iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Vladimir Komarov

Jonathan Stone @sheriffstone.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Thanks to our colleagues at Pixar, NVIDIA, SideFX, OTOY, Blender, and Autodesk for their amazing work on this year's MaterialX and OpenPBR Virtual Town Hall. The full slide deck can be found at materialx.org/assets/ASWF_..., and stay tuned for the published video from the @aswf.io.

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Christoph Kubisch @pixeljetstream.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

New release of Mega Geometry SDK now with a textured version of the Zorah scene (gltf + ktx2 70 GB). Lots of great work by Calvin Hsu. RTXMG (now with ported lod system) github.com/NVIDIA-RTX/R... VK r&d sample: github.com/nvpro-sample...

Rendering of a classical building with intricate geometric detail. Leaves in foreground that are geometry. Outside the viewport are ui elements with lots of statistics and controls

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Jacco Bikker 🎦 @jbikker.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

New demo, very much WIP: hair rendering using Reshetov and Hart's 'RoCap' algorithm, on the GPU. These are smooth spline curves with per-vertex thickness rather than approximations such as NVIDIA's Linear Swept Spheres. The BVH is built over strand AABBs, strands are primitives in the leafs.

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Morten Vassvik @vassvik.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Rational photometric blackbody radiation approximations: www.shadertoy.com/view/ffcSRl

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Wenzel Jakob @wjakob.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

I'm excited to announce a first development release of nanobind 3.0. It introduces *split mode*, a new distribution model where a single Python wheel runs across all Python versions, while achieving outstanding performance and gaining rather than losing features! 🧵

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Maximilian Tarpini @maxtarpini.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Perceptual Russian Roulette.. around 5% faster than using classic raw max channel.

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Alex Tardif @longbool.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

If you've been watching recent engine-related news from the industry and are feeling disenchanted with that trajectory, I'd like to share some non-mainstream projects that might brighten your day:

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Alex Tardif @longbool.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

The Cost of AI alextardif.com/AI.html

alextardif.com

Alex Tardif: Graphics Programmer

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Yining Karl Li @yiningkarlli.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I'm a little late to the party on this one since it's from January, but I just read this great blog post by Jure Triglav walking through implementing surfel-based global illumination. It's got a bunch of really cool interactive toys/visualizers! juretriglav.si/surfel-based...

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Reposted by Vladimir Komarov

Simon Carter @bbbscarter.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

I'm trying to write a little more frequently, so I wrote some words about the development of the original Fable. Yay! blog.simoncarter.me/blog/the-ori... #gamedev #fable #games

blog.simoncarter.me

The Origins of Fable

The story of Fable's origins - failed pitches, a game called Wishworld, and unlikely sources of inspiration.

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Procedural volumes can use any info from renderer, so here I just draw artistic sss and get reflections from cache directly. Waves from this shadertoy shadertoy.com/view/MdXyzX

shadertoy.com

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

It turns out I can use my procedural volumes to draw anything, including surfaces. Did a quick experiment with a water. I haven't had time to do FFT or proper geometry yet, so I'm using heightmap raymarching and waves from some cool shadertoy www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKRu...

youtube.com

Water rendering as a procedural volumetric

YouTube video by Vladimir Komarov

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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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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

It's quite complex overall and approach for procedural volumes a bit hacky but at least it's controllable from material user shaders for them, so you can tweak it until you like it

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

collision from analytic volume and calc lighting here. Also I can use analytic volumes with priorities stack, in this case they cut space from additive volumes. For procedural I just use some random collision point to compare with other volumes including other procedural volumes

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Thank you! Clouds+mist and volume in sphere are procedural volumes and I use ray marching for them. Also there is analytic volume on this scene. For overlapping I render heterogeneous and part of analytic volumes as additive, i.e use nearest collision in delta tracking and ...

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Playing with procedural volumes in my renderer. It's difficult to combine tracking/analytical/procedural volumes but since there is full control over procedural volumes from per-material shader, something can be done. Shaders from @XorDev fragcoord.xyz www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfzz...

youtube.com

Procedural volumes another test

YouTube video by Vladimir Komarov

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Yining Karl Li @yiningkarlli.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Adobe just released an Apache-2.0 licensed reference implementation of the OpenPBR Surface standard, extracted from their in-house Eclair renderer. Neat trick: the reference implementation cross-compiles for C++, GLSL, Cuda, Metal, and Slang! 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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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

In this demo, in addition to shadows from the procedural volume, I also add lighting to the analytical volume when calculating the light from the spot light. @XorDev shader fragcoord.xyz/s/fxz51u1k is from his new FragCoord tool

fragcoord.xyz

__OG_TITLE__

__OG_DESCRIPTION__

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

I'm continuing to experiment with fully procedural volumetrics. Added interaction with analytical volumes. Because of the difficulty in combining these two different volumes, I had to use dithering to create transparency. www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0b1...

youtube.com

Procedural + analytic volumes

YouTube video by Vladimir Komarov

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Awesome shaders from @XorDev www.shadertoy.com/view/WXV3zt and www.shadertoy.com/view/3XtXzX

shadertoy.com

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Сreated the first prototype of a fully procedural volumetric that can run any custom shader (not just specifying density and phase function) in my path tracer. Problem of intersecting volumes is more difficult to solve here, I'll think about it some more. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqGi...

youtube.com

Procedural volumes prototype

YouTube video by Vladimir Komarov

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

For some time now, I've been using the approach from research.nvidia.com/publication/... with mip chain + restir presampling. Previously I used the classic CDF with presampling, but mip chain is more convenient and doesn't have any drawbacks for me.

research.nvidia.com

Rearchitecting Spatiotemporal Resampling for Production | Research

Recent work by Bitterli et al. introduced a real-time, many-light algorithm for rendering dynamic direct illumination from millions of lights by iteratively applying resampled importance sampling usin...

