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Paul "Paulie" Hughes

@pauliehughes.bsky.social
1.4K followers 246 following 1.3K posts

43 years of programming games; from Vic-20 to PS5! The LEGO game guy, The Ocean Loader Guy. 56 shipped titles, 240M sales. Retro Game Code archiver/documenter. Happy Chappy. Occasional Magician. Typography snob. BAFTA member.

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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 13h
Good grief. Nine years ago yesterday I walked away from Tt Fusion and our beloved LEGO franchise into a rather short-lived retirement 😆 Doesn't seem like five minutes ago, but my lord I needed to do it. Genuinely chuffed to bits that their latest LEGO Batman is smashing it.
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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 457 - September 27th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Very interesting...
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Oooo, Alex Gibney. This should be very interesting!
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Oh no. RIP bone. What terrible news.
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Finally got Monty Mole reassembling and running with all the unused code and data removed. Every time I RE a Spectrum game the interrupts always trip me up; the I register pointing to a page of the same byte that points to the ISR routine at address <ByteN><ByteN>. Every single time! On Github soon!
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
A bit more Monty! Bah! I need to sort out EQUates for all the IX+NN offsets - I documented all the structures, but need to get rid of the magic numbers! If you're gonna do it, you've got to do it right, right? 😀
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Just mapping the sprite addresses to the room data and I think I can call it done for Monty Mole. All functions and data mapped, and assembles back to the original. Next step to tidy up the source comments, and group the gfx data into something more readable. What game next...
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Not done any reverse engineering for a while, but with @0xc0de.bsky.social tinkering with Electron Monty Mole, I figured I should get Spectrum Analyser out again, and have a pop. Always liked the game (apart from those darned random crushers!) from the moment I saw it in Just Micro back in the day.
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
More old gold from the HDD archives... An alternate cover for Privateer 2 - I really liked this one.
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Digging through some old drives, as you do, and came across this. How is Starlancer on the Dreamcast 26 years old? Only seems like yesterday we were crunching like mad to get it ported in three months flat. Apparently, the multiplayer still works!
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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 451 - August 16th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cv... Bloody hell, I only finished re-watching the first season of Heroes last night. 36 is far too young. May the cheerleader rest in peace.
bbc.co.uk
Hayden Panettiere: US actress dies aged 36
Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis describes Panettiere as "so gifted". No cause of death has been confirmed.
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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 450 - August 9th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...
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Daniel Holden @theorangeduck.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
One of my most requested articles is something on inverse kinematics and foot sliding. I finally found the time to write up the little recipes that have served me well through the years, including an offline method I used recently that works surprisingly nicely. theorangeduck.com/page/inverse...
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Never thought I'd hear my old SID driver playing perfectly on a Beeb, 38 years later! There are some clever buggers around :o)
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
You seen this @kevedwardsretro.bsky.social ?
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
I concurr! Awesome sauce!
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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 448 - July 27th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
As you get older, sometimes you need to embrace and acknowledge your failures along with your successes… One game sold in excess of 5,000,000 units, the other, well, did not. Don’t let one dreadful title define you.
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TheXboxHub @thexboxhub.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Pure Pool Pro Review #PurePoolPro #Pool #Xbox #XboxSeries  www.thexboxhub.com/pure-pool-pr...
thexboxhub.com
Pure Pool Pro Review | TheXboxHub
Review - Pure Pool Pro is the best pool game around in my book. It’s quite a small market on consoles, but this is definitely the cream of the crop.
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Ripstone Games @ripstonegames.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Pool Fans on @xbox.com Pure Pool Pro, the long-awaited sequel to Pure Pool, arrives tomorrow on Series X|S #PurePoolPro #IndieGames #8Ball #9Ball Wishlist here and follow for updates 👇
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
It probably is just me, but nowadays, when I see an orange and white striped cone popping up on the sat-nav, I immediately think of VLC rather than a traffic cone! #vlc
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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 447 - July 19th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Had a couple of amazing days down in London with my daughter this weekend to watch Hamilton staring one of the original Broadway cast. Absolutely astounding production. Mind blown!
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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 445 - July 5th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Nice!
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
A few more bits and bobs for the wall - some more giant carts and giant cassettes.
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Dang! This is going to be great! Add to basket.
