Category: Shaders
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Shader Showcase Saturday #10: Fortnite Procedural Animations
It is no mystery that Fortnite has now become one of the most successful computer games of all time. While many see it as a case study for excellence in marketing and game design, the game itself features some very interesting shader effects. From a Technical Artist perspective, the most striking effect featured in Fortnite is the…
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Shader Showcase Saturday #9: Interior Mapping
If you have been on Twitter this past week, you might have seen videos of the new Spider-Man, developed by Insomniac Games. The game has been praised for its stunning visuals and exceptional attention to detail. One effect, in particular, has captured the players’ attention. It appears that you can see inside every single window of every building.…
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Shader Showcase Saturday #8: Subsurface Scattering
If you ever placed a strong light source behind your hand, you might have noticed how light is able to filter through the skin. Even more interesting is the fact that light “travels” inside the skin, and can sometimes make the entire hand glow. This optical phenomenon is called subsurface scattering (or SSS) and is caused…
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Shader Showcase Saturday #6: Dynamic Snow
After two previous instalments of Shader Showcase Saturday focused on wind and rain, talking about snow was simply unavoidable. Creating realistic snow is a serious challenge, which will be further explored in the following months. This week, we focus on how shaders can be used to add snow to an existing scene. Most of the references shown…
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Shader Showcase Saturday #5: Dripping Rain
The first time I played Diablo 2 I remember how impressed I was to see rain causing ripples on the river just behind the Rogue Encampment. But only when I looked closer I realised that those ripples were not actually caused by any raindrop. Both ripples and raindrops were simply unrelated. As it often happens, improving…
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Shader Showcase Saturday #4: How To Start A Fire With Shaders
In the two previous instalments of Shader Showcase Saturday, we have talked about waterfalls and interactive grass. Those two subjects sound very different from each other, yet they share something in common: the original phenomenon can be modelled as a fluid simulation. This week’s Shader Showcase Saturday will continue this trend, talking about another effect…
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Shader Showcase Saturday #3: Interactive Grass
Forests and fields have always been present in video games. These environments are particularly challenging to reproduce with high fidelity, mostly due to the fact that the behaviour of grass and leaves is exceptionally complex to capture. There are three main challenges.
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Shader Showcase Saturday #2: Waterfalls
Historically speaking, waterfalls have always had a special place in games. From Super Mario to Tomb Raider, their role has been more than just aesthetic. Often hiding secret caves, waterfalls are now iconic. This is why I believe is important to celebrate some of the most well-crafted waterfalls that have been posted online in the past…
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Shader Showcase Saturday #1: Volumetric Crystals
When a 3D object is drawn on the screen, only its outer shell is actually rendered. This works for most solid and opaque materials, but is not powerful enough to bring life to transparent and translucent materials. Currently, this is one of the biggest limitations of most modern game engines. Volumetric rendering is a technique that…
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Learning Shaders
Making games is hard. Engines like Unity and Unreal have massively lowered the barrier to entry into this industry. And now that making games is easier than it has ever been before, developers are facing a new crisis. More and more people are joining this industry every day, making it harder to succeed in such an…