Coffee, Code & Shaders: Real-Time Rendering Conversations

GPU Driven Rendering of Factions on Meta Quest 2 and 3

Today, we will talk about this presentation given by Lucas Miguel Antunes da Silva, Graphics Programmer at Davsh Graphics Programming, during Vulkanized 2026. He discusses the development of Factions, a voxel-based VR game for Meta Quest 2 and 3, explaining how they overcame the bandwidth and memory limitations of mobile processors using occlusion and geometry culling techniques directly on the graphics hardware. Watch full presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H39hUNiweYg Original Copyright Free Music written, performed, and produced by TrackTribe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK9z2cR8nlM&list=PLFEJ2E5exsjrjRzhJdOYOmTlcYfK3Hz7_

A look into Teardown's render engine before and after

Today we will talk about the presentation given by Dennis Gustafson and Gabe Rundlet from Tuxedo Labs during the Graphics Programming Conference 2025. In it, they explain how the engine's initial design overcame OpenGL's limitations for simulating lighting in fully destructible environments using Shadow Volumes and 3D Bitmaps, as well as their subsequent transition to Vulkan and the use of Ray-Tracing, which allowed for more efficient memory management. Watch full presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM1Dr98f3xU Original Copyright Free Music written, performed, and produced by TrackTribe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK9z2cR8nlM&list=PLFEJ2E5exsjrjRzhJdOYOmTlcYfK3Hz7_

Unified Rendering Architecture of Blender's Cycles

On this occasion, we will discuss the presentation given by Sergey Sharybin, Blender's Head of Development, during the 2025 Graphics Programming Conference. In it, he speaks about the unified architecture of their path tracer, Cycles, which is capable of running on various CPU and GPU platforms through a micro-kernel structure and a shader virtual machine to improve interactivity for the artist. Watch full presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etGMk9wYwNs Original Copyright Free Music written, performed, and produced by TrackTribe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK9z2cR8nlM&list=PLFEJ2E5exsjrjRzhJdOYOmTlcYfK3Hz7_

Ultrafast Screen-Space Refractions and Caustics via Newton's Method

Today we will discuss this paper published in The Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques by Chase Mayer and Ulf Assarsson. In it, instead of using the traditional Ray Marching method, the authors propose using Newton's Method to locate screen-space intersections. This allows pixels to converge in two to six iterations, drastically reducing the computational load compared to current standards. Read full paper: https://jcgt.org/published/0015/01/03/ Original Copyright Free Music written, performed, and produced by TrackTribe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK9z2cR8nlM&list=PLFEJ2E5exsjrjRzhJdOYOmTlcYfK3Hz7_

Rendering Meshlets in Capcom's RE Engine

On this occasion, we will be discussing the presentation given by Hitoshi Mishima, a Render Engineer at Capcom, during REAC 2025. In it, he details how they adapted the RE Engine pipeline to integrate Meshlets, enabling the optimization of games with massive, dense environments like Dragon's Dogma and Monster Hunter Wilds. He also covers the use of Visibility Buffers and two-phase occlusion systems, which drastically reduce the processing load for both the CPU and GPU. Watch full presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWgPtCDXlPc Original Copyright Free Music written, performed, and produced by TrackTribe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK9z2cR8nlM&list=PLFEJ2E5exsjrjRzhJdOYOmTlcYfK3Hz7_