor in a heap

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Technically Art: Issue 74 (30.10.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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The Elephant on RTX – First Light. (or: Ray Tracing Disney’s Moana Island using RTX, OptiX, and OWL)

the author presents an overview of his raytracer setup
explains the problems encountered and the current state
provides an overview of how to trace the Ptex textures on the GPU

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Multiple Cameras Camera Blending and Rendering Layers

the Unity article explains how to integrate multiple cameras into a scriptable render pipeline
shows how to use it for split-screen, overlay camera (including correct blending), and in-game UI
additionally shows how to filter objects for one viewport

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Shader Graph - Stylized Glass

the shader tutorial explains how to stylized toon glass shader
shows the breakthrough of the individual component and what they contribute to the final result

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 154 — October 25, 2020

Sun, 25 Oct 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Screen Space Reflections in Blightbound

the articles explains the pitfalls encountered when implementing Screen Space reflections
discusses special cases for a 2D game and presents what fallback options have been used if the information is not available

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The Dark Side Of Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion (RTAO)

the blog post provides an overview of ambient occlusion and what it approximates
provides interactive examples to show the effect of screen space ambient occlusion
additionally provides interactive examples to show the impact of different parameters for Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion

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Technically Art: Issue 73 (23.10.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Raytraced Shadows in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

the presentation explains how the raytracing for shadows has been implemented into Call of Duty
covering acceleration structure separation, performance, denoising implementation, and supporting multiple local area lights

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Surface Gradient–Based Bump Mapping Framework

the paper presents a new framework for layering and compositing of bump maps from different sources
presents how to use the framework with different techniques, including volumes, decals, dealing with multiple UV sets, etc..
demo code provided

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A Tip for HiZ SSR - Parametric 't' Tracing

the article presents how the precision HiZ tracing logic (used for screen space reflection) can be increased
additionally also makes the technique more generalized

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The future of RLSL

the blog post explains the history of RLSL (Rust Like Shading Language)
and how rust-gpu is the spiritual successor

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Introducing rust-gpu v0.1

First public release of Rust-gpu, a new SPIR-V backend for the Rust
post explains the motivation, current state, and planned scope

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A Better Way to Scalarize a Shader

the article provides a brief overview of scalarization and suggests an alternative approach

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 153 — October 18, 2020

Sun, 18 Oct 2020 04:00:00 +0000

GPU-Motunui

the post explains the implementation of a path tracer that enables the rendering of the Disney Moana island dataset on an RTX 2070
provides an overview of the memory management strategies and scene splitting

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Watercolour Shader Experiments

the Unity-based effect presents how to create a watercolor rendering style
uses a combination of object shaders, decal effects, and fullscreen post-processing

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Fast Eulerian Fluid Simulation In Games Using Poisson Filters

the research presents a 2D fluid simulation in a 3D scene used to generate fire effects
explains separable Poisson filters that are used to fluid simulations
the demo video shows the technique interact within the 3D world to respond to wind, collision, and other forces

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Geometry Shaders in URP

the Unity tutorial provides a brief overview of the rendering pipeline
provides an overview of vertex/geometry/pixel shaders
presents how to use the geometry shader to generate normals using a cube to sphere morph as an example

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HSV Shader Graph – Hue Saturation Value

the tutorial explains HSV color space and presents how to implement conversion
an example implementation is accomplished using Unity shader graph

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Blowing bubbles with Shader Graph

the article presents how to implement the rendering of a soap bubble in Unity

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[Video] Vertex animation textures, beanbags and boneless animations

The video tutorial explains how vertex animations can be stored and played back from textures
shows how to export animations from blender
describes how to use the exported data inside of a Godot shader

Does subgroup/wave size matter?

the articles presents an overview of the GPU execution model, how divergent control flow is handled
presents a statistical analysis of the relation of control flow and wave sizes
derives three categories that conditions can be split into

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Framebuffers, WGPU and Rust

the article explains the terms required to understand the initialization of a webGPU application
shows how to call the API from Rust

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Hash Functions for GPU Rendering

the paper presents an evaluation of deterministic hash functions
compares the performance and quality of several techniques
presents how to extend the dimensionality of hashing functions

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 152 — October 4, 2020

Sun, 04 Oct 2020 04:00:00 +0000

[video] Beautiful Results From 30 Years Of Light Transport Simulation!

the video shows the history of light transport techniques and presents how they perform in complex test cases
leading up to “Specular Manifold Sampling for Rendering High-Frequency Caustics and Glints” and how it makes aims to make state of the art a more accessible

I3D 2020

links to the papers from I3D 2020
the winners for best-award are “Passthrough+: Real-time Stereoscopic View Synthesis for Mobile Mixed Reality”, “Local Optimization for Robust Signed Distance Field Collision” and “Real-Time Stochastic Lightcuts”

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[video] Variance-Aware Path Guiding (SIGGRAPH 2020 presentation)

SIGGRAPH 2020 presentation that provides an overview of Variance-Aware Path Guiding
paper proposes to treat the problem as an error minimization problem using relMSE ( relative mean squared error )
shows existing techniques that could be improved from the proposed solution

Grass Shader

the blog post discusses the development of a GPU based grass rendering system
provides an overview of the approach taken and provides videos for the different stages of implementation

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[video] Marvel's Spider-Man PS5 Ray Tracing Analysis - The Challenge of RT in First-Gen Games

the video shows the Ray Tracing implementation and uses it to explain the considerations when designing a raytracing solution
explains the steps raytracing requires and how changes in each step influence the total reflection budget

Yet Another Stylised Water Shader

breakdown shows how a Stylised Water Shader was implemented in Unity
the post focuses on the overall look -presents the different layers of the technique and what these contribute to the final look of the water

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Scaling Probe-Based Real-Time Dynamic Global Illumination for Production

the paper presents extensions to the probe based irradiance-field-with-visibility representation
These extensions include a self-shadow bias, introduction of heuristics to speed transitions, re-use for recursive glossy reflection, probe state machines as well as multiresolution cascaded volumes

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sRGB/ACEScg Luminance Comparison

the blog post presents a comparison between the usage of different color spaces on the results of path tracing
compare Rec709 and ACEScg color space, providing the mathematical approximations for the color conversions required

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Color Grading Playing with Colors

the 13ths part of the scriptable render pipeline tutorial explains how to add color grading to the Unity pipeline
presents several techniques to adjust the visual look of the scene
shows different color space, how to convert them, and optimize the conversion steps with LUTs

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System Value Semantics in Compute Shaders - Cheat Sheet

the article presents a table of HLSL and GLSL compute shader semantics and how they the meanings maps between local and global references

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New Tutorial – Unified Radeon™ GPU Profiler and Radeon™ Memory Visualizer usage with Radeon™ Developer Panel 2.1

tutorial explains the new unified AMD interface for the GPU Profiler Memory Visualizer
shows how to use the different workflows

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 151 — September 27, 2020

Sun, 27 Sep 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Porting detroit: become human from playstation® 4 to pc – part 1

the post explains the experiences on porting the game from PS4 to PC using Vulkan
part 1 of 3 focuses on optimize shader pipeline compilation and descriptor allocation
the descriptor allocation is based around dynamic indexing into large arrays for each resource type

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Porting detroit: become human from playstation® 4 to pc – part 2

part two of the series provides on porting Detroit: become human offers an overview of indexing considerations using the VK_EXT_descriptor_indexing extension
shows the AMD ISA disassembly related to sampling textures and how much extra work is required when texture indexing is not uniform

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Porting detroit: become human from playstation® 4 to pc – part 3

the last part of the series briefly explains how they used scalarization to optimize shader, split command list recording onto multiple threads
looks at memory management in more detail, detailing the AMD libraries and tools available for memory management

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Making a Real Time Stylized Sword Aura Effect with Shaders

the author explains his approach for the design of an aurora shader challenge
provides an illustrated walk through how to start from a simple effect and incrementally improve towards the expected look

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Borderland between Rendering and Editor — Part 3: Selection Highlighting

the articles explains how The Machinery implementing for rendering the outline of selected objects has been archived
this is implemented as a screenspace effect using the object ID and depth buffer to detect the shape of the objects
presents how to improve visual stability when TAA is used

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Fighting Fragmentation: Vulkan Portability Extension Released and Implementations Shipping

the blog post provides an overview of the different API layering implementations (Vulkan on Metal, D3D11on12, etc..)
Vulkan Portability Initiative exposes a new extension (VK_KHR_portability_subset) that allows these layers to mark features as unsupported
progress on updating the conformance testing and device capabilities emulators to make them aware of these constraints

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Math in Art

beginner-focused tutorial explains how to store normals, noise, and positional data in textures
explains what kind of effects can be archived with this data
the example effects are implemented using ShaderGraph in Unity

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Vulkan Will Soon Have A Vendor-Neutral Cross-Platform Ray-Tracing API

video presentation from the X.Org Developer Conference provides an overview of the Vulkan vendor-neutral API extension

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Technically Speaking Challenge 1: Retro Shaders

collection all entries for a tech art challenge with the theme Retro shaders
the entries show a large variety of effects and implementations using different engines

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Five years of GPU DB

the author presents a look back at the last 5 years of the GpuDB
a useful website to gather information about different GPUs and compare them

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Loads, Stores, Passes, and Advanced GPU Pipelines

the article explains the basic of the tiled GPU architectures used on mobile
uses this information to explain the importance of using the correct load and store operations for Vulkan render passes
additonally covers foveated rendering extension and how to structure rendering with multiple render passes

Thanks to Warren Moore for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 150 — September 20, 2020

Sun, 20 Sep 2020 04:00:00 +0000

The Last of Us Part II, material blending, the SDF of a plane.

the video tutorial explains how to implement a rust effect on objects that intersect with a water plane
describes how to calculate the distance between a point and a plane
implemented using the Godot engine

Rules for a Future-Proof 2D Render Order

the article explains the sorting, rendering layer design for a 2D game
implemented using Unity
sorting layers also interact with how the dynamic 2D lights interact with the sprites

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Write-up: VHS Image Effect

post discusses a shader approach to implement a VHS effect using Unity

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Building WebGPU with Rust

the talk provides an overview of WebGPU and provides an overview of the implementation using Rust
this implementation is used by Firefox
shows the design considerations for the API, how to use it, and implementation discussions

Toon Lighting Basics

the blog post explains how to implement a simple Toon Lighting shader using the Amplify Shader Editor inside of Unity
shows how to configure the effect and use the idea to archive different looks

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Graphics.DrawProcedural

the Unity tutorial shows how to generate mesh data on compute shaders and draw them from the GPU without a CPU roundtrip

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Guide to Vulkan Synchronization Validation

this guide explains how to use the Vulkan Synchronization Validation layer
shows what kind of problems it can detect, how to debug these issues, and explain how to understand the messages

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Capturing GPU Work

the blog posts explains how PIX for windows captures work
provides insights into how the focus has shifted from API focused recording to GPU work recording

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Heat Haze Shader Graph How-To

the article explains how to implement a heat haze screenspace effect for a 2D game using Unity
implementation is done using Shader Graph
a video version of the tutorial is available too

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Radeon™ GPU Profiler 1.8 released

article shows the new Instruction Timing, Theoretical occupancy, and UI improvements in the latest version

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NVIDIA Announces Nsight Graphics 2020.5

new release adds support for NVIDIA Ampere microarchitecture
support for the Vulkan added to the Shader Profiler (including raytracing)

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Error Reporting Improvements for Vulkan Validation Layers

Vulkan validation layer has been updated to include additional and improved validation messages

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Procedural Physically based BRDF for Real-Time Rendering of Glints

the paper presents a physically-based model for the realtime rendering of sparkling materials
the implementation uses a pre-computed BRDF dictionary of ~390KB size
precomputation is independent of smoothness, so runtime variations are possible

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 149 — September 13, 2020

Sun, 13 Sep 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Continuous Multiple Importance Sampling (SIGGRAPH 2020 Presentation)

the video provides a great explanation of Monte Carlo integration importance sampling
presents how to generalize MIS to a from distinct techniques to a continuum of techniques
shows how to use the method for path reuse, spectral rendering, and photon planes

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I3D 2020 starts this Monday

summary on how to take part and find the content of I3D 2020

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Debugging D3D11 apps using D3D11On12

overview of debugging D3D11 applications using Pix for Windows
shows what is supported and what limitations exist

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Topics in Quantization for Games

the post discusses a variety of quantization topis to ensure conversion of precision
GPU based workloads should prefer centered quantization

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Technically Art: Issue 67 (11.09.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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VHS Video Material Tutorial

the Unreal tutorial explains how to apply a shader effect that converts a video into a VHS style looking video
presents the walkthrough of the Material Graph

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Stormscapes: Simulating Cloud Dynamics in the Now

the SIGGRAPH Asia 2020 paper presents a cloud simulation with high-level parameters
the system can simulate cumulus, stratus, and stratocumulus for the formation of dynamic cloud formations

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 148 — September 6, 2020

Sun, 06 Sep 2020 04:00:00 +0000

DOOM Eternal - Graphics Study

in-depth breakdown of the the frame strutcure in Doom eternal
major changes since Doom to 2016 include mesh decals, new GPU based light, decal culling and dynamic draw call merging

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Variable Rate Shading: first impressions

the blog post provides an overview of VRS modes, presents some possible use cases and performance numbers from the first tests in Wicket Engine

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Compressing PBR material texture sets with sparsity and k-SVD dictionary learning

the article provides an introduction to sparse and dictionary learning methods and applies these to try to archive better compression for full PBR texture set

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Compressed GPU texture formats – a review and compute shader decoders – part 2

this part of the series presents a discussion of how the BC6 and BC7 format is implemented
Additionally provides the necessary code to decode the format in a shader

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GPU Captures: How we support placed and reserved resources

the blog post explains how PIX for Windows tracks placed and reserved resources
uses active/inactive state tracking and presents what limitations exist

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Nsight: The Most Important Ampere Tools In Your Utility Belt

the article provides an overview of the Nvidia tools available and how they can be combined to improve application performance

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Porting Falcon Age to the Oculus Quest

the article provides a post-mortem view about the kind of changes, optimizations, and quality reductions had to be done to make the game run on the Oculus quest

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Shader Studies: Matrix Effect

the article provides a detailed breakdown of a shader that implements a matrix style effect that can be applied via tri-planar mapping to every surface

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Technically Art: Issue 66 (04.09.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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RenderDoc for Oculus

the blog post describes the custom Occulus fork of RenderDoc that adds support for a profiling mode
this mode offers a Tile Timeline view that allows investigation of tiled GPU performance
additionally also ads a Vulkan draw call metrics collector

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 147 — August 30, 2020

Sun, 30 Aug 2020 04:00:00 +0000

SIGGRAPH 2020 Course: Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice

slides and videos for all course talks are available
covering Fresnel modeling, MaterialX, Material Composition, Atmospheres system, and Anisotropic shading

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Samurai Shading in Ghost of Tsushima

the talk discusses the anisotropic specular techniques
presenting a new SGGX based filtering approach and fuzz BRDF for use with deferred shading
shows the importance of directional curvature

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Godot - OPTIMIZING A 3D SCENE

a guide aimed at beginners with Godot engine that presents an overview of the available counters
shows how to read the counters and use them to guide the process of optimizing rendering performance

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New in DirectX— Feature Level 12_2

the post lists the minimum requirements and optional features for D3D feature level 12_2

