Daniel Schroeder

Making pretty pictures with GPUs

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

Here's an update on my small-voxel renderer, inspired by the look of games like Doom and Quake. The work I shared last year focused on handling simpler environment geometry. Since then, I've greatly expanded the scope of what I can depict in this art style. More info in thread.

[Mike Turitzin @miketuritzin]

The video:

https://t.co/WJst3R7Vcz

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@mankrip The voxelization is done ahead of time. Among other things, this allows me to calculate parameters for a more elaborate shading model that improves the appearance of the resulting meshes once illuminated. I go into some more detail about this in the blog post.

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

Here's an update on my small-voxel renderer, inspired by the look of games like Doom and Quake. The work I shared last year focused on handling simpler environment geometry. Since then, I've greatly expanded the scope of what I can depict in this art style. More info in thread.

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

Currently, all the light sources in my small-voxel renderer are dynamic (though without inter-object shadows). I didn't demo this in the new YouTube video, but somebody asked about it in the comments, so here's a quick example.

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@LyerionClash Thank you!

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@easyldur Thanks! I guess it depends on your perspective on what is high or low spec these days. The sequences in the video stay above 90 FPS at 1440p on a six-year-old GPU that was considered by reviewers at the time to be good for 1440p gaming (Radeon RX 5700 XT)

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@art_of_kemal Thanks! I'm considering several options for where to take this project as I continue development. I talk about this in more detail in the blog post that I linked. One of my reasons for sharing this update now is to gauge interest from other developers and make more connections

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@OrigamiSDH A sufficiently simple version of enemy voxelization could be possible in real time. I chose to bake them because it lets me do as much compute as I want to allow the render-time results to look nicer and render fast. And yeah, Prodeus's dynamic enemy sprites do look quite nice.

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@idanbeck Thank you!

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

For more information on what I've been up to and where I plan to go with this project from here, or to get in touch, see this blog post: https://t.co/IN419qRreF

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

I've made a new trailer-style video to show where the project stands today. Make sure to watch to the end... https://t.co/b2jUqFFIMA

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@matiasgoldberg Thank you for pursuing this, if your report did prompt the change. I always found Vulkan's specification of how synchronization primitives behave when acquiring or presenting swapchain images to be frustratingly incomplete, so it's good to see movement here.

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@miketuritzin People focus on the borrow checker when they compare Rust to C or C++, but when I've experimented with Rust, one of the design decisions I've appreciated the most is the radically simpler initialization semantics

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

That's a wrap for GDC 2025! Thank you to everyone who met with me this week -- I got to have a lot of interesting conversations this year

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@miketuritzin Something about the deluge of cubes spewing into the scene cracks me up every time

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@Data01 @rianflo I would certainly be interested in joining, if that's good with you @rianflo

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

Hey folks. I'll be in San Francisco next month for GDC! Here's a look at what I've been adding to the small-voxel renderer I'm building, inspired by the visuals of classic 90s 3D games. Feel free to reach out if you're interested in meeting (DMs, or the email on my website)

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@bartwerf Understandable. It is ridiculously expensive

[Daniel Schroeder @dan5sch]

@Data01 Yep! I've seen some of your posts about this. I'm sure the streaming was a bear to get working well