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Craig Kolb

@craigkolb.net
153 followers 117 following 148 posts

Rendering research @ NVIDIA by day, computational astrophotography by night. ex-Pixar, Intel, startups, Stanford, Princeton. "Literally the worst Dad EVER!!!11!” github.com/cek

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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Academy Software Foundation (ASWF) @aswf.io · 16/09/2026
NVIDIA has contributed two new high-fidelity assets—the MaterialX Teapot and Lion—to DPEL. These are the first DPEL assets to feature production-grade, multi-layered MaterialX materials. Learn more and get the assets: www.aswf.io/blog/materia...
aswf.io
DPEL Adds New MaterialX Assets from NVIDIA – ASWF
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Ben Houston @ben3d.ca · 24/04/2026
MaterialX Needs a Single-File Container. Let's formalize what @polyhaven.com and @gpuopen.bsky.social material libraries are already doing with a new "mtlz" extension. Details here: ben3d.ca/blog/materia... CC: @materialx.bsky.social
ben3d.ca
MaterialX Needs a Single-File Container
MaterialX assets are multiple loose files, which breaks down in real pipelines. The community has already solved this with zip packaging. We just need to formalize it as .mtlz.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 11/04/2026
New Toy (oh-eee-oh)
Pinky+ synthesizer and a pair of attached headphones
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Brian Karis @briankaris.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
2 more Nanite Tessellation posts are up. graphicrants.blogspot.com/2026/02/nani..., graphicrants.blogspot.com/2026/03/vari...
graphicrants.blogspot.com
Nanite + Reyes
Let's get into the details of how this integrates with Nanite. We aren’t replacing anything Nanite already does. Nothing is changed about th...
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Nathan Reed @reedbeta.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
My team just open-sourced our internal implementation of the OpenPBR BSDF from our path tracer: github.com/adobe/openpb...
github.com
GitHub - adobe/openpbr-bsdf: Adobe's reference implementation of the OpenPBR BSDF
Adobe's reference implementation of the OpenPBR BSDF - adobe/openpbr-bsdf
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 09/03/2026
SRL's Tesla coil, reborn and, um, upgraded: youtu.be/RoGbrgOhPes?...
youtu.be
Firing the Tesla Tower as a Plasma Cannon
YouTube video by LightningOnDemand
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Tom Duff @tomduff.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
I sent out my #ptpx2025 cards yesterday. Here's what's on them: iq0.com/ptpx2025.html
iq0.com
PTPX2025 information
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 18/12/2025
A lovely tribute to a recently-departed singular talent. jericsmith.com/2025/12/17/g...
jericsmith.com
Go Gentle: Max Eider, R.I.P.
Marcia and I just got back from a hike, and I was most dismayed to see this Facebook post upon sitting down and logging into my computer: Born Peter Millson, Max Eider first crossed my radar screen…
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 12/12/2025
Nice! My better half's new YA book about Anna Atkins is on a number of Best of 2025 lists, including: www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture...
smithsonianmag.com
The Ten Best Photography Books of 2025
Our favorite titles this year invite readers to take in the beauty of nature and our cultural rituals
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Shannon Woods 🦡🖥️👾 @shannonin3d.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
I got to do an explainer of neural shading-- with my NVIDIA hat on this time, and still full of Slang goodness! It's posted over at the NVIDIA developer blog: developer.nvidia.com/blog/how-to-...
developer.nvidia.com
How to Get Started with Neural Shading for Your Game or Application | NVIDIA Technical Blog
For the past 25 years, real-time rendering has been driven by continuous hardware improvements. The goal has always been to create the highest fidelity image possible within 16 milliseconds.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Really think this Shtetl Optimized piece by Harvey Lederman is worth reading: scottaaronson.blog?p=9030 Not sure it's an optimistic future, but it is a future that is still joyful
scottaaronson.blog
ChatGPT and the Meaning of Life: Guest Post by Harvey Lederman
Scott Aaronson’s Brief Foreword: Harvey Lederman is a distinguished analytic philosopher who moved from Princeton to UT Austin a few years ago. Since his arrival, he’s become one of my …
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Adam Marrs @acmarrs.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Today we released a new demo showcasing RTX Mega Geometry, ReSTIR PT, and DLSS all running together in our NvRTX branch of UE 5.6. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qyo...
