Aras Pranckevičius

Programmer. Unity 2006-2021. Now Blender. Website at https://aras-p.info Admin of https://mastodon.gamedev.place

Public Key

npub15kf8vswgjcnqfgjn49glxwgux6778u5jrayqndgt0m5w8evsga8scztze2

NIP-05 Address

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2tynkg8yfvfsy5ff6j50n8ywrd00r72fp7jqfk59ha68rukgywncpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsqxd7qc

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub15kf8vswgjcnqfgjn49glxwgux6778u5jrayqndgt0m5w8evsga8scztze2

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-08-24 09:37:06 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…9g3x uh oh! Yeah shooting on film can go very deep. Let us know when you also get into alternative historical photo development processes, like cyanotype and such

2026-08-21 14:24:12 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…v32e @nprofile…7laa yes would be nice. Translations in Mastodon are done by external services though, which all seem to be paid plans (https://masto.host/help/mastodon-content-translation/). I’m already spending like 700€/mo just to keep this server running, not sure if I want the cost to go even higher lol!

2026-08-18 12:13:31 UTC

Blog post! "More Blender :blender: VSE tidbits" https://aras-p.info/blog/2026/08/18/More-Blender-VSE-tidbits/ #blender

2026-07-18 06:25:18 UTC

Everyone hail the hornyphon!
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/939/549/204/784/072/original/5f2f27ffa679de07.jpeg

2026-07-16 12:15:32 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…sz5f @nprofile…4e67 well… I am, just not in Rune’s game! But this one does definitely have a dog https://thefreeshepherd.com

2026-07-16 10:58:55 UTC

- reply

Blender is cool and all, but also! Here’s Ren sending regards from Poland, Czechia, Austria and Italy.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/929/299/077/582/417/original/9ea713d5ca6bf1dd.jpeg
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/929/299/558/435/657/original/ed08d907662deff3.jpeg
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/929/299/889/839/986/original/f963690aacfba7d0.jpeg
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/929/300/389/489/872/original/c544cb2b658c23e0.jpeg

2026-07-16 10:42:12 UTC

So while I’m away on a road trip through Europe… :blender: 5.2 LTS got shipped! Lots of goodies there, including some video sequencer stuffs as well.

2026-07-07 09:36:45 UTC

Someone else pointed at this: for all the "massive testing, production-ready, blah blop" talk that Unity does, they also ship pieces of code like this. This is from Unity IAP package, new stable version (5.4.0) shipped last week. Count the number of opening & closing curly braces :)
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/878/016/750/469/624/original/2cf9575ab7952020.png

2026-07-02 15:45:34 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…64j3 Is a "you either die with no wide usage, or eventually become a villain" perhaps a correct statement regarding engines?

2026-06-30 17:11:45 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…22w0 some 10 years ago my daughter absolutely wanted to try a spicy pepper, despite all our pleas. It went like this:
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/840/168/991/796/372/original/2534c8df7286c650.jpeg
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/840/169/280/551/557/original/20da6b9bcce8328d.jpeg
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/840/169/562/494/603/original/1fe98b355d692e08.jpeg

2026-06-28 13:42:59 UTC

Short blog post about Joys of cancelling a TBB task group: https://aras-p.info/blog/2026/06/28/Joys-of-cancelling-a-TBB-task-group/

2026-06-26 05:43:00 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4l5v who did she consider worthy?

2026-06-26 04:10:05 UTC

Windows 1.0 was released closer to the end of World War 2 than to today.

2026-06-24 12:18:06 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…c3sc yup, found the same some years ago in OpenEXR context (https://aras-p.info/blog/2021/08/09/EXR-libdeflate-is-great/), which might have caused OpenEXR to actually switch to libdeflate by default

2026-06-24 12:13:59 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…k3dk “we have Elton John at home” :) Seriously though, it is a good look!