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Real-time rendering of water caustics

the article presents a WebGL based technique for caustics rendering
using a shadow map inspired offscreen target to gather the underwater geometry for intersection testing

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PIX Release 2008.26 – Our biggest update to GPU captures since 2017

blog post provides an overview the PIX for Windows changes
seen GPU capture improvement up to 57X at capture time, broader API support

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Introducing the new Vulkan Configurator (vkconfig)

the blog post contains an overview of the Vulkan Configurator
provides a demo video and a whitepaper

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Seven Things for August 27, 2020

collection of resources including a link to open Access Siggraph, interactive article on photogrammetry and history of the USD file format

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High Quality, High Performance Graphics in Filament

how to take advantage of tiling GPU architecture and enable the use of fp16 math
cloth shading, reduction of energy loss for rough metals, multi-bounce AO

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Quantitative Analysis of Z-Buffer Precision

the blog posts present an analysis of depth buffer precision
investigates reversed-z with a fixed far plane as well as an infinite projection far plane

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Physics-Based Differentiable Rendering: A Comprehensive Introduction

SIGGRAPH 2020 course that presents an overview of inverse-rendering techniques that try to solve the problem of reconstructing a scene description given a final rendering image

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Bringing an Accurate Fresnel to Real-Time Rendering: a Preintegrable Decomposition

presents a new model for Fresnel reflectance that provides a unification of Schlick and Gulbrandsen models with linear properties within realtime constraints

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Fresnel model #12

Continued discussion on fresnel shading sparked by the talks of Siggraph 2020 - Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice course

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 146 — August 23, 2020

Sun, 23 Aug 2020 04:00:00 +0000

How I turned my side project into a paper at a top graphics conference

the article presents a walkthrough and experiences of getting a paper included in Siggraph 2020

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Vulkan - Robustness

the guide explains how optional robustness features allow Vulkan applications to treat out-of-bounds access as operations with well-defined behavior

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An early release of pbrt-v4 and some notes about pbrt-gpu

the first release of pbrt-v4, adds new rendering techniques but also adds support for GPU rendering
10-20x speedup compared to 32-core Threadripper
the article provides a list of new techniques and link to code walkthrough video

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Introduction to the Vulkan Computer Graphics API

Siggraph 2020 course that provides an API overview for basic drawing in Vulkan

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Single Pass Stereo: a study

Single Pass Stereo is a technique that can be used to simultaneously project geometry for the left and right eye in the same pass
Part 1 discusses the advantages/disadvantages of Single Pass Stereo from a high-level perspective
the second part presents an in-depth discussion of the problems of SPS

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SIGGRAPH 2020 Links

growing link collection to resources from Siggraph 2020

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Advances in Monte Carlo Rendering: The Legacy of Jaroslav Křivánek

SIGGRAPH 2020 course that reviews and discusses insights of techniques introduced Jaroslav Křivánek that shaped the research of light transport

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Zero-Variance Theory for Efficient Subsurface Scattering

the Siggraph 2020 course presents guided sampling techniques that reduce variance to allow faster convergence for Subsurface Scattering

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Path Trace Visualization - Part 1

the article presents how to implement a path visualization system for a GPU path tracer

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HDR Scattering and Tone Mapping

The Unity tutorial explains how to add HDR rendering support to a custom scriptable render pipeline
including an overview of different Tone Mapping techniques

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A Primer on sokol_gfx.h

the article provides an overview of the scope of the sokol_gfx 3D API wrapper
provides an overview of the architecture and the zero initialization principle

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 145 — August 16, 2020

Sun, 16 Aug 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Best Practices: Using NVIDIA RTX Ray Tracing

the article provides an extensive list of best practices for DXR usage
covers acceleration structures, GPU utilization, memory allocations, handling of non-opaque geometries, binding, performance and pipeline state best practices

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Binding Bindlessly

the blog post explains what the bindless model is
shows how to use for Textures and how to replace Vertex Layouts
examples are for D3D12, but links to information for Vulkan is provided

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Jet Set Vulkan : Reflecting on the move to Vulkan

the article provides a basic overview of how the OpenGL ES based engine was ported to Vulkan
lists performance issues encountered such as Sparse Indexing, vkQueuePresent blocking and barrier usage for improved throughput
provides a comparison of CPU, GPU usage with OpenGL and Vulkan

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Procedural Paintings with Genetic Evolution Algorithm

the blog post explains how the author implemented a precural painting logic using compute shaders
explains how the algithmn was structrued, discussiong ecoutnered problems and solutions implemented

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Compressed GPU texture formats – a review and compute shader decoders – part 1

the article presents an overview of the DXT and ETC compression formats
shows how information is compressed and how to decode these formats from a compute shader

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Writing Shaders in VS Code: GLSL Setup

short post presenting how to setup VSCode to allow GLSL shader iteration

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Rendering Perfect Reflections and Refractions in Path-Traced Games

the article explains primary surface replacement (PSR) and checkerboarded split frame rendering (CSFR)
these techniques are presented as a possible solution for high-quality reflections and refractions in a mixed hybrid renderer design that relies on GBuffers for primary rays

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[video] Torus Knots explained!

A video tutorial that explains how to implement a shader to render a torus knot using ShaderToy
starts by explaining the foundational math followed by the shader implementation

Render Target Abstraction

the article discusses the different render target requirements for D3D12 and Vulkan and presents 4 alternative solutions to design an abstraction

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 144 — August 9, 2020

Sun, 09 Aug 2020 04:00:00 +0000

LunarG Releases Enhanced Vulkan Configurator in new SDKs

Vulkan SDK release contains a graphics vkconfig tool to allow users to configure layer settings
can be enabled to control which layers are active, filter error messages, etc
the SDK now also contains Vulkan Synchronization validation and distributes the DXC compiler for PC, Mac, and Linux

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Fire Shader Breakdown

the Unity tutorials show how to implement a fire effect using a camera facing quad with shader based noise to wrap a noise texture to create the look

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Nonsingular Point Light Attenuation

the Siggraph 2020 talk presents the derivation of a point light attenuation that eliminates the singularity as the distance approaches 0
achieves this by treating point lights as simplified spherical lights
provides comparisons against other solutions

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Case Study: Vector Displacement Mapping in Real-Time

the article shows an overview of what vertex displacement mapping techniques are and how to generate data using Mudbox for use with Unity

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A little clarification on modern shader compile times

the article an overview of the complexities with Pipeline management in D3D12 and Vulkan applications
showing why many AAA release include long shader compilation steps at application startup time

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Perspective! 1: theory side

the article shows the theory of perspective projects and discuses perspective distortion

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Full Screen Shaders in HDRP, URP, and Built In Renderer

the Unity tutorial shows how to write a simple fullscreen heat haze shader an apply in the different rendering pipelines

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Eight years at Roblox

the article provides at the authors work of the last 8 years
this provides a great insight into how large scale engines evolve overtime to solve new requirements and improve

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Technically Art: Issue 63 (07.08.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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[UNITY VFX TUTORIAL] Creating a Stylized Magical Barrier in Unity

this video tutorial shows how to implement an Overwatch magical shield effect
a transparent material with pulsating energy effects
the effect is achieved in Unity using the visual amplify node graph system

Thanks to Spencer Sherk for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 143 — August 2, 2020

Sun, 02 Aug 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Reverse engineering the rendering of The Witcher 3, part 20 - light shafts

the in-depth article presents how the light shafts in The Witcher 3 have been implemented
explains how a radial blur can be applied and provides a shadertoy to showcase the example implementation

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SIGGRAPH 2020 Course: Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice

overview of the SIGGRAPH 2020 PBR course
contains the titles, speakers and abstracts of this year’s talks

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Systematic Evaluation of the Quality Benefits of Spatiotemporal Sample Reprojection in Real-Time Stereoscopic Path Tracing

the paper presents an evaluation of what kind of gains can be achieved with temporal reprojection in a path tracer setting
uses an SSIM (structural similarity index ) metric to relate spatially and temporally reprojected path traced image to a purely path traced image with similar quality
provides data for multiple scenes and sample counts

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Technically Art: Issue 62 (31.07.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Efficiency Tips on Switching Spaces and Transformation Matrices in Unity

part 2 of an article series discussing the mathematical foundation of matrix/vector operations
presents different methods exposed by Unity and explains differences of the various methods

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Custom SRP - Post Processing Bloom

next part in a Unity SRP (scriptable render pipeline) tutorial series covering the implementation of a bloom post-processing effect

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Oceans with Unity Shader Graph

A video tutorial that shows how to implement a stylized ocean shader using Shader Graph in Unity

Seven things for July 30, 2020

collection of 7 compelling links to compute graphics/programming related topics

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Retro Renderman: shading on Finding Nemo’

the article presents how the corals in finding Nemo have been shaded

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Engine Work: DDGI Light Probe Depth Data Compression

the article presents a few techniques to compress Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination probe information
presented compression reduced the size from 2.4GB into 168MB

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Render graphs

brief article showing an overview of a render graph API
discussing the reasons why this kind of architecture could be beneficial
summary of the goals of the project

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 142 — July 26, 2020

Sun, 26 Jul 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Vulkan synchronisation and graphics-compute-graphics hazards: Part I

the article presents an overview of Vulkan barriers and shows how different barriers influence a PowerVR chip’s ability to overlap work

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Vulkan synchronisation and graphics-compute-graphics hazards: Part 2

the second part of the series presents how to overlap work from two consecutive frames by submitting each frame to its own queue

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using embree generated BVH trees for GPU raytracing

the blog post presents how to use the Intel Embree library to generate a BVH tree for use with a GPU raytracer
offers performance and memory comparisons for the different quality modes available

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Retro Renderman: shading food for ‘ratatouille’

the article present how the food in ‘Ratatouille’ was shaded based on the skin model
using a subsurface scattering approximation on a voxel grid
artists were given much control over the final more stylized appearance

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Sprite Outlines

the Unity tutorial explains how to add an outline to a 2D sprite
implemented using 8 extra texture samples around the shading point
additional presents a way to make the outline size independent of the sprite size

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Technically Art: Issue 61 (24.07.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Compute Shader

the Unity tutorial explains how to create basic compute shaders
shows how to use a compute shade to generate random positions in a sphere and use these position from the CPU to render meshes

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Passing Particle System Data into Shadergraph (Custom Vertex Streams)

This Unity tutorial shows how to pass data from the Shuriken Particle System to the particle shader

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Fundamentals of the Vulkan Graphics API: Why Rendering a Triangle is Complicated

the article provides a high-level explanation of the Vulkan API concepts required to render a single triangle on the screen
contains well-documented example implementations to clarify some ideas through code examples

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Unreal Engine Sky Atmosphere Rendering Technique

open source D3D11 implementation of the paper presented at EGSR 2020 “A Scalable and Production Ready Sky and Atmosphere Rendering Technique”

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Why Not Use Heterogeneous Multi-GPU?

the blog posts list a few possible drawbacks that need to be considered if a mix of dedicated GPU and integrated GPU is supposed to be used in a single application

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Quick Game Art Tip - Sprite/UI Color Mask

a small shader example that shows that texture channels can be reserved to allow objects to change color dynamically at runtime

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 141 — July 19, 2020

Sun, 19 Jul 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Optimizing Compute Shaders for L2 Locality using Thread-Group ID Swizzling

the article shows how to improve performance of fullscreen compute shader passes by tiling thread workloads to take advantage of memory locality
test cases show an example improvement of 1.47x on memory bound workloads

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Art Tips from a Graphics Programmer 1, FRESNEL!

a twitter thread that visually explains what the Fresnel effect is and how it affects the appearance of different objects

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Shadow Move Rendering in Killer Instinct: Season 3

the blog post presents how the shadow move technique was implemented in Killer Instinct: Season 3
the effect uses information from the previous frame in offscreen render targets combined with movement noise, flow maps, and trail renders attached to bones

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Three key techniques for improving mobile game graphics using PVRTexTool

the blog post provides an overview of mipmapping, Colour Bleeding, and pre-multiplied alpha

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Indexed Material Mapping Tecnique

the short blogpost shows an artists material setup that uses a small 16x16 LUT as indirection table into PBR materials

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Technically Art: Issue 60 (17.07.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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GPU Memory Aliasing

the article discusses what memory aliasing exposed from Vulkan and D3D12 is and how it can be used to reduce memory usage
provides an example implementation of an algorithm that implements a resource aliasing allocator

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[video] HPG 2020 - High-Performance Graphics (Day 1)

Towards Fully Ray-Traced Games: Addressing System-Level Challenges (Holger Gruen, Intel)
Generalized Light Portals
Efficient Adaptive Deferred Shading with Hardware Scatter Tiles
Post-Render Warp with Late Input Sampling Improves Aiming Under High Latency Conditions

[video] HPG 2020 - High-Performance Graphics (Day 2)

Neural Denoising for Path Tracing of Medical Volumetric Data
High-Performance Image Filters via Sparse Approximations
FLIP: A Difference Evaluator for Alternating Images
Evaluation of Graphics-based General Purpose Computation Solutions for Safety Critical Systems: An Avionics Case Study
Euclid NIR GPU: Embedded GPU-accelerated Near-Infrared Image Processing for On-board Space Systems.
Fast Eye-Adaptation for High Performance Mobile Applications. (Morteza Mostajab, Theodor Mader)

[video] HPG 2020 - High-Performance Graphics (Day 3)

Porting PBRT to the GPU While Preserving its Soul
Quadratic Approximation of Cubic Curves
Using Hardware Ray Transforms to Accelerate Ray/Primitive Intersections for Long, Thin Primitive Types
Sub-Triangle Opacity Masks for Faster Ray Tracing of Transparent Objects
Improved Triangle Encoding for Cached Adaptive Tessellation
Iterative GPU Occlusion Culling with BVH
Ray-casting inspired visualisation pipeline for multi-scale heterogeneous objects

NVIDIA Research: Warp Drive Gaming – Eliminate More than 80% of the Latency Performance Penalty

the paper presents a technique that uses late input latching and wrapping wrap render results to match camera rotations based on ideas from VR

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Now You Can Choose High-Performing Unity Shaders

the article provides an overview of the performance that can be expected from several Unity Engine shaders
the provided information is from the Mali OpenGL ES shader compiler

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An Exploration of GPU Silhouette Rendering

the article presents many techniques for rendering broad outlines for 3D objects
provides performance and quality comparisons of the different techniques
the final result is a flood fill based approach

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[video] Unity: Make It Rain with Amplify Shader Editor

this Unity tutorial explains how to implement a rain effect on the surface of objects using a technique that is used on a tri-planar mapping
droplets on flat surfaces and streaks when angled
this is implemented using the Amplify Shader Editor

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 140 — July 12, 2020

Sun, 12 Jul 2020 04:00:00 +0000

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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PIX 2006.26 – Fence Signal/Wait Arrows in GPU Captures

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

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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

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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

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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

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Resolving Metal GPU timers

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 139 — July 5, 2020

Sun, 05 Jul 2020 04:00:00 +0000

[video] two minute papers - This is Geometry Processing Made Easy

a brief summary video of the “Monte Carlo Geometry Processing: A Grid-Free Approach to PDE-Based Methods on Volumetric Domains” paper
presents how this paper connects to light transport and provides an overview of 6 examples and a look at implementations of the technique

Practical Product Sampling by Fitting and Composing Warps

the paper presents an importance sampling method that is based on wrap functions that approximate a single factor
introduces how to use the technique with several existing techniques including projected solid angle sampling, glossy BSFDs, and others

