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Patrick McKenna

@coastwise.bsky.social
111 followers 293 following 29 posts

R&D Programmer with La Forge at Ubisoft Toronto Previously: AI Programmer on Watch Dogs: Legion he/him

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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Pinball!
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The Bulwark @thebulwark.com · 31/08/2026
Abdul El-Sayed: “Canadians are like the only people in the world who are going to preemptively apologize for something they didn't even do. So if you're starting a trade war with Canada, it's because you're the asshole.”
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Rick @rickylongthread.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Lake America
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Here’s my list: wooden platform with no supports, iron bar door/gate, and spikes!
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William Gibson @greatdismal.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The idea of AI “hallucinating” is one I wish I’d had!
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Boo-rad Shankar @bradshankar.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Toronto devs are having their own "Barbenheimer" moment today. Congrats to @softrains.bsky.social & @kittencupstudio.bsky.social on the launches of Ambrosia Sky & Capy Castaway! One's a melancholic sci-fi clean 'em up, the other an adorable animal adventure, & both are absolutely worth your time. 🍁
mobilesyrup.com
Toronto indie games are having their own 'Barbenheimer' moment today
Melancholic sci-fi clean 'em up Ambrosia Sky and cozy animal adventure Capy Castaway both launched today, and they're absolutely worth your time.
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Chris Tapsell @christapsell.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Hello! For a potential piece on Eurogamer, I would love to know what cool little things people in and around games are working on. Not full games, but fun, interesting, weird projects or side projects. Things you're noodling around with, things you just think are neat. Replies/reposts very welcome!
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
May or may not enable emergent "peasant railgun"... YMMV 😉
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Bucket brigade! Imagine how much faster these guys could be if they worked together: bsky.app/profile/lisy...
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Emily Atkin @emorwee.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
This. This is the correct, science-backed, responsible framing. Wish more news outlets did it like the CBC.
cbc.ca
'Just stop burning fossil fuels.' Scientists stress that our smoky skies only have one true fix | CBC News
Smoky skies in Toronto have led to new scrutiny of government efforts to fight fires and manage forests. But scientists say the realistic way to tackle the smoke is fighting climate change itself.
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Save Standard Time @savestandard.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
“Daylight Saving” and “Sunshine Protection” are deceits. Restore permanent Standard Time for more honest time-keeping.
Screen still from the movie “The Matrix” (1999). Neo (Keanu Reeves) stares at a spoon. Caption “THERE IS NO EXTRA HOUR”.
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Somehow I watched all of these not realizing it was the same person behind Very Very Valet 😅 Amazing resources all! Thank you for all the behind-the-scenes goodness. Heroic
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
static.klipy.com
Tom Hardy in Mad Max: That's Bait
Alt: Tom Hardy in Mad Max: That's Bait
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Natty🇺🇸🇺🇦🇨🇦🏐🏈🐕🐴📎 @grillnatty.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
How is it the power grid couldn’t handle electric cars but it will be fine with all these data centers?
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Happy Father’s Day
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Static constructoros complexty 🤔
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Tom Forsyth @tomforsyth.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Holy shit my thing actually works! Didn't even need much tweaking. This is a traditional mesh (very simple one right now - a 2x2 quad), skinned with the usual 4-weighted-bones, but it has "thickness", and has a heightfield embedded in it that the pixel shader traces through.
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
I've been meaning to post about this project for a while... so thanks for giving me the impetus to finally do it! PS: I love seeing your progress screenshots & videos in my feed. Great stuff! :)
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
The number and order of SDF operators are compiled into the shader, but the values (radii, positioning, etc) are all read from uniform buffers so can be edited without recompiling.
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Yep! I could have used billboards, but every object just submits its bounding cube and the object's SDF gets evaluated in the pixel shader.
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
But if partitioning larger fields is what you're into, check out this paper: wbrbr.org/publications... (there are binaries for the demo on their GitHub)
wbrbr.org
Lipschitz Pruning: Hierarchical Simplification of Primitive-Based SDFs
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
It's not really a "partitioning" based scheme like you started describing, but rather begins with the constraint that each object in the world is separate and has fixed bounds. Everything is an "imposter".
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Let me show you my side project... it is pretty much exactly this! Including the per-object shader generation you described (which started as a virtual machine that ran in the pixel shader, but that was "pathologically slow" 😅)