2026-06-21 05:17:57 UTC

“absolute state of unreal 2026” by @nprofile…j4xj is interesting: https://www.joewintergreen.com/absolute-state-of-unreal-2026
I’m not too (ahem) versed in unreal things, but it does feel like some parallels to the “let’s set half of our userbase on fire” exercises that Unity had a while ago

2026-06-18 05:28:45 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…5lkl yeah, indeed too harsh, will edit the post

2026-06-18 04:18:07 UTC

Wake up babe, Unity C# reference source code repository is back with Unity version updates! https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/UnityCsReference #unity :unity:

2026-06-18 04:10:06 UTC

- reply

I have used Plastic SCM (on a medium scale production) and it is actually pretty sweet and works fine. However Unity, in their infinite wisdom, made it very hard to find / learn about; information about it is spread over 5 different websites with different designs. https://unity.com/features/version-control and https://docs.unity.com/en-us/unity-version-control and https://www.plasticscm.com/ and so on. It does keep on getting updates with nice release notes! https://docs.unity.com/en-us/unity-version-control/release-notes/11

2026-06-18 04:08:13 UTC

So! The new version control system from Epic (Lore) is interesting https://lore.org/
Everyone in mid/large games uses Perforce, and while it is ancient and terrible, it works at these data sizes and needed feature sets.
There have been attempts at displacing Perforce however! E.g. there's Ark VCS (https://ark-vcs.com/), Diversion (https://www.diversion.dev/) and Unity Version Control (née Plastic SCM).

2026-06-14 06:41:11 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…9wsp @nprofile…22w0 @nprofile…4l5v they are all a bit patchy, tbh

2026-06-14 06:25:53 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…22w0 @nprofile…4l5v thanks ryg! you are a ray of light

2026-06-14 04:57:57 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…22w0 @nprofile…4l5v not my area of expertise

2026-06-13 17:25:28 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4l5v a bit pointless comment tbh

2026-06-13 16:34:06 UTC

Everyday life is full of dimensional sayings!
- you are making a point
- we are ahead of the curve
- scratching the surface
- this speaks volumes
- tastes just like a hypercube

2026-06-09 15:54:41 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…jlf3 blender lost Boost for a few years by now!

2026-06-09 09:30:03 UTC

While compiling Blender codebase, you know which source files are clearly in the leading of "taking the longest to compile" as a group? Yep, everything that uses OpenVDB (outlined in red here). That library is many things, but "fast to compile" is not one of them.
(outlined in blue is unrelated slow to compile file that is also serial; figuring that out s as we speak...)
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/719/445/699/867/930/original/90ecf14374d8066a.png

2026-06-09 09:11:47 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…rd8u @nprofile…9g3x it's almost as if in real life, people avoid looking at things through multiple layers of diffuse refractive glass all the time. almost!

2026-06-09 05:55:10 UTC

Someone shipped the level with a debug gizmo. Lazy devs!
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/718/600/629/840/249/original/3d17ad599be43092.jpeg

2026-06-09 04:47:34 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…9g3x has the window corner resize grab area been fixed?

2026-06-08 17:38:05 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…9g3x impressive! Though I am hoping that someday either CSS text-wrap: pretty would just do it, or something new like, I dunno, text-wrap: prettier

2026-06-07 11:18:52 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…k3dk so far so good! She does not quite understand why she’s always on a leash and is not allowed to run or jump. The leg is still limping, sometimes (expected) and the “haircut” is funny. Will be getting an xray checkup in a few days!
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/708/548/880/481/789/original/dcc590b554c83c1f.jpeg

2026-06-07 09:19:29 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4e67 no idea why that would happen, but FYI mere presence of discard in a pixel shader makes it run quite a bit slower than a always-known-to-be-opaque shader.
Maybe doing it at vertex level would be just enough? Setting vertex position to NaN effectively “discards” the whole triangle that the vertex is on

2026-06-07 05:56:39 UTC

Good morning!
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/707/281/846/260/041/original/27dccbc7b89b36fd.jpeg

2026-06-06 19:33:02 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…k3dk you just hit DLC! (DownLoadableCredits)

2026-06-04 06:27:59 UTC

- reply

A month later, a happy outcome! Unity kept the default behavior being buggy, but added a (very hidden) setting to un-bug the terrain shadows. Per-Terrain object, you need to switch inspector to Debug mode and uncheck the new "Enable Heightmap LOD Frustum Culling" toggle. This is in 6000.0.76, 6000.4.9, 6000.5.0b10, 6000.6.0a6 versions.
https://discussions.unity.com/t/terrain-lod-shadows-switching-issue/1630925/7

2026-06-02 04:14:31 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yk06 does it spark joy?

