#Ray Tracing Culling

[techedgey]

Guide How to Optimizing Your Gaming PC for Ray Tracing

In the ever-evolving world of How to Optimize Gaming PC for Ray Tracing, few technologies have made as massive an effect in current years as ray tracing. This rendering approach simulates the bodily behavior of light to create stunningly sensible reflections, shadows, and international illumination. But as many gamers speedy find out, enabling those attractive consequences can placed even effective systems on their knees.

I nonetheless keep in mind the first time I enabled ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077. My as soon as-clean gameplay changed into a slideshow presentation, and I learned the difficult manner that optimizing a gaming PC for ray tracing calls for more than simply flipping a switch in the settings menu.

Whether you've been scouring Reddit posts approximately how to optimize gaming PC for ray tracing, searching for excellent ray tracing optimizations, or diving into technical discussions approximately r raytracing culling techniques, this comprehensive guide will assist you in squeezing the exceptional overall performance out of your hardware even as taking part in those excellent ray-traced visuals.

Table of Contents

Understanding Ray Tracing Technology

Hardware Requirements for Ray Tracing

Software Optimizations for Ray Tracing

DLSS, FSR, and XeSS: Your Ray Tracing Allies

Ray Tracing Culling Techniques

Step-via-Step Optimization Guide

Monitoring and Fine-Tuning Performance

Reddit-Approved Ray Tracing Tweaks

Future-Proofing Your Ray Tracing Setup

Conclusion

Understanding Ray Tracing Technology

Before we dive into optimization strategies, it's crucial to recognize what makes ray tracing so worrying on your hardware.

Traditional rasterization rendering (what games have used for many years) works by converting 3D models into 2D pixels for your display, then applying lights and effects in a while. It's fast but is based on various shortcuts and approximations for lighting fixtures.

Ray tracing, however, simulates character mild rays, tracing their path as they leap off surfaces, refract thru materials, and in the end attain the virtual digicam. This physically accurate technique creates a great deal extra realistic lighting fixtures, reflections, shadows, and international illumination—however at a fantastic computational fee.

A pal of mine who works in recreation improvement explained it to me in this manner: "Imagine having to calculate the direction of thousands and thousands of light rays, 60 instances in keeping with second, at the same time as additionally dealing with all of the different factors of rendering a sport. That's why ray tracing is this type of overall performance hog."

Hardware Requirements for Ray Tracing

Let's be honest—optimizing your gaming PC for ray tracing starts with having the right hardware. While software program tweaks can help, they can handiest take you so far if your system doesn't meet the basic requirements.

Graphics Cards

For ray tracing, your GPU is the star of the display:

NVIDIA RTX Series: The pioneers of consumer ray tracing hardware, from the 2000 collection to the brand new 5000 series (as of early 2025). The RTX 4080 and 4090 are presently among the exceptional performers for ray tracing workloads, with the 5000 collection showing promising upgrades.

AMD Radeon RX Series: Starting with the RX 6000 collection, AMD delivered ray tracing competencies, with performance enhancement notably in the RX 7000 collection and more recent models.

Intel Arc Series: Intel's committed GPUs additionally help ray tracing, even though they're still gambling catch-up with NVIDIA and AMD in phrases of raw ray tracing overall performance.

I learned this lesson the hard manner after I tried permitting ray tracing on my vintage GTX 1080. The recreation technically allowed me to turn it on, but the framerate dropped to approximately three FPS—essentially a completely pricey slideshow.

CPU Requirements

While ray tracing is on the whole GPU-intensive, your CPU still performs an important function:

A contemporary multi-center processor (6+ cores encouraged)

High unmarried-thread performance for sport common sense

Sufficient CPU cache and memory bandwidth

RAM and Storage

Other components that affect ray tracing overall performance:

16GB RAM minimum, 32GB advocated for excessive-quit systems

Fast NVMe SSD storage to deal with the larger texture and asset facts that frequently accompany ray-traced video games

Software Optimizations for Ray Tracing

Once you have got appropriate hardware, software program optimizations grow to be crucial for balancing visual first-class and overall performance.

Driver Updates

This would possibly appear apparent, but I've visible countless Reddit threads in which customers whinge about bad ray tracing performance only to discover they are going for walks with old drivers.

NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel frequently launch motive force updates especially optimized for ray tracing in new games

Sometimes, a driver replacement on my own can improve ray tracing overall performance by way of 10-15%

Just closing month, I changed into struggling with stuttering in a ray-traced game until I found out I had skipped the ultimate two-driver updates. After updating, the difference becomes nighttime and day.

Game-Specific Settings

Not all ray tracing effects are created identically. Most video games provide unique tiers of ray tracing:

Ray-traced shadows: Generally the least worrying effect

Ray-traced reflections: Moderate performance impact but very visually awesome

Ray-traced worldwide illumination: Usually the maximum disturbing putting

A smart technique is to permit simplest the ray tracing outcomes that make the largest visual difference for each specific game. For example, in a sport with lots of water and glass, ray-traced reflections might be worth the performance hit, whilst ray-traced shadows might be less noticeable.

DLSS, FSR, and XeSS: Your Ray Tracing Allies

One of the only ray tracing optimizations is pairing it with upscaling technologies:

NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling)

DLSS uses AI to upscale video games from a lower internal resolution in your display decision, dramatically enhancing performance even as preserving visual pleasant. DLSS three.Five and more recent variations are specially powerful at maintaining ray tracing detail.

My private experience: Enabling DLSS 3 in Cyberpunk 2077 took my framerate from an unplayable 25 FPS to a smooth 75 FPS with ray tracing nonetheless enabled.

AMD FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution)

AMD's solution to DLSS works throughout a much wider variety of hardware, together with NVIDIA GPUs. While early variations couldn't healthy DLSS quality, FSR three.0 and more recent variations have narrowed the space notably.

Intel XeSS

Intel's go-platform upscaling technology works further to DLSS and FSR, offering any other alternative for enhancing overall performance while retaining ray tracing first-rate.

When browsing a way to optimize gaming PC for ray tracing Reddit discussions, upscaling technology are continuously the most endorsed answer for balancing first-rate and overall performance.

Ray Tracing Culling Techniques

Now let's dive into one of the extra technical elements of ray tracing optimization: culling.

R raytracing culling refers to strategies that reduce the range of rays that want to be calculated by well determining which of them are not likely to make contributions drastically to the very last photograph.

What is Ray Culling?

In easy phrases, ray culling is ready being selective with which mild rays you calculate. There's no want to hint rays that may not have a great impact at the final photo.

Several culling techniques exist:

Frustum culling: Only calculating rays in the participant's view

Occlusion culling: Skipping rays that could be blocked using opaque items

Distance culling: Reducing ray detail for remote items

R raytracing culling radius: Limiting the distance that rays will tour from their origin

A recreation developer pal explained it to me like this: "Without culling, ray tracing would be like calculating each single photon in a scene. With culling, we are being smart approximately which light paths truly rely to what the participant sees."

Implementing Ray Culling

For developers the usage of engines like Unreal or Unity, r raytracing culling alternatives are often to be had within the rendering settings. For game enthusiasts, these optimizations are typically dealt with below the hood, however expertise them facilitates give an explanation for why positive settings affect performance the manner they do.

Some video games with superior snapshot settings allow tweaking culling-related parameters:

Ray tracing distance: How a long way ray-traced outcomes increase from the digital camera

Ray bounce limit: How in many instances a ray can jump earlier than the calculation stops

Culling threshold: The important degree below which rays are culled

When I experimented with those settings in the latest sport, I found that lowering the ray tracing distance from "Ultra" to "High" advanced my performance by approximately 20% with minimum visual distinction in the course of ordinary gameplay.

Step-via-Step Optimization Guide

Now that we understand the foundations, permits create a sensible, step-by-step technique for How to Optimize Gaming PC for Ray Tracing:

1. Update Your System

Update GPU drivers to the modern-day model

Ensure Windows is up to date

Update your recreation to the ultra-modern patch

2. Enable GPU Hardware Scheduling

On Windows 10/11:

Go to Settings > System > Display

Click on Graphics settings

Turn on "Hardware-multiplied GPU scheduling"

Restart your pc

This setting offloads some image scheduling from the CPU to the GPU, doubtlessly enhancing ray tracing overall performance.

Three. Configure Nvidia Control Panel / AMD Radeon Software

For NVIDIA users:

Right-click on the computer and select "NVIDIA Control Panel"

Navigate to "Manage 3-D settings"

Set "Power control mode" to "Prefer most overall performance"

Set "Texture filtering - Quality" to "Performance"

Ensure "CUDA - GPUs" has your GPU selected

For AMD customers:

Open AMD Radeon Software

Go to the Gaming tab

Select your sport or add it if not listed

Set "GPU Workload" to "Graphics"

Consider putting "Anti-Lag" to "Enabled"

Four. Optimize In-Game Settings

Start with ray tracing set to "Medium" or equivalent

Enable DLSS/FSR/XeSS (set to "Balanced" or "Performance" mode)

Reduce these settings which heavily impact performance:

Volumetric lights/fog

Screen area reflections (redundant with ray-traced reflections)

Shadow pleasant (for non-ray-traced shadows)

Particle results nice

Consider decreasing the decision to 1440p if you're on a 4K display

Five. Monitor and Adjust

Use an on-screen show device like MSI Afterburner to reveal:

Framerate

GPU usage

VRAM usage

Temperatures

Aim for stable overall performance rather than maximum settings

I carried out these actual steps while putting in Cyberpunk 2077 on my buddy's new gaming PC. By cautiously balancing the settings, we have been capable of reap 60+ FPS with ray tracing enabled on his RTX 4070, which to start with struggled to preserve even 45 FPS with default "RT Ultra" settings.

Monitoring and Fine-Tuning Performance

Achieving optimal ray tracing overall performance is an iterative method. Here are a few gear and strategies to help you monitor and great-song your setup:

Performance Monitoring Tools

MSI Afterburner with RivaTuner: The gold preferred for in-recreation performance monitoring

NVIDIA FrameView / AMD Radeon Performance Metrics: Vendor-unique gear with distinct metrics

HWiNFO: For monitoring machine temperatures and figuring out potential thermal throttling

Identifying Bottlenecks

When monitoring, look for these signs:

GPU utilization at ninety-seven-a hundred: Your GPU is the proscribing aspect (maximum not unusual with ray tracing)

CPU cores at excessive utilization: Potential CPU bottleneck

High VRAM utilization: You may need to lessen texture pleasant or decision

Thermal throttling: Components lowering overall performance due to high temperatures

Overclocking Considerations

Carefully implemented overclocking can help with ray tracing performance:

GPU middle and reminiscence overclocking can provide five-15% overall performance upgrades

Improved cooling is important for maintaining overclocked overall performance

Undervolting can sometimes improve overall performance using decreasing thermal throttling

I do not forget struggling with a specific ray tracing-heavy sport until I realized my GPU turned into thermal throttling. After improving my case airflow and growing a custom fan curve, my performance stepped forward by almost 20% without changing any game settings.