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Warping samples paper at rendering symposium

an additional explanation for the previously discussed paper containing the implementation for a rectangular area light

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Graphics on the web and beyond with WebGPU

the article provides an overview of the WebGPU API and shows the steps necessary to render a textured, spinning cube

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Lights and Shadows

the great in-depth article explains the concepts of light with many interactive examples
illustrates the connection between the different units, explains connected concepts such as solid-angle
additionally explains the relationship between reflections, shadows, and color

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Specular Manifold Sampling for Rendering High-Frequency Caustics and Glints

the paper presents a new technique that combines techniques caustics and glint into a single framework
the presented technique combines deterministic root finding and stochastic sampling

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Introducing neural supersampling for real-time rendering

the paper presents a neural network upsampling technique that is aimed at 16x upsampling for real-time rendering
the neural network takes advantage of additional information such as depth values and motion vectors

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Cancel your SIGGRAPH hotel; attend EGSR, HPG, and I3D 2020 virtually, free

list of computer graphics conferences, dates and links to the stream as they are all virtual this year

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Point and Spot Shadows Perspective Shadows

Unity tutorial that shows how to implement realtime shadows for point and spotlights using a custom scriptable render pipeline

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A Taxonomy of Bidirectional Scattering Distribution Function Lobes for Rendering Engineers

the paper presents a taxonomy of the lobes that are composed to create a BSDF
gives a hierarchical breakdown of the different models with examples for the different branches

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Fast Render Target Rendering in Unreal Engine 4

the article presents how to efficiently implement render-to-texture techniques using UE4
compares the implementation using Slate and Canvas and shows why a slate based implementation is a lot quicker

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Screen space shadows

the articles show what screenspace shadows can add to the scene, provide an example of implementation, and show how noise can reduce banding

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Intersection of a ray and a plane

the article shows how to derive the intersection between a ray and a plane

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 138 — June 28, 2020

Sun, 28 Jun 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Get to know Metal function pointers

the Metal shader API now supports function pointers
the talk provides an overview of the compilation models and performance considerations
function tables can be passed via argument buffers t the GPU

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Scanline Effect

the Unity tutorial explains how to implement a moving scanline post-processing effect

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[video] NVIDIA Nsight Feature Spotlight: GPU Trace

the video provides an overview of the D3D12 frame-level profiler
walkthrough of an example capture of Wolfenstein scene and uses it to explain how to use it to identify performance issues

Constant data in Vulkan

the article explains several different methods that can be used to manage shader constant data
provides a brief overview of each technique and compares performance on Mali GPUs

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SHAD2: shaders, but more difficult

the article explains a method that stores shader instructions encoded into a texture and uses a runtime shader to interpret the data
shows an experiment what happens if the texture is filled with random information

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The 31st Eurographics Symposium on Rendering

the program for the online conference taking place this week
all videos are available on youtube and linked from this program

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Features that are coming to iOS and MacOS

a twitter thread that lists new features Metal API features and provides links to documentation for each topic
including Programmable Blending, Indirect Command Buffers for Compute and many more

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[video] Rendering Roblox: Vulkan Optimisations on Imagination PowerVR GPUs (Presented by Imagination Technologies)

the GDC talk discusses the voxel-based lighting and shadow system
how to handle performance vs. quality tradeoffs in algorithms
uses MSAA to increase the effective resolution on shadow maps on higher-end devices
how to implement gaussian blur efficiently with async compute
presents shader optimizations for PowerVR hardware

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Graphics Study: Red Dead Redemption 2

the article presents a frame breakdown of the PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2
covering g-buffer breakdown, environment map filtering, shadow pipeline, and more supporting systems

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NVIDIA Posts First DirectX 12 Ultimate Driver Set, Enables GPU Hardware Scheduling

NVidia driver update adds support for DXR 1.1, VRS Tier 2, mesh shaders and sampler feedback
additionally now supports Vulkan 1.2

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Optimize Metal apps and games with GPU counters

a video from WWDC 20 provides an overview of the GPU pipeline, what hardware counters are available and how to use them understand application performance bottlenecks

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Discover ray tracing with Metal

video from WWDC explains the basic building blocks of the Metal ray tracing API and how to support more complex materials

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Creating Optimal Meshes for Ray Tracing

the article provides an overview of several problematic mesh characteristics that cause an issue for ray tracing and how to resolve them

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 137 — June 21, 2020

Sun, 21 Jun 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Rendering Layered Materials with Anisotropic Interfaces

a lightweight and efficient method to render layered materials with anisotropic interfaces
based around GGX BRDF lobes approximations when aligned with the tangent frame

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Technically Art: Issue 57 (19.06.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Improving GPU Profiling on Oculus Quest

overview of two new libraries developed by Oculus and Qualcomm to expose low-level profiling information designed for tile-based architectures
Ovrgpuprofiler is a CLI application that provides access to assembled real-time metric details based on the low-level information

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Implementing Stochastic Levels of Detail with Microsoft DirectX Raytracing

the article presents how to use stochastic LOD selection for a DXR based ray-tracer
the given technique uses a combination of ray and instance mask to influence the ray selection
discusses the importance of selecting consistent LODs between rays and shows a performance comparison

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Oodle Texture slashes game sizes

the article explains how Oodle Texture can prepare BC textures in such a way that secondary compressions stages (such as zlib) will be able to compress it further
shows what Rate-Distortion Optimization is and presents considerations regarding the importance of error estimators

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Announcing CUDA on Windows Subsystem for Linux 2

the article presents CUDA for WSL 2, how to use it and additionally shows how it cooperates with container workloads

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Detecting Bias in Monte Carlo Renderers using Welch’s t-test

the paper presents to Welch’s statistical t-test can be used to detect bias even with low sample counts
presents techniques to visualize and analyze the test results

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GPU Optimization for GameDev

an extensive collection resource covering various aspects of GPU optimizations

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Creating shader animation in Unity

the article presents how to create a running rat animation using a vertex shader
this is archived by using UV partitioning to apply different animations to different body parts

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From 0 to glTF with WebGPU: The First Triangle

the first part of a WebGPU series shows the necessary steps required to render the first triangle

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From 0 to glTF with WebGPU: Bind Groups

this tutorial explains how to bind resources and uses this to add basic camera movement support

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Can’t Invert the CDF? The Triangle-Cut Parameterization of the Region under the Curve

the paper presents a technique that allows Cumulative Distribution Functions that cannot be inverted to still offer an analytical and exact solution
shows the method at the example of a unit square, stratified sampling of a truncated disk and torus

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The Forge - Raytracing Benchmarks

overview of cross-platform raytracing abstraction in “The Forge” and a summary of performance numbers on different platforms

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A Scalable and Production Ready Sky and Atmosphere Rendering Technique

the paper presents the sky and atmosphere model developed by Epic Games that support dynamic viewpoints between planet surface and space
support different weather and planetary atmospheric settings without high dimensional lookup tables

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[video] Flowmaps, gradient maps, gas giants

the video tutorial explains UV animation, extending this to support varying animations between pixels using flow maps
uses the presented technique to implement a movement of a planet atmosphere using the Godot engine

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 136 — June 14, 2020

Sun, 14 Jun 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Followup tidbits on RGBE

the author presents considerations for designing conversations explained with the example of RGBE encoding
discusses quantization, round trip error, and precision maximization

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The Center of the Pixel is (0.5,0.5)

the article explains how to deal with pixel coordinates correctly
shows why pixel center coordinates are at half-offsets
additionally shows how to integrate this into a ray-tracer correctly

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Real-Time Ray Tracing Summit

an online summit with talks about ray tracing topics
covers topic such as ray tracing API, usages in games and developments for mobile

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Preliminary HPG 2020 Program

program for talks that will be presented as part of high-performance graphics 2020
lectures will be streamed for registered attendees and recordings will be released after the conference

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Fast 2D rendering on GPU

the article provides an overview of an algorithm for GPU based rendering of 2D vector graphics
presents a performance comparison against other existing solutions

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High Fidelity Graphics for games with HDRP

the talk from Unit presents techniques required for best results with Unity High definition rendering pipeline
shows how to light a scene following photography theory

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Parallel CSG Operations on GPU

the article presents how a CSG Operation implementation based around point clouds has been designed for GPU architectures

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Animated Light Cookie Shader (Cloud & Tree Shadows)

the Unity tutorial shows how to dynamically generate light blocker textures to simulate clouds and tree shadows

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[Video] EG / STARs 5 / Neural Rendering / Wednesday

the collection of talks for the field of neural rendering methods
starting with an overview of the area, covering semantic photosynthesis, novel view synthesis
closing with a look at the state of the art

Fake vs True Displacement - Part 1/2

the two-part article series shows the difference between Bump-maps, Normal-maps, Displacement and Vector Displacement
presents an in-depth overview of the different techniques and compares the strengths and weakness with a visual presentation of the results

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Perceptually Smooth Multi-Color Linear Gradients

the notebook shows how to interpolate gradients in a perceptually smooth way using Catmull Rom splines
the website allows experimentation with results in several color spaces

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[Video] Optimizing Roblox: Vulkan Best Practices for Mobile Developers

Vulkan talks that cover the Vulkan sample framework, load/store operations, sub-passes, pipeline barriers
Roblox presents how to they manage command buffers, descriptors, render passes and pipeline state

Quadrant-Sizing for Efficient UI Rendering

the author presents his implementation of a UI element system that allows arbitrary object scaling in a single draw call
the technique does not support texturing and requires offline pre-processing

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Distance Field Ray Tracing Part 1: Volume Textures and Ray Marching Primer

the UE4 tutorial is a primer on how to build distance field shapes and use raymarching from volume texture to render them

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Casual Shadertoy Path Tracing 3: Fresnel, Rough Refraction & Absorption, Orbit Camera

path 3 of path tracing shows how to extend the materials to support fresnel as well as reflection and absorption for rough materials

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 135 — June 7, 2020

Sun, 07 Jun 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Work-Efficiency vs. Step-Efficiency

the article discusses how to classify GPGPU work into the critical sequential work and the total amount of work done across all workers
presents how this division is useful to talk and understand the performance of algorithms

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Widespread error in Radiance HDR RGBE conversions

the article presents how RGBE 8888 should be encoded and decoded correctly
explains the reasoning and shows how the encoding format works

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Casual Shadertoy Path Tracing 2: Image Improvement and Glossy Reflections

part 2 of path tracing implementation series, adding Glossy reflection Anti-Aliasing, tone mapping, and camera exposure

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SIGGRAPH Spotlight: Episode 35 – Real-Time, Ray Tracing, and Realism

Podcast episode with Arisa Scott (Unity), Eric Haines (NVIDIA), Mike Hardison (Blizzard Entertainment), Mohen Leo (ILM)
discussing the evolution of real-time technology and upcoming techniques

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How to evenly distribute points on a sphere more effectively than the canonical Fibonacci Lattice

the article explains how to use to distribute points onto the surface of a sphere

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LunarG releases GFXReconstruct, a new Vulkan Capture/Replay Tool, with SDK 1.2.141

new Vulkan SDK now contains the Microsoft Shader Compiler
GFXReconstruct is a new layer and tool that will replace vktrace, it allows recording and playback of Vulkan commands

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SPIR-V Guide

this guide is designed to explain SPIR-V, what to use it for and present an overview of the internals
additionally provides instructions for tooling and extension mechanism

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Writing Shader Code for the Universal RP

Shader guide that explains how to write Unity shaders that are compatible with the Universal Render Pipeline
highlighting differences between the built-in pipeline and Universal Render Pipeline

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Messed up 3D Meshes: A case study in the limits of integer floating point

the article shows problems of floating-point precision in the model export pipeline

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Ambient Occlusion

the presentation explains what Ambient Occlusion is, and provides an overview of different algorithms used to implement the effect

Real-time Cubism Shader

presents a method to implement a Cubism effect, similar to what can be seen in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”
provides a Unity implementation

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Sharpening the renderer

the article presents Contrast Adaptive Sharpening and how it’s used in EVE to make details on ships and planet surfaces clearer

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Texture Generation Part 2: Normal Swizzling

Unity tutorial that shows to mix Normal map correctly
considerations to export normal maps to take the most advantage of the BC compresses precision

Thanks to Graham Wihlidal for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 134 — May 31, 2020

Sun, 31 May 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Casual Shadertoy Path Tracing 1: Basic Camera, Diffuse, Emissive

A tutorial that shows a practical walkthrough on how to implement a path tracer in shadertoy
focuses on the generation of renderings instead of physical correctness

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Curving Corner Texture UVs

the article shows how to generate UVs for curved corners using Unity

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Iterating on Variable Rate Shading in Gears Tactics

the articles present how the VRS (Variable Rate Shading) implementation was approached
offers performance and quality considerations
shows how the shading rate was adjusted dynamically

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Civilization VI Fog of War

This Unity tutorial explains how to implement a Civilization VI style fog of war system
shows how to render the hex grid, use a compute shader to generate visibility masks and combine all parts for the final result

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New geometry pipeline in Magnum

the articles describe the design of the new geometry (import) pipeline of the Magnum engine
the new design focuses on the reduction of load time and extra flexibility to handle any GPU understood format

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The design and evolution of the UberBake light baking system

A global illumination system developed by Activision
the system is based on a static light baking approach with runtime support for dynamically changing lights and geometry

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Progressing in Circles

the articles presents different approaches on how to implement a ring progression effect
compares rendering quality, anti-aliasing, performance, and setup work for each method
proves Unity source code for all presented solutions

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Technically Art: Issue 56 (29.05.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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A survey of temporal antialiasing techniques: presentation notes

authors notes on the Survey of Temporal Antialiasing Techniques talk from the Eurographics 2020 virtual conference
discussing TAA, how it works, how different implementations compare, weaknesses and possible future improvements

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Point and Spot Lights Lights with Limited Influence

the next part in a Unity tutorial series on the scriptable render pipeline
this part adds support for point lights, Spot Lights, static light baking and per-object lights

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Borderland between Rendering and Editor — Part 2: Picking

the article explains how the GPU based picking system in “Our Machinery” has been implemented
presented solution writes a small UAV from the pixel shader to record the closes picked object
shows how to make sure that the closes object is atomically returned

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Reverse engineering the rendering of The Witcher 3, part 19 - portals

the article shows how the portal rendering effect in The Witcher 3 has been implemented
shows the Reverse engineered HLSL shader implementation

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Stochastic Substitute Trees for Real-Time Global Illumination

a GI algorithm based around tracing Virtual point lights (VPLs), converting clusters of VPLs into probability distributions and storing these into hierarchical trees

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Thanks to Dominik Lazarek for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 133 — May 24, 2020

Sun, 24 May 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Dimensionality reduction for image and texture set compression

detailed post presents the idea of “decorrelating” color channels to maximize information in texture channels and eliminate redundancy allowing data to be stored in fewer color channels
introduction into Singular Value Decomposition SVD and how it can be used for channel decorrelation
showing quality comparisons for a PBR texture set and discusses possible problems

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DirectX is coming to the Windows Subsystem for Linux

Version 2 of Windows Subsystem for Linux adds full support for D3D12 (not allows rendering to the screen yet)
this is implemented as Linux kernel model driver to expose the GPU to user mode Linux applications
DirectML and CUDA are implemented on top to allow machine learning on Linux guests

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Video: Gears 5 – High-Gear Visuals On Multiple Platforms

relaxed cone step mapping for relief mapping to add more details
async compute based tesselation for interactive terrain
the interactive deformations have been implemented using texture-atlas based technique
running pixel bound post-processing in parallel with the pre-pass of the following frame
advice for the reduction of d3d12 hitches