2026-05-28 13:14:37 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4e67 my goto hash is PCG https://www.jcgt.org/published/0009/03/02/

2026-05-27 08:49:54 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yk06 this is shaping up to be a really in depth demo!

2026-05-27 03:56:07 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…c3sc would executables from 2009 still work today on a Mac? (I guess "obviously not"). How about Linux?

2026-05-25 17:35:36 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…esgu I’m not too familiar with this whole scene, so just checking: while CodeAlta is written in .NET (and presumably extensible via .NET), otherwise yiu can use it for “anything”, right?

2026-05-24 11:39:10 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…0eyj so when is your bike trip north towards the baltics?

2026-05-23 13:39:02 UTC

You know why Polish people are attractive?
They are magnetic poles.

2026-05-23 06:08:20 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…9g3x JCGT has been a very good avenue for exactly these kinds of papers!

2026-05-22 18:10:24 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…5wq2 I don’t know, and TBH I had forgotten about it myself.

2026-05-22 14:27:55 UTC

Unity's take on "we have Roblox at home" will be shutting down. https://struckdunity.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/48437385778580-An-Update-on-Struckd
"Wait, Unity had a Roblox-like thing?!". Indeed it had -- it was called Struckd. Unity acquired the company back in 2021, and yeah, I would have now known about this if I had not been at Unity in 2021.
One could say this attempt did not quite struckd the world by storm.

2026-05-22 08:10:38 UTC

A Freestyler cover you did not know you need! Rakamakafon! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qjevrDOg_4

2026-05-20 09:24:02 UTC

- reply

To celebrate the 2D aspect, here’s me & Ren on the ground plane. I am as excited as usual!
(The cone is because she just had a TPLO surgery on her knee…)
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/606/175/751/157/903/original/60e396e792e56ab1.jpeg

2026-05-20 03:57:12 UTC

0x2D today! Still quite a bit to go until 3D.

2026-05-18 14:28:43 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…kudx Really humbled and honored to witness this incredible evolution in thought leadership. 🚀
We’re no longer limiting AI to generating low-value blog content — we’re empowering it to drive scalable engagement directly in the comments section. 💡📈

2026-05-18 12:27:21 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…64j3 <groan>

2026-05-16 21:46:19 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…9g3x yeah, pretty much my view as well

2026-05-16 08:10:32 UTC

The new Spotify app icon has to be an inside prank. I find no other explanation.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/583/237/491/577/037/original/2e855f1e803fc5ee.jpeg

2026-05-15 08:48:07 UTC

Oh wow! :unity: Unity 6.6 (alpha) has added selection history! This was a feature that I have worked on in... <checks notes>... 2021 december. I have left before shipping it though. No idea if now they used the same code or a complete reimplementation, but still very nice!
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/577/722/973/196/388/original/e7a2b93d4f2e40fc.mp4

2026-05-15 08:18:05 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…zdn5 after two weeks of trying to use Zed and VSCode, I'm reluctantly back to CLion. Zed seems to be made by people who don't do C++ at all, and wrt VSCode I don't like the "everything's a command, no toolbars", plus debugging is *extremely* slow on Blender. CLion has really bad typing latency, but at least everything works.

2026-05-11 18:20:28 UTC

@nprofile…j5gy has just released a new short film, "Singularity"! Watch it here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5OZu-IrXpw #blender :blender:
This was their first movie in both 4K and HDR, and that aspect from the software side I also had a tiny part in. Here's a premiere stream with some development process details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6rIuMKYxww (my part at around 1 hour mark)

2026-05-10 18:04:47 UTC

Historical unicorn
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/551/600/265/468/290/original/7a9f1026da703b75.jpeg

2026-05-08 05:28:04 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…tdpa I keep on thinking that in a hypothetical future when I’ll have infinite spare time, I should resurrect glsl-optimizer and bring it up with today’s Mesa NIR goodies (back when I was doing it, