Simulating Epidemics

This is the second part of the online course dedicated to the modelling and simulating of epidemics. If you are interested in understanding how Mathematicians, Programmers and Data Scientists are studying and fighting the spread of diseases, this series of posts is what you are looking for.

In the second part, we will focus on ways to simulate epidemics. While the code here presented is in C# and runs in Unity, the knowledge can be applied to virtually any other language or engine.

You can read the rest of this online course here:

This online course is inspired by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Now more than ever we need skilled and passionate people to focus on the complex subject of Epidemiology. I hope these articles will help some of you to get started.

All the revenue made from this article through Patreon will be donated to the National Emergencies Trust (NET) to help those most affected by the recent coronavirus outbreak. If you have recently become a patron for this reason, get in touch and I will add your contribution.

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And if you are interested in learning more about the virus responsible for the COVID-19 epidemics, SARS-CoV-2, have a look at the semi-serious video down below.

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The Mathematics of Epidemics

This online course introduces the topic of modelling and simulating epidemics. If you are interested in understanding how Mathematicians, Programmers and Data Scientists are studying and fighting the spread of diseases, this series of posts is what you are looking for.

This online course is inspired by the recent COVID-19 pandemic. Now more than ever we need skilled and passionate people to focus on the complex subject of Epidemiology. I hope these articles will help some of you to get started.

All the revenue made from this article through Patreon will be donated to the National Emergencies Trust (NET) to help those most affected by the recent coronavirus outbreak. If you have recently become a patron for this reason, get in touch and I will add your contribution.

Become a Patron!

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The DIY Guide to: Work From Home

A significant portion of the working force population in the Western world is employed in an office job. For many of those people, the constraint of working 9-to-5 feels like an act of unnecessary cruelty, especially in spite of the fact that most office jobs could easily go fully remote.

It is not uncommon to see working from home as an escape from the slavery of being stuck in an office job. The reality, unfortunately, is a bit different.

Working from home, either for a company or as a self-employed person, requires a level of self-control that many people are simply not used to. And, if carried out long term, it can have a negative impact on one’s psychological and physical well being.

Working from home is not easier: is actually harder.

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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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Believable Caustics Reflections

Creating believable caustics reflections is something that most technical artists have attempted achieving at some point in their career. If you are a game developer, one of the main reasons to use Twitter is the endless stream of inspiration it can provide. A few days ago Florian Gelzenleuchter (kolyaTQ on twitter) posted a GIF of a caustics effect created in Unity using shaders. The post (below) quickly reached 1.5K likes, showing a genuine interest for this type of content.

While I usually focus on longer, more technical series (such as Volumetric Atmospheric Scattering and Inverse Kinematics), I could not resist the temptation of writing a short and sweet tutorial about Florian‘s effects.

At the end of this article, you will also find a link to download the Unity package with all the assets necessary. Continue reading →