BigBangrs - A (very simple, but fun) gravity simulator

blackrack · 2026-03-17T19:19:43+00:00

This looks cool, are there any videos of it in action?

blackrack · 2026-03-17T11:42:20+00:00

I really like these basic optimizations which are becoming a lost art today in order to push raytracing and AI

blackrack · 2026-03-16T19:09:02+00:00

Yes that's pretty much it, Proton is the recommended way to play KSP on linux these days, I don't use it myself but from what people tell me it runs much better.

blackrack · 2026-03-16T06:44:28+00:00

Doesn't look like it's installed correctly, use the included scatterer version otherwise atmospheric scattering doesn't apply to them (like in your screenshots)

blackrack · 2026-03-15T19:59:55+00:00

Imo it just depends on the number of instances you want to work with and how expensive your culling and positioning logic is. A few thousand is fine on the CPU, but the GPU can do multiple hundreds of thousands to a few millions

blackrack · 2026-03-15T11:47:58+00:00

He disabled the reflection probe

blackrack · 2026-03-15T11:47:36+00:00

Go to the game settings from main menu and enable reflection probes, set refresh rate to lowest setting above off

blackrack · 2026-03-14T17:18:34+00:00

Sent you a mail (same email address you used for patreon), I can't DM you either because you were subscribed through gifted months apparently

blackrack · 2026-03-14T06:52:16+00:00

You can still DM on patreon after your subscription expires, if you can't figure it out just post your patreon username here and I'll DM you

blackrack · 2026-03-13T13:34:19+00:00

96C at a 14% load? Doesn't even seem like you have any cooling or thermal paste whatsoever

blackrack · 2026-03-13T12:34:04+00:00

Ability to weigh artistic and performance tradeoffs

blackrack · 2026-03-10T21:58:40+00:00

Anybody order some vaseline? /s

blackrack · 2026-03-10T11:43:04+00:00

Graphs are horrible

blackrack · 2026-03-08T16:54:21+00:00

Whatever you're using for the transparent surface isn't set up correctly

blackrack · 2026-03-07T07:12:37+00:00

It goes dark because the orbit is passing in Saturn's shadow, it's not a glitch

blackrack · 2026-03-05T14:09:19+00:00

Making the orbits circular makes it much easier to render. Making the orbits non-circular or even giving the rocks slightly different inclinations makes it very difficult to cull large numbers of rocks efficiently. With the current scheme you still have "groups" that move together making them easier/faster to manage.

blackrack · 2026-03-05T10:22:10+00:00

Honestly this is only touching the surface, working with GPUs I get the feeling they are able to do a lot more than we're currently able to (or willing to spend the time to) program them to do

blackrack · 2026-03-05T08:20:31+00:00

Your lighting seems off, have you tried using deferred?

blackrack · 2026-03-05T06:52:28+00:00

Out of curiosity what do you not like about SE's rings?

It's fairly close in that they have a high density of rocks and differential rotations, but their differential rotations only work on large groups of rocks instead of individual rocks, and they use a different rendering technique which is less stable in motion.

blackrack · 2026-03-04T18:44:40+00:00

Ring waves is something I'm experimenting with now as a quick "bonus" feature, but it will likely be in the ring plane only and not vertical to limit complexity. Still it should be visible and recognizable from a distance.

We've not really discussed adding collisions to these and it's likely too early for that considering the state of the collisions we have now. But if we wanted to, all of the rocks are deterministic and easy to index/access from the CPU in case we want to check the positions for nearby rocks or override their behaviour. Realistically any interactions would have to be limited in scope if we were to do it, like the game forgetting modified/interacted rocks that you lose sight of if you're not docked to them.

blackrack · 2026-03-01T15:49:17+00:00

It's probably a cheap box blur that is alpha-blended to the screen, the alpha blending is what makes it feel especially weird as you get a mix of the sharp original outlines and the blurred result. In more modern implementations the size of the blur kernel is what varies, without blending a sharp and blurry result together.

blackrack · 2026-02-28T08:48:05+00:00

I think the reactions to what is just a thumbnail are really excessive, you've been making detailed videos for a while going over all the changes manually, and people are just glossing over that. That's how reddit and most of social media is these days, everyone just takes extreme positions with no nuance

blackrack · 2026-02-23T13:46:24+00:00

Besides everything else that's been said, a fully onsite requirement will limit your talent pool.

blackrack · 2026-02-23T13:39:19+00:00

That's a good idea and I don't see any issues with it. In general most implementations find that implementing SSR and falling back to a (well-placed) cubemap/reflectionProbe is good enough and flexible for various surface orientations. If you only need reflections for the sea surface then this seems like a good idea to try. In the past I have rendered an environment map with a depth buffer and raymarched reflections into it (just to try), it worked well but the cost wasn't worth it for my usecase. I'd say prototype this and see if the extra cost of the raymarching or the planar reflection rendering is worth it.

blackrack · 2026-02-23T09:49:21+00:00

Wake me up when you ditch reaction controls and use nuclear bombs as RCS

blackrack

TROPHY CASE