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From Built-in to URP

collection of concepts, macros, shader logics, that exists in unity build-in render pipeline and how they are represented in the new Universal Render Pipeline

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Vulkan Helper Libraries Survey

Khronos questionary that presents a list of suggestion for possible vulkan helper libraries
looking for feedback on which libraries would be of most interest from developers

Making a clean (mini)map using Navmesh and a Shader

Unity tutorial that shows how to use a navmesh as a base for minimap rendering

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Accelerating Ray Tracing with Origin Offsets

the paper proposed a new method that aims to improve ray tracing by offsetting ray starting point aways from the originating leaf nodes of the acceleration structures
the suggested proposal is generating an auxiliary data structure of hemispheres that make it robust to offset the ray starting point

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Texture Generation

A unity tutorial that shows how to blend multiple textures together and save them to disk using Unity

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Technically Art: Issue 55 (22.05.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Welcome to the joint conferences, Eurographics & Eurovis 2020

Eurographics & Eurovis 2020 conference will be virtual and streamed starting May 25-29, 2020

Quick Introduction to Mesh Shaders (OpenGL and Vulkan)

brief overview and introduction into Mesh Shaders using OpenGL and Vulkan

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Optimizing for the RDNA architecture: presentation notes

collection of notes about the content of the AMD talk presenting the AMD RDNA architecture and GPU optimizations
presents a walkthrough of a MIP generation example

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Rendered #1

A new newsletter with news and insight on volumetric filmmaking, virtual production, 3D rendering, and other emerging realities

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Thanks to Trevor Black for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 132 — May 17, 2020

Sun, 17 May 2020 03:00:00 +0000

Spatiotemporal reservoir resampling for real-time ray tracing with dynamic direct lighting

the paper presents a new technique that allows a massive number of dynamic lights to be rendered in real-time
the presented implementation shows 3.4 million dynamic, emissive triangles in under 50 ms
this is archived by reusing information from spatially and temporally adjacent pixels to filter probabilities to guide rays

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Let's build ... 2020

AMD virtual event that contains talks about
- Ryzen™ Processor Software Optimization
- optimizing for Radeon™ RDNA Architecture
- From Source to ISA: A Trip Down the Shader Compiler Pipeline
- A Review of GPUOpen Effects
- Curing Amnesia and Other GPU Maladies With AMD Developer Tools
- Radeon™ ProRender Full Spectrum Rendering 2.0: The Universal Rendering API

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Technically Art: Issue 54 (15.05.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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I haz a GDC talk - Real-Time CSG

overview of what Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) is and workflows
presents the algorithm that allows for iterative updates including how to calculate intersections and mesh generation

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Getting started with Radeon Memory Visualizer (RMV)

the post provides an overview of the new AMD memory profiler for Vulkan and D3D12
this tool allows gaining a deeper understanding of memory usage
shows all allocations, tracked on a timeline, will enable comparisons of snapshots and gives warnings about possible problems

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Using Blue Noise For Raytraced Soft Shadows

the article shows how to calculate the shadows from the sun
presents the results of the shadow quality with white and blue noise
the implementation is then extended to Spherical Positional and spotlights

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Ray Marching Fog With Blue Noise

the article presents how using blue noise can improve ray marching results
provides a shadertoy that compares against white noise

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Frame Analysis - Minecraft RTX Beta

presents a breakdown of the RTX implementation for Minecraft

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Some brief thoughts on how Nanite in UE5 possibly works....

the author presents his ideas about how the Nanite technology in the UE5 tech demo might be implemented

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Some thoughts on Unreal 5's Nanite - in way too many words

the article that discusses possible ideas on how the UE5 nanite technology might be implemented
contains links to exciting techniques that might be related, or inspired the development

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NVIDIA Ampere Architecture In-Depth

an overview of the new Nvidia Ampere Architecture aimed at compute workloads
new tensor cores for f32 data, IEE compliant fp64, and BF16 throughput improvements
adds the ability to run multiple processes on the same GPU with error isolation

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CUDA 11 Features Revealed

overview of new features in CUDA 11 and how the NVIDIA Ampere GPU hardware features are exposed

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 131 — May 10, 2020

Sun, 10 May 2020 03:00:00 +0000

Ray Tracing Essentials Part 7: Denoising for Ray Tracing

the final part of raytracing series
presents what denoising techniques are and why they are required
presents a comparison in multiple scenes, explaining how neural network technique is trained

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a history of nvidia stream multiprocessor

the article presents an overview of the Nvidia GPU architecture and how they developed over time
shows changes done to the hardware, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the design

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Rendering volumetric clouds using signed distance fields

presents a technique that combines singed distance fields and ray marching to render static volumetric clouds
the signed distance field is used to only use ray-marching once inside the cloud volume

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Monte Carlo Geometry Processing: A Grid-Free Approach to PDE-Based Methods on Volumetric Domains

the paper presents how to apply the monte-carle methods to geometry processing

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On Ray Reordering Techniques for Faster GPU Ray Tracing

the paper presents an overview of ray sorting techniques and introduces a new method for ray sorting of secondary rays

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A perceptual model of motion quality for rendering with adaptive refresh-rate and resolution

this paper presents the results of testing done into human perception, comparing test-cases for perceived quality differences between resolution and framerate
proposes a model for prediction to enable an application to dynamically adjust framerate and resolution based on the findings to achieve the highest perceived visual quality

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[video] Animal Crossing, wobbly leaves, pivot caching.

the Video presents an overview of a shader technique implementing the behavior of leaves in Animal Crossing
this technique is based around storing individual pivots for multiple leaves and applying dynamic effects based on this
implementation with blender and Godot is shown

Point of WebGPU on native

the author presents his view on WebGPU for use in native applications
showing why it could be an excellent offer for many types of developers if it can deliver on its promises

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GPU architecture resources

collection of resource links to presentations, papers and articles focusing on the details of GPU architectures

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CUDA Refresher: Getting started with CUDA

a brief overview on how to get started with CUDA
programming model and required components

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Meshlete - Chop 3D objects to meshlets

a tool to generate meshlets for use with compute based culling algorithms or mesh shaders
explains the difference between Bounding Spheres and Visibility Cones and how to use them for culling parts of meshes more efficiently

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Thanks to Jens Hartmann for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 130 — May 3, 2020

Sun, 03 May 2020 03:00:00 +0000

Real-time Shadows

the presentation provides an in-depth overview of shadow techniques for real-time applications
discusses what shadow maps are, how they are rendered, stored and used
provides an overview of common problems and solutions
additionally provides an overview of more advanced techniques such as filtering and cascaded shadow maps

Physically-Based Materials – Energy Conservation and Reciprocity

the article presents the definition of a physically-based material that is energy conservation and reciprocity
reciprocity is essential to be able to use bi-directional path tracing techniques
looks at common methods such as Pre-Filtered Environment Maps, several Dielectric Material implementations presenting if they are reciprocal and/or energy-conserving and explaining why

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Prefix sum on Vulkan

the article presents how to implement a prefix sum using Vulkan compute shaders
looking at memory model, dynamic allocations and subgroup controls

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Depth-Based Post Effects

the Unity tutorial explains how to use the depth texture to apply a localized toon shading effect
shows how to sample the depth texture, unpack the data and use it in a shader

Profiling DXR Shaders with Timer Instrumentation

new Nvidia extension for D3D12 that provides shaders the possibility to query timestamps from within a shader
the article explains how to use this technique to visualize the performance of TraceRay( … ) with a heatmap
shows how to enable the extension in C++ and how to integrate it into a shader
comparable to the VK_KHR_shader_clock extension

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Complex Maps Masks, Details, and Normals

next part in the Unity Tutorial series about implementing a custom scriptable rendering pipeline
adds support for more complex materials such as details maps and normal mapping

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[video] Tech Focus: What Is VRS And Is It A Next-Gen Game-Changer? Variable Rate Shading Analysis!

the video provides an overview of Variable Rate Shading (VRS)
present an overview of VRS implementation in Wolfenstein New Blood and Gears: Tactics for performance and quality
discusses considerations in how difference workload affect the performance gains that can be expected from VRS

Frame Analysis - Mortal Kombat 11

breakdown of the rendering techniques used in Mortal Kombat 11

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It’s time we talk about TDR

the article presents an alternative execution model that would be able to improve upon Timeout Detection and Recovery mechanism found in the OS
after 2 seconds the OS will terminate GPU processes and cause a device lost event
the proposal is to make the OS GPU process-aware which allows applications to start independent GPU processes that would behave similarly to CPU processes

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A Taste of WebGPU in Firefox

the article provides an overview of the WebGPU API
covers the state of the implementation on Firefox and presents the next steps currently in progress

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Fast Subsurface Scattering for the Unity URP

the article presents the Wrapped lighting technique to emulate subsurface scattering
the method is aimed for use with forward shading on the Oculus Quest

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Volumetric Rendering Part 1

this part of the article on volumetric rendering shows how to model a volume using an SDF inside of shadertoy

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Volumetric Rendering Part 2

the second part of the article presents how to render the volumetrics
calculation absorption, Self-shadowing, quality improvements, and a few optimizations

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UE4 - Physical light unit - Twitter Thread

Twitter thread about the complexities of different light measuring units
provides a UE4 tool to simply conversion between units

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Thanks to Daniel Fortes for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 129 — April 26, 2020

Sat, 25 Apr 2020 03:00:00 +0000

flowchart for descriptor set setup in Vulkan

a flowchart that provides an overview of the descriptor set binding logic of the Vulkan API

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CUSTOM GAME ENGINES: A Small Study

list of games studios and which custom engines they are using
broken down into AAA, middle, small and solo developers

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Twitter thread - using quaternions

the thread provides an overview of what are use cases for quaternions
focusing on how to use them instead of the mathematics

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Improving the quality of the alpha test (cutout) materials

the article explains problems with alpha testing materials and why they tend to shrink in the distance
presents a technique to reduce these artifacts and compares against other techniques

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Debugging refraction in a sphere

presents a test setup that explains how to validate ray refraction within a sphere
shows what values are expected, very useful when implementing your own ray tracer

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From WebGL to WebGPU in Construct

the article presents how WebGPU compares with WebGL
compares findings in terms of API design, early performance results, and compatibility

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Ray Tracing Essentials Part 6: The Rendering Equation

part of the ray tracing series covering the rendering equation
breaks down the equations into components and explains the contributions to the final rendering result
shows how pure path tracing is using the equation and techniques used to reduce the time required for the results to converge to the final result

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Vulkan - Debug Printf

the Vulkan validation layer now can send printf style information from a shader to the debug callback
the article explains how to use the layer and what constraints need to be considered

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[video] Ratchet & Clank Pixelizer FX in Unity

the Unity video tutorial explains how to implement an effect that converts a 3D mesh into a voxelized version
achieved by rendering the mesh into an offscreen target and using the texture to drive a geometry shader
additionally shows how to break this object into a particle effect for destruction

Blurred rounded rectangles

the article presents how to calculate a blurred version of a rounded rectangle using a distance field based technique

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UE4 Texture/Material/Cascade optimization tips

a long document containing many tips and tricks to optimize UE4 performance
mostly aimed at materials and VFX related optimizations

Floating World Shader Part 5 – Ocean Material

the last part of a series of UE4 based posts that recreate an environment artists scene
this part focuses on the recreation of the stylized ocean in the scene
combines all elements and presents the final result

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The Technical Interview [LEAKED]

the guide presents an overview of the structure and content of technical interviews
presents a framework for mapping rendering engineers in different dimensions

Thanks to Dominik Lazarek for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 128 — April 19, 2020

Sun, 19 Apr 2020 03:00:00 +0000

Bilinear texture filtering – artifacts, alternatives, and frequency domain analysis

provides an introducing into linear blending
explaining that pixels are no signal but rather samples taken at a given location
presents the star-shaped artifact of bilinear filtering
discusses an alternative to bilinear filtering with links to papers and analyzes the frequency response of some filters

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validating physical light units

the article presents how to use the Mitsuba renderer to validate the results from a PBR renderer
provides an overview of the file structure used by Mitsuba and how to convert units where required

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godot 4.0 gets global and per-instance shader uniforms

the article presents that Godot has now 3 update frequencies for shader parameters global, per-material and instance
provides a few video examples that show use cases of global parameters for vegetation interactions

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Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games 2020 papers on the web

collection of papers from the I3D 2020 conference

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Ray Tracing Essentials Part 5: Ray Tracing Effects

part 5 of Nvidia ray tracing series
focuses on the presentation of different visual effects that are created through ray tracing
such as depth of field, motion blur, atmospheric effects

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nvidia webinar - ray tracing essentials

Eric Haines will be giving a webinar on May 12
explains concepts related to ray tracing, comparison of ray tracing and explain how specialized hardware can accelerate the workload
additionally covering denoising and other techniques required to make interactive raytracing possible

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Intro to gfx-hal • Part 3: Vertex buffers

part 3 of Rust gfx-hal intro series
shows all the steps required including binary serialization of mesh data, shader changes and all other Rust changes needed to render a spinning 3D teapot

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Implementing a Physically Based Shading without locking yourself in

presentation from revision
focuses on the physics of light interaction with matters
overview of shading models and possible implementation techniques

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Introducing Low-Level GPU Virtual Memory Management

Cuda introduces new memory management functionality
allows developers to reserve virtual memory ranges and map these ranges to physical memory on demand

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Secrets of Direct3D 12: Resource Alignment

the article shows that the D3D12 alignment requirement rules have an exception for small textures that allows a reduction in alignment requirements
this behavior needs to be explicitly requested and presents how to take advantage of it

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3 Techniques for Dynamically Colored UI Graphics

the article presents 3 different techniques for Unity that allow the color of UI elements to be dynamically adjusted
shows pro and cons for each technique and what good use cases are

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[video] A Taste of GPU Compute

talks aimed at computer science students starting to get started with GPU technology
present an overview of GPU hardware architecture
how functional programming is a good fit for GPUs
shows how to adjust 2D rendering algorithms to be better adapted for the architecture
overview of the graphics infrastructure (compilers, APIs, shader languages )

Frame Analysis - Overwatch

the article and video and present a high-level overview of the rendering passes of Overwatch

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Life stories: the Glimpse Renderer – part 1

Part 1, 2 and 3 of a series about the story of the Glimpse Renderer
a renderer was written from scratch and used in multiple movies such as The LEGO Movie

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Thanks to Deepak Surti for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 127 — April 12, 2020

Sun, 12 Apr 2020 03:00:00 +0000

Evolving Path of Exile's Renderer

the talk presents an overview of rendering features developed for Path of Exile
showing what constraints the game provides and how it enables these implementations
Point Light Shadows (Screenspace Hierarchical Variance shadow maps)
Screenspace Global Illumination
Subsurface refraction, a technique used for ice and water
Water flow map generation on the CPU using Algebraic Multigrid
grass and fur using pre-calculated raytracing
an extensive collection of brief overviews of other techniques such as burning, fracturing, scalar field vectorization

Virtual machine for executing SPIR-V

A virtual machine that is written in C enables executing of a subset of SPIR-V shaders (only 2D texture operations, no 3D etc.)

