Reposted by gortoDerek Yu @mossmouth.bsky.social · 25/05/2026Genuinely, this concern about AI is one of the reasons why I think having friction in video games is good and why it's increasingly important to have games that simply exist instead of catering to our expectations. Reposting this message from Kojima about "pre-digested" art: 2659602124
gorto @gorto.xyz · 15/04/2026PIXEL PERFECT HARD SHADOWS: gorto.xyz/blog/izb-sha... i keep telling myself that i'll go back and revise this, but i keep not doing that. so it might as well be out in the world!gorto.xyzReinventing the Square Wheel — Christian GortonPixel-perfect shadows without shadow maps, using the Irregular Z-Buffer in a compute-only pipeline. 000
Reposted by gortoGéraud Zucchini - SOL CESTO 🌞 @docgeraud.bsky.social · 10/04/2026🌞 SOL CESTO – 1.0 OUT NOW ON STEAM 🌞 It took us nearly 3 years, but Sol Cesto is finally complete! We hope you’ll enjoy our weird roguelite and all the surprises we’ve added 👀 Please help us spread the word 🙌 491325480
Reposted by gortoRune Skovbo Johansen @runevision.bsky.social · 30/03/2026My erosion filter is out! Video, blog post, and shader source. It emulates erosion without simulation, so it's fast, GPU friendly, and trivial to generate in chunks. Explainer video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4V2... Companion blog post: blog.runevision.com/2026/03/fast... #ProcGen #vfx #GameDev 17557169
Reposted by gortoEric Lengyel @ericlengyel.bsky.social · 17/03/2026New blog post: A Decade of Slug This talks about the evolution of the Slug font rendering algorithm, and it includes an exciting announcement: The patent has been dedicated to the public domain. terathon.com/blog/decade-... 1127386
gorto @gorto.xyz · 18/03/2026in the spirit of spring break i've taken a break from working on my main game and i've started a little third person shooter side project! look at those pixel perfect hard shadows! #gamedev #indiedev 083
gorto @gorto.xyz · 18/03/2026had a breakthrough on the IZB shadows i've been fantasizing about for the past few months. they work flawlessly now AND they're fast :) 010
gorto @gorto.xyz · 04/03/2026fun little fleshy dissolve effect i made using my material archetype system :) #gamedev #indiedev 251
Reposted by gortoGéraud Zucchini - SOL CESTO 🌞 @docgeraud.bsky.social · 04/03/2026🌞 SOL CESTO - FULL ANIMATED TRAILER 🌞 Sol Cesto 1.0 finally has a release date! Dive into the final version of our weird roguelite on April 10, 2026. We can’t wait for you to discover all the endings 👀 Please help us spread the word 🙌 471418496
gorto @gorto.xyz · 27/02/2026finally figured out a good way to set up custom materials! both of these spheres are going through the unified PBR pipeline, but have custom fragment shaders! #gamedev #indiedev 111
Reposted by gortoMAK @makramd.bsky.social · 27/02/2026Real-time Rendering with a Neural Irradiance Volume Delivering fast inference (~1ms/frame), a tiny memory footprint (1-5MB), 10x quality gains over probe-based methods @ equivalent mem budgets, bringing neural rendering within reach of consumer hardware without RT or denoising. arnocoomans.be/eg2026 35915
gorto @gorto.xyz · 26/02/2026went back and refactored my particle systems a bit so that i could import presets from the amazing sprinkles editor (github.com/doceazedo/sp...) #gamedev #indiedev 181
gorto @gorto.xyz · 25/02/2026game is going really well, but i took a break to do another pass on the lens flare effect! i think i'm finally satisfied with how this looks 100
gorto @gorto.xyz · 20/02/2026kinda giving me whiplash how fast this project is coming together and how effortlessly fun it is? 110
gorto @gorto.xyz · 18/02/2026starting to pick up speed on the gameplay side of things, i spent today working on getting some procedural generation going. right now we're generating one node graph for the enemy base, and then a bunch of small ones for creep camps! #gamedev #indiedev 151
gorto @gorto.xyz · 17/02/2026added some better placeholder assets and added the last-hit / healing mechanic! still some behavioral kinks to work out, but finding it a lot of fun despite its early state! #gamedev #indiedev 131
gorto @gorto.xyz · 16/02/2026started working on some rts-like mechanics, i also capitulated and added csm shadows #gamedev #indiedev 121
gorto @gorto.xyz · 11/02/2026that's super sick! the particle systems are one of my favorite features from godot 110
gorto @gorto.xyz · 11/02/2026woah this is slick, is this built on top of hanabi or is it all custom? 110
gorto @gorto.xyz · 11/02/2026got somewhat demotivated working on shadows, so i entirely rerouted and worked on more general game engine stuff, e.g. sound, audio, input, animation, etc. i think next is figuring out a better way to author materials and particle effects. #gamedev #indiedev 171
