iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I've been working on a new portfolio site, and somehow i decided to build a ray-marcher inside of it. Shaders are written with slang. Those are being cross-compiled to WGSL (WebGPU) and GLSL (WebGL fallback). here are some debug views that can be viewed from the site

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Today i added a new example to my rendering framework, This one implements a third party rendering library (Noesis GUI).

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

From what I known it is used at some places, generated as a byproduct of the SSAO calculations, and then later used for specular occlusion and light probes/IBL.

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

This is awesome! I always felt like the shift mappings could be improved. This seems to get closer to use some sort of guiding technique to optimize shift mappings. I wonder what happens if you take Importance/Radiance into account when deciding on the shift mappings.

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Looks so good!! How many child hero samples would you use? ( if you use hero sampling )

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jb @jbakergraphics.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

some more 2D spectral pathtracing

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Awesome works! This looks so good!

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Nice work! People have been trying to cheat their way out of this issue for some time, thats why boosted phong was a thing because with phong, the specular term just gets swallowed by the cosine at grazing angles.

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Yining Karl Li @yiningkarlli.bsky.social · 09/05/2026

There's a neat short paper from Eurographics this year that evaluates how well microfacet shading models actually predict measured reflectance. The answer is: not nearly as well as one would hope! (1/3) ssteinberg.xyz/2026_surface...

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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 438 - April 27h, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

I think the game jam got out of hand....

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nicebyte @nicebyte.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

INTRODUCTION TO SPHERICAL HARMONICS FOR GRAPHICS PROGRAMMERS finally done. gpfault.net/posts/sph.html

gpfault.net

Introduction to Spherical Harmonics for Graphics Programmers

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mamoniem, et al. 🌹♠️🦷🌿 @mamoniem.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Behind the pretty frames of #PRAGMATA. Breaking down many tricks and hidden gems of the renderer behind CAPCOM's RE Engine. i hope you enjoy & find this few months worth of freetime article useful... mamoniem.com/behind-the-p...

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Ahaaa interesting, i haven't thought of that, Ill give it a try!

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Slang autodifferentiation is pretty cool. Neural BxDF training on the fly :))

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Thanks!! I have yet to do some more work before i can make a final conclusion on the timings. (I will probably add a readme with a small report later) Right now it seems the GPU version is slower due to bad occupancy of the DepthRedcution, Also yeah no GPU or CPU culling is done at the moment

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

If anyone is interested in the source: github.com/XanderBert/E...

github.com

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

I've been working on comparing 3 Direct Shadow Techniques. 1) CPU Cascade's 2) Compute Cascade's: Calculating the cascades based on the current depth. 3) Using RayTracing

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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 430 - March 1st, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...

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MAK @makramd.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Real-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

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Today i added Temporal Accumulation in my GTAO Implementation. I used Interleaved Gradient Noise as a low discrepancy noise. I could practically halve the render time, while still having better results. Here is a comparison with and without: it's with 2 hemisphere slices and 4 samples each.

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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 428 - February 15th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...

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saschawillems.bsky.social @saschawillems.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Looking for a basic @vulkan.org #Vulkan descriptor heap example? I've got you covered: github.com/SaschaWillem...

github.com

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AMD GPUOpen @gpuopen.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Want to build your own ray tracer or path tracer on AMD GPUs? Our #Raytracing using #HIP paper covers: 🎇 The essential math 🎇 Camera setup, intersections, NEE, BVH 🎇 How to accelerate everything with HIPRT Find it with our papers: gpuopen.com/learn/public... 30MB PDF: gpuopen.com/download/202...

Cornell box rendered by ray tracing using the pinhole camera model and the camera model with radial distortion - a comparison.

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

I recently read this paper. Interesting idea to use infrared to decompose the lighting terms. ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp....

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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 424 - January 18th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...

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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 423 - January 11th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

Anddd We have NEE and MIS implemented

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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 422 - January 4th, 2025 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...

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Mike Turitzin @miketuritzin.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

I just released my video about the engine (and game) I've been working on. The engine is based on dynamic SDFs, and the video describes how it works and what it makes possible. Link in the reply! This is my first YouTube video and it took forever - please repost!

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ceruleite.bsky.social @ceruleite.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

#SIGGRAPH2025 Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games course talk recording of "MEGALIGHTS: STOCHASTIC DIRECT LIGHTING IN UNREAL ENGINE 5" by @knarkowicz.bsky.social‬ and @tiagocostav.bsky.social‬ from @epicgames.alt.store.ap.brid.gy is now online: youtu.be/dmmN8_c8Tb0?... Enjoy!

youtu.be

SIGGRAPH 2025 Advances in RT Rendering: Megalights: Stochastic Direct Lighting in Unreal Engine 5

YouTube video by SIGGRAPH Advances in Real-Time Rendering

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Amélie Heinrich @dispatchgraph.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

-- JOB SEARCH POST/RT APPRECIATED -- Hello everyone! I am available for work (full time position/internship) anywhere in the world with priority going to the EU, starting June 2026. 🧵

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Sebastian Aaltonen @sebaaltonen.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

My "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.com

No Graphics API — Sebastian Aaltonen

Graphics 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...

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Jacco Bikker 🎦 @jbikker.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Ke-Sen Huang has a large batch of SIGGRAPH Asia papers today: www.realtimerendering.com/kesen/siga20... Among them: "ReSTIR PG: Path Guiding with Spatiotemporally Resampled Paths" by Zeng et al., which describes a *real-time* framework combining ReSTIR PT and path guiding.

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juliushorsthuis.bsky.social @juliushorsthuis.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Experimenting with this look for the fractals.

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Amini Allight @amini-allight.org · 28/11/2025

Dirty gamedev secret: sometimes instead of building proper debug visualizations I just dump the information to OBJ and use Blender to visualize it 😅 But now at least I know my SDF dual contouring is working

C++ code that emits an OBJ file filled with points from voxel edge/SDF intersections.

A collection of vertices in OBJ plaintext format.

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

I saw some really interesting talks today! Ive learned a ton about how virtual lights can improve indoor rendering and what the pitfalls are.

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Jakub Boksansky @boksajak.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

This is a great article about ReGIR / World-Space ReSTIR with nice improvements by Tom Clabault: tomclabault.github.io/blog/2025/re...

tomclabault.github.io

ReGIR - An advanced implementation for many-lights offline rendering | Tom Clabault

Tom Clabault's website

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Xander Berten @hellcatpnext.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Implemented whitted-style ray tracing with wavelength-dependent IOR today

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Gabriel Sassone @gabrielsassone.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

My talk about ray-tracing is out! youtu.be/CGR1gu2KW2s?... Here I try to explain it in simple terms, while giving some historical context as well. There is also a quick RTAO implementation with the worst denoise ever here: github.com/JorenJoestar... feedback is more than welcome!

youtu.be

Demystifying Vulkan Ray Tracing

YouTube video by Conferenza Italiana sul Game Development

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Guillaume Boissé @gboisse.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

New blog post! Behind the scenes of some of the techniques involved in making our last PC demo 💫 gboisse.github.io/posts/this-i...

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Oliver Franzke @p1xelcoder.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Bonus post to end the week: If you are a graphics programmer do yourself a favor and get a MIDI board. It makes the work way more tactile and fun. Full props to Matt and @aaronmjacobs.com for getting me on the MIDI train. :)

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