Reddit-Approved Ray Tracing Tweaks

The gaming community on Reddit has ended up being a superb aid for ray tracing optimizations. Here are a number of the simplest tweaks I've gathered from various subreddits:

From r/nvidia:

"RT shadows are frequently the least major RT impact. Turning them off whilst preserving RT reflections can provide you with again 10-15 FPS with minimum visible impact."

"DLSS Frame Generation (DLSS 3.0+) is a game-changer for ray tracing performance on supported playing cards."

"If you are CPU constrained, enabling 'NVIDIA Reflex' can assist lessen system latency and clean out frame pacing."

From r/AMDHelp:

"FSR 3. Zero with Frame Generation enabled works noticeably nicely with ray tracing on RDNA 3 playing cards."

"Ray traced shadows at low first-class regularly look better than traditional shadow techniques at the same time as performing higher than extraordinary RT shadows."

From r/pcmasterrace:

"Custom decision scaling: Set your render decision to 85-90% and compensate with polishing filters for a performance enhance that's difficult to observe visually."

"For video games that help each DLSS/FSR and ray tracing, usually allow the upscaling generation first, then upload ray tracing outcomes one at a time until you locate your performance candy spot."

One in particular beneficial Reddit tip stored my gaming enjoy in Control. A user recommended simplest allowing ray-traced reflections while leaving the other RT consequences off, then using DLSS Performance mode. This aggregate gave me ninety% of the visible wow element with approximately 40% higher performance than complete RT.

Future-Proofing Your Ray Tracing Setup

As the ray tracing era keeps adapting, here are some considerations for future-proofing your setup:

Hardware Considerations

When upgrading, prioritize GPUs with robust ray-tracing acceleration

Consider the VRAM ability—ray tracing frequently calls for greater memory

Don't neglect CPU enhancements, as games have become increasingly more multi-threaded

Software Evolution

Keep an eye fixed on new variations of DLSS, FSR, and XeSS

Watch for improvements in r raytracing culling strategies

Stay updated on new motive force optimizations specifically for ray tracing

A developer pal who works on rendering technologies informed me some thing interesting: "The destiny of ray tracing is not pretty much raw GPU energy—it is about smarter algorithms that may get more visual exceptional from fewer rays. The r raytracing culling radius and comparable strategies will become increasingly more sophisticated."

Conclusion

Optimizing your gaming PC for ray tracing is both an art and a science. It requires expertise in the generation, having the proper hardware, applying appropriate software program settings, and constantly first-rate-tuning your setup.

Remember that an appropriate stability between visual nice and performance is rather non-public. Some game enthusiasts prioritize rock-stable framerates, at the same time as others are willing to just accept occasional dips beneath 60 FPS to experience the maximum sensible lighting fixtures and reflections feasible.

By applying the strategies included in this guide, from basic driving force updates to superior ray tracing optimizations and r raytracing culling issues, you will be properly prepared to get the most out of this progressive rendering era.

The next time you boot up a recreation with ray tracing enabled, take a moment to realise just how a long way gaming pictures have come—and understand that with the proper optimizations, you are experiencing them at their best.

Have you found another effective techniques for improving ray tracing overall performance? Share your stories and keep the discussion—after all, the gaming network prospers while we share our know-how.

[kiriti2009]

Unreal Engine 5.3: Nanite Gets a Performance Boost, New AI Tools & More!

Epic Games recently released Unreal Engine 5.3, bringing a slew of exciting new features and enhancements. This update focuses on refining existing technologies, introducing powerful new AI tools, and improving overall workflow. Let's dive into some of the key highlights:

1. Nanite Performance Improvements:

Reduced Overdraw: Nanite, Unreal Engine's groundbreaking virtualized geometry system, has received significant performance optimizations.

Improved Culling: More efficient occlusion culling and view frustum culling significantly reduce the number of polygons rendered, leading to smoother frame rates, especially in complex scenes.

Enhanced Streaming: Nanite data is now streamed more efficiently, minimizing hitches and improving overall responsiveness.

2. New AI Tools:

Behavior Tree Editor Enhancements: The Behavior Tree Editor has been revamped with a cleaner interface and improved usability.

New AI Perception System: This system provides more robust and flexible AI perception capabilities, allowing developers to create more intelligent and responsive non-player characters (NPCs).

Enhanced Crowd Simulation: Improvements to crowd simulation enable more realistic and believable crowd behaviors, such as avoiding obstacles, following paths, and reacting to environmental cues.

3. Workflow Enhancements:

Improved World Partition: World Partition, a system for managing massive open worlds, has received several improvements, including better performance and easier setup.

Enhanced Niagara VFX Editor: The Niagara visual effects editor has been further refined with new features and a more intuitive workflow.

New Debugging Tools: New and improved debugging tools provide developers with more insights into their projects, helping them identify and fix performance bottlenecks more quickly.

4. Other Notable Features:

Support for Apple Silicon: Unreal Engine 5.3 now provides native support for Apple Silicon, enabling developers to take full advantage of the performance of Apple's latest processors.

New Rendering Features: Several new rendering features have been added, including improved ray tracing support and new options for controlling reflections.

[quantumviolet1024]

Whensoever, Bright Selene

He found himself again upon a strange dreamscape with his boots half buried in the sands of a vast deserted coastline on the edge of an antiquated land overlooking the omega.

On those battered dunes eternal, he was pursued by the silence compounding, a refugee spiraling into nights undefined in constant twilight. Wrapt in a ragged quilt he slept alone to dream in sweet death-temporary, his only reprieve.

Small creatures moved alongside him and he laid watching their trails lengthen in the powdered shells and then wash away in the tide. He quenched his thirst in a saline pool, delirious, then caved in. With each cycle of sleep the ocean hissed and rose attempting to lay him to waste.

But on one night he awoke to the light from a fire before him like a sign. In the months and years before the driftwood wouldn’t start a spark, let light. Waterlogged and etched with brine, wrapt in the locks of algae culled by the undertow. Like fragments of a shipwreck. But now it lay burning before him, like the only star in the ether.

Though the mist a faint outline of a figure rose from the water. The wind and waves for a short moment seemed to cease and time slowed into some everlasting sanctuary. His heart skipped and he shook and faltered. The flames straightened. The lunar eclipse subsided. Cosmic light lit the glittering sands like dominoes & spread across the beach aglow.

She approached at last defined, adorned in light. She wore rings and a compass glowed on her wrist like a cosmic lightship for his drifting spirit in the darkness. One arrow aimed at him and one back at her. In one hand a lay a pearl. The other held a wooden cup. The pearl was half-blackened and half-aglow. She pushed it gently to his chest and into his heart, like it belonged. She handed him the cup with waters drawn up from some antiquated aquifer. He drank from it until it was emptied. It was as sweet as home.

Sprites lit up her eyes and the moon surely shined if only from her spirit’s light & reflected back to trace the lines of her smile. With each word he watched her eyes. Her lips kissing the air they energized. A magic crept from her fingers through her hair twirling and rolling and unfolding his soul. That magic leapt from her wrists to her darling skin aglow. Her offer of joy flowed by through the night, and he tried to memorize her every summit however slight.

As he watched he knew only that he could never have imagined a being so perfect and pure. That she was genuine, some miracle, some orchid to be so carefully admired. A holder of certain cosmic secrets only waiting to be found. Shaking in awe unending evermore, he could only breathe and fall into her sweet, sparkling embrace of dancing soul, leaping between dark and light.

She pulled back, smiled and broke apart. A love never to depart from the edges of his soul. He fell from her embrace and into his future.

He awoke. He heard songbirds in the distance. He felt her presence in his heart. He felt warm breezes through the grass. He sat up, on the flowered hillside where his spirit had ascended, back to its home, familiar and complete. All it took was a night for her to pull him from that cold sleep.

He whispered, “whensoever, bright Selene, you can take me home again.”

“The air, unlit before, glows with the light of her golden crown, and her rays beam clear, whensoever bright Selene having bathed her lovely body in the waters of Ocean, and donned her far-gleaming raiment, and yoked her strong-necked, shining team, drives on her long-maned horses at full speed, at eventime in the mid-month: then her great orbit is full and then her beams shine brightest as she increases. So she is a sure token and a sign to mortal men.”

The void whispered constant and spanned across all time, rendering to forget the sweet moon’s shine. He called her name and hoped for it to reach her distant shore.

[dorematrix1]

The Evolution and Future of 3D Game Development

The world of 3D game development has seen a tremendous evolution since its inception. From the early days of rudimentary graphics and simple gameplay mechanics to today's intricate, immersive environments, 3D game development has become a cornerstone of the gaming industry. This article explores the history, technological advancements, and future prospects of 3D game development.

A Brief History

The journey of 3D game development began in the late 1970s and early 1980s with pioneering titles like "Battlezone" and "Star Wars," which used vector graphics to simulate a three-dimensional space. These early games laid the groundwork for future advancements by introducing basic 3D concepts.

The 1990s marked a significant leap with the advent of polygonal graphics, driven by the increasing power of personal computers and gaming consoles. Iconic games like "Doom" (1993), "Quake" (1996), and "Tomb Raider" (1996) pushed the boundaries of what was possible, offering players richer, more immersive experiences. These games introduced the use of 3D models and textures, dynamic lighting, and real-time rendering, setting new standards for the industry.

Technological Advancements

The exponential growth in computing power and the development of sophisticated game engines have revolutionized 3D game development. Modern game engines like Unity, Unreal Engine, and CryEngine have democratized the development process, making powerful tools accessible to indie developers and large studios alike.

Key technological advancements include:

Real-Time Ray Tracing: This technique simulates the physical behavior of light, enabling highly realistic lighting, shadows, and reflections. Real-time ray tracing, supported by GPUs like NVIDIA's RTX series, has significantly enhanced visual fidelity.

Procedural Generation: This allows developers to create vast, intricate worlds with relatively low effort. Games like "No Man's Sky" have demonstrated the potential of procedural generation, offering players an almost infinite universe to explore.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR): VR and AR have introduced new dimensions to 3D game development, creating fully immersive experiences. Titles like "Half-Life: Alyx" showcase the potential of VR in delivering unparalleled interactivity and immersion.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI has improved non-player character (NPC) behavior, making them more realistic and responsive. Advanced AI algorithms enable complex decision-making, pathfinding, and adaptive learning, enhancing gameplay dynamics.

The Development Process

Creating a 3D game involves several stages:

Conceptualization and Design: This initial phase involves brainstorming ideas, defining the game mechanics, and creating design documents. Concept art and storyboarding help visualize the game's look and feel.