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Speeding Up Lighthouse 2

presents operations that reduced the shading time required from 21.58ms to 13.52ms
combination of scene-specific adjustments, implementation changes to noise generation and variance reduction

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Artists’ best practices for mobile game development

A guide aimed at technical artists to preset best practices for geometry, texture, material and shader optimizations for mobile devices

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Optimizing Trilinear Interpolation

the article presents implementations optimizations to speedup trilinear filtering
taking advantage of the representation of power floating-point number to speed up operations

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Updated Article Database Design

The database of articles included in this series has been updated with a new look
this is the first step of a more extensive upgrade, and new functionality will be added soon. Stay tuned

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Thanks to Max R.R. Collada for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 126 — April 5, 2020

Sun, 05 Apr 2020 04:00:00 +0000

NVIDIA Vulkan Ray Tracing Tutorials

collection of Vulkan tutorials for the VK_KHR_ray_tracing extension
the tutorial starts from a working .obj rendering using rasterization and then integrates raytracing
additional topics covered are Anti-Aliasing, handling thousands of Objects, Transparency, Reflections, Animation, Callable Shader and Ray Query

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Using Nsight Systems for Fixing Stutters in Games

the article shows how Nsight was used for debugging a frame stutter bug in the Vulkan raytracing implementation of Wolfenstein: Youngblood

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Optimizing VK/VKR and DX12/DXR Applications Using Nsight Graphics: GPU Trace Advanced Mode Metrics

the post presents how to use Nsight to apply the Peak-Performance method to determine a performance problem in Wolfenstein: Youngblood (Vulkan)
shows how to detect being memory-bound and how to reduce the texture memory being access in a hit shader

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Paper Burn Shader in Unity

this Unity tutorial explains how to implement a burning effect for paper
this tutorial builds on previous parts of the series

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Intro to gfx-hal • Part 1: Drawing a triangle

part 1 of rust graphics programming series using the rust gfx hal
gfx-hal is a graphics abstraction layer on top of D3D12, Vulkan and metal
this in-depth tutorial covers everything required from the setup of the application, window, shader, etc. needed to render the first triangle into a window

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Intro to gfx-hal • Part 2: Push constants

the second part of the tutorial series extends the example so that Vulkan push constants can be used to render multiple triangles with varying settings
settings that can be modified include color, position, and scale

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physical lighting quantities: tying both ends

the article presents a method that allows validation of a physical camera model against ground truth data

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Seven Things for March 31, 2020

collection of links and graphics community news such as ACM Digitial library being free, I3D posponed, …

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Biquadratic interpolation with independent sample weights

the article shows how to use quadratic interpolation for depth aware upsampling
the presented use-case presented is volumetric clouds

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GTC 2020: DLSS - Image Reconstruction for Real-time Rendering with Deep Learning

the GTC talks provide an overview of Deep Learning Super Sampling
presents an overview of the challenges for upscaling the results of realtime rendering
shows a history of existing techniques and compares the qualities of different methods
includes a section on how to integrate the technique into Unreal Engine 4

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Terrain and Mesh Blending in Unity

his Unity tutorial shows one way of blending meshes that are close to the terrain with the terrain colors
the presented approach uses a separate depth texture to record the terrain depth and uses this to calculate the distance of a pixel to the terrain

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Unmasking the Arkham Knight

the article presents a breakdown of the rendering stages found in the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight
the game uses a hybrid approach between forward and deferred rendering based on the distance to the camera
lighting is done in a computer shader using checkerboard pattern with upscaling
rain is using GPU based particles

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GTC 2020: RTXGI: Scalable Ray Traced Global Illumination in Real Time

the GTC presentation explains how the technique aims to replace existing indirect lighting techniques
provides an overview of how the method combines ray tracing, fast irradiance updates, and a moment-based depth scheme to enable realtime GI without baking information offline

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ACM TechTalk - Ed Catmull & Richard Chuang

ACM tech talk with Ed Catmull & Richard Chuang happening on Tuesday, April 14

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An Efficient Transport Estimator for Complex Layered Materials

the paper presents a new technique to speed up the rendering of complex, layered materials
the model doesn’t rely on any precomputation

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A new method to construct isotropic blue-noise point sets with uniform projections

the article presents a method for direct construction of tileable isotropic blue noise
the technique is based on improved Correlated Shuffling

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a little thread on a neat way to interpolate across a triangle!

A twitter thread that explains what barycentric coordinates are and how they are commonly used in computer graphics to interpolate data
provides animated graphics to explain the concepts more visually

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 125 — March 29, 2020

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Hierarchical Depth Buffers

the article presents what Hierarchical depth buffers are, what they are used for and how to generate them
two different techniques for calculating these buffers are presented
one pixel shader based method and a compute shader variation
the compute shader variation is designed to only generate a single MIP level, not a full MIP chain
presents a performance comparison between the two techniques

[Video] Commandos Cone of Sight FX in Unity | GPUMAN

the Unity tutorial explains how to implement a cone of sight that is occluded by objects
intersection with the primary scene depth buffer allows constraining the effect to the surface of the terrain
a secondary “shadow map” from the position of the player is used to detect occlusion in the cone

Links to GDC 2020 Talks and More

collection of link resources from GDC, GTC
additional resources from Google, Intel, Ubisoft and Khronos

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PIX 2003.26 – DirectX 12 Ultimate and DXIL debugging

new Pix for Windows release with support for DXR 1.1, Mesh shaders and sampler feedback
also includes updated timeline news with the correlation between CPU and GPU work
additionally adds support for DXIL source-level debugging

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NVIDIA Announces Nsight Graphics 2020.2

GPU Trace and Nsight Aftermath now supports Vulkan
Advanced mode for GPU Trace collects more in-depth information over several continues frames

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Augmenting shader languages for modern rendering APIs

the author presents his domain-specific language and how it’s used to extend shaders
allows all state required for pipeline objects to be encoded as part of the shader code

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Vulkan Mobile Best Practices - Management of Command Buffers and Multi-Threaded Recording

the article presents best practices for multithreaded command recording with Vulkan
show performance comparisons of different methods and discusses common mistakes

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WebGL best practices

the article contains many best practices for WebGL applications
discussing a large number of topics including memory estimation, performance guidelines, GLSL tips, texture performance, and constraints
additionally covers some WebGL 2.0 and Canvas related advice

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Introducing OpenCL™ and OpenGL® on DirectX

Microsoft and Collabora are working together to implement an OpenCL and OpenGL layer for Mesa that is running on D3D12
provides a summary of what Mesa 3D is and why API translation is important
also provides an overview of the implementation

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Multi-Adapter with Integrated and Discrete GPUs

presentation from Intel that presents how to use multiple adapters with D3D12
techniques for work-sharing and dealing with synchronization
offers performance numbers for the presented methods, best practices, and possible problems

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Variable Rate Shading Tier 1 with Microsoft DirectX* 12 from Theory to Practice

the presentation provides an overview of Variable Rate Shading (VRS), explaining what shading and rasterization rate are
shows what settings implicitly disable VRS on Tier 1 intel hardware
presents how VRS is integrated into Unreal Engine 4, Chivalry II
gives performance and quality examples for both

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RTX Global Illumination SDK Now Available

Nvidia released the RTX Global Illumination (RTXGI) SDK v1.0
SDK provides a framework for realtime GI for games, it offers full source code
post contains a video overview of the techniques from GDC 2019

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Announcing the NVIDIA Texture Tools Exporter 2020.1

Nvidia released a new version of the DDS exporter
improved mathematically correct filtering for mipmap generation adjusted to the content of the image
support for high-quality BC7 and HDR formats

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 124 — March 22, 2020

Sun, 22 Mar 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Announcing DirectX 12 Ultimate

post containing an overview of the new D3D12 Feature level 12_2 now called DirectX 12 Ultimate
covers Variable Rate Shading, Mesh Shaders, DirectX Raytracing 1.1 and Sampler Feedback
fully supported on PC and Xbox Series X

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Shaders For People Who Don't Know How To Shader: Smooth blending with Sine

the Unity tutorial shows how to use color masks to apply runtime coloring with smooth blending to sprites in a 2D scene
explains masking, blending over time and using a sin function to achieve effect looping over time

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Ray Tracing In Vulkan

the post provides an overview of the new Vulkan raytracing extensions
using similar concepts as DirectX Raytracing
the acceleration structure can be built on the CPU or GPU
the article explains how CPU scheduling is exposed to the application
adds support for DXR 1.1 features such as inline raytracing
additionally provides a few code examples

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[video] Reinventing the Geometry Pipeline: Mesh Shaders in DirectX 12 | Shawn Hargreaves

the presentation provides an overview of mesh shaders
explains the problem with the classical geometry pipeline and how the mesh shader pipeline is an improvement
provides a walkthrough of code demonstrating how mesh shaders are implemented and what needs to be considered to achieve excellent performance
explains the meshlet data structure and how to use this as a base for a mesh shader pipeline
how to implement instancing, and using per-primitive attributes

[video] Advanced Mesh Shaders | Martin Fuller

build upon the @Reinventing the Geometry Pipeline: Mesh Shaders in DirectX 12” talks summarized above
provides more hardware details and how to design mesh shader implementation to give excellent performance
extending the meshlet pipeline with more advanced culling and mesh data compression
providing performance numbers for different techniques

DirectX 12 Sampler Feedback | Claire Andrews

the video provides an overview of the new Sampler Feedback feature added to D3D12
shows how to use compile sampler feedback and reserved resources to improve texture streaming
overview of texture space shading and how sampler feedback can be used to guide the system
closing with an API overview

Nvidia - DirectX

overview articles by Nvidia for D3D12 Ray Tracing, Mesh shading, Variable Rate Shading, and Sampler Feedback

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New: Vulkan Device Generated Commands

the article describes the VK_NV_device_generated_commands extension for Vulkan
it allows partial command buffers to be generated on the GPU
more flexible then D3D12 ExecuteIndirect
main functional addition is the support of changing of shaders between commands

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Enable Ray Tracing: Two-Level Acceleration Structure

the article presents an overview of a BVH structure for GPU raytracing
this is not using any raytracing APIs and focuses on the data structure design
how to structure the tree, handle animated meshes and refit the structure for changes

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 123 — March 15, 2020

Sun, 15 Mar 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Fresnel Equations, Schlick Approximation, Metals, and Dielectrics

the post presents the fresnel equations that are used for smooth metals and surfaces such as water
shows the Schlick approximations and compares them to the equations and where to retrieve the necessary parameter values

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Reverse engineering the rendering of The Witcher 3, part 18 - color grading

Reverse engineering the color grading solution used in “The Witcher 3”
shows how the indexing into LUT works, including rounding mode handing
the solution used by the game can use up to 3 different LUTs for the same scene

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Getting started with shaders: signed distance functions!

the article aimed at beginners presents how to use ShaderToy to get started with shader development
extends the example from simple colors to animated scenes
shows how to implement a spinning octahedron

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Aliasing in computer graphics

the article presents an overview of aliasing in digital signal processing
then applies the information and shows how the same understanding applies to computer graphics
covering rasterization, texture and shading aliasing
short on time? Only read the TL;DR at the end
example code provided

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Sprite Glow/Outline Shader Breakdown

the Unity tutorial shows how to create an outline effect for 2D sprites
implemented by storing a signed distance field in the alpha channel and using that additional information that in the pixel shader

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Vulkan Best Practices: Frequently Asked Questions - Part 2

discusses buffer allocation, update and mapping strategies
descriptor pools, texture transfer synchronization, fence signaling, memory alignment, and shader variations

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A Simple GPU Hash Table

the post discusses how to write a simple GPU Hash table implementation using CUDA
uses 32-bit keys and values with open addressing and linear probing

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Interior SDFs

the article presents that combining signed distance fields of primitives using min and max operations can create incorrect SDFs
this is especially noticeable on the interiors of objects
offers 5 different ideas/solutions on how to solve the problem

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Ray Tracing Essentials Part 4: The Ray Tracing Pipeline

part 4 of ray tracing series by Nvidia
this episode focuses on the RayTracing APIs in D3D and Vulkan
discusses the types of shaders and how they are interconnected

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The Division ECHO Fx In Unity | GPUMAN

Video tutorial for Unity that shows how to present the Echo effect (a point-cloud based rendering overlay) from “The Division”
covers how to generate the data, implement the rendering, interactions with the player and post-processing

Why DXR 1.1 vs 1.0?

overview of what is new with DXR 1.1
presents how to extend a depth pre-pass system for shader ray tracing using the DXR 1.1 RayQuery object

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ASTC Format Overview

the document provides an overview of the ASTC texture compression format
explains how end-point color compression works
encoding strategies, block sizes and how the format allows the compressor to adapt the techniques for each block

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Automated Performance Advice for Android Games

the article presents how to use new ARM tools to gather performance information (later versions will support Continues integration)
provides an easy to read report that can be used by non-programmers to validate the performance of the game
the tool allows performance budgets to be defined, will be shown in the UI
Automated screenshot collection when frames take longer than a specified threshold to produce

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 122 — March 8, 2020

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 04:00:00 +0000

How Epic Games is handling auto exposure in 4.25

the article explains how exposure used to work in Unreal Engine 4.24
what problems the behavior caused and how the new implementation solves these problems
looking at grey-point targeting, physical exposure units, lens values, and perceptual brightness
additionally provides an overview of the debug modes available

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Reverse engineering the rendering of The Witcher 3, part 17 - the Milky Way

the article shows how the milky way rendering from the Witcher 3 - Blood & Wine DLC was implemented
including a brief look at the star rendering

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Paper Shader in Unity

A Unity tutorial that focuses on the deformation of a plane to create a crumbled paper look
implemented using a vertex shader

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How to do boolean operations on meshes for procedural cutting of geometry!

the post provides an overview of an algorithm for boolean operations on geometry
this allows for runtime slicing of meshes such as for dynamic destructions systems
the idea is based around finding the overlap of two meshes to generate new vertices along the interception to create the cut

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Ray Tracing Essentials Part 3: Ray Tracing Hardware

part 3 of Nvidia ray tracing series
this part focuses on the history of ray tracing hardware and presents how Nvidia changed its design approach
Turing has dedicated hardware for Raytracing and machine learning tasks. the previous architecture contained only general-purpose compute

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An idiot's guide to animation compression

the article discusses techniques to compress data for skeletal animation data used for game runtimes
presents an overview of standard terms
followed by a look at data quantization, quaternion compression, and track compression

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GL_NV_mesh_shader Simple Mesh Shader Example

a very brief high-level overview of mesh shaders and necessary OpenGL extension
provides a condensed OpenGL example that renders a fullscreen quad

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Secrets of Direct3D 12: Copies to the Same Buffer

the article presents multiple scenarios in D3D12 where manual barrier synchronization is required
followed by a back-to-back copy into buffers that cannot be synchronized by barriers and shows the behavior observed on actual hardware

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Borderland between Rendering and Editor - Part 1

the post focuses on efficient and high-quality grid rendering for “The Machinery” editor
implementation is done in a pixel shader on world space quad created by two triangles
shaders deals with LOD selection, anti-aliased line rendering, falloff for gracing angles and grid extends

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 121 — March 1, 2020

Sun, 01 Mar 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Writing an efficient Vulkan renderer

copy of an article that was published in GPU Zen 2, updated for changes introduced with Vulkan 1.1 and 1.2
covering memory management, Descriptor sets, command buffers, pipeline barriers, render passes and pipeline management

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Ray Tracing Essentials Part 2: Rasterization versus Ray Tracing

video comparing rasterization and ray-tracing algorithm
analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of both techniques and how they complement each other