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
RIP The King of the PDA - such beautiful industrial design too.
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Couldn’t resist - a giant cassette tape to go with the ocean cartridges!
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Thought I’d do a Navy Seals cart as well - next to the actual size of a Commodore cartridge. I guess I should do a giant cassette now, in order to round off my C64 trophies!
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
I just backed Commodore 64: The Birth of a Cultural Icon on @kickstarter.com www.kickstarter.com/projects/gra...
kickstarter.com
Commodore 64: The Birth of a Cultural Icon
A documentary that explores the success of the iconic Commodore 64 computer!
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Another giant cart for the wall. Batman (by Zach Townsend) was the first proof of concept for Ocean’s multibank cartridges. I honed the cart software with this title to get the whole game into 128K. We upped the ante with the compression on Navy Seals to get loads of extra bitmaps in the 128K.
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
That’s the Ocean 64 cart modelled. Giant label made, now to print a mahoosive version of it for the wall. It’s been 37 years since Dave Collier and I created the multibank cart (the hardware was all Dave!)
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Another giant 3D print of a DS cart this time for the wall. Thus far my magnum opus.
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
No idea which of my former colleagues at Tt did this, but whoever you are, I doff my hat to you - that is the best Easter egg ever. Seriously brilliant.
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Jonathan Stone @sheriffstone.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
The MaterialX PBR specification is gaining formal mathematics! This proposal adds scattering equations for each BSDF, EDF, and VDF, so that renderers can implement shading nodes directly from the spec. Feedback and review from the rendering community are very welcome: github.com/AcademySoftw...
github.com
Initial scattering equations for the PBR specification by jstone-lucasfilm · Pull Request #2964 · AcademySoftwareFoundation/MaterialX
This changelist expands the MaterialX PBR specification with the formal mathematical foundations of its shading nodes, so that the behavior of each BSDF, EDF, and VDF can be reproduced directly fro...
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
A few more bits of weekend printing…
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
One more to celebrate my old mate Colin Porch’s sequel to Head over Heels - Return to Blacktooth. Released last week by @thalamusdigital.bsky.social
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
A little bit of weekend de-stressing making some retro 3D prints. Proper therapeutic!
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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 442 - May 24th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
This has been a labour of love, and a testament to the tenacity of Colin. The puzzles are properly devilish; it's such a great game, it had to get published. Bravo Thalamus for getting it out there. I sat with Colin as he poured line by line through the HOH source code, porting it to 6502 in the 80s
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
A stressful week, so spent the weekend 3D printing some little trophies - one for Atic Atac and one for The Sentinel.
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Paul "Paulie" Hughes @pauliehughes.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Back from one hell of a weekend at Zzap Live 2026. Did a Q&A panel with a group of the old Ocean crew. Signed stuff, chatted through the night and had a thoroughly lovely couple of days.
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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 440 - May 10th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...
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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...
Screenshot of the first page of a computer graphics research paper titled “On the Accuracy of Surface Scattering Theories,” by Matthew Avolio, Eugene D’Eon, and Shlomi Steinberg from the University of Waterloo and Nvidia. The page uses a standard academic layout with a large centered title, author names below, and a wide comparison figure occupying most of the page.

The main figure compares real photographs of reflective metal surfaces with rendered predictions from two surface scattering models. Five vertical panels, labeled 1 through 5, each show checkerboard reflections on glossy metal viewed at grazing angles. Within each panel are image strips labeled “photo,” “GGX,” and “SSA,” allowing direct comparison between measured appearance and rendered results. The surfaces range from blurry and diffuse on the left to sharper and more mirror-like on the right. Above each panel are colored line graphs representing measured surface profile data, and along the right edge are small blue-green 3D visualizations of microscopic surface geometry.
The figure caption explains that the paper compares photographs to GGX microfacet and smooth-surface generalized Harvey-Shack predictions derived from measured surface geometry using AFM and profilometer scans.

Below the figure is the abstract, which states that the paper evaluates how accurately surface scattering theories predict appearance directly from measured geometry instead of fitting reflectance data. The authors conclude that existing models fail at some viewing angles, especially grazing angles, and suggest that the characteristic “GGX look” may result from wave-optical effects on Gaussian surfaces rather than non-Gaussian geometry.
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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 439 - May 4th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...
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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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Jendrik Illner @jendrikillner.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 437 - April 19th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...
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