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Shaders used shadertoy.com/view/3fKSzc and shadertoy.com/view/WcKXDV

shadertoy.com

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Added support for custom environment light shaders/materials in my path tracer and now I can use @XorDev shadertoy magic as a light source. CDF mip chain for light sampling is rebuilt every frame. www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_1T...

youtube.com

Support for custom environment light shaders

YouTube video by Vladimir Komarov

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Reposted by Vladimir Komarov

Jacco Bikker 🎦 @jbikker.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Marcin Zalewski informed me that his blog post on real-time hair rendering using ray tracing is now available: mmzala.github.io/blog/hair-ge... This is nice work, in which he compares NVidia's hardware accelerated hair to several alternatives, including Reshetov's Phantom Ray Hair Intersector.

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Reposted by Vladimir Komarov

Brian Karis @briankaris.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

I'm finally writing up how Nanite Tessellation works. The first few blogs posts are up. More will be coming. graphicrants.blogspot.com/2026/02/nani...

graphicrants.blogspot.com

Nanite Tessellation

Nanite Tessellation, aka Nanite Dynamic Tessellation, aka Nanite Dynamic Displacement was the next major feature I worked on after Nanite it...

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Reposted by Vladimir Komarov

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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Reposted by Vladimir Komarov

Morten Vassvik @vassvik.bsky.social · 20/12/2025

Ever seen one of these, and wondered *why* they work? 🧵 This is a so-called Bitonic sorting network, and the illustrations show the two common ways to implement them. From an implementation point of view the two methods are effectively the same, so which one you pick just comes down to preference.

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Reposted by Vladimir Komarov

Cem Yuksel @cemyuksel.com · 14/12/2025

Our #SIGGRAPHAsia 2025 paper "Sample Space Partitioning and Spatiotemporal Resampling for Specular Manifold Sampling" improves #realtime #caustics rendering. Project Page: graphics.cs.utah.edu/research/pro... @daqilin.bsky.social @tizian.bsky.social

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

Another SIGGRAPH Asia gem: research.nvidia.com/labs/rtr/pub... "Sample Space Partitioning and Spatiotemporal Resampling for Specular Manifold Sampling" by Hong et al., which combines sample space partitioning with ReSTIR to efficiently handle caustics.

research.nvidia.com

Sample Space Partitioning and Spatiotemporal Resampling for Specular Manifold Sampling | NVIDIA Real-Time Graphics Research

Caustics rendering remains a long-standing challenge in Monte Carlo rendering because high-energy specular paths occupy only a small region of path space, making them difficult to sample effectively. ...

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Reposted by Vladimir Komarov

Kostas Anagnostou @kostasanagnostou.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

The z-buffer and depth testing (aka z-testing) have been the dominant way of hidden surface elimination for over 50 years, introduced but not implemented in W. Straßer's PhD thesis in 1974, and actually implemented in Ed Catmull's PhD thesis in the same year. 1/4

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

I push to GPU array of instances info including double3 pos. Every frame I fill bvh instances with float3 (camera relative) from global double3 pos buffer in compute shader and rebuild tlas relative to camera. I do it for all tlas bvhs. Also I do some work on CPU for other structures e.g. light tree

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 23/11/2025

Thank you! I thought about "frame selected" many times while recording the video😀

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

I finally added double support for positions in my engine and I can now draw objects at enormous distances from each other. This only cost ~15% scene graph update perf on CPU and it's almost free for GPU since everything is drawn relative to camera using float www.youtube.com/live/eYZ6wS9...

youtube.com

Double support for positions

YouTube video by Vladimir Komarov

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Even if I'm not working directly on rendering clouds at the moment, I still somehow take screenshots of them as I work😀

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

I had previously used triangle meshes to render giant planetary atmospheres but after many unsuccessful attempts to fix all the artifacts, especially when intersecting atmosphere geometry, I decided to add support for spheres to my renderer. It works much better

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

Thank you! I don't have an end goal yet but there is a bunch of functionality I want to implement

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 05/10/2025

Finally got around to implementing async scene loading in my engine. DX12 async compute for BLAS + background threads for bvh command list and resource loading. A lot of pain with synchronizing all of this and the ability to delete objects during loading www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkWa...

youtube.com

Async scene loading

YouTube video by Vladimir Komarov

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

I store the texture with additional roughness separately with BC4 compression. Unfortunately in the case of a material with a custom shader additional complications are added, for example when a normal blend is needed.

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

Because of texture streamer it became necessary to almost always use mip maps, so I had to do basic normal map filtering, otherwise the surfaces become too shiny and flat. Only roughness without anisotropy for now. Images in order: mips disabled/enabled/+filtering. More below...

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

And in this case you don't need sampler feedback, min mip textures and tile management.

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

In the end I decided to try simple mips streamer and it works much better and memory savings are almost the same (because for tiled mode I load a bit more tiles than necessary, otherwise sometimes there are filtering artifacts in the process of loading new tiles).

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Vladimir Komarov @vrkomarov.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

Besides UpdateTileMappings sampler feedback also has problems, at least on my laptop Nvidia 3080. There are crashes if you use it in any hit shaders and wrap mode for samplers doesn't work. Also found this list of problems on other vendors github.com/HansKristian...

github.com

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