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A Survey of Temporal Antialiasing Techniques

the paper presents an overview of Temporal Antialiasing (TAA) techniques, the history, different implementation techniques
follows up with a presentation of open challenges and discussion of possibilities for improvements

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Compact PBR texture packing and blending experiment with Shader Graph

presents findings from compressing PBR material information into a single texture
developed for terrain-like materials
shows a comparison of memory usage and performance improvements

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Vulkan Mobile Best Practices: Frequently Asked Questions - Part 1

A FAQ for Vulkan best practices guide by ARM
swap chain acquisition, image transitions, device lost debugging, and transient attachments

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[video] Two Minute Papers - The Story of Light

the 7-min video provides a walk through the history of light transport research
showing numerous techniques, how multi importance sampling can be used to combine multiple techniques
closes with the presentation of the “Unifying points, beams, and paths in volumetric light transport simulation” (UPBP) paper

fast trisect in GLSL

the article presents an approximation to the GLSL trisect function
trisect splits an angle into three equal parts, playing the same role as square root in quadratics

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Basic Skeletal Animation with Geometric Algebra

the tutorial shows how to implement a skeletal animation system using Geometric Algebra (GA)
additionally introduces the required GA concepts along the way

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Packing UVs for deferred materials

the article presents how to pack UV and gradients (ddx, ddy) into 32-bit gbuffer channels
this is used for deferred materials where the results of texture samples are not stored in the gbuffer

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Sprite Stencil Overlay Breakdown (Forward Renderer)

the Unity tutorial shows how to implement a checkerboard pattern if a 2D player is behind another object
this is achieved using the stencil buffer

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 120 — February 23, 2020

Sun, 23 Feb 2020 04:00:00 +0000

sokol_gfx.h Backend Tour

a 3 part series that provides an overview of the backend implementations of sokol_gfx for the OpenGL, D3D11 and Metal implementation

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Bringing HLSL Ray Tracing to Vulkan

Nvidia added support to the DirectX Shader Compiler (DXR) to generate SPIR-V that is valid to be used with the Vulkan SPV_NV_ray_tracing extension
the article shows an example and explains how concepts are mapped to SPIR-V

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Ways to speedup pixel shader execution

the article presents an overview of techniques to optimize pixel shaders
starting with techniques to make sure that pixel shaders are only run if necessary and offers several methods to reduce the cost of pixel shaders afterward

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Reverse engineering the rendering of The Witcher 3, part 16 - shooting stars

the author presents how shooting stars in the Witcher 3 are implemented
show the vertex and pixel shader implementation

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Sampling Analytic Participating Media

the in-depth article presents the physical models and approximations of participating media (such as fog, water)
presents constant, linear and exponential fog implementations
extends these solutions to express atmospheres and provides approximations for numerical approaches

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Data Driven Rendering: Pipelines

the newest part in article series about defining a data-driven rendering pipeline
focusing on the definition of a render pipeline
a simplified version of a RenderGraph/FrameGraph system
build around render targets as central primitive

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Shader Graph Conversion : Eyeball Shader

the Unity tutorial explains how to implement a stylized Eyeball Shader using Unity Shader Graph

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Rendering Particles with Compute Shaders

presents an approach to render particle effects using compute shaders
the primary focus is optimization for tiny, pixel-sized particles that are additively blended
lacking support of atomic on floats requires float->int->float conversions in the shader and how this influences the final implementation

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LunarG Vulkan Ecosystem & SDK Survey Results

the results from the Vulkan survey have been released
contains comments, and what are the next steps that are taken to address the feedback

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Unity Toy Path Tracer

the article presents how to implement a Path Tracer using the Unity Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS)

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Handling Device Orientation Efficiently in Vulkan With Pre-Rotation

the article describes how to deal with device orientation changes in a Vulkan application efficiently
describes how to query the information from the system, recreate Vulkan objects and necessary modifications to shader code

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 119 — February 16, 2020

Sun, 16 Feb 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Coherency gathering in ray tracing: the benefits of hardware ray tracking

the article presents the problems with ray tracing in terms of divergence workflows
Imagination GPUs are able to reorder rays in hardware to maintain better coherency

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Create nice and feasible volumetric cloud in Unreal Engine 4

the blog posts presents how to use high quality volumetric fog in UE4 to simulate ground level rolling fog
based on multiple layers of 3D texture based noise, and fake self shadowing

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Minions Art Tutorials

collections of art, unity tutorials and shader introduction articles

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Klein

new Geometric Algebra designed for realtime graphics and animation applications
including SSE optimizations

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How to Correctly Interpolate Vertex Attributes on a Parallelogram Using Modern GPUs?

article presents how to use barycentric coordinates in a pixel shader to manually interpoliate values in a quad

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Shaders For People Who Don't Know How To Shader: Deferred

the article presents a brief overview of what deferred shading is
shows how to customize the deferred shading logic used by unity
expose global tweakable settings that influence the whole scene

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GPU resources

collection of gpu resources
links to details about hardware, shader languages, and WebGPU

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Reaching for the stars

the Unity article describes how to generate a stylized procedualr skybox
shows how to generate proper speherical UVs, generate a sky gradient, stars, moon, sun and clouds

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Instancing and Material Property Blocks

the Unity tutorials shows how to use Material Property Blocks
this feature allows Unity to better batch draw calls even if multiple materials are used

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Four Color Gradient

beginner Unity shader tutorial that shows how to implement a gradient made from 4 colors forming a quad

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Journey Sand Shader: Ripples

last part of Unity shader torial that shows how to add ripples into the sand dunes
this is achieved using normal mapping

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How to Calculate Shader Graph Normals

Unity tutorial that shows how to calculate new normals from a vertex shader
this is required because the vertex shader modifies the vertex positions
normal is calcuded by transform neighboring points and adjusting the normal based on the relative change of the points

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 118 — February 9, 2020

Sun, 09 Feb 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Generating Perfect Normal Maps for Unity (and Other Programs)

the article shows what needs to be considered when baking normal maps for use with separate applications
it shows what kind of different conventions exists, what common artifacts look like and how to verify that the content pipeline is correct

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A Fun 2d Rotation Matrix Derivation

the article shows a connection between “2D cross product”, Complex Numbers and 2D rotation matrices

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Normal matrices are overrated

the tweet shows an alternative formulation for a normal transformation matrix (required when non-uniform scaling is allowed)
the technique uses less memory but more ALU

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Dissolve Shader Breakdown

the Unity shader breakdown explains how to dissolve a mesh using a combination of noise and height based effect

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A Scalable Real-Time Many-Shadowed-Light Rendering System

Siggraph presentation showcasing a shadow system that enables thousands of shadowed-lights in large environments
uses a fixed size shadow map pool, each light allocates it’s the target size
splits dynamic and static shadows, using conservative filtering for the highly sparse dynamic shadows
presents several techniques for compression, filtering and an overview of performance

Wave Function Collapse tips and trick

the article presents an overview of the Wave Function Collapse algorithm
a tile-based algorithm for the generation of procedural structures

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Shadow Terminator in Takua

the article presents a comparison between techniques to solve the harsh shadow terminator problem
offers comparison images in different situations and with and without normal mapping

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Approximating Subsurface Scattering With Spherical Gaussians

the article shows a breakdown on how to approximate subsurface scattering from a point light using Spherical Gaussians
presents why spherical harmonics are not a good fit to approximate point lights

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 117 — February 2, 2020

Sun, 02 Feb 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Separate your filters! Separability, SVD and low-rank approximation of 2D image processing filters

the article presents the basics of Singular Value Decomposition
shows how to use the concept to check if filters are separable and if not how it helps with approximations

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Volumetric Clouds Resources List

a collection of articles, presentations and other resources covering volumetric cloud rendering

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Building WebGPU with Rust

the presentation provides an overview of the development of WebGPU
presents a few API examples regarding how to use the API from Rust
additionally offers a solution to prevent the spreading of generics required by the API

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2D Sprite Overlay Effects

short Unity tutorial that shows how to use sprites to simulate screenspace effects such as distortion and color shifts

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Baked Light Light Maps and Probes

the tutorial shows how light baking is implemented in Unity
shows how to integrate lightmaps and light probes into a custom render pipeline
replace the default surface model during baking with a custom model

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Optimizing Game Development with GPU Performance Events

the article presents Do’s and Don’ts for the use of GPU performance events
shows how to write performance event with D3D11, D3D12, Vulkan, and OpenGL

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Color Banding

the article describes what color banding is and what causes it
presents a demo application that shows how dithering can help to reduce banding

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World space UVs & Triplanar Mapping

the Unity tutorial shows how WorldSpace positions can be used to texture planar object
extends these ideas to show tri-planar mapping can be used to texture arbitary meshes

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Vulkan: Bad Practices

the article presents several Vulkan patterns that cause reduced performance and should be avoided

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Progressive Least-Squares Encoding for Linear Bases

the paper presents a GPU compatible algorithm for processive approximation least-square encoding into linear bases

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 116 — January 26, 2020

Sun, 26 Jan 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Learning from data

the article presents how ordering mesh data can influence rendering performance
compares different algorithms developed for this purpose
the primary focus is on how to train these algorithms using machine learning techniques
analyzes the results of different approaches and presents results

Using AMD FreeSync™ Premium Pro HDR: Code Samples

the article shows how to enable AMD FreeSync using D3D12 and Vulkan
presents how to use the library to encode color information into the desired HDR display format

Khronos Group Releases Vulkan 1.2

Vulkan 1.2 has been released
this release promotes 23 extensions into core Vulkan
including extensions such as imageless_framebuffer, timeline semaphores, and better support for HLSL shaders

D3D12 Translation Layer and D3D11On12 are now open source

Microsoft open-sourced two layers to help to port to D3D12
D3D12 Translation Layer helps mapping from D3D11 style APIs to D3D12 style
- Resource binding, renaming, sub-allocation, pooling, and deferred destruction
- Batching and threading
- Residency management
D3D11On12 is implemented on top of the previous layer and contains the D3D11 specific aspects

Performance Evaluation of Acceleration Structures for Cone Tracing Traversal

the paper examines k-d trees and bounding volume hierarchies
comparing the approaches with varying cone sizes

Vulkan Timeline Semaphores

the article discusses the new timeline semaphore synchronization API included in Vulkan 1.2
superset VkSemaphore and VkFence allows synchronization between CPU and GPU using a single primitive
additionally provides support for wait-before-signal submission and multiple waits per signal

Calculates view space 3D sphere extents on the screen

the code snippet shows how to screenspace extends of a sphere from view space
an optimized version of Clipped Perspective-Projected 3D Sphere

Projective Geometric Algebra Done Right

the article presents how Grassmann (Geometric) Algebra extends four-dimensional homogeneous coordinates into a larger algebraic structure

Stylized Lava Shader

the Unity tutorial explains how to achieve a stylized lava effect

Shader Graph Stylized Lava

the Unity tutorial shows to implement the stylized lava effect discussed in the previous article using Shader Graph

An Opinionated Post on Modern Rendering Abstraction Layers

the author presents his opinions about how a rendering abstraction layer should be designed
additionally offers his thoughts on Render Graphs, Meta Command Buffers, and meta shader languages

Accurate Normal Reconstruction from Depth Buffer

presents an improved precision method for normal reconstruction from depth buffers
the technique uses 5 depth samples in each direction

HLSL Viewport Clamping trick

the article presents a few approaches to skybox rendering
introduces how to use the min/max depth of the D3D12 viewport to force skybox to a max depth
the comments present other approaches

Ray Guiding for Production Lightmap Baking

the paper introduces a technique for improving the computation time required for lightmap baking
based on guided sampling and minimum variance-based estimator combination
the method has a fixed memory footprint and is independent of scene complexity

Real-Time Ray-Tracing in WebGPU

the article shows how to use Node bindings to enable RTX support when using WebGPU
provides a brief overview of the DXR API and presents how to use the API to set up the pipeline and render an animated mesh

UV-Based Nodes

the article presents the shader nodes from Unity ShaderGraph system
explains how to use the nodes, what options are available and how to combine them

Correct sRGB Dithering

the article presents code and explains the logic behind correct dithering patterns that preserve the brightness

Thanks to Jasper Bekkers for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 115 — January 12, 2020

Sun, 12 Jan 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Clustered shading evolution in Granite

the article shows an overview of deferred shading techniques
alternative structures and methods for optimizations are presented
using compute shader for conservative rasterization for spot and sphere lights

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Radeon™ GPU Profiler 1.7

new release of AMD profiler that introduces a new pipeline overview view and adds new overlays for the wave occupancy view

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How to Optimize your Oculus Quest App w/ RenderDoc: Walkthroughs of Key Usage Scenarios and Optimization Tips Part 2

the article shows how to use RenderDoc to identify issues and how to alleviate them
most advice is not Occulus specific and talks about shader complexity, LOD, culling, and empty draws

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Inverse Lerp and Remap

a short Unity tutorial that explains inverse lerp function
a function that given value in an input range returns a normalized 0-1 value
additionally shows how to combine lerp and inverse lerp to allow range remapping

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NVIDIA VRSS, a Zero-Effort Way to Improve Your VR Image Quality

the latest Nvidia driver update introduce Variable Rate Supersampling for D3D11 + MSAA applications
driver side implementation that allows games to render with higher quality in the center of the screen
the article presents and compares MSAA and SSAA

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[video] Shader Coding: Over the Moon - Part 2

the second part of a shadertoy video tutorial
the tutorial extends the scene to render multiple parallax layers of mountain ranges
how to draw a moon

[video] Deriving the SDF of a Line Segment

this video tutorial shows how to derive the signed distance field for a line segment

Journey Sand Shader: Glitter Reflection

next part in Unity tutorial series about the rendering of sand
adds support for sparkling based on microfacets based on a texture with precomputed random values

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Mip Map Folding

a brief summary of mipmapping
shows how mipmapping causes details in glitter effect of sand to be lost in the distance
proposes a manual mipmapping strategy where the texture coordinates are adjusted to keep a constant texel density

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outline shader

the article presents how to write an outline shader for Unity
uses color, normal and depth information
implemented as a post-processing effect

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Alpha to Coverage or Anti-Aliased Cutout - TUTORIAL

the Unity tutorial shows how alpha to coverage allows improved edges on vegetation
how to implement alpha to coverage into a shader
shows how to adjust mipmap calculation to preserve small details with this method

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Vulkan hardware database feature update

update to Vulkan database shows the first driver version an extension/feature has been introduced
a more natural way to compare extension support across different platforms

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Raw WebGPU

the article shows how to use the WebGPU API to implement everything required to render a colored triangle
this includes shader loading, mesh creation and command generation

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How to learn graphics programming (but not in a hurry): self-study edition!

