It's possible that AMD is "winning" in certain games by secretly blocking heavy effects, like shadows from translucent objects:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynb4raivIpM
#Rendering@GameDEV
#Hardware@GameDEV
#AMD@GameDEV

Just figured out how to bake Bent Normals in Blender. Unfortunately, CPU-only (using OSL). My 3D assets pipeline is getting better.

* It's a mixture of Normals and Ambient Occlusion to improve lighting bounce and occlusion.

#Rendering@GameDEV
#Blender@GameDEV

By the way, in Godot 4.6 the transparency no longer breaks reflections behind it even if the Screen texture is used and modified.

So, no more issues with screen effects if they are used as a 3D filter. Which is a huge upgrade that fixes a lot of possible screen effects. I have a few more stupid ideas!

PS. The scene I've tried it on was to check how pointlessly unoptimized can it be and still work. With like hundreds of objects which are not instanced scenes, but just a bunch of nodes placed in a grid. It works oddly fast though...

#GodotEngine@GameDEV
#Rendering@GameDEV

And if you missed the fun, in our chat we were discussing the glass shader today and how glass almost always requires raytracing. A quick recap:

- Not always, you can make ok-ish glass that will work for most cases and will run much faster

- It will not work well as a nested set of similar effects in Godot, since only one glass will have full access to screen image. It will require tweaks in UE and Unity, and only in UE5.2+ it will be kinda OK, not 5.1 and before.

#Rendering@GameDEV
#Shaders@GameDEV
#GodotEngine@GameDEV

It's 3D by the way! (VIA)

#NPR@GameDEV
#Rendering@GameDEV
#3DArt@GameDEV

And Godot 4.6 is not gonna be the one: the issue with UI rendering the whole window instead of a tab or menu list occurs again.

Only in DX12 mode which is as of now the default one in 4.6, instead of the Vulkan backend. And it happens rarely, but getting cached inside the project and can remain after I re-open it.

https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/95619

PS. The post is sarcastic, the bug is freaking damn rare. Can also be related to NVIDIA, for example. I can't replicate on a small project.

#GodotEngine@GameDEV
#Rendering@GameDEV

Unity is going to discontinue HDRP (High Definition Rendering Pipeline). Only the URP (Universal Rendering Pipeline) will remain.

So they are planning to invest all resources into a scalable setup that will not be as powerful as HDRP at first. It's expected that there will be a period when making visually modern games will not be possible in Unity. Honestly, it wasn't possible anyway — HDRP was slow even on high-end hardware.

#Unity@GameDEV
#GameEngines@GameDEV
#Rendering@GameDEV

Finally: elephant in the room has been addressed — the issues of the custom engine behind Crimson Desert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tz4u5oYx_o
#Rendering@GameDEV

The new Call of Duty MW4 will feature a dynamic weather and gamers are actually impressed

#CallOfDuty@GameDEV
#VFX@GameDEV
#Rendering@GameDEV

Godot Engine 4.7 is out!

From areal lights and HDR support to building apps directly on Android. It seems very impressive this time!

https://godotengine.org/releases/4.7/
#GodotEngine@GameDEV
#GameEngines@GameDEV
#Rendering@GameDEV

Good metal rendering study:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3bkGPobpTw
#Rendering@GameDEV
#Tutorial@GameDEV

Callisto Protocol used to work on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. No DLSS5, no flickering, very stable rendering. And you need no AI to make any of that, just a few equations and textures to account for.

They even shared guides on how to achieve their facial techniques (so anyone can reproduce these results for human skin shaders). And their failure proves: realistic faces are not selling by themselves.

Their SIGGRAPH presentation is attached in the comments!

#Rendering@GameDEV

Hold up, I have an urgent news, only for true geeks: all rendering techniques fouken suck! Sponza looks much better!

#Rendering@GameDEV