Modeling and Texturing: Artists create 3D models of characters, environments, and objects using software like Blender, Maya, or 3ds Max. Texturing involves applying detailed surface textures to these models, adding realism and depth.

Programming and Scripting: Developers write the code that powers the game. This includes implementing game mechanics, physics, AI, and user interfaces. Scripting languages like C# (Unity) and Blueprints (Unreal Engine) streamline the development process.

Animation and Rigging: Characters and objects are animated to move and interact realistically. Rigging involves creating a skeleton for 3D models, enabling smooth, lifelike animations.

Testing and Optimization: Rigorous testing ensures the game is free of bugs and runs smoothly across various platforms. Optimization techniques, such as level of detail (LOD) and occlusion culling, improve performance without compromising quality.

Deployment and Maintenance: Once completed, the game is released on appropriate platforms. Post-release support, including updates and patches, addresses any issues and keeps the game engaging for players.

The Future of 3D Game Development

The future of 3D game development is bright, with emerging technologies and trends poised to reshape the landscape. Key trends to watch include:

Cloud Gaming: Services like Google Stadia and NVIDIA GeForce Now are making high-quality gaming accessible without expensive hardware. Cloud gaming leverages powerful remote servers to stream games, reducing the reliance on local processing power.

Machine Learning: AI and machine learning will continue to enhance game development, from creating more intelligent NPCs to optimizing game design and personalization. Procedural content generation powered by AI could lead to even more dynamic and responsive game worlds.

Metaverse Integration: The concept of the metaverse—interconnected virtual worlds—promises to create vast, persistent environments where players can interact, create, and share experiences. Companies like Epic Games and Facebook (Meta) are investing heavily in this vision.

Cross-Platform Development: The demand for games that can be played seamlessly across multiple platforms is growing. Tools and engines that support cross-platform development will become increasingly important, allowing developers to reach a broader audience.

Conclusion

3D game development has come a long way from its humble beginnings, evolving into a complex and dynamic field that blends artistry, technology, and innovation. As new technologies emerge and the boundaries of what's possible continue to expand, the future of 3D game development promises even more exciting and immersive experiences for players around the world. Whether you're a seasoned developer or a newcomer to the field, the journey ahead in 3D game development is sure to be an exhilarating one.

[lovelanguageisolate]

Extremely half baked research idea, I am probably a crank:

The neutron transport equation and the light transport equation are actually remarkably similar. This is why a lot of computer animation pioneers had been trained as nuclear engineers.

I wonder if the GPU support for ray tracing could be used to accelerate neutronics simulations, possibly at higher fidelity than existing simulations (which generally have to quantize time, positions, energies, etc., or use diffusion approximations).

A quick glance at a Vulkan ray tracing tutorial from Nvidia suggests that arbitrary shaders can be attached to ray-surface intersection events, which I presume leads to the creation of more rays. I think it would be fairly easy to go from a table of nuclear interaction cross sections to a bunch of shaders that represent scattering, absorption, neutron birth, etc. possibilities.

I don't know exactly how flexible GPU ray tracers are, but it looks like they can simulate diffuse reflection and anisotropic scattering behavior, which is more flexibility than a lot of neutronics code enables.

The lack of instantaneous travel can be dealt with by testing each neutron with a displacement radius sphere for each frame, saving the momenta and positions of each neutron, and buffering this for the next "frame". At a time scale of 1 user frame = 1/10 to 1 shake or so, this could be a really high fidelity sim!

The biggest obstacle I'm aware of is that hardware ray tracing apparently excludes ray sources outside the viewing frustum by default. The Wolfenstein notes says that they fall back on spherical harmonics, which is a strategy used by a lot of neutronics codes everywhere now. There also aren't a lot of opportunities for culling, as neutron simulations that go "off-screen" can still affect system dynamics. Also, a lot of neutron interactions are volume rather than surface phenomena, so you will need to do some computational geometry and scattering sim in an any-hit shader.

None of these problems seem fatal. In cases where the limitations of the ray tracer work against us, we can fall back on old school approximations that are used in traditional neutronics codes.

And thankfully, there are standard setups and computed values that are used to benchmark neutronics codes, so if the best ray traced neutronics simulation sucks, we could learn exactly how and brainstorm better approaches.

The main practical benefit this could have is tightening the feedback loop on the computation-driven design of nuclear systems so that nuclear engineers could iterate faster.

And I imagine having (coarse) real-time visualization of neutron behavior could be a great intuition-building tool, assuming that that performance-fidelity tradeoff is made correctly.

But is this idea really useful? Nah. The things holding back nuclear aren't really related to the time and expense of neutronics simulations. It's just cool that ray tracing has the potential to go back to its roots.

[missingjackklinehours]

Mo(u)rning Dove

@spnarchangelweek <3

Rating: Teen & Up (Gen Lucifer & Gabriel)

Warnings: Major Character Death, Derealization

Fic & Playlist available on AO3! (feel free to read under the cut, however!)

   Dendrite; His wings are like crystallized dendrite, Lucifer notices.

   Intricate patterns of iridescent gold branches engraved in each fulgent feather of his. Rays of daylight that dare reflect off the Messenger’s butterscotch wings are ardently absorbed to preserve his internal light—He burns far brighter than any star could begin to comprehend.

   Lucifer can feel his warmth when he allopreens Gabriel’s dendrite-etched feathers. The thriving fledgling squirms uncomfortably under his working hands, his budding golden feathers twitching with each gentle pluck. His petite form leans away from Lucifer’s algid touch, and he whines with a callow pout when Lucifer prudently guides him back. Lucifer attempts to soothe his baby brother, amicable words of a story falling from his polar lips to allay Gabriel’s discomfort; Gabriel always loved his stories.

   The gold expands as he develops. Complex veins of sunlight-drenched sheen contour the coverts of his pinions. The shinier they get, the brighter he burns and the more pleasant light he intakes. Gabriel emits brilliant luminescence like no other, and his sun-kissed wings like dendrite are proof.

   Lucifer combs through gold with every softly recited word of a tale. Gabriel has grown to melt into the Morningstar’s wintry touch, listening attentively to the plot of his elder brother’s story. He is eagerly expectant; His big brother always comes to him with newer, longer, better anecdotes during preening season. Gabriel adores every one of them, though when he feels Lucifer culling the last of his unkempt and grimed feathers, he pleads with full, star-struck sky eyes to hear the lullaby that first lulled him to sleep, long ago. Lucifer teases him with fondness in his irises, but he gives in—He always does. It’s hard to say no to Gabriel when he looks that jubilant.

   “... dream on, dear little child…”

   Gabriel has already complied to the lullaby’s verses by the time Lucifer adeptly tweaks the last sliver of gold. The Morningstar’s waning notes fade out, though his boreal fingers still find themselves in between honey, dendrite-embedded feathers. Gabriel snores like a little beast, and Lucifer can’t help but grin at him as he gingerly caresses his slumbering brother’s effulgent wings.

   The luster of his gold is brightest against the pristine cream of misted clouds. By the time Lucifer teaches Gabriel to fly, he’s become a beacon in the night. Lucifer’s frosted fingers tag one of his younger brother’s radiant wings, sniggering as he calls out “you’re it!” and soars swiftly in the other direction of Heaven’s lilac skies. As much as he tries through his giggles, Gabriel can’t keep up, and they both know it.

   He’s growing too fast. At times, Lucifer reminisces on the distant era he was able to hold Gabriel in his arms. His dendrite-pattern had hardly blossomed then, and Gabriel’s gold hadn’t shimmered as bold. As he looks at his younger brother now, he sees curious divinity. Gabriel’s getting old enough to where Lucifer can’t shield him from danger, and it makes the elder angel anxious.

   The snow of the Morningstar’s fingers drag further, deeper into gold. Gabriel’s wings are evolving, the golden bliss of his spirited light washing vividly over Heaven. The Messenger no longer leans in, nor away from Lucifer’s preening; He simply hums, swaying in rhythm with the breaths of Lucifer's story. No matter how old he gets, he always loves to listen to his big brother’s voice. When Lucifer is nearly finished grooming auric feathers, he happily anticipates Gabriel to plead with him to sing their lullaby. Instead, Gabriel turns to him, and his golden light seeps through his wide smile, a trickle of celestial sun through pearly teeth.

   "Luci, can I pretty please do yours?"

   Lucifer is taken aback. Gabriel has never offered to preen his feathers; Lucifer's wings hadn't been preened since Michael had taken up his part of Heaven's responsibilities—It had been a long time. Lucifer’s matured wings flex automatically in thrill at the mention of grooming. Gabriel acknowledges it, and he brightens, if possible. His little brother is giving him that look, one of so much inspired euphoria with such a rush of nostalgic innocence that he looks no different from the very first time Lucifer preened his teensy, yet complex feathers.

   Lucifer can’t refuse. 

   His wings of vermillion are far larger, though far more disheveled than Gabriel’s have ever been; The young Messenger has always had Lucifer to care for him. Gabriel’s clement hands are profoundly gentle, like refreshing spring rain drizzled on feverish skin or a tenderhearted baby dove nuzzling gratefully against its mother. Even at viscid spots where his vermillion adheres in thickly bedraggled clumps as a result from neglect, Gabriel’s touch remains serene and delicate. Lucifer feels more tranquil than he has in centuries—It’s as if he’s mindlessly drifting amongst endless indigo seas of winding galaxies and Gabriel is sweetly guiding him by the hand through the silver of stars. Lucifer now understands why Gabriel loves Heaven’s preening season.

   A faint ghost of a mellifluous melody draws him from his wafting reverie. Gabriel is humming, a saccharine purr carrying a familiar harmony; It’s their lullaby. Lucifer picks up on the part his baby brother is humming, and he nimbly sings along. He watches intently with a splitting simper when their sitting shadows in front of him swell as Gabriel’s golden light brightens merrily at the pleasant sound.

   “... in the sky, stars are still fading away…”

   Gabriel’s effulgence is rapidly dawning to be more blinding than any entity in existence. His stellar golden feathers branch out further and his daedal dendrite details seem to crystallize in a more radiant fashion. Lucifer genially revels in his bright brilliance everytime they unite. Though, it’s far from the only thing that’s improving in Gabriel; He’s much quicker than before. Lucifer has to exert all of his energy to keep ahead when briskly gliding away from his little brother after he tags his butter-flushed wings. He deliberately assumes that Gabriel will inherit his Heavenly duties soon, with his speed approaching the potential Father saw when he named him as Heaven's Messenger.

   Gabriel isn’t the only one who’s changing.