Twitter thread about the authors’ recommendations about learning graphics programming

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 114 — January 05, 2020

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Physically based shading references, at the end of 2019

collection of resources covering physically based shading
a short summary for every source is provided

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Toon Glass Shader Breakdown

the Unity tutorial shows to create a toon style glass shader using shader graph

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The polygons of Another World

the article shows how the 1991 game Another World is being rendered
the game is using a 16-bit color palette, with a static background runtime cache and composited from an off-screen target

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How to Optimize your Oculus Quest App w/ RenderDoc: Walkthroughs of Key Usage Scenarios and Optimization Tips Part 1

the article shows a collection of usage scenarios and explains what should be done for best performance
shows how to use RenderDoc to verify the behavior

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Draw Anti-aliased Lines with Geometry Shader

the article shows how to render anti-aliased lines
expanding lines in the geometry shaders into quads and fading out the lines towards the edges of the quad

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Journey Sand Shader: Specular Reflection

part 4 of sand rendering tutorial
adds support for Rim Lighting, Fresnel Reflectance, and a secondary specular highlight

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Simulated Exposure Fusion

the paper extends the Exposure Fusion technique to operate on a single image
the method aims to enhance the contrast in an image locally

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Tile-based optimization for post processing

the article presents a tile-based classification system for post-processing depth of field
DispatchIndirect is then used to execute only the required functionality
the post shows how the classification, stream compaction, and final execution is implemented

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Technically Art: Issue 50 (03.01.2020)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Applying For Technical Art Jobs

the article provides an overview of the technical artist role
the author shows different specializations and offers recommendations for skills required
additionally includes general information about the application process

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 113 — December 29, 2019

Sun, 29 Dec 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Two Shader Compilers of Direct3D 12

the article shows the two different shader compilers for D3D12: the FXC and DXC compiler
presents a high-level overview of the compiler
how to compile shaders from DLL vs. command line and other relevant information on the usage

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Height Maps & Parallaxing

the article explains the parallax effect and how it’s different from normal mapping
afterward shows how to extend a Unit surface shader to support parallax

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A new tessellator

the article describes the algorithm rewire of a vector to triangle mesh tesselator written in Rust
focuses on the discussion of precision issues, fill rules and custom vertex attributes

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Thermal/ Stealth Vision Effect

the Unity tutorial shows how to implement a thermal view effect
implemented as offscreen rendering and the result is blended with the main pass

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Technically Art: Issue 49 (27.12.2019)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Procedural Generation - Unity3d Procedurally Generation For Beginners With Random Inspector Options

A unity video tutorial that shows how to generate a circle procedurally
additionally shows how to deform the circle, apply different line width and other modification

Roblox graphics APIs 2019 - What does the future hold?

an updated article that presents the latest numbers and what APIs Roblox is currently supporting
nearly 50% of android users are now using the Vulkan backend
looking into dropping D3D9 support on Windows soon

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 112 — December 22, 2019

Sun, 22 Dec 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Sampling Burley's Normalized Diffusion Profiles

the article presents how to inverse the CDF of the Disney SSS

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Open-Source Ray Tracers and Path Tracers

a list of open-source ray and path tracers
the comment sections contain some additional ones

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Developers Show Off Amazing Real-Time Ray-Traced Projects in New DXR Spotlight Contest

collection of games that have been selected by Nvidia as excellent showcases for the use of RTX raytracing

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Ray Tracing Essentials, Part 1: Basics of Ray Tracing

the first part of the video series that will explain the basics of ray-tracing
covers basic of ray-tracing with the diffuse lighting model

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Mitsuba 2: A Retargetable Forward and Inverse Renderer

the recording of a talk presents an overview of the architecture of the Mitsuba 2 renderer
a set of problems and how Mitsuba can help in solving them

Part 23: Intro to Unity's Specular Workflow

the unity tutorial provides a brief overview of the specular workflow compared with the metalness workflow
this is covered with a toon shading model
focuses on the art authoring aspect, less on the shader aspects

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The Simple, Flexible, Octasphere

the article shows a UV sphere, icosphere and proposes the octasphere
an alternative way to generate a sphere surface
shows how to create a sphere and additional extend the method for other surfaces

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Matrices for Tech Artists, non Affine Transformations

the article presents transformations around an arbitrary axis and points
follow by a discussion of non-affine transformations (parallel lines are not preserved, such as perspective projection)

Digital Foundry's Best Game Graphics Of 2019: The Year's Best Tech In Review!

video review by Digital Foundry of the games released in 2019s
talking about the technology used in different games, not just covering AAA games

Writing a ray marcher in Unity

the video tutorial shows how to write a ray marcher in a unity pixel shader

Integrating FidelityFX into the Ego Engine

the article presents how to integrate FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) compute post-processing filter into an engine
the architecture is designed to make integration into a custom engine relatively simple

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Light Saber Breakdown

the article shows how to use a vertex shader to animate the vertices for a lightsaber effect

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 111 — December 15, 2019

Sun, 15 Dec 2019 04:00:00 +0000

AMD “Vega” 7nm Instruction Set Architecture documentation

Instruction Set Architecture provides an overview of how Vega architecture is designed
an in-depth description of all instruction set and additional hardware details

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PowerVR SDK and Tools 2019 Release 2 now available

the article provides an overview of new features of the PowerVR SDK
improved tools, improved Vulkan support, support for Android 10

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Three years of Metal

the article provides an overview of the experience using metal over the last 3 years
discusses the situation on iOS, macOS, and improvement has been made since the first iterations

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Technically Art: Issue 47 (13.12.2019)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Part 22: Skyboxes

the Unity tutorial shows how to create a skybox shader that uses a gradient defined by two colors

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Ray tracing on the WEB

a web-based ray tracing framework that exposes programmable stages based on GLSL for rapid prototyping, in a similar fashion to ShaderToy

Probability Theory for Physically Based Rendering

the blog details the mathematical approach of Monte-Carlo integration
additionally explores several techniques (such as Importance Sampling) to reduce the variance

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Probability Theory for Physically Based Rendering Part 2

the article extends the knowledge from part 1 to the domain of solving the rendering equation
explains the theory behind the different aspects of path tracing

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Writing a Shader Effect Language Part 3: Materials

the article presents an exploration of a material system designed for Vulkan requirements
the material system expresses the information required to create pipeline objects
additionally supports loading and binding of resources
example implementation (with provided code) provides examples of how to use it for different workloads

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Collection of light transport papers

an extensive collection of light transport papers

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 110 — December 8, 2019

Sun, 08 Dec 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Bezier Triangles

the article shows the possibility of using Bezier Triangles to store arbitrary and use this as a lookup structure for GPUs
shows how to calculate Barycentric Coordinates
provide the foundation for Bezier curve creation
extends this to a triangle formation

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PIX 1911.27 – New Buffer Formatter and Capture from Launch

new PIX version allows the creation of custom buffer formats and saves/restore those
can now start applications in a suspended state, this will enable workloads leading up to the first frame to be captured

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collection of tweets showcasing a large number of effects, games and technical art resources

collection of tweets showcasing a large number of effects, games and technical art resources
contains gifs that explain the length of a vector, dot and cross product

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IMG A-Series: the GPU for generation 2020

new GPU architecture by Imagination Technologies (PowerVR)
promises a 2.5x performance increased while using 60% less power and providing no thermal throttling problem
now uses MAD 128-thread wide ALU
improved multi-tasking systems allow timing guarantees for parallel GPU work

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A New Language for Sparse Data

the article presents an overview of the Taichi programming language
a data-oriented language that separates computations from data structures
programmers can write algorithms as if the data structure was dense
compiler and runtime will deal with the extra complexity introduced by sparse data structures
can generate CPU and GPU instructions

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Proof of the Sampling Method for Visible GGX

the article describes the Visible GGX distribution (vGGX) sampling method
mathematically proves that this results in the required probability density

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How to Optimize your Oculus Quest App w/ RenderDoc: Getting Started + Frame Capture

begins with an overview of RenderDoc functionality
shows what window are provided by the UI, what features they expose
how to take a frame capture of a game
and a basic look at how to start investigating the capture

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My take on shaders: Grass Shader (Part II)

part 2 of the grass shader, part 1 was discussed in issues 105
will extend the shader with tesselation, better lighting, and shadows
additionally shows how this can be extended to support trampling

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Matrices for Tech Artists, a Cheat Sheet

the article provides an overview of matrices
introduces the idea of viewing matrices as spaces and the importance of frame of reference
with this knowledge presents the different types of linear transformation and how they influence the space
additionally covers translations, homogeneous coordinates, and projection matrices

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Rust Game Series - Part 5 - D3D11 Device and Swap Chain creation

part of Rust game programming series
the article shows how to call D3D11 from Rust
shows how to create a d3d11 device, swap chain and present the back buffer to the window

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 109 — December 1, 2019

Sun, 01 Dec 2019 04:00:00 +0000

PowerVR PerfDoc – Performance Validation for PowerVR

fork of the PerfDoc performance layer to detect performance issues on PowerVR hardware
the article provides an overview of performance issues that the layer can detect and possible improvements

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Exploring SculptrVR’s efficient lighting solution for the Oculus Quest

the article provides an overview of the lighting model used by SculptrVR
designed for the hardware constraints of the occulus quest
it’s based on the Phong lighting and supports clay, metal, and glowing materials

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NVIDIA Variable Rate Shading Demonstrated in Autodesk VRED

the article provides an easy to understand overview of Variable Rate Shading
shows what quality and performance can be expected with different modes

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Partial Derivatives (fwidth)

the tutorial explains the ddx and ddy shader functions
provides a visualization of its effects
shows how to use fwidth to antialias a cutoff transition from a gradient

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Making a Glass Shader, Part 1: GrabPass & Refraction

the Unity tutorial shows how to use transparency to create a look through the object
later uses a grab pass (copy of the screen buffer before a draw call starts) to implement a glass appearance material

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Making a Glass Shader, Part 2: Highlights & Reflections

part 2 of the shader glass material shader tutorial with Unity
extends the standard lighting model to feature stringer rim lighting, stronger highlights, and a more cartoony overall look

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Directional Lights Direct Illumination

this Unity tutorial shows how to use the scriptable rendering pipeline to implement up to 4 directional lights
the shading model is based on the default physically-based unity BRDF
additionally shows how to deal with transparency and implement a custom material UI

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YUV sampling in Vulkan – a niche and complicated feature – VK_KHR_ycbcr_sampler_conversion

the article provides a brief overview of the YUV/YCbCr colorspace and a few complications with it
then show how to use the ycbcr_sampler_conversion to sample YUV textures from a shader more efficiently

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Positional Effects (Scattered Objects Moving Back / Growing Flowers)

brief unity tutorial that shows how to implement effects that are based on the player position
such as flowers spawning around the player, or stones moving to form a path in front of the player

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RGB/XYZ Conversion Matrix Accuracy

the article shows the matrices between XYZ colors and sRGB colors
these numbers vary from the ones found in Real-Time Rendering and Physically Based Rendering
the author explains how he derived the values and why they are correct

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 108 — November 24, 2019

Sun, 24 Nov 2019 04:00:00 +0000

PC Rendering Techniques to Avoid when Developing for Mobile VR

the article presents an overview of techniques that are not a good fit for mobile VR applications
provides brief explanations of the methods and the reasons for why they should be avoided

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Technically Art: Issue 44 (22.11.2019)

collection of tweets showcasing a large number of effects, games and technical art resources

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Part 20: Post Processing Effects & Chromatic Aberration

a unity tutorial that explains how to create a post-processing effect that implements a Chromatic Aberration style effect

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Normal map compositing using the surface gradient framework in Shader Graph

the article shows how the surface gradient framework (discussed in issue 102) can be integrated into the High Definition Rendering Pipeline (HDRP) from Unity

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Vulkan Releases Extension to Expose Cross-Vendor Performance Metrics

a new Vulkan extension that allows developers to query performance metrics from the GPU
exposed metrics are defined by the driver
granularity is determined by the capabilities of the GPU, ranging from single commands to complete command buffers

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Applying for Entry Level Graphics Jobs in Games

overview of advice by the author on what candidates should be focusing on if they are interested in getting started in graphics programming positions in games

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Open-Source Real-Time Rendering Engines and Libs

list of open-source rendering engines and helper libraries
a mix of large, established and hobby projects

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[#78] Podcast time! & PBR Theory for Artists - Part one

podcast episode for artists
contains a collection of links to other articles related to PBR rendering

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The RTX Shader Binding Table Three Ways

provides an overview of the raytracing execution model
explains shader binding tables and why they are fundamental for raytracing APIs
differences between Vulkan, DXR, and OptiX
provides a tool that visualizes the required table layout for the different APIs and how to trace rays with correct offsets

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2019 Reboot Develop Red

links to Vulkan presentations and videos from Reboot Develop Red
topics include Vulkan Ray tracing, mobile, and optimizations

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Latency of 30 ms Matters More Than Refresh Rate Above 60 Hz for First Person Targeting Tasks

research by Nvidia that investigates the influence of latency reduction and higher frame rates in the context of first-person shooters
shows that high frame rates are mainly significant because of the latency reductions it provides

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Instanced Line Rendering

the article explains how to render lines
extends the method to support different styles of line rendering

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 107 — November 17, 2019

Sun, 17 Nov 2019 04:00:00 +0000

DeepFovea: Neural Reconstruction for Foveated Rendering and Video Compression using Learned Statistics of Natural Videos

the paper presents a new technique that uses a neural network to reconstruct foveated rendering from sparse source data

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Coming to DirectX 12: D3D9On12 and D3D11On12 Resource Interop APIs

the article provides an overview of the new API that allows users to request the underlying D3D12 resources from an application that is using the D3D9 on D3D12 layer

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Journey Sand Shader: Sand Normal

the article proposes a technique that uses a random texture to perturb the normals of dunes to simulate the variation caused by sand grains

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Vulkan Mobile Best Practices - Descriptor and Buffer Management

the article provides an overview of how Vulkan descriptor set management influences CPU performance
provides 3 possible solutions to the problem
showing how they affect both performance and application implementation
suggest a descriptor set caching scheme combined with using a single VkBuffer to store uniform data

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Coming to DirectX 12: More control over memory allocation

D3D12 is adding two new flags for memory heap creation
D3D12_HEAP_FLAG_CREATE_NOT_RESIDENT, the heap is created non-resident state to enable EnqueueMakeResident to be used for heaps
D3D12_HEAP_FLAG_CREATE_NOT_ZEROED enables an optimization that allows non-zeroed pages to be returned

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Layered voxel rendering

the article proposes a solution for voxel rendering
voxel scene is pre-calculated into multiple vertical slices
each slice is represented by an image and stores all voxel in the slice
additionally contains a logic summary on how to procedurally generate a voxel-based island

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Improving Particle Systems on PowerVR

brief article explains how to detect particle overdraw using the PowerVR profiler
suggest to disable anisotropic filtering and use close fit meshes for particles

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Frozen 2

the author mentions the new rendering features of Disneys’ Hyperion Renderer that have been used on Frozen 2
contains a large selection of stills from the movie

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Technically Art: Issue 43 (15.11.2019)

collection of tweets showcasing a large number of effects, games and technical art resources

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 106 — November 10, 2019

Sun, 10 Nov 2019 04:00:00 +0000

On Histogram-Preserving Blending for Randomized Texture Tiling

the paper presents a modification of histogram-preserving tiling algorithm discussed in issue 45
it removes the lengthy 3D optimal transport preprocessing step and replaces it with per-channel lookup tables
aims to reduce clipping and ghosting artifacts
provides multiple blend modes that treat quality for performance

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Coming to DirectX 12— Mesh Shaders and Amplification Shaders: Reinventing the Geometry Pipeline

the article explains the problem with the classic GPU geometry pipeline
mesh shaders allow kernels to execute on sub-parts of meshes and output per-vertex and per-primitive attributes
amplification shaders are run before, and output decide how many mesh shaders to launch
shows code examples on how to use the feature in both HLSL and C++ API
ExecuteIndirect also supports launch mesh shaders from the GPU

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DirectX Raytracing (DXR) Tier 1.1

the article explains what has been added with DXR tier 1.1
it doesn’t require new hardware features but needs a new windows version and driver support
provides an alternative to that doesn’t use separate dynamic shaders or shader tables
inline shaders allow all shader stages to trace rays
additionally added features are DispatchRays generated on the GPU
growing state objects, GeometryIndex() in ray shaders, flags to skip triangles / procedural geometry

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Vulkan-Guide

new Vulkan guide by Khronos
a crucial starting point for getting started with Vulkan
provides an overview of the ecosystem, components of Vulkan, tools, …
additionally contains links to specific usage patterns and further information

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Coming to DirectX 12— Sampler Feedback: some useful once-hidden data, unlocked

the article presents the use-case of the streaming system and texture space shading
sampler feedback is a hardware feature that allows D3D12 shaders to write to a texture which MIPS has been accessed
FeedbackTexture2D is a new HLSL resource type to express it
the granularity of the feedback map is user-controlled

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What are use-cases of Texture-Space Shading in DX12, based on current research?

