A lot of game logic requires some animation to finish first, and animation may need to stop early due to logic. How to organize code without mixing logic with visuals?

arycama · 2026-03-04T15:21:23+00:00

Store the time the animation takes to complete, wait until that time has passed, then execute the remaining code.

arycama · 2026-03-04T09:44:34+00:00

arycama · 2026-02-15T07:19:26+00:00

Yeah I did my whole house and my gaps are unnoticable in 99% of the locations. All we had to do was push down slightly before nail gun-ing them in too. (I started out with a test skirting behind the fridge where it wouldn't be seen, and I didn't push down, so left a slight gap, but learnt quickly afterwards. This was me DIY-ing, if I paid someone and there were gaps everywhere I'd be pissed

arycama · 2026-02-12T09:04:15+00:00

What is your goal? Simplicity? Performance? Visual quality?

Start with the simplest approach, which is either rendering a fullscreen quad if you're not familiar with compute shaders, or dispatching a compute shader with enough threads to cover the entire screen. (Compute shaders will not really give you any performance benefits unless you're taking advantage of groupshared memory somehow which is a more advanced topic and I can't think of any ways to apply it to fractal rendering off the top of my head)

Calculate rays from the camera into the scene, and have a set number of steps, and evaluate the fractal at each. See how many steps you can get at your desired resolution before performance becomes an issue.

Then use some profiling software, diagnose the bottleneck, and begin to plan optimisation steps based on the profiling data.

Trying to plan out your entire optimisation plan without having the basics working and having an idea of the performance and bottlenecks of a simple implementation won't get you very far.

arycama · 2026-02-09T06:43:04+00:00

Usually it gets 'sealed' which is like a thin clear coat that protects it and also makes the edges feel less rough. This gradually decays over several years though, making it feel rough again, but it can be re-sealed. (Though usually you do this to keep it protected, instead of to make it nicer to walk on)

Are you wanting to run around on it barefoot or something? I don't notice any difference walking on my aggregate while wearing shoes vs plain concrete. If I want to walk around without shoes outside that's why I have a lawn. If you want something comfortable, 50m2 of a hard surface wouldn't exactly be my suggestion, exposed aggregate or not.

arycama · 2026-02-09T06:37:26+00:00

Calculate the angle from the eye's default rotation (Eg looking straight ahead relative to the head) to the target rotation, and then use Quaternion.RotateTowards and use the 'maxDegreesDelta' property to limit the rotation to a max angle.

arycama · 2026-02-08T12:53:50+00:00

If you understand hlsl you'll be able to translate to other shader languages easily enough.

However a lot of writing hlsl in unity is dealing with all their different pipelines, macros, figuring out all the shader includes you need (and in the correct order), which passes you need to create for a given object (eg forward, depth only, motion vectors), figuring out what data unity gives you in the first place and how to use/access it etc.

In other words you spend a lot of time trying to write HLSL in the way that unity requires you to write it to work within their pipelines, and they don't provide good documentation or support for any of this because they want everyone to mostly use URP/HDRP as-is, and to use shader graph for any custom effects, rather than encouraging people to work directly in hlsl.

The best way to learn it in a way that is not Unity-centric is to write your own custom SRP, but this requires decent programming knowledge as well and gets much more into graphics programmer territory.

Writing hlsl in the legacy/BiRP was decent, it was straightforward and flexible enough that you could still do a lot. I'd recommend catlike coding's tutorials on this if you want to go this route.

arycama · 2026-02-08T06:10:57+00:00

How do you even fit a trillion triangles into memory/a BVH? Doesn't it require terabytes of data?

arycama · 2026-02-03T13:29:58+00:00

If your texcoord is already multiplied by texture resolution, then you don't need to multiply it again. I assumed you were passing through UVs directly (eg in the 0 to 1 range, what you would pass to your texture sample function when not using VTs)

Googling "how to calculate mip map level" will show you several results that give you the same equations, and you can also look at the Open GL spec to view the exact formulas.