   Lucifer is altering—morphing—wavering. The Mark of Cain is an irritant upon his ivory skin, his grace, his mind. He’s growing colder, and he feels the need to be enigmatic. Father is never wrong, because Father is absolute. It’s firmly ingrained in his mind, and it’s been that way since he was a fledgling. Lucifer repeats it to himself as he observes Lilith, the first woman, refuse subservience to her created equal, Adam. He watches silently when she leaves the perfect haven Father had meticulously created for her, and he watches in bemusement as a flock of his determined siblings attempt to forcibly return her to Eden. She is resilient, and Adam is egotistical and very flawed; Lucifer desperately tries to comprehend why his Father, instead of establishing that they are equals, creates Adam a new partner and banishes Lilith from ever returning to Eden.

   Father is wrong. When the belief dawns on him, Lucifer has an epiphany—a twisted thought follows. The Mark of Cain sears like it never has before; A scorching white fire that engulfs his entire being, scalding the abundance of all his infinite eyes and fiercely igniting his vermillion wings in grandeur flames. Despite the famished embers from within, he feels frozen and trapped under a bulky sheet of ice, breathlessly viewing his life continue without him as he drowns in desolate, boreal seas. 

   Lucifer has unequivocally changed; He is different. Gabriel is the first to notice. 

   Preening season has arrived. Lucifer is much colder, and the raw bite of his frost elicits a vicious shiver when his fingers pluck gold feathers. His cautiousness is replaced by dissociation, the younger angel is wincing. Lucifer feels distant, and Gabriel thinks he is lightyears from his brother despite him being mere inches away. 

   Lucifer abstractly traces dendrite when he’s nearing the final unkempt clot of feathers, absentmindedly humming a familiar tune. This time, Gabriel says nothing. His scintillant wings tense up at bitter ice fingertips picking at his golden light.

   “... down here, a dying dove crawls…”

   The lyrics have changed. Lucifer feels numb; Gabriel feels scared.

   It’s the last expression Lucifer sees from Gabriel, and it’s the last thing he remembers when he returns from Eden. He is abruptly a liar, he is a liar without deceiving. He is no longer the Morningstar. He is the Serpent.

   Michael’s rigid voice is echoing, lightning is cracking, angels are wailing. His Father's—his Father who is wrong—light feels cold. Lucifer can’t hear, feel any of it. The thrum of a familiar lullaby is beating in his ears. All harshly fades away when he promptly perceives that the burning white fire that had smouldered within him is suddenly reality, and it is reflected on vermillion wings. He is physically falling, a lightheadedness clouding his consciousness, and when he forces open his forlorn eyes against the whizzing wind, he sees smoke. Lucifer screams.

   Vermillion is ablaze. He is frightfully alone as he fleetly plunges into an unknown abyss, an alien place that is farther from home than he can begin to comprehend. A despairing attempt to frantically flap his wings ensues, but they only twitch. He tries again in a panic, and the insatiable white flames tease him with a hungry smirk. The Serpent relents in his feeble attempts to salvage his wings, squeezing his eyes shut again and dreadfully awaiting impact.

   Lucifer can’t help but wonder if gold would be more successful.

   He is going to be the dove. He is the dove.

𓏧༻🕊️༺𓏧

   Gabriel is grown; It’s Lucifer’s first observation.

   A foolish little part of him expected him to never age, forever remaining the same sweetly innocent fledgling that Lucifer once held lovingly in his arms. Forever lasting the same playful angel that struggled to tag him back. Forever retaining the same ambitious persistence to hear his big brother’s stories. Forever seeping golden washes of sunlight through his toothy beams, harboring the brightest light in existence within his being.

   This time, it's Gabriel who has changed; He has dimmed significantly. Lucifer misses his light.

   Lucifer maps the faint outline of his brother’s golden wings with his eyes, burnishing cracks through the universe’s perceptibility to accommodate him. Lucifer had frequently thought about the refined softness of the gold between his fingers when he was imprisoned, and he’d pondered about who would care for them while he was away. Who would pluck his fledgling’s feathers during preening season, who would tell him stories and lull him to sleep? In this moment, Lucifer can see that nobody has; Gabriel’s gold is matted and besmirched.

   Gabriel was alone, just as he had been.

   He wields a blade, Lucifer acknowledges. Gabriel intends to kill him, despite the blatantly obvious fear in his true form's numerous uncertain azure eyes. Lucifer can sense it from miles away. It’s the same look he’d worn when Lucifer had last allo-preened his brother’s butterscotch wings—The look he’d bore when Lucifer sang the last notes of their lullaby, one he’d twisted to mirror his emotions at the time.

   Gabriel’s hands slightly tremble as he raises his blade behind his brother, reluctantly creeping forward. Lucifer’s tarred wings twitch like they did when he fell, and he imperceptibly rubs at the deity blood stuck between his fingertips in anticipation.

   He doesn’t want to be the dove again.

   He turns. The fear in Gabriel’s irises is more decipherable, so visible that Lucifer can nearly catch up on all the millennia he’d missed in this very moment. Lucifer is catatonically speaking, though he barely understands it himself. The blade is resting like bait against Gabriel’s skin, a tense pressure that Lucifer can almost feel against his own chest. 

   Lucifer wants to see his baby brother’s light again.

   He does. The blade is abruptly buried in Gabriel’s being, and his brother’s fear is gone. Intense radiance of pure, euphoric sunlight envelops Lucifer as Heaven’s Messenger’s last flicker of light shines, just as he was meant to do. Brilliant light is blinding; Gabriel’s is alluring. Lucifer is warm for the first time since his wings were searing, and he thinks he hears the memory of Gabriel humming their lullaby. Gabriel feels like home, he feels like the fledgling he once knew. Lucifer feels like himself again. He sees gold.

   It’s over as quick as it began.

   Lucifer is alone again. Though, now, he stands over the fledgling he’d raised, the fledgling he cherished, the fledgling he loved—His fledgling. His wings are no longer gold, no longer luminous. They are gloomy, blackened shadows against the hardwood floor. Lucifer’s stomach twists in knots, spurts of swelling emotions he hadn’t felt in years swirling sourly in his being, and he drops Gabriel’s blade. 

   Gold is black. Gabriel is gone.

   That same foolish part of him expected there to be nothing but raw sunshine where Gabriel now lies, for his vessel to evaporate and his grace to rejoin the bright star he was created from. Instead, he sees vermillion; a thin stream of it dripping in blots against the floor.

   Lucifer can’t help but notice the way his blood oozes in a familiar dendrite pattern. Dendrite; Gabriel, a grand cluster of light so brilliant, his gold wings streaked with crystallized branches of it.

   The Serpent leaves, the whispers of a certain tune in his head. He hopes it can conceal the shrieking sound of his own convoluted thoughts.

   He doesn’t want to be the dove again. Gabriel takes his place.

[retrohiogamers]

Ghostwire: Tokyo on PC supports upscaling tech DLSS and FSR, features ray-traced reflections, shadows

Ghostwire: Tokyo on PC will support DLSS, FSR, and ray tracing, which is good news for those looking to experience a lovely rain-soaked, neon-lit version of the big city.

As noted by Wccftech, the game supports various upscaling technologies such as Unreal Engine's Temporal Super Resolution, Nvidia DLSS, and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR). You will want to enable one of these choices in order to enjoy ray-traced reflections and shadows.

Various graphics setting are also available allowing you to tweak the ray tracing culling distance, global illumination, shadow maps, subsurface scattering, and texture streaming. Motion blur can be turned off and the game supports an uncapped frame rate and fullscreen mode.

Read more

via Stephany Nunneley - https://ift.tt/ScROQm4

[lynchgirl90]

A colder, more brutal #TwinPeaks is still riveting

By Carlos Valladares

The box set of director David Lynch’s delirious new season of “Twin Peaks” is out, which means that this new modern epic of the surreal can now find its proper place on your bookshelf.

From its exhilarating Part 8” to its unrelentingly bleak finale and all the experiments with form, sound and performance in between, “Twin Peaks: The Return” addresses all the concerns of today in the only morally viable way: through wild, freeing abstraction.

The original “Twin Peaks” was canceled because Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost were forced to provide an answer to the question “Who killed Laura Palmer?” Twenty-five years later, with “The Return,” they refresh that question to include a wide-ranging, free-form study of absences, silences and despondency.

As one watches the new season for the first time, giddiness overwhelms: “Am I dreaming? Is the gum I like really back in style?” (Well, not quite the same gum; the new series, colder and more brutal, does not feature the wall-to-wall music and weird-but-jovial comfort of the original ’90s run.)

But on the second or third go-around, the weight of Lynch’s questions begins to bear down more heavily. How is Agent Dale Cooper responsible for the death of Laura Palmer? What happens in the modern, digital, ephemeral world when we can’t separate concepts like good and bad with any certainty — when we even confuse evil with good?

If you’re binge-watching “The Return” in its full 18-hour glory, you’ll find that most of the season’s concerns are packed into the funky abstractions of the first three episodes. There’s the structuring absence of a woman in trouble (Laura Palmer, the homecoming queen-turned-angel whose piercing screams fill the gap left behind by her body in the criminally underrated 1992 film “Fire Walk With Me”).

There’s the sense that one is always being watched — uncomfortably so. And the brilliance of Part 1’s now-iconic Glass Box massacre (two mid-sex partners are brutally torn apart by an experimental evil spirit that escapes from a flat-screen-TV-like black box) delivers its stealth combination of so many different strands of 2010s life: the always-on TV, the fear of sex, PornHub, greed, the revoltingly violent images in the media we’ve come to accept with numbing complacency, the sinister sensation of being monitored by everyone and keeping secrets from no one.

The new “Twin Peaks” box set also gives fans a chance to pay closer attention to the amazingly filigreed performance of Kyle MacLachlan. He clocks in no fewer than six different variants of his iconic Agent Cooper, each with its own identity: OG Coop (chipper, patient, eager as an Eagle Scout); but also, his evil doppelganger Mr. C (clipped monotones, a face and jacket with the hardened texture of basalt); the manufactured, paunchy sop Douglas Jones (deep in gambling debt, a lover of lime green and orange suits); “Comatose Coop” (a lobotomized Preston Sturges wacko, he’s called “Dougie Jones” by most fans and critics, because everyone in Las Vegas calls him that, but he is more exactly Agent Cooper confused as Dougie — Coop, dazed and zombie-like from his 25 years of confinement in the Red Room); Dougie Jones (a copy of Comatose Coop made in Part 17 to keep the Jones family safe and sound); and, in the final episode, Richard, (who, again, is conveniently known as Agent Cooper, but who is really a sinister mix of the efficient Coop and the aggressive Mr. C). Whatever weight awards like the Golden Globes and Emmys carry, they ought to be showered on MacLachlan. He is able to shift among all these gravely different personae with extraordinary ease. 