Twitter thread about possibilities of texture-space shading
Sampler Feedback addition in D3D12 can improve the implementations

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Ray Guiding for Production Lightmap Baking

the paper introduces a technique for improving the computation time required for lightmap baking
based on guided sampling and minimum variance-based estimator combination
the method has a fixed memory footprint and is independent of scene complexity

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Image-based Remapping of Spatially-varying Material Appearance

the paper introduces a technique for translation of materials between different renderers
using an image-based metric for uniform and texture based paramterization

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[video] Rounding Corners in SDFs

the video shows how to modify the SDF of any geometrical shape to make its edges more rounded

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 105 — November 3, 2019

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Dev Preview of New DirectX 12 Features

the post introduces new D3D12 features available with latest win10 preview version
DirectX Raytracing Tier 1.1 introduces ExecuteIndirect, dynamic raytracing PSO additions and Inline Raytracing
Inline Raytracing allows RayQuery to be called from every shader stage
DirectX Mesh Shader are similar to nvidia mesh shaders, allowing more flexibily in the vertex processing pipeline
DirectX Sampler Feedback allows the recording of which parts of textures have been accessed
enabling more fine grained streaming and texture space shading scenarios

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[video] How to Write Shaders in Unity - an Easy introduction by Febucci

the video explains the basic of shaders in Unity for beginners

Arm donates Vulkan Best Practice for Mobile Developers to The Khronos Group

the ARM developed sets of samples to showcase best practices for Vulkan on mobile is now open-source and part of Khronos
article has list of samples and tutorials for a number of different areas

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Vulkan Releases Unified Samples Repository

Khronos published a unified Vulkan Samples Repository
all samples are based on the same framework and have been reviewed and are maintained by Khronos

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My take on shaders: Grass Shader (Part I)

the article shows the Unity shader implementation for stylized and unlit grass
a geometry shader is used to spawn a variable number of grass blades based on camera distance
grass movement by wind is emulated with a displacement texture

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ray tracing a tiny procedural planet

starts by showing how to create a small 2D world procedurally
small overview of explicit vs implcit surface ray tracing
then shows the steps used to render a procedural mini planet
including ocean waves, mountains and clouds

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[video] Deriving the SDF of a Box

the video presents how to derive the SDF for a box

SIGGRAPH 2019 Highlight: Finding a Practical Hybrid Anti-Aliasing Algorithm

summary of SIGGRAPH 2019 for a hybrid solution between temporal anti-aliasing with adaptive ray tracing
using heuristics to detect when adaptive ray tracing provides the best improvements

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 104 — October 27, 2019

Sun, 27 Oct 2019 04:00:00 +0000

srgb eotf: pure gamma 2.2 function or piece-wise function?

the article presents the different meaning of the term gamma in different color contexts
suggest to always use a piece-wise sRGB function

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Flow Control on PowerVR – Optimising Shaders

presents an overview of the difference between static and dynamic branching
dynamic is a lot more expensive of PowerVR hardware
shows examples of problematic cases with dynamic branching
presents an extension that can be used to make the dynamic branch a lot more performant if all threads agree on a condition

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Another Metaballs2 update

introduction of marching cube pre-pass stage reduces the mesh shader example GPU time by 33% to 50%

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Technically Art: Issue 40 (25.10.2019)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Mesh Texture painting in Unity Using Shaders

the author presents his solution on how to implement painting onto textures using unity
intersects mouse position with meshes, converting into UV space to be able to apply painting information using signed distance fields

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A Look Inside D3D12 Resource State Barriers

the article presents the D3D12 resource state promotion and decay rules related to the common resource state
mentions the AssertResourceState debug API that can be used to validate resource state promotion/decay behavior
explains the ExecuteCommandLists behavior concerning resource states

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GPU Ray Tracing in an Afternoon

the article presents how the author took the CPU implementation of Ray Tracing in a Weekend and converted it to run on the GPU using a GLSL implementation

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RLSL - A rust to SPIR-V compiler

a brief presentation by Embark Studios showing RLSL, a subset of rust compiled to SPIR-V
experimental stage
showing how/what it is currently implemented, vision for the future
presents examples of how shaders are implemented
integration into the rust ecosystem

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 103 — October 20, 2019

Sun, 20 Oct 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Vulkan Mobile Best Practice: Picking the Most Efficient Load/Store Operations

the article describes how the architecture of mobile GPUs is different from PC
shows why load/store operations have a significant impact on mobile
present a demo application to profile the various load and store operation

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Raw DirectX 12

the tutorial shows the steps necessary to render a single triangle using the D3D12 API

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Raw WebGL

the tutorial shows the steps necessary to render a triangle in WebGL using Typescript

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Massively Parallel Path Space Filtering in Game Development

excerpt of Siggraph 2019 talk that proposes averaging of neighboring rays into cells
using a jittered access + filtering to remove artifacts of discretization

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Radeon™ GPU Analyzer 2.3 for Direct3D® 12 Graphics

the article shows how to use the Radeon GPU Analyzer to generate hardware native ISA disassembly, provide resource and register usage statistics

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GOON – VOXEL OBJECT

the article describes a demo scene effect that uses a 2D height map on a flat 2D shaded object to simulate the appearance of 3D voxels

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Handling Depth for Spheretracing

next part of tutorial series shows how to extend a sphere tracing implementation in Unity to use the depth buffer correctly
shows the necessary shader state changes and how to calculate custom depth output in a pixel shader

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GGX Derivation

the article presents the derivation of the GGX BRDF

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A Journey Into Journey’s Sand Shader

part 1 of a Unity tutorial series about the sand rendering in Journey
show visually the contribution of the different shading components

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 102 — October 13, 2019

Sun, 13 Oct 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Surface Gradient Based Bump Mapping Framework

a mathematical framework for more consistent layering of bump/normal maps using linear surface gradients
shows the problems with reliance on vertex level tangent space in existing techniques
how to express existing methods in the new framework
including source code

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Emulating a fake retro GPU in Vulkan compute

high-level system discussion of a retro GPU emulation implemented in Vulak compute shaders
implementation details are discussed in the presentation
using Subgroup and async compute for further optimizations

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RenderDoc - Version v1.5

new RenderDoc version allows explicit GPU playback selection
improved SPIR-V reflection, performance improvements
more extensions and feature levels supported for Vulkan and D3D12

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Real-time Rendering of Layered Materials with Anisotropic Normal Distributions

proposal of approach for rendering layered materials
layers are defined by anisotropic NDFs on varying tangent vector fields

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Living with Vulkan and DirectX 12

the post describes the perspective from Stardock on D3D12/Vulkan vs. D3D11
new possibilities but also many more problems
performance improvements with D3D12 need to be balanced against the higher QA costs compared to D3D11

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Progressive Real-Time Rendering of One Billion Points Without Hierarchical Acceleration Structures

proposes a real-time solution to rendering unstructured point clouds
combination of temporal reprojection, random point selection, and GPU vertex buffer shuffling

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Denoising as a Building Block

provides an overview of the foundations of denoising techniques
expands pon the basics to explain how more complex schemes are constructed
how to consider denoising as a building block for several different problems

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 101 — October 6, 2019

Sun, 06 Oct 2019 04:00:00 +0000

An Introduction To Real-Time Subsurface Scattering

in-depth article that provides an overview of subsurface scattering techniques used for games
presents the most common techniques found in games, Texture-Space Diffusion, Screen-Space Subsurface Scattering, and Pre-integrated Subsurface Scattering

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Text Rendering Hates You

the author provides an overview of problems that are encountered and make text rendering system very complex
overview of terminology, overlapping glyphs, antialiasing, styling end emojis

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Desertscape Simulation

presents a model to simulate erosion and transport simulation for sand due to wind
the simulation can generate a large number of different dune types

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Flexible Ray Traversal with an Extended Programming Model

the paper proposes the addition of a Traversal Shader stage to the DXR model
this shader stage allows the programmable selection of acceleration structures
presented use cases are stochastic LOD selection, choice of LOD levels based on ray type and improved multi-level instancing performance

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Half The Precision, Twice The Fun: Working With FP16 In HLSL

the article shows how to use 16-bit floating-point types on PC hardware
differences in handling between APIs and shader compilers
only modern hardware supports native 16-bit instructions on PC

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Technically Art: Issue 37 (04.10.2019)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Fractional Brownian Motion

the article describes the characteristics of Fractional Brownian Motion
commonly used for the procedural modeling of nature

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Physically-Based Rendering with PowerVR – Part 2

the article shows the precalculations steps that enable PBR rendering on mobile devices
irradiance map from the environment, BRDF lookup table for Cook-Torrance model and prefiltered reflections map

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 100 — September 29, 2019

Sun, 29 Sep 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Strand-based Hair Rendering in Frostbite

the presentation shows the new WIP hair rendering system
a realtime system that is based on hair stands instead of cards
strands are rasterized into shadow and deep opacity maps
for performance reasons, a visibility buffer is written, and a sample deduplication pass is applied
shading is done in a screen space pass
shows how the different shading components have been implemented

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Local linear models and guided filtering – an alternative to bilateral filter

the article presents guided filtering as an alternative to a bilateral filter
explains the bilateral filter logic and compares against guided filtering
showing what the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches are

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PIX 1909.23 – New timing capture features, performance improvements and bug fixes

the new PIX CPU timeline view shows when a thread context switch happened and to where
optimized shader access tracking, significant speedup when opening the pipeline view

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Ray Tracing Denoising

overview of denoising techniques in raytracing applications
covering sampling and signal processing techniques
additionally covers blurring kernels and spatial reprojection techniques

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How powerful can WebGL be in comparison with native OpenGL?

performance comparison of a ray tracer application using native OpenGL against WebGL (Chrome, Firefox)
The GPU performance is comparable on the D3D backend, even better at times

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Custom Render Pipeline Taking Control of Rendering

Unity tutorial showing how to set up a custom render pipeline
covering how to set up the project
cull, filter, and sort objects
add support for multiple cameras

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[Video] DirectX Raytracing: Real-Time Denoised Raytraced Ambient Occlusion

overview video for the new DirectX Raytracing sample, showing a Raytraced Ambient Occlusion implementation

Technically Art: Issue 36 (27.09.2019)

collection of tweets related to VFX, shaders, and game art

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Multi-resolution Ocean Rendering in Crest Ocean System [280 MB pptx]

provides an overview of the ocean rendering system
the system is based around hierarchical, fully dynamic ocean data sources
shows how to model waves, integrate shading and realistic flow patterns

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Thanks to Spencer Sherk for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 99 — September 22, 2019

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 04:00:00 +0000

Improved normal reconstruction from depth

the article presents what kind of artifacts happen when reconstructing normals from world space positions
suggests how to reduce the artifacts by selecting triangles that are most likely to have originated from the same object
additionally shows how to use compute shaders and group shared memory to optimize the reconstruction

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Non-linear sphere tracing for rendering deformed signed distance fields

the paper presents a method that allows SDFs to be combined with techniques such as linear skinning
this is achieved by calculating a triangle mesh hull for the SDF, applying the transformation to the hull and using this to trace
tracing linearly in transformed space follows a non-linear trace in untransformed space

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Metal Enhancements for A13 Bionic

overview of what has been improved in the latest apple GPU architecture and metal
sparse textures, what it is, use cases and explanation of how to use it
rasterization rate maps, mask that allows defining non-linear mapping between virtual and physical render targets
vertex amplification specifies which vertex calculations can be shared between multiple viewports and which ones are unique per viewport
better argument buffers, allow access to 500k textures and multiple levels of indirection

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Selectively Metropolised Monte Carlo light transport simulation

the paper presents a new scheme that allows selectively combining different Monte Carlo rendering algorithms
allow the use of less computational complex algorithms for more straightforward light transport cases and more sophisticated algorithms for more complicated cases
enables to reduce the overall amount of noise in the same render time

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Vertex Assembly and Skinning

the article explains how vertex shaders in “Our Machinery” engine is handled
all vertex data is explicitly loaded in the vertex shader
shows how a more flexible skinning variation can be implemented

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Geometry Reinvented with Mesh Shading

excerpt from the Siggraph talk talk
overview of the mesh shading demo
culling implement in task shader
frustum calling also is done in the meshlet shader stage, since only parts of the model could be visible on screen

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DRED v1.2 supports PIX marker and event strings in Auto-Breadcrumbs

DRED can now include PIX markers
additional string events can be attached to markers
debugger extension has been updated to provide access to the information

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Real-time lightmap baking

the presentation explains how lightmap baking has been implemented in Wicked Engine
how to ray trace with D3D11 compute and/or pixel shaders
discusses artifacts, limitations, UV packing, texture formats, and filtering
the resulting system is an object space shading system

Updated Metaballs2 demo

Metaballs2 demo has been updated
the demo shows how to use mesh shaders and now provides a compute shader fallback version
allows switching between both implementations
compute shaders require extra memory to store intermediate results

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Thanks to Jon Greenberg for support of this series.

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Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 98 — September 15, 2019

Sun, 15 Sep 2019 04:00:00 +0000

The making of Gears 5: how the Coalition hit 60fps - and improved visual quality

interview discussing the details of the Gear 5 implementation
all post-processing and UI rendering is done post-upscaling in the output resolution
using Relaxed Cone Stepping for extra details instead of parallax occlusion mapping
a mix of shadow maps and ray-traced distance field shadows

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Believable Caustics Reflections

tutorial explaining how to implement a Caustics effect in unity
uses a tileable texture, that is sampled multiple times
slight offsets in RGB sample locations allow for color shifting across channels

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Diagnosing performance issues in Unity

the article presents an overview of performance methodology to detect performance issues earlier
including the building of test scenes, early clarification of constraints and constant checking of assumptions
setting budgets early simplifies expectations and possibilities

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WebGPU and WSL in Safari

overview of the state of WebGPU in safari
Web Shading Language is a new text-based shader language, now supported
presents compile-time and size comparisons against SPIR-V based implementations

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Mip-mapping is hard – importance of keeping your quads full

looks at the behavior of texture sampling in divergent code flows on different hardware
undefined behavior that is handled very differently depending on the GPU hardware

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Overview of new additions to Vulkan SDK 1.1.121

GPU assisted validation for VK_EXT_buffer_device_address
SPIRV-opt can now retarget shaders to use RelaxedPrecision without requiring source-level changes

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Mitsuba 2: A Retargetable Forward and Inverse Renderer

the paper discusses the design of the Mitsuba 2 renderer
based on a combination of generic algorithms and composable compile-time transformations
demonstrates the approach with Polarized light transport, coherent Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) exploration, caustic design in heterogeneous media with multiple scattering