Journey Sand Shader: Ripples

This is the sixth part of the online series dedicated to Journey Sand Shader.

In this final post, we will recreate the typical sand ripples that appear due to the dune-wind interaction.

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Journey Sand Shader: Glitter Reflection

This is the fifth part of the online series dedicated to Journey Sand Shader.

In this fifth post, we will recreate the shimmering reflections that are typically seen on sand dunes.

Shortly after the publication of this series, Julian Oberbeck and Paul Nadalack made their own attempt at recreating a Journey-inspired scene in Unity. You can see in the thread below how they have improved the glitter reflection to have more temporal coherence. You can read more about their implementation on IndieBurg’s article Mip Map Folding.

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Journey Sand Shader: Specular Reflection

This is the fourth part of the online series dedicated to Journey Sand Shader.

In this fourth post, we will focus on the specular reflections that make the dunes look like an ocean of sand.

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Journey Sand Shader: Sand Normal

This is the third part of the online series dedicated to Journey Sand Shader.

In this third post, we will focus on the normal mapping that will turn smooth 3D models into sandy dunes.

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Journey Sand Shader: Diffuse Colour

This is the second part of the online series dedicated to Journey Sand Shader.

In this second post we will focus on the lighting model used in the game, and how to recreate it in Unity.

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A Journey Into Journey’s Sand Shader

This is the first part of the online series inspired by the sand rendering of Journey. Join me in this journey into the secrets that made Journey’s sand shader so iconic.

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A Case Against Photorealism in Games

This post will explain why photorealistic rendering in games is important and, paradoxically, why you shouldn’t care too much about it.

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Photorealism is the Bonsai Kitten of game development: everyone talks about it, but it has yet to be seen. Despite this, there’s an ongoing battle of wits between game engines, ferociously fought with tech demos and last-minute announcements. Being able to render reality seems to be the priority. But… does it really matter? Continue reading

Game Barcode: A Study of Colours in Games

This tutorial shows how to download videos from YouTube and to process their frames with Python; I have used this technique to create game barcode, an image created by sorting the colours in each frame of a particular video. You can see some of most intriguing here:

This tutorial is divided in four parts:

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