As we see in the MacLachlan performance, our sense of self is not to be trusted. Who we think we are is never a sure bet, and we change without warning. This investigation of a fractured self-has been the main obsession of Lynch’s post-“Fire Walk With Me” films, where Lynch asks his leads (Sheryl Lee, Patricia Arquette, Naomi Watts, Laura Dern and now MacLachlan) to play multiple versions of their characters.

“The Return” — which is ultimately about the trip of watching “Twin Peaks” — talks back to what was, up until this summer, Lynch’s most deranged oddity: “Inland Empire” (2006). In the latter’s climactic finale, Dern enters a mazelike theater, where she watches herself watching “Inland Empire,” walks onto the set of an existential sitcom starring rabbits (where Lynch makes the jolly American sitcom an anxious hellscape) and shoots a “Phantom” whose face is her own, but distorted. We feel as she feels — as dizzy as Rita Hayworth seeing herself refracted in the “Lady From Shanghai” mirrors. 

 In 2017, when Dern pops up as Diane, Coop’s unseen confidante in “Twin Peaks,” we associate her with all the roles she’s played in the Lynch oeuvre: as Sandy in “Blue Velvet,” as Lula in “Wild at Heart” and especially as Nikki/Sue in “Inland Empire.” Dern disorients us by simply being herself, an actor asked to take on many identities — off to the next role, yet with traces of the past (Lula or Nikki) left behind in her new reincarnation (Diane). “The Return,” among many things, shows us how acting is such a strange and profoundly unsettling skill.

“Explanation” shouldn’t be a dirty word when discussing Lynch. Lynch’s nightmarish images are culled from real life, real situations, real problems in American civilization. Posing a never-ending series of questions, digging deeper into his mysteries, and offering many interpretations of his Caligari-angled universe is the only viable way of engaging one of the most richly confounding artists working today.

Carlos Valladares is a freelance writer.

Twin Peaks: The Return: Surrealist horror-mystery. Starring Kyle MacLachlan, Laura Dern, David Lynch. Directed by David Lynch. All 18 parts now out on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Link (TP)

[batmannotes]

“Justice League: The New Frontier Commemorative Edition" on Blu-ray Combo Pack.

Now available!

ON SALE => http://amzn.to/2ymwmPb

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment returns to the roots of DC’s greatest Super Heroes – and their unifying moment – with the celebratory release of Justice League: The New Frontier – Commemorative Edition on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, Blu-ray™ Steelbook, and DVD on October 3, 2017.

For the new Commemorative Edition of the popular 2008 PG-13 animated film, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has produced an all-new featurette spotlighting the late Darwyn Cooke. The comic book author and artist’s seminal work, DC: The New Frontier, received an Eisner, Harvey and Shuster Award, and that six-issue comic book limited series served as the key source material from which the film was adapted. Justice League: The New Frontier – Commemorative Edition also features box art from Cooke’s canon of dazzling New Frontier imagery.

Justice League: The New Frontier – Commemorative Edition is the epic tale of the founding of the Justice League. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, the animated film is directed by David Bullock from a script by Stan Berkowitz. Sander Schwartz and Bruce Timm are Executive Producers.  Michael Goguen is Supervising Producer

The action-packed adventure features iconic DC Super Heroes Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman alongside Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter and The Flash as they band together to form the legendary team. Strangers at first, these very different heroes must overcome fear and suspicion to forge an alliance against a monster so formidable, even the mighty Superman cannot stop it alone. If they fail, the entire planet will be “cleansed” of humanity.

Justice League: The New Frontier – Commemorative Edition features an impressive roll call of celebrity voice performances, including Golden Globe Award winner Kyle MacLachlan (Twin Peaks) as Superman, Jeremy Sisto (Law & Order) as Batman, Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess) as Wonder Woman, Emmy and Tony Award winner Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) as Barry Allen/The Flash, David Boreanaz (Bones) as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Brooke Shields (Suddenly Susan) as Carol Ferris, Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer) as Lois Lane, Phil Morris (Seinfeld) as King Faraday, and the late Miguel Ferrer (NCIS: Los Angeles) as Martian Manhunter. The cast also boasts the voices of Joe Mantegna (Criminal Minds), Keith David (Platoon), Vicki Lewis (NewsRadio) and the late John Heard (Big).

Justice League: The New Frontier – Commemorative Edition includes incredible bonus features on both the Blu-ray Combo Pack and the DVD:

·         Featurette – “Retro Action Cool: The Story of Darwyn Cooke” – A revealing look into the life and times of one of comics’ most brilliant figures, the late Darwyn Cooke.

·         Featurette – “Super Heroes United! The Complete Justice League History” – A comprehensive look at nearly a half-century of Justice League chronology from the inception in the comics to vivid animated renditions in the late 2000s. The story is told with a myriad of interviews tracing the early days of DC Super Hero team ups during the Golden Age to the Silver Age rendition where the established heroes emerged and beyond. Interviews include such notables as Dan DiDio, Michael Uslan, Paul Levitz, Mark Waid, Denny O'Neil, Stan Lee and Marv Wolfman.

·         Featurette – “The Legion of Doom: The Pathology of the DC Super Villain” – This 10-minute piece examines the early mythological archetypes of nemesis characters from a historical perspective and reveals how the tenants of this rich history were adapted and woven into the Justice League stories.

·         Featurette – “Comic Book Commentary: Homage to the New Frontier”– This mini-documentary is a nod to the fans of the New Frontier comics, further expanding the themes contained in the source material and how these elements were truncated or evolved for inclusion in the film. It features vivid imagery culled from the pages of DC: The New Frontier, mixed with the commentary of Darwyn Cooke. This featurette is a treat for both fans and scholars of the medium.

·         Sneak Peak: Gotham by Gaslight – A behind-the-scenes look at the next DC Universe Original Movie, inspired by the 1989 Elseworlds tale of Batman – at the turn of the 20th century – as first created as a graphic novel by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola, with inks by P. Craig Russell.

·         Audio Commentary I/The Filmmakers – Featuring Justice League: The New Frontier filmmakers Bruce Timm, Michael Goguen, David Bullock, Stan Berkowitz, Andrea Romano and Gregory Noveck.

·         Audio Commentary II/Darwyn Cooke – Featuring award-winning writer/artist Darwyn Cooke

“Justice League: The New Frontier – Commemorative Edition gives fans the opportunity to savor the unique genius of such a legendary comic talent as Darwyn Cooke in a thrilling, animated adaptation of a modern classic,” said Mary Ellen Thomas, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Vice President, Family & Animation Marketing. “The addition of an all-new Darwyn Cooke mini-documentary adds to the special celebration of his work. And his story serves as a keen reminder of the history of these cherished DC Super Heroes, in perfect timing with the theatrical release of the Justice Leaguefilm.”

[thejitebby]

Vincent van Gogh on Art and the Power of Love in Letters to His Brother

“Whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done!”

“You can only go with loves in this life”, Ray Bradbury memorably proclaimed. Whether love be bewitching or tormenting, whether pondered by the poets or scrutinized by the scientists, one thing is for certain — it is art’s most powerful and enduring muse, fuel for the creative process more potent than anything the world has known. A poignant testament to this, and a fine addition to history’s most beautiful reflections on love, comes from iconic painter Vincent van Gogh in My Life & Love Are One (public library) — a lovely slim 1976 book that traces “the magic and melancholy of Vincent van Gogh” by culling his thoughts on love, art, and turmoil from his letters to his brother Theo, which were originally published in 1937 as the hefty tome Dear Theo: The Autobiography of Vincent van Gogh. The title comes from a specific letter written during one of the painter’s periods of respite from mental illness, in which he professes to his brother: “Life has become very dear to me, and I am very glad that I love. My life and my love are one.”

In one letter, Van Gogh extols the grounding, self-soothing quality of love’s intrinsic wisdom: 

Everyone who works with love and with intelligence finds in the very sincerity of his love for nature and art a kind of armor against the opinions of other people.

It was certainly an armor he needed — he lived his life in poverty, and the residents of the town where he settled in his final years petitioned to have him evicted from the artist commune he shared with Paul Gauguin and two other artists, on account of his madness. He soon moved into an asylum, where he continued to paint. Another letter to Theo rings with the paradoxical poignancy of desperation and resilience:

What am I in the eyes of most people? A good-for-nothing, an eccentric and disagreeable man, somebody who has no position in society and never will have. Very well, even if that were true, I should want to show by my work what there is in the heart of such an eccentric man, of such a nobody.

And what a heart it was. In a different letter, Vincent relays to Theo the consciousness-expanding capacity of love — which Kierkegaard so eloquently captured — at the dawn of a new love affair: 

Since the beginning of this love I have felt that unless I gave myself up to it entirely, without any restriction, with all my heart, there was no chance for me whatever, and even so my chance is slight. But what is it to me whether my chance is slight or great? I mean, must I consider this when I love? No, no reckoning; one loves because one loves. Then we keep our heads clear, and do not cloud our minds, nor do we hide our feelings, nor smother the fire and light, but simply say: Thank God, I love.

To be sure, Van Gogh has the prudence to recognize that friendship is at least as great a gift as romantic love. In another letter, he tells Theo:

Do you know what frees one from this captivity? It is every deep serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, these open the prison by supreme power, by some magic force. Where sympathy is renewed, life is restored. 

And in another still:

Love a friend, love a wife, something, whatever you like, but one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence, and one must always try to know deeper, better, and more.

This all - inclusive approach to love — this casting of a wide net of affections — is something Van Gogh believed wholeheartedly, and something Ray Bradbury would come to echo a century and a half later in telling aspiring writers, “I want your loves to be multiple.” Vincent writes to Theo:

It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done!

And later:

The best way to know God is to love many things.

Van Gogh sees the human capacity for love as integral to the creative process:

In order to work and to become an artist one needs love. At least, one who wants sentiment in his work must in the first place feel it himself, and live with his heart.

Indeed, it is this capacity for love — for living from one’s heart — that sustains the artist through struggle and rejection. In another letter, Van Gogh writes:

I believe more and more that to work for the sake of the work is the principle of all great artists: not to be discouraged even though almost starving, and though one feels one has to say farewell to all material comfort.

For Van Gogh, this heart-first approach to art and life was the root of all that is worthy. In another letter to Theo, he articulates what might well be his deepest underlying credo:

Do you know that it is very, very necessary for honest people to remain in art? Hardly anyone knows that the secret of beautiful work lies to a great extent in truth and sincere sentiment.