A rendering of a bunch of colourful SDF coffee mugs.
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Tanya X. Short @tanyaxshort.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
anyone have a line on the creators of: - angband - factorio - shadows of forbidden gods ????? I have dwarf fortress shenanigans to accomplish (shh avert your eyes, spoilers)
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
I love this so much
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Mike Bithell @mikebithell.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Hot 2026 take: Watchdogs Legion is solid. Some lovely systems in there. You can hear corporate ubi in the backseat yelling directions, but it’s mostly drowned out by all those tasty bits of player expression and emergent noise.
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen NPCs do that in a game… probably for good reason 😅
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
One at a time is fine… they should make a bucket brigade!
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Do you think they’ll eat the whole jar before splashdown? 🥄
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Miriam Cosic @miriamcosic.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
This 1990 speech by Carl Sagan is timely times two: #war #climate
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
RIP Mine: youngest child, outside in the dark of night, with a flashlight. No notes. 💀
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Fun "little" project I haven't dusted off in years. (Last commit was 1 month before the birth of my 2nd child... checks out) ASCII documentation!
Code listing from vm.vert shader. Shows constant vertex and index buffers. A multi-line comment shows a text rendering of a cube with the vertex indices at each corner of the cube.
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
For some reason GPUs don't like when you put switch statements inside your pixel shader's raymarching loop. Who knew? Not this AI programmer! I still think it's cool tho. 😁
Screenshot of code listing for vm.frag. Shows a loop over MAX_OBJ_OPS (16) and a switch over opId (17 cases). Not shown: an outer loop for raymarching up to 256 steps
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
I love impostors rendered like this! I started by asking how to render a pixel-prefect sphere? After a few parametric shapes culminating in a coffee mug shader, I wrote a universal pixel shader that ran a tiny VM to compose CSG ops. It could render all the things! It was also "pathologically slow" 😅
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
☑️
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Adam Bromell @adambromell.info · 28/04/2025
Canadians: Vote. Fucking vote. Today. Now. Take the time it will take for you to vote and VOTE. Go. Now.
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Sarah Cawkwell @skullqueen.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
My son works for this company here in the U.K. It was playing the video game ‘Deus Ex’ that set him on the path to becoming a Biomechanical Engineer. Sometimes, it’s nice to highlight the good things that video games can do. And also remind myself just how proud of him I am.
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Nothing wrong with that! Journey > destination, friends we made along the way, etc. 😉
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Kerioikos: “candle house”
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
🙋🏻‍♂️
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
Congrats Liz!!!
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Savasana
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kate bush’s husband @airbagged.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
WHATEVER THEY'RE PAYING THE ASSASSIN'S CREED SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER ITS NOT ENOUGH
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Secular Talk @kylekulinskishow.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
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United Videogame Workers-CWA @videogameworkers.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Today, we are announcing the formation of United Videogame Workers-CWA, an industry-wide union formed by @codecwa.bsky.social and @cwaunion.bsky.social 💪🎮 We're launching at #GDC2025 this morning to build a video game industry that works for us. We're done playing.
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Toronto Game Jam @torontogamejam.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
🎉IT'S HAPPENING! TOJAM 2025 IS REAL! SPREAD THE WORD!🎉 We're also looking for volunteers to help out this year, so if that sounds like you fill out this form to get started! docs.google.com/form...
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Patrick McKenna @coastwise.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
Yeah, not _high_ dynamic range, just the normal dynamic range. I had the same symptoms with a brand new monitor over HDMI but not DisplayPort. Assuming NVIDIA, here’s a reference for the setting to check: www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/s/k...
reddit.com
From the nvidia community on Reddit: Have you changed your dynamic range to Full?
Explore this post and more from the nvidia community
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🍁Kevin 🆖 @gamehole.itch.io · 04/03/2025
I'm putting together a Canada game dev starter pack in response to this idiotic tariff war so people can support Canada-based game devs through follows / purchases if they choose to. Reply if you're a game dev in Canada and you want to be on it. Please repost. Thanks!
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Ichiro Lambe @ichiro.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
This old trope continues to be true forever, always.
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headfallsoff @headfallsoff.com · 01/12/2024
the problem is i want to play every video game and there are only finite hours in a lifetime
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