Blake Zonca

VR Unity Developer | VR Dev at @gymclassvr | Creator of @CrunchElementVR - a tactical VR shooter with destructible environments

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

This is 100% baked lighting—no real-time lights and no mixed lighting. It's all done on the shader level where dynamic objects use baked spherical harmonics for seamless lighting without the performance hit. Perfect for fast, smooth VR action.

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

This was a blast to build!

[Meta Quest @MetaQuestVR]

Gear up and get messy! 💥 @gymclassvr is dropping free-to-play Paintball!

Whether you want to go solo or squad up, the ultimate VR paintball experience is here. Who’s ready to make their mark?

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

One of the best parts of making games is seeing a comment like this that reminds you why you’re building in the first place.

Easy to get wrapped up in fixes, planning, and juggling life, but stuff like this is a nice reminder of the simple joys of development!

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@BattleAxeVR Good point! Somehow Zeiss squeezed in there again somehow😆

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

Some days I wake up thinking about how the Romans built a steam engine and then humanity sat on the idea for 1,600 years.

Makes me wonder what else is hiding in plain sight or if the internet fixes that.

[Ryan Fleury @rfleury]

Evergreen

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

Eng here, I see it as an essential part of work, not an afterthought, because it allows me to perform far better cognitively.

I start every morning with 3–5 hours of deep work, pushing until I hit a wall (getting stuck, losing focus, etc). That moment is my cue in the habit loop to go work out. I leave my desk, run/lift, and I’m back in 30-60 minutes.

About 90% of the time, the solution to whatever I was stuck on becomes obvious the moment I sit down again. The workout resets my brain, and I can ride that momentum and energy through the rest of the day.

The brain is complicated, but there’s something powerful about switching between high-cognitive/low-physical and low-cognitive/high-physical states. It feels like the two modes recharge each other.

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@honeymoon250 It’s muscle memory for people who’ve ever played @playrust 😂

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@ArthurMacwaters This should be a new tradition! Every significant tech interview should have the company/founder/dev sword present.

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@ChrisOlimpo Thanks!

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

This is 100% baked lighting—no real-time lights and no mixed lighting. It's all done on the shader level where dynamic objects use baked spherical harmonics for seamless lighting without the performance hit. Perfect for fast, smooth VR action.

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

What ever happened to Unity MCP's? They popped off in the beginning of the year with lots of promise but haven't seen anything big recently.

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

Been heads down working on @Gymclassvr lately and I’m thrilled to finally share one of the big things we’ve been building!

A new lighting system that pushes visuals and performance to a whole new level!

More VR dev goodness coming soon 👀

[Paul Katsen @Katsen]

@blakezonca shipped a radically new lighting system with @juicebox775 this week. 🔥

Amazing work to hit a whole new level of fidelity on standalone VR, where lighting is always tricky.

The community is loving it - and with this system, the platform is set up for some very exciting things. 🔮

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@aprolixian You either die a programmer or live long enough to blink a light with Arduino or 3D print a Benchy, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Once you know enough software it seems natural to want to fill up the low level tech tree.

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@cixliv I’ve always wondered about how 6dof VR would feel here with latency & mechanical constraints (IE: if it would keep up with a yaw & roll of the head with a position change). Definitely seems like a killer use case though.

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@yacineMTB The last chapter (You and Your Research) is worth it alone.

There needs to be a hype video with Steve Balmer screaming it to show on the first day of undergrad.

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@RuiCarrilho5 To be fair, I’m sure the others are good it’s just that when it comes to VR, Unity is really good with support and overall ecosystem.

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@RuiCarrilho5 I’m extremely biased 😎

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@Tech_by_Ram Thanks! Probably not of used situationally. Especially for tactical combat, it could complement the core gameplay in certain areas making it more atmospheric / creepy.

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

VR high performance volumetric fog is looking great! Rock solid at 90+ fps. The shader reuses SH coefficients from the baked lighting volumes, so there’s negligible memory increase and supports any number of baked lights in the volume.

Lots of potential with this effect!

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@konzeptzwei @archrebels @r0bwiki Haven’t thought about it but I’ll definitely consider it!

[Blake Zonca @blakezonca]

@archrebels @r0bwiki I’ll put together a test sometime with the results!