Reblogged from BrainPickings

[spicynbachili5]

is this the next level in gaming graphics? • Eurogamer.net

Battlefield 5 has shipped on PC, accompanied by our first take a look at a revolution in gaming graphics – real-time ray tracing by way of Nvidia’s new RTX line of GPUs. It is a watershed second in some ways and an outstanding technological achievement – not simply from the RTX that makes it doable, but additionally from the engineers at DICE who dedicated to ray tracing in all of its shiny, real-time reflection glory. However alongside the revolution in visuals is the fact of the implementation – that is an alpha patch operating on first-gen . Actual-time ray tracing stays massively costly from a computational perspective, efficiency is not fully preferrred – however that is emergent tech, optimisations are coming, and having spoken to DICE immediately, we all know what sort of methods the developer is pursuing to push frame-rates increased.

The truth is, on the finish of our evaluation piece, you may discover our in-depth interview with DICE rendering engineer Yasin Uludağ, who has been working with colleague Johannes Deligiannis for the final 12 months on implementing ray tracing inside Battlefield 5. First up although, it is price looking on the Battlefield 5 PC tech evaluation video embedded beneath – principally to get a take a look at the sport operating in real-time in its day one incarnation and to get a way of how ray tracing scales throughout the 4 accessible presets: low, medium, excessive and extremely. DICE’s advice proper now’s to run the DXR setting at low for efficiency causes, and this nonetheless seems nice. However what really occurs to the standard of ray tracing as you progress down the assorted settings?

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The medium setting is the place the most important compromises to ray tracing high quality start to change into evident. The roughness cut-off of fabric receiving ray traced reflections is raised, leading to duller supplies, painted metals or wooden surfaces receiving cubemap textures as a substitute of ray traced reflection. Typically, the standard nonetheless holds up, although it is just a bit unhappy to see the view weapon dropping the instant environment’ colors and tones disappear. One other hit comes from the decision of the reflections themselves. Battlefield 5 shoots out a variable quantity of rays by binning and culling the ray depend based mostly on dividing the display into 16×16 pixel bins. If an space wants fewer rays, it reduces the dimensions of the field, however however, if the whole display is stuffed with reflective water, it locations a restrict proportionate to decision.

Extremely is at 40 per cent decision, excessive at 31.6 per cent, medium at 23.three per cent and low at 15.5 per cent. So, the readability of reflections reduces as you go down the settings chain however simply to emphasize once more, even the low setting remains to be supplying you with a correct ray traced expertise, with an important surfaces like water, mirrors and polished metals reacting as they need to to the encircling environments.

A video breakdown of Battlefield 5 on PC, together with key visible options, RTX options and console comparisons.

There are many Battlefield 5 DXR efficiency benchmarks on the market proper now, and a number of the numbers look low – however revised code is forthcoming that addresses various points that ought to handle probably the most egregious frame-rate drops. For instance, all ranges proper now are affected by a bounding field bug making ray tracing costlier than it must be as a result of existence of destructible terrain. Sure ‘faux’ god ray results or a sure sort of foliage can even influence efficiency negatively, sending out much more rays than they need to. It is troublesome to get a lock on how a lot efficiency is hit through the use of DXR, because the computational load modifications in response to content material – there is no such thing as a flat value right here.

On an RTX 2080 Ti, ranges based totally on sand or snow can run ray tracing on the low setting at 60fps at 1620p decision, the place extra reflection-heavy maps like Rotterdam require a 1296p pixel-count to stay locked on the goal 60 frames per second. We used the sport’s inside decision scaler on a 4K display to make the mandatory changes right here.

Clearly the development to picture high quality will, once more, differ by content material. On maps which can be simply mud or stone, the low and medium settings will solely see ray tracing make a distinction on probably the most reflective metals or glass sheets, or the occasional roadside puddle. It is solely on the increased settings the place ray tracing makes a distinction right here, working subtly on even uninteresting supplies. Maps like Rotterdam can ship an evening and day enchancment – however once more, it is all scene dependent, with the development gauged towards how nicely the standard ‘faked’ strategies maintain up. One in every of my private favorite little touches ray tracing delivers is a mirrored image of the participant character’s face inside the glass of the view weapon scope.

As issues stand proper now, the DICE builders accountable for the DXR implementation see it as a work-in-progress. Additional optimisations are due, each in an imminent patch and likewise down the highway because the title receives additional help within the coming months. Even Nvidia driver updates are anticipated to ship additional boosts to frame-rates, akin to the power to run ray tracing compute shaders in parallel. Count on to see extra granularity added to the DXR settings, maybe with a concentrate on culling distance and LODs. Different high quality and efficiency enhancements in growth embody a hybrid rendering system that makes use of conventional screen-space reflections the place the impact is correct, solely utilizing ray tracing the place the approach fails (keep in mind, SSR can solely produce reflections of parts rendered on-screen, whereas full ray tracing displays something and the whole lot precisely, inside the bounds set by the developer). This could increase efficiency hopefully enhance a number of the pop-in points RT reflections sometimes exhibit proper now.

It is also attention-grabbing to stack up the assorted variations of Battlefield 5 – particularly, the PC extremely expertise, DXR and what we might assume is the perfect console supply on Xbox One X. There is no denying that the title provides an enormous increase on PC in comparison with the console editions of the sport. Based mostly on an in depth take a look at the assorted sides of the sport, the Xbox launch primarily delivers an expertise equal to PC at medium settings, with the undergrowth setting extra akin to PC’s excessive. There are not any screen-space reflections in any respect on the X, so in that sense, PC provides a top quality benefit in reflectivity even earlier than DXR is added to the equation. It nonetheless seems good on consoles although, and medium settings is an efficient place to start out in the event you’re operating a extra modest PC.

However it’s the arrival of full real-time ray tracing right here that could be a large deal, comparable in some ways to prior revolutions in PC graphics rendering, such because the arrival of Crysis again in 2008, or the debut of id software program’s Quake again in 1996. And it is in these comparisons the place the efficiency implications of ray tracing finds some parallels – the underside line is that real, generational leaps in visible constancy at all times had some form of value to frame-rate. Quake’s immense system necessities for the time virtually demanded a Pentium CPU improve for a playable expertise, whereas the absolutely tricked out Crysis struggled to maintain 30fps at 1024×768 or 1280×1024 on even probably the most highly effective GPU of the time. The extent to which DICE can enhance efficiency stays to be seen, in fact, however 1296p minimal on RTX 2080 Ti for 60fps motion is a transparent enchancment over what we noticed at Gamescom – and the developer is optimistic of additional boosts, a number of of that are already full and able to rolled out within the subsequent replace. Efficiency proper now’s a shifting goal then, however the influence is obvious – that is the start of one thing very particular.

Digital Foundry’s Tom Morgan presents his preliminary ideas on the Xbox One an Xbox One X variations of Battlefield 5.

Battlefield 5 DXR ray tracing: the DICE tech interview

This one’s for the hardcore! With the arrival of DXR and our first take a look at a online game with real-time, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, we’re shifting into unknown territory right here, discussing expertise and strategies by no means seen earlier than in a transport recreation. There’s been loads of dialogue about this early, preliminary work with ray tracing because the DXR patch for Battlefield 5 launched, and a few criticism of the efficiency hit. In placing our protection collectively, we needed to grasp the challenges confronted by the developer, how its ray tracing implementation really works and to get some thought of the behind-the-scenes work taking place proper now to enhance recreation efficiency. And all of this begins by understanding what the 4 DXR high quality presets really do, and the place the standard trades are made.

What are the true variations between low, medium, excessive, and extremely DXR settings?

Yasin Uludağ: Proper now the variations are:

Low: zero.9 smoothness cut-off and 15.zero per cent of display decision as most ray depend.

Med: zero.9 smoothness cut-off and 23.three per cent of display decision as most ray depend.

Excessive: zero.5 smoothness cut-off and 31.6 per cent of display decision as most ray depend.

Extremely: zero.5 smoothness cut-off and 40.zero per cent of display decision as most ray depend.

[Be aware: The cut-off controls which floor supplies are assigned ray traced reflections within the recreation world. Supplies are both tough (wooden, rocks) or easy (steel/glass). Based mostly upon how easy and glossy they’re (or conversely how tough) they’re able to obtain ray traced reflections. The purpose at which the reflection on a floor transitions from a conventional dice map reflection right into a ray traced reflection is then dictated by the brink setting chosen for this. A zero.9 roughness reduce off is conservative and covers polished metals, glass and water. A zero.5 worth covers surfaces which can be even simply reasonably shiny at glancing view angles. The “proportion of decision as most ray depend” describes the utmost whole proportion of the chosen display decision which might have a ray traced ray assigned to it at a 1:1 ratio (one ray per pixel). The quantity of whole doable rays shot out and the obvious readability of reflections then goes up from low to extremely settings.]

I say most ray depend right here as a result of we’ll attempt to distribute rays from this fastened pool onto these display pixels which can be prescribed to be reflective (based mostly on their reflective properties) however we will by no means transcend one ray per pixel in our implementation. So, if solely a small proportion of the display is reflective, we give all of these pixels one ray.

We distribute rays the place we expect they’re wanted probably the most and drop those that did not make it. We are going to by no means transcend the utmost ray depend in case your total display is roofed in water that’s reflective, as a substitute, it is going to scale back the decision on a 16×16 tile foundation to accommodate. To do that it’s essential to combine a full-screen buffer utilizing quick on-chip reminiscence and atomic directions for the final remaining elements as that provides low competition on the stage and it is tremendous quick.

Nevertheless, there are discussions internally to vary what every particular person settings do; we may do extra, like play with LODs and cull distances in addition to maybe some settings for the brand new hybrid ray tracer that’s coming sooner or later. We’re considering onerous about these settings, and trying to have increased high quality there as nicely.

You beforehand talked to us about optimisations made after Gamescom – which have made their approach into the present construct of the sport?

Yasin Uludağ: The present launch construct has a ray binning optimisation that re-orders rays based mostly on so-called tremendous tiles (that are massive 2D tiles on the display). Every tremendous tile re-orders the rays inside them based mostly on their path (angular binning). This is superb for each the feel cache and instruction cache as a result of comparable rays usually hit the same triangles and execute the identical shaders. On prime of that, it is vitally good for the triangle traverser (the RT core) as a result of the rays take coherent paths whereas discovering the closest intersection with the BVHs.

One other neat optimisation talked about at Gamescom is how we take care of lighting efficiency. There are methods to make use of the built-in acceleration constructions in DXR the place you may make queries into DXR acceleration constructions by ray-gen shaders however we most well-liked implementing it by compute for time causes and to help efficiency. We now have a linked record of lights and cubemaps on the GPU in a grid-like acceleration construction – so there’s a separate grid for non shadow lights, shadow casting lights, field cubemaps and so forth. These are the cubemaps utilized inside the reflections. This grid can be digital camera aligned – that is quicker because it grabs the closest lights quickly. With out this, the lighting was gradual as a result of it needed to ‘stroll over’ all of the lights to ensure no popping.