youtube.com
Bonsai Diorama Demo | NVIDIA RTX Unreal Engine 5.6.1
YouTube video by NVIDIA Game Developer
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 27/09/2025
<twitches in Greyhair> pivot-to-ai.com/2025/08/29/v...
pivot-to-ai.com
Vibe-coded build system NX gets hacked, steals vibe-coders’ crypto
NX is build software. You write your code on your laptop, you press “build”, it runs NX, and you get a built version you can put onto your web server. If you could hack NX, you could hit a lot of p…
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 26/09/2025
Subtly downgrade a band They Are Unlikely To Be Giants
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 27/07/2025
My Dad played "An Evening Wasted With" for me when I was a very wee kiddo, and I remember being pleasantly shocked that grownups were allowed to be hilariously and cleverly snarky and sarcastic. A truly formative moment. He had a great run, but still: Damnit. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...
nytimes.com
Tom Lehrer, Musical Satirist With a Dark Streak, Dies at 97
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 10/07/2025
Today in "why didn't anybody tell me about this a decade ago": github.com/chrisant996/...
github.com
GitHub - chrisant996/clink: Bash's powerful command line editing in cmd.exe
Bash's powerful command line editing in cmd.exe. Contribute to chrisant996/clink development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Alasdair Beckett-King @misterabk.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
When I found a pub with an inverted normal map. (If you understand what this means, you have to repost.)
A whitewashed pub wall, with mortar standing proud of the stones.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Slang Shading Language and Compiler @shader-slang.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Join us next week for the next installment of Getting Started with Slang! This webinar will be on the Reflections API. When: July 8th at 8:00am PDT Learn more and register: shader-slang.org/event/2025/0... #Slang #Reflections #API
shader-slang.org
Getting Started with Slang: Reflections API
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
ianVisits @ianvisits.co.uk · 12/06/2025
If you’re quick, there’s a rare chance to see the only known photographs of the early computing pioneer, Ada Lovelace, as they will go on display in London for a few days. www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/see...
ianvisits.co.uk
See the only known photos of computing pioneer Ada Lovelace at Bonhams London
If you’re quick, there’s a rare chance to see the only known photographs of the early computing pioneer, Ada Lovelace, as they will go on display in London for a few days.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
saschawillems.bsky.social @saschawillems.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Finally finished adding @shader-slang.bsky.social shaders to all my (almost 100) @vulkan.org open source samples and wrote a bit about it here: www.saschawillems.de/blog/2025/06... tl;dr: I very much enjoyed this :)
saschawillems.de
Shaders for Vulkan samples now also available in slang
A new shading language enters the ring Unlike other 3D graphics apis, Vulkan did decouple human readable shaders from the api using SPIR-V as an intermediate representation. This makes it possible to ...
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Yining Karl Li @yiningkarlli.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
The founder of Penn's graphics program, Prof. Norm Badler, passed away last week. Norm was one of the early pioneers of CG, and over the past 50 years his students- thousands across PhD, Masters, and undergrad- have gone on to build much of today's CG field and industry. (1/5)
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 17/05/2025
Fun project from nmrobots.com. All it needs now is a camera, a beefier processor, and a suitable host.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Shannon Woods 🦡🖥️👾 @shannonin3d.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Looking to get started with Slang and neural graphics, but not sure where to start? We're hosting a virtual meetup where I'll do a walkthrough from the ground up! Join me May 20! shader-slang.org/event/2025/0...
shader-slang.org
Getting Started with Slang: Draw Your First Splat
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Shannon Woods 🦡🖥️👾 @shannonin3d.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
The second in my series on Gaussian splatting in Slang has been posted! Here, I walk through how to go from the simplistic & slow implementation in my last GS example to something much speedier. (Although I may still have some more tricks up my sleeves there...) shader-slang.org/blog/2025/04...