gorto @gorto.xyz · 04/02/2026more particle eye candy! i tried to add collision based on the depth buffer, but it's still a bit janky. i also added weighted blended transparency (can you tell i'm trying to put off adding shadows as long as possible). #gamedev #indiedev 141
gorto @gorto.xyz · 02/02/2026gpu particles! pretty basic for now, but this system should be pretty easily extensible. #gamedev #indiedev 182
gorto @gorto.xyz · 02/02/2026lots of changes! first, i added ktx texture loading so i could compress intel sponza down and load it all into vram (no texture streaming yet). i also finally got specular in. i've also added bloom + lens flare (not happy with this yet) + chromatic aberration! #gamedev #indiedev #indiegames #devlog 141
gorto @gorto.xyz · 01/02/2026added a fog pass based on this: ijdykeman.github.io/graphics/sim... i think it looks cute, not sure how i feel about the mini-sun as a permanent fixture though #gamedev 181
gorto @gorto.xyz · 30/01/2026mipmap support got added, and i'm now rendering the main pass to an HDR target and using the tony tonemap! #gamedev 171
gorto @gorto.xyz · 29/01/2026and that's it for now! hopefully i'll keep this thread updated as i add more stuff! 100
gorto @gorto.xyz · 29/01/2026the next thing i'm working on adding is HDR support, so that i can take a detour and add some fun post-processing effects like bloom and lens flares. i'm also thinking about adding a simple fog shader that's affected by my point lights based off of this post: ijdykeman.github.io/graphics/sim...ijdykeman.github.ioA Simple Shader for Point Lights in FogI want a simple, fast shader that gives me fog illuminated by point lights. To do this, I created a screen-space effect that achieves the results below. Th... 100
gorto @gorto.xyz · 29/01/2026i'm very pleased with the results so far. i spent this morning doing an optimization pass, and got the frame time down to ~0.8ms on my 3070ti. 110
gorto @gorto.xyz · 29/01/2026now for what i've added so far: i've decided to go for forward+. i've got the depth pre-pass, light culling, and support for point lights in. i'm also using the new-ish EON brdf: arxiv.org/pdf/2410.18026arxiv.org 100
gorto @gorto.xyz · 29/01/2026this combo of graphics api and odin is just a joy to work in. it stays out of my way and lets me focus on doing the stuff that i'm actually interested in. i've also opted to use slang for my shaders. i've also added in tracy profiling, whose praise i cannot sing enough. 100
gorto @gorto.xyz · 29/01/2026the thing that sparked this hard reset was my discovery of this graphics api: github.com/LeonardoTemp.... it's very new, and based off of sebastian aaltonen's recent blog post. this is my first time using odin, and all i can say is that i regret not using it sooner.github.comGitHub - LeonardoTemperanza/no_gfx_apiContribute to LeonardoTemperanza/no_gfx_api development by creating an account on GitHub. 100
gorto @gorto.xyz · 29/01/2026i'm a few days into this iteration of building my own renderer, and feeling good enough that i figured i would start a thread to track my progress and help keep me accountable. #gamedev 1152
gorto @gorto.xyz · 21/01/2026finally got my new shadow system somewhat functional! still a ton of kinks to work out, and more than a little bit of optimization to do, but it's nice to see that this method does in fact work! non ray-traced pixel perfect shadows (in theory) 110
gorto @gorto.xyz · 18/12/2025this is a great resource too if you haven't come across it yet: www.froyok.fr/blog/2021-09...froyok.frCustom Lens-Flare Post-Process in Unreal Engine | Froyok - Léna PiquetThis article shows how to modify the default Unreal Engine lens-flare post-process, from code to shaders. I always wanted to change the default Unreal Engine 4 lens-flares because it never felt good i... 010
Reposted by gortoSebastian Aaltonen @sebaaltonen.bsky.social · 16/12/2025My "No Graphics API" blog post is live! Please repost :) www.sebastianaaltonen.com/blog/no-grap... I spend 1.5 years doing this. Full rewrite last summer and another partial rewrite last month. As Hemingway said: "First draft of everything is always shit".sebastianaaltonen.comNo Graphics API — Sebastian AaltonenGraphics APIs and shader languages have significantly increased in complexity over the past decade. It’s time to start discussing how to strip down the abstractions to simplify development, improve pe... 19475193
![meme, stolen from some reddit post.
"BEWARE OF THE [Vulkan logo] PIPELINE"
vtx. input
vtx. input assembly
vertex shader
rasterization
fragment shader
oh shit i forgor to clear the depth buffer oh god what the fuck is happening](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:esx7yxwaoirq5ijxilxmznao/bafkreicete4nvk6rl4aqjdydmhlixfc72z4plhfwu4gga6lzpauoghtshm)