We use Nvidia intrinsics in virtually each single compute shader that surrounds and manages ray tracing. With out the Nvidia intrinsics our shaders could be operating slower. One other optimisation is partially uncovered to the person with the standard settings we talked about. We name this optimisation variable price ray tracing. As talked about, the ray tracer is deciding based mostly upon a 16×16 tile what number of rays we must always have in that area. This will go all the way in which from 256 rays all the way down to 4 rays. The deciding issue is the BRDF reflectance, how a lot is diffuse, how a lot is specular, if the floor in shadow or in daylight, what’s the smoothness of the reflection, and so forth. We’re principally making an attempt to be good about the place we place the rays with compute shaders and what number of of them to position and the place. We’re engaged on additional enhancing this half as nicely at the moment. This shouldn’t be confused with the variable price shading that Nvidia introduced.

Our preliminary take a look at Battlefield 5’s RTX tech, based mostly on a hands-on session with an early model of the code at Gamescom.

What are deliberate optimisations for the long run?

Yasin Uludağ: One of many optimisations that’s constructed into the BVHs are our use of overlapped compute – a number of compute shaders operating in parallel. This isn’t the identical factor as async compute or simultaneous compute. It simply means you’ll be able to run a number of compute shaders in parallel. Nevertheless, there’s an implicit barrier injected by the motive force that forestalls these shaders operating in parallel after we document our command lists in parallel for BVH constructing. This will likely be fastened sooner or later and we will count on fairly a little bit of efficiency right here because it removes sync factors and wait-for-idles on the GPU.

We additionally plan on operating BVH constructing utilizing simultaneous compute through the G-Buffer era section, permitting ray tracing to start out a lot earlier within the body, and the G-Buffer go. Nsight traces reveals that this could be a large profit. This will likely be accomplished sooner or later.

One other optimisation we’ve within the pipe and that nearly made launch was a hybrid ray hint/ray march system. This hybrid ray marcher creates a mip map on the whole depth buffer utilizing a MIN filter. Which means that each stage takes the closest depth in 2×2 areas and retains going all the way in which to the bottom mip map. As a result of this makes use of a so-called min filter, you already know you’ll be able to skip a complete area on the display whereas traversing.

With this, ray binning then accelerates the hybrid ray traverser tremendously as a result of rays are fetched from the identical pixels down the identical mip map thereby having tremendous environment friendly cache utilisation. In case your ray will get caught behind objects as you discover in traditional screen-space reflections, this method then promotes the ray to change into a ray hint/world area ray and proceed from the failure level. We additionally get high quality wins right here as decals and grass strands will now be in reflections.

We now have optimised the denoiser as nicely so it runs quicker and we’re additionally engaged on optimisations for our compute passes and filters that run all through the ray tracing implementation.

We now have utilized for presenting our work/tech at GDC, so look out for that!

What are the present bottlenecks within the ray tracing implementation?

Yasin Uludağ: We now have a number of bugs within the launch construct which forestall us from utilising the effectively such because the bounding bins increasing insanely far as a result of some function carried out for the rasteriser that did not play nicely with ray tracing. We solely seen this when it was too late. Mainly, each time an object has a function for turning sure elements on and off, the turned-off elements could be skinned by our compute shader skinning system for ray tracing precisely just like the vertex shader would do for the rasteriser. (Keep in mind we’ve shader graphs and we convert each single vertex shader mechanically to compute and each pixel shader to successful shader, if the pixel shader has alpha testing, we additionally make a any hit shader that may name IgnoreHit() as a substitute of the clip() instruction that alpha testing would do). The identical downside additionally occurs with destructible objects as a result of that system collapses vertices too.

Following the API specs, if you rather than collapsing them to (zero, zero, zero), collapse them to (NaN, NaN, NaN) the triangle will likely be omitted as a result of it is not a quantity. That is what we did and it gave numerous perf. This has bug has been fastened and will likely be transport quickly and we will count on each recreation stage and map to see massive, vital efficiency enhancements.

One other downside we’re having at the moment within the launch construct is with alpha examined geometry like vegetation. For those who flip off each single alpha examined object instantly ray tracing is blazingly quick when it solely is for opaque surfaces. Opaque-only ray tracing can be that a lot quicker since we’re binning rays as diverging rays can nonetheless value lots. We’re trying into optimisations for any hit shaders to hurry this up. We additionally had a bug that spawned rays off the leaves of vegetation, bushes and the like. This compounded with the aforementioned bounding field stretching challenge, the place rays had been making an attempt to flee OUT whereas checking for self intersections of the tree and leaves. This brought about an amazing efficiency dip. This has been fastened and considerably improves efficiency.

We’re additionally trying into decreasing the LOD ranges for alpha examined geometry like bushes and vegetation and we’re additionally decreasing reminiscence utilisation by the alpha shaders like vertex attribute fetching (utilizing our compute enter assembler). All in all, it’s too early to say the place we’re bottlenecking on the GPU as an entire. First, we have to repair all of our bugs and the recognized points (just like the aforementioned from alpha testing downside and bounding field challenge amongst others). As soon as we get issues along with all of our optimisations, then we will take a look at bottlenecks on the GPU itself and begin speaking about them.

How are you attending to the underside of efficiency issues?

Yasin Uludağ: We had been initially negatively affected in our QA testing and distributed efficiency testing as a result of RS5 Home windows replace being delayed. However we’ve acquired a customized compiler from Nvidia for the shader that enable us to inject a counter into the shader that tracks cycles spent inside a TraceRay name per pixel. This enables us to slim down the place the efficiency drops are coming from, we will change to major ray mode as a substitute of reflection rays to see which objects are shiny. We map excessive cycle counters to shiny and low cycle counters to darkish after which go in to repair these geometries. The bushes and vegetation immediately popped out as being super-bright.

Having these metrics by default in D3D12 could be an amazing profit, as they at the moment are usually not. We might additionally like to see different uncovered metrics for a way ‘good’ a BVH REFIT was – ie. if the BVH has deteriorated from a number of refits and if we have to rebuild it. Characters operating round can deteriorate slightly quick!

In taking part in the sport, trying on the order of complexity concerned, the visuals, and so forth. we can’t assist however recall different upheavals like Crysis, Quake, or the introduction of the pixel shader. These took time to get to be extra performant, is DXR/RTX going the same path?

Yasin Uludağ: Sure! Individuals can count on us to maintain enhancing our ray tracing as time goes, as each we at DICE and Nvidia have a bunch of optimisations coming in from the engine facet and driver facet and we’re removed from accomplished. We now have specialists from Nvidia and DICE engaged on our points as we communicate. Any longer, it is solely going to get higher, and we’ve extra information now too because the recreation launched. By the point individuals learn this, most of the enhancements talked about will have already got been accomplished. As you point out Quake and Crysis – Engaged on ray tracing and being the primary out with it on this approach is a privilege. We really feel super-lucky to be a part of this transition within the trade and we’ll do the whole lot we will do ship the perfect expertise doable. Relaxation assured, our ardour for ray tracing is burning scorching!

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from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicysodapopchili.spicynbachili.com/is-this-the-next-level-in-gaming-graphics-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/

[mostlyunfinished]

JTracer - Boxes Abound

Beginning a round of under-the-hood enhancements looking for some speed improvements. Right now the tracer checks intersections of every single primitive in the scene for every ray of every pixel. The plan is to implement a Bounding Volume Hierarchy scheme to cut that way down.

My first step was to implement a bounding box tracing primitive and define bounds for all objects in the scene:

Colored here for vis purposes only - now the tracer only checks for 3 objects with each ray. Next step was to then only trace the object enclosed in the box if the ray enters:

That little adjustment now means that until a ray hits a box, nothing happens. If it does hit a box it basically asks “what’s in here?” and then proceeds to check all of those sub-objects (in this case, the bunny is 1k polygons). It’s an immediate 6x speed improvement, but as you can see there are artifacts. Even so, the speed increase did finally allow me to trace the 69k bunny model (back to orig materials):

That’s all well and good, but I’m still treating the bunny as a single object instead of a set of primitive triangle objects. So a code overhaul later and mesh objects now generate a set of triangle primitives and are treated as individuals. The rendering of this looks pretty odd because it does the same box culling as above, but on a triangle level:

Looks terrible, but this is actually good news. A good bit of the plumbing is now in place to implement BVH. Here’s what that does.. I’ll get the bounds of all the objects in the scene, split that box somewhere and count how many primitive objects on on each side of the split, if it’s above a threshold, split that sub boxes again, and so on. From the high level view, the ray will intersect with that top level bounds first - so initial testing is on only 1 object when shooting rays into empty space. As it intersects the bounds, that ray will dig down the hierarchy until it either strikes or passes though empty space. Ultimately bringing the number of intersections tests way way down. 

I’m certain I’ll screw it up along the way, and hopefully that’ll generate some great, horrible images. But once that’s in place the engine should run WAY faster which sets me up for better features like adaptive sampling, shadows, reflections, etc.. I can spend much more time on the shading functions that I do now and get better results. Huzzah!

[veetildigital]

THE COMPLETE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO 3D TEXTURE (GEOLOGIES)

What are the ingredients for creating those smooth, sci-fi, urban, all natural, stylized textures?

As with any project, the basic starting point is ensuring you have a crystal clear understanding of the requirement. To create any substance, you can get organized by listing all the materials required first and put together the base for each. The transitions and the masks have a far more important role to play since they enable the transformation. For this you must also understand how the materials blend with each other.

Height, environment and weathering are three aspects to consider while blending. Once you have the overall picture in place, then you can break it down into smaller parts, something similar to a work-breakdown-structure in project management. The rationale is the same.

AMBIENT OCCLUSION

Building 3D Animation structure and order and then culling into the details. So here to blend it well, it requires further information such as a curvature map, height map or visual effects such as ambient occlusion, which was used in the movie Pearl Harbour. Using this feature, you can create an effect of leaks and stains on the exterior.

Let’s take weathering, where paint on metal is peeling off or is coming off in flakes. To get this right, you need all the information on curvature, world space normals. If on the other hand it is a puddle in a muddy area, then you need information on the height.

Next is the kind of environment you need such as rain, thunder or snow, even scattered leaves due to a windy, stormy weather outside. The more accurate information you have in the beginning, the better for you since you will have to develop all these along with the main map. Should you want to edit or modify the map, then there is a very good possibility that this will result in compromising accuracy and may end up with some peculiar masking.

Read also: Blender rendering and ray tracing tips you will read this year

Having a few solid base shapes to develop on is a good way to get started from which you can develop other patterns such as blending geometrical patterns. Make notes as you go along with what worked and what still needs to be worked on. This gives you a clear idea of what blending works and effects that you can expect.

Next, based on your conceptualization, you must create a nice tools library such as using a pixel processor to blend two materials established based on height.

Optimize early into the game. As you refine more and more you will find that the resolution optimization time drops by atleast 4 seconds, from what originally took 13-15 seconds. Remember, a full resolution node enhances processing time! Building an extensive skeletal model for the design you have in mind can help you open up more ideas.

For the color base, always start off with a gray scale and using a gradient map, you can build your base colors.

A histogram scan if used intelligently can help you extract a mask from a gray-scale. Similarly for different textures, different use of transform nodes, patterns, multiple sub material for different terrains will do the 3D Animation job.

[componentplanet]

Microsoft Unveils DirectX 12 Ultimate, Its Next-Generation API

It’s been a few years since Microsoft introduced DirectX 12, and there’s a new set of console introductions coming this fall, so the time is ripe for the unveiling of a new DirectX version. Microsoft has just launched DirectX 12 Ultimate, an extension and unification of various DX12 features that should serve as a common capability reference for new products and consoles.

GPUs labeled as supporting DirectX 12 Ultimate will offer the following capabilities:

DirectX Raytracing Variable Rate Shading Mesh Shaders Sampler Feedback

GPUs that can’t provide all of these capabilities will continue to be sold as DirectX 12 GPUs, not DirectX 12 Ultimate cards. None of the capabilities above are new — Nvidia introduced the first GPUs with DX12 raytracing support back in 2018 — but they aren’t supported across modern GPU families.

More of a Point Update

The way DirectX 12 Ultimate functions is more like a point update than a completely new API version. Just because a game supports DirectX 12 Ultimate doesn’t mean your existing DX12 card won’t run it — you just won’t have access to that common group of features.

The reason Microsoft is doing this, I suspect, is because there are now significant new features in DX12 that aren’t really “attached” to the standard. This would be equivalent to a DirectX 12_2 feature level, except Microsoft has decided to throw new branding around the concept and go with DX12U.

In this case, Nvidia has a leg up on other GPU families, with support for these features already baked into Turing. At this point, however, gamers would be better off waiting to see what Ampere brings to the table rather than buying into Turing if the goal is longevity and maximum feature support — everything Turing can do in these regards, Ampere will obviously be able to do better. Anandtech has put together a table showing how the major GPUs from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel compare:

Image by Anandtech

According to AMD, all new Navi 20 GPUs coming in 2020 will support DirectX 12 Ultimate.

Specific Features

First, we’ve got DirectX raytracing 1.1: Going forward, developers will be able to create raytracing tasks that run directly on the GPU without invoking the CPU. Streaming engines will now be able to load raytracing shaders more efficiently, and there’s a new “inline” raytracing feature that gives the developer more control over the RT process. Microsoft writes:

Scenarios with many complex shaders will run better with dynamic-shader-based raytracing, as opposed to using massive inline raytracing uber-shaders. Meanwhile, scenarios that have a minimal shading complexity and/or very few shaders will run better with inline raytracing.

If the above all seems quite complicated, well, it is! The high-level takeaway is that both the new inline raytracing and the original dynamic-shader-based raytracing are valuable for different purposes.

Variable-rate shading is a feature we’ve discussed before. It allows the GPU to dedicate more resources to the most important areas of a game (visually speaking) and reduces detail level in areas where you are unlikely to notice it. Mesh shaders have been described as “compute shaders for geometry.” Here’s how Microsoft describes them:

Prior to mesh shader, the GPU geometry pipeline hid the parallel nature of GPU hardware execution behind a simplified programming abstraction which only gave developers access to seemingly linear shader functions… Mesh shaders change this by making geometry processing behave more like compute shaders. Rather than a single function that shades one vertex or one primitive, mesh shaders operate across an entire compute thread group, with access to group shared memory and advanced compute features such as cross-lane wave intrinsics that provide even more fine grained control over actual hardware execution.

This should remove substantial overhead from geometry processing and allow for the creation of more detailed objects and scenes. Microsoft’s blog post has additional details on how they expect this advance to simplify GPU programming. Geometry culling should also be more efficient — mesh shaders basically add a mid-step cull between the coarse (per-mesh) and fine (per-triangle) culling performed in the existing geometry pipeline. The one catch? Implementing mesh shaders would probably require a game to be written for DX12U hardware and above, meaning we won’t see those kinds of titles until the standard is established as the expected baseline.

These are features and capabilities we’ll see rolled out over time, but with ray tracing debuting on consoles and AMD GPUs for the PC market, we should start to see increased uptake of that feature, at least, in 2021 – 2022. If you don’t have a DX12U card, there’s no reason to worry — you’ll be fully compatible with games for quite some time yet.

Now Read:

Microsoft Makes It Easier to Bring DirectX 12 Games to Windows 7

Minecraft Will Receive Nvidia-Exclusive RTX Update for Raytracing Support

Crytek Launches ‘Neon Noir’ Ray-Tracing Benchmark With AMD, Nvidia GPU Support

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/307981-microsoft-unveils-directx-12-ultimate-its-next-generation-api from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/03/microsoft-unveils-directx-12-ultimate.html

[entergamingxp]

Bethesda pulls its games from Nvidia’s streaming service GeForce Now • Eurogamer.net

Bethesda has pulled its games from GeForce Now, Nvidia’s streaming service.

In a post on the Nvidia forum, a company representative provided a list of all the Bethesda games that left GeForce Now yesterday – and only Wolfenstein Youngblood survived the cull.

Here’s the list:

Dishonored

Dishonored 2

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider

Doom

Everspace

Fallout 3

Fallout 76

Fallout: New Vegas

Prey

Quake Champions

Rage 2 (Bethesda.net / Steam)

The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition

The Evil Within 2

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus

Wolfenstein: The New Order

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood

After years in development, Nvidia’s GeForce Now service is finally available to all users, and Nvidia has declared one million people have signed up. Hosting PC games in the cloud, GeForce Now ties into your existing PC library across a range of online storefronts, allowing you to play your games on computers, smartphones and tablets.

GeForce Now previously ran on a beta basis, with users required to sign up and wait for access to the system. This delay on using the service has now been lifted, with Nvidia offering two access tiers to the system: the free offering lets users access the cloud system for a session of up to one hour – good enough for a game of Fortnite (apparently the most popular game). After that, there’s nothing stopping the user from starting another session, though if the servers are fully occupied, a wait may be required.

Then there’s the Founder’s Edition tier, priced at £4.99 / €5.49 / $4.99 per month for the first 12 months – with the first three months free via a trial. Founders get to jump the queue for server availability and can also access hardware-accelerated ray tracing features in supported games. (Digital Foundry has more here.)

It seems the Founder’s Edition trial is causing issues with publishers whose games are on GeForce Now. Last week Activision Blizzard pulled its games from the service after what Nvidia called a “misunderstanding”.

“Activision Blizzard has been a fantastic partner during the GeForce Now beta, which we took to include the free trial period for our founders’ membership,” Nvidia said.

“Recognising the misunderstanding, we removed their games from our service, with hope we can work with them to re-enable these, and more, in the future.”

Nvidia has yet to provide a statement on the removal of the Bethesda games specifically, but did publish a blog post this week warning more games may leave the service as it transitions from the free trial to the paid membership.

“This trial is an important transitional period where gamers, developers and publishers can try the premium experience with minimal commitment while we continue to refine our offering,” Nvidia said.

“As we approach a paid service, some publishers may choose to remove games before the trial period ends. Ultimately, they maintain control over their content and decide whether the game you purchase includes streaming on GeForce Now. Meanwhile, others will bring games back as they continue to realise GeForce Now’s value (stay tuned for more on that).

“As the transition period comes to completion, game removals should be few and far between, with new games added to GeForce Now each week.”

However, Nvidia’s blog post has done little to calm angry customers who have seen a raft of games leave GeForce Now in recent weeks. Nvidia’s forum is littered with angry messages from subscribers who are threatening to ditch the service.

“If things don’t get better soon I’m just going to wait for my free trial to expire then I’ll cancel it and that’s it,” wrote user omitaunmotan.

“I know it’s not their fault, but I’m out,” wrote Goompro. “This is madness.”

“Well that was a quick death,” said DeadPhoenix86. “I was mostly playing Doom on the go. But now that they have removed that as well. I guess I’ll just ask for a refund instead. Seems like cloud gaming isn’t the future anytime soon if they keep pulling games.”

Eurogamer was contacted by one angry customer who complained about the lack of an explanation from Nvidia. “I keep buying games from their platform and the day after they are gone,” they said.

An Nvidia rep took to its forum to try to calm the anger among its community.

“Yes, we know the recent game removals are disappointing,” wrote the Nvidia staff member.

“We’re disappointed, too. In an ideal world, every game would be playable on GeForce Now, and that’s the kind of world we’re working toward. But the reality of the situation is that this is a new area in gaming: cloud streaming. There are both technical and business hurdles that must be cleared when we’re bringing a game to the service. We’re working to clear those hurdles in the background, but you won’t see every part of that process. Please be patient. We’re working hard to make as many games available as possible.”

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/bethesda-pulls-its-games-from-nvidias-streaming-service-geforce-now-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bethesda-pulls-its-games-from-nvidias-streaming-service-geforce-now-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

[terryblount]

Next version of Halo SPV3 will support Ray Tracing for Screen Space Reflections, first screenshots

The team behind the SPV3 total overhaul mod for Halo: Combat Evolved has announced that its next version will support Ray Tracing for Screen Space Reflections. Moreover, the team has released the first screenshots showcasing these ray-traced reflections that you can find below.

According to the team, its lead technical artist has been working with Marty Mcfly to implement these ray-traced reflections. Now from what I understand, the mod will not require the Mcfly’s Reshade in order to work. As such, everyone will be able to enjoy the new Ray Tracing Screen Space Reflections.

As the team noted, this new visual feature lets them have much more realistic reflections throughout the game.

“The reflections are so accurate, you can actually see the light of your energy shields reflecting as it moves on your gun, the reflection of the paints inside the POA reflecting off the side of your gun, and it even allows wet surfaces like the rainy swam of 343 GS to reflect the pelican and the light from its thrusters across the ground.”

Alongside the new Ray Tracing reflections, the next update for SPV3 will bring more visual improvements to the SP mode. For instance, the team will fix the remaining brightness issues and bring some fixes to bugs users have encountered. It will also have some minor other changes, such as changes to the Brute Plasma Pistol. Furthermore, it will fix an error with some incorrectly referenced bitmaps with the sentinel beams, and also improves performance. It may also significantly reduce some particle effects being culled by the game in combat.

Unfortunately, there is no ETA on when this new version of SPV3 will come out. Naturally, we’ll be sure to let you know about it the moment it comes out. Until then, enjoy the following screenshots!

The post Next version of Halo SPV3 will support Ray Tracing for Screen Space Reflections, first screenshots appeared first on DSOGaming.

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