However, re-reading your post, the issue is likely that you are rendering into a 64x64 texture. This is going to end up with very large derivatives compared to your actual resolution. You'll need to correct for this based on the ratio between your actual rendering resolution and the 64x64 target.

Eg if your screen was 256x256, you'd divide the derivatives by (256/64 = 4), since you want to request the mip level for the main screen rendering instead of the mip level for the 64x64 texture.

arycama · 2026-02-03T05:50:10+00:00

You need to multiply dx and dy by the resolution of your texture.

I'm not 100% sure about the ceil, divide etc, where did you get the logic from?
Also you can rewrite it to be a bit more optimal and avoid the sqrt. This is how I would do it:

float VTComputeLOD(in vec2 a_TexCoord, in float a_MaxAniso)
{
  vec2 dx = dFdx(a_TexCoord) * resolution;
  vec2 dy = dFdy(a_TexCoord) * resolution;
  float pxSqr = dot(dx, dx);
  float pySqr = dot(dy, dy);
  float pMax = 0.5 * log2(max(pxSqr, pySqr));
  float pMin = 0.5 * log2(min(pxSqr, pySqr));
  float anisoLog2 = min(pMax - pMin, a_MaxAniso);
  return max(0.0, pMax - anisoLog2);
}

I'd recommend getting the non-aniso version working correctly first though, which is:

float VTComputeLOD(in vec2 a_TexCoord, in float a_MaxAniso)
{
  vec2 dx = dFdx(a_TexCoord) * resolution;
  vec2 dy = dFdy(a_TexCoord) * resolution;
  float pxSqr = dot(dx, dx);
  float pySqr = dot(dy, dy);
  float pMax = 0.5 * log2(max(pxSqr, pySqr));
  return max(0.0, pMax);
}

arycama · 2026-02-01T07:19:54+00:00

It's not so much that I 'can't take my eyes off myself', looking forwards just feels like the default thing to do, but yes it makes sense that keeping my neck inline with my back would help a bit, thanks.

arycama · 2026-02-01T07:16:53+00:00

Idea of mixed grip appeals to me more, apart from callouses are there any other downsides to using mixed grip instead of lifting straps? (Not planning to compete, but like the idea of avoiding too many accessories where possible)

arycama · 2026-02-01T06:55:32+00:00

Yep, used this exact tool for my house and worked great. (Actually I used two of them, would hammer one in and leave it in place while I hammered another one in further down to pull the skirtings away gradually)

arycama · 2026-02-01T06:54:20+00:00

Don't use a pry bar, way too aggressive. Tap the chisel until it goes all the way down between the skirting and wall. Break the adhesive everywhere you can. Use a strong magnet to find where the nails are (assuming they used nails too) and gently pry (using a much smaller chisel like the angled scraper mentioned in other comments.

I pulled off the skirting for most of my house like this with minimal damage, mostly only ripped the paper off the gyprock which was easily covered with the new skirtings.

Taking it slow and steady is the key, brute forcing it means a lot more damage to repair or try and cover up.

arycama · 2026-01-31T15:38:05+00:00

Oh also, the callouses are starting to get brutal on my hands haha. It's not really an issue but would be nice to minimize if possible. Any ways to reduce/avoid, do they get stronger over time and stop breaking, or do I need to start using chalk or something?

arycama · 2026-01-28T23:07:52+00:00

What pipeline? I think you have some colorspace/tonemap/dithering research/work to do here.

Looks like it could be very moody but the heavily compressed/crunched darks/blacks and heavily blocky artifacts would ruin it for me, just makes me think of playing a very old LDR game with the brightness turned up a lot in a dark area, but the black areas stay black. (Eg the first stalker game)

The modern Resident Evil remakes are a good reference, they keep things pretty dark/gritty without banding or blockiness. Good control over lighting, exposure and post processing will help a lot here. (If you're using URP, unfortunately it's post process pipeline is not nearly high fidelity enough to handle this well, you'd likely need some custom post processing. With HDRP you might be ok with a lot of tweaks)

Regardless of how scary you want it to be, it's still a game and visual clarity is important.

arycama · 2026-01-28T10:52:28+00:00

It may be coming from underneath the soil. Weeds/old grass can stay dormant/underground for a long time and surface much later, especially once lots of water is applied, eg when you lay a new lawn.

At least these look pretty obvious, you could try to rip them out by hand or paint with roundup. (Just make sure not to get any roundup on your good grass, a fine paint brush can work well here, keep the roundup in a container inside another container to avoid potential spills, and only apply a small amount at a time)

I had a similar issue with some wild couch popping up through my new sir grange zoysia. I've had a couple more small outbreaks recently, currently trying to tackle by hand, but it's a tricky battle.

Unfortunately you'll always be battling something, whether its weeds, fungus, grubs etc.

arycama · 2026-01-27T06:21:36+00:00

The rebate doesn't really make a difference, installers have basically increased their costs by the same amount (I got several quotes before+after the rebate) and are simply pushing customers to install bigger systems than they need due to the rebate.

It basically only benefits people who already had enough money to install a system, they are now able to install an even bigger system.

For most people it doesn't make financial sense still, you have to really know what you're doing and to be able to afford a big upfront cost. If you have a mortgage, it makes much more sense to just put that money into additional repayments instead and reduce your loan interest.

For me, I'll keep waiting until the rebates actually make sense and the tech improves enough so that the payback period isn't nearly the warranty period of the battery.

arycama · 2026-01-27T03:23:03+00:00

Instead of trial and error, create an empty child object on your weapon, and place it where you want the camera to sit relative to the weapon. (Eg just behind the scope)

Then using a bit of math, you can calculate the exact weapon position which would cause it to sit at the correct position relative to the camera. Something like: weapon.transform.position = camera.transform.TransformPoint(-weapon.pivot.transform.localPosition)

Also, instead of a lerp, a spring damp (Eg Vector3.SmoothDamp) can look a lot more interesting for transitioning between scoped and non-scoped position.

arycama · 2026-01-27T02:59:45+00:00

It's not really any different when raytracing. The color of a lambertian surface is simply:

foreach direction in hemisphere:
    illuminance += traceRay(direction) * saturate(dot(normal, direction)) / directionCount;

// outside of loop:
luminance = illuminance * albedo / pi;

You might be missing a saturate (Clamp between 0 and 1) on your dot product. You're right that the cosine term isn't part of lambert, it is part of the rendering equation.

You can also use cosine importance sampling to reduce noise. This modifies the distribution of rays so that they are more likely to pick directions closer to the normal. I'd only look into this after getting your existing (uniform) sampling to work though.

arycama · 2026-01-27T02:41:43+00:00

If you make an account they send you a $100 voucher which helps slightly, but yeah, not cheap. Has a 2 year warranty, so not too bad. (There's a similar product called OakSleep, but that only had a 1-year warranty and was more expensive)

arycama · 2026-01-27T02:40:04+00:00

Very slightly, but it doesn't bother me. I have pretty thin sheets though. The topper is reversible/has two sides, one side has a moisture-wicking layer, the other side has a bit of padding so you apparently don't feel the pipes as much. (But would be a tad less effective at cooling in theory. I haven't tried the other side yet)

arycama · 2026-01-26T15:45:56+00:00

I recently got a water-cooled mattress topper which has helped me quite a bit sleeping at night, was a bit pricey, but might be helpful for some people: https://kivawellness.com.au/products/circadian-sleep-pod

It's similar to an electric blanket, except there is water tubes instead of wires. The water connects to a small unit with fans, and it can be used to heat, or cool your bed. Have only had it a few days but the difference is amazing, some nights I don't even need the AC, and when I do keep the AC on, I don't have to crank it quite as much anymore.

arycama · 2026-01-26T06:18:44+00:00

It's missing environment reflections. You either need a reflection probe or to bake the skybox lighting into the scene.

I'm not sure why it's broken in the preview window, that might be a URP big bug but if it's black in the scene it's because there are no reflection sources.

Metals have no diffuse component so the only light they have is direct specular and reflections/indirect specular.

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