Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 162 — December 20, 2020


Hallucinations re: the rendering of Cyberpunk 2077

  • the article presents a breakdown of a Cyberpunk 2077 frame
  • looking at the different passes that create the final image, what techniques are employed
  • how the gbuffer is structured, volumetrics, decals, culling ….


vk_mini_path_tracer

  • Vulkan tutorial that shows how to implement a Path Tracer in 300 lines of C++ using Vulkan compute shaders
  • broken into multiple chapters that explain the fundamental concepts of Vulkan and path tracing
  • additional chapters provide further information on optimizations, multiple materials, blurs, …


SuperRT

  • the project that presents the implementation of a custom external raytracing card for use with the SNES


Grass Geometry Shader with Interactivity (Part 1, the shader)

  • the Unity tutorial explains how interactivity between player and grass can be implemented for geometry shader based grass
  • additionally covers how to apply point light shading


How To Create A Coiled Cable Shader In UE4

  • the article explains how to generate cables from cylinders
  • based on the Unreal Cable component for the physics simulation, but all visual effects are implemented as pixel shader
  • covers the spiral generation, normal generation, silhouette handling, and support for stretching


to z-prepass or not to z-prepass

  • the article presents an overview of what a Z-pre-pass is
  • what benefits and drawbacks this technique has
  • additionals discussion of techniques that can benefit from having access to a full scene z-buffer early in the frame


[video] Cyberpunk 2077 PC: What Does Ray Tracing Deliver... And Is It Worth It?

  • in-depth Digital Foundry comparison between Raytracing and classical rendering features on PC
  • presents what Raytracing adds to the final look of the game
  • comparison of performance with different settings and the importance of DLSS


Thanks to Joakim Dahl for support of this series.


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