shader-slang.org
Neural Graphics: From First Principles to Performance
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Christoph Kubisch @pixeljetstream.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Really enjoying this old documentary on computer graphics youtu.be/W8-54-9J9ns
youtu.be
1981: How COMPUTER GRAPHICS Will Change the World | Horizon | Retro Tech | BBC Archive
YouTube video by BBC Archive
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Adam Marrs @acmarrs.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Our #GDC25 talk "Path Tracing Nanite in NVIDIA Zorah" is now online, free to watch for all: www.nvidia.com/en-us/on-dem...
nvidia.com
Path Tracing Nanite in NVIDIA Zorah | Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2025 | NVIDIA On-Demand
In this session, we will discuss the cutting-edge algorithms and techniques behind NVIDIA's Zorah Blackwell launch demo
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 03/04/2025
IRL NEE Nightmare
Many many lights suspended in spherical bulbs in a room with mirrored floor and walls
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 27/03/2025
Progress has been made.
Motorized computer-controlled nerf "gattling gun" mounted on a pan-tilt mechanism, with camera feeding neural object identifier for target identification and tracking.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Nathan Hoobler @hoobler.net · 16/03/2025
To anyone at GDC interested in neural rendering/texture compression: Alexey Panteleev is speaking tomorrow at 9:30am on how the new Cooperative Vector functionality in HLSL was used to implement the RTXNTC library. Start your week off strong! schedule.gdconf.com/session/adva...
schedule.gdconf.com
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 01/03/2025
"Thunderbirds are go!"
Keir Starmer in front of a lectern: "There's a famous slogan in the United Kingdom"
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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Slashed zero (0̸), a representation of the number 0 (zero) to distinguish it from the letter O
Slashed letter 'O' (O̸), a representation of the letter O to distinguish it from the number 0 (zero)
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Nathan Hoobler @hoobler.net · 11/02/2025
For those interested: Alexey Panteleev will be giving a presentation about his work on Neural Texture Compression at Vulcanized 2025 on Thursday, February 13th at 9:30. www.vulkan.org/events/vulka...
vulkan.org
Vulkanised 2025 | Vulkan | Cross platform 3D Graphics
Vulkanised is the largest event dedicated to developers using the Vulkan API and is a unique technical event that brings the Vulkan developer community together to exchange ideas, solve problems and h...
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Nathan Hoobler @hoobler.net · 06/02/2025
I'm very proud to announce that today NVIDIA has released our first public SDK for Neural Texture Compression (NTC)! github.com/NVIDIA-RTX/R... NTC exploits neural techniques to achieve 12-24x compression of PBR material textures with quality comparable or better than BC formats.
github.com
GitHub - NVIDIA-RTX/RTXNTC: NVIDIA Neural Texture Compression SDK
NVIDIA Neural Texture Compression SDK. Contribute to NVIDIA-RTX/RTXNTC development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Christoph Kubisch @pixeljetstream.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Thanks to a lot of colleagues' great work, happy to share Vulkan samples for RTX Mega Geometry. They should run on all RTX GPUs using today's new drivers github.com/nvpro-sample... github.com/nvpro-sample... github.com/nvpro-sample... github.com/nvpro-sample...
github.com
GitHub - nvpro-samples/vk_animated_clusters: Sample that uses VK_NV_cluster_acceleration_structure to animate meshes for ray tracing
Sample that uses VK_NV_cluster_acceleration_structure to animate meshes for ray tracing - nvpro-samples/vk_animated_clusters
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 26/01/2025
Re-upping for Reasons. Paper: "Although the techniques proposed in this article focus on the one-dimensional problem, their principles can be easily extended to multiple dimensions." Me, an idiot, three weeks later:
A man wearing a hat, white shirt, and suspenders looks up at a giant blackboard filled with indecipherable equations and diagrams.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 20/01/2025
Today's project with The Boy: External power and trigger for motorized nerf gun knockoff. Good fun!
Disassembled orange and blue plastic motorized nerf "gatling" gun and assorted electronics parts on the kitchen table.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 10/01/2025
OH: "I tend to be very self-defecating."
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 10/01/2025
If I had an online store that sold text editors, I would totally name it Vim Vendors.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 05/01/2025
Today's find: Weston Model 627 Cine Exposure Meter (Type 1), 1933. Still working!
Cylindrical vintage exposure meter with a single needle over a white face with a scale labeled '"f" stops for motion picture cameras". 2.25" in diameter and 1.5" thick with thin hinged black pocket-magnifier-style covers for front and rear.
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🤡 houseof1000cowsarejustfoods 🤡 @cowsarejustfood.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
mark e.smith reads lovecraft's the colour out of space for christmas youtu.be/4ZZ8m8I2kE4?...
youtu.be
Mark E Smith Reads An Xmas Story For BBC Collective
YouTube video by BBCCollective
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 16/12/2024
Misread "Kaplansky density theorem" as "Kaplansky dentistry theorem" and I for a second there I was truly intrigued.
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It's Pipes, Mum! Pipes is here! @scriblit.bsky.social · 14/12/2024
He's making a man He's checking fresh graves He'll soon learn remorse If that dude misbehaves Frankenstein has hubristic flaws
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Jacco Bikker 🎦 @jbikker.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
On behalf of the '25 paper chairs: 🎉 The #HPG2025 Call for Papers is LIVE! Join us in beautiful Copenhagen, June 23-25, for cutting-edge discussions on graphics hardware and software. Co-located with #EGSR2025, it's the perfect stage for your research. 👉 highperformancegraphics.org/2025/program...
highperformancegraphics.org
High-Performance Graphics 2025
High-Performance Graphics 2025 - June 23-25 Copenhagen
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Omer Shapira @omershapira.com · 11/12/2024
If you’re in the field of computing, I highly recommend spending time watching THE MOTHER OF ALL DEMOS. Key things to notice: • Nothing that enables the demo existed. Not even interrupt paths on the CPU. • To this day, the things demonstrated there don’t exist as products or computing concepts.
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Ben Houston @ben3d.ca · 06/12/2024
The Origins of the Krakatoa point renderer. Developed in a few days back in 2004, Krakatoa and its descents went on to be used on Avatar, Superman Returns, Harry Potter, Transforms and a ton of other high profile Hollywood films. benhouston3d.com/blog/the-ori... #vfx #bts
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Ben Houston @ben3d.ca · 05/12/2024
Finding Product Market Fit in a VFX Studio, and Almost Winning a SciTech Oscar: The story behind the creation of the Deadline render manager. benhouston3d.com/blog/buildin...
benhouston3d.com
Building Deadline
Sometimes big opportunities come from solving what seem like minor problems. In 2002, fresh out of university, I accidentally started what would become one of the most widely-used tools in Hollywood v...
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Tomasz Stachowiak @h3r2tic.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Hey, y'all! 👋 I'm Tom (or Tomasz if you enjoy Hungarian Notation or Klingon) I cause graphics devices to become lost, and generate all sorts of technical, design & artistic debt in Tiny Glade, together with @anopara.bsky.social, @lydmartin.bsky.social & @odaodaoda.bsky.social
A screenshot of the video game Tiny Glade, showing two cozy cottages on an elevated stone foundation, surrounded by water, in an autumn setting.
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Nathan Hoobler @hoobler.net · 25/11/2024
GPU Zen 3 is out! I want to draw attention to the 96(!) page article I was a small part of detailing all the work from tooth-to-tail we put into making ray tracing a reality in Cyberpunk 2077. It is exhaustive and should be a reference for anyone looking to make RTX a reality in their own engines.
A table of contents for GPU Zen 3, Chapter 7: The Evolution of the Real-Time Lighting Pipeline in Cyberpunk 2077
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 01/12/2024
Today's find: Supreme Instruments B-400 Diagnometer tube tester (~1929)
Tube tester housed in an appropriately beat-up dovetailed box and festooned with dials and switches and plugs.
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Yining Karl Li @yiningkarlli.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
So Disney Animation has this awesome interactive page that describes at a high level how we make our movies, and now that Moana 2 is out in theaters today, the page has been updated with Moana 2 stuff. Check it out! disneyanimation.com/process
disneyanimation.com
Filmmaking Process - Moana 2
From sequence to shot to frame, explore our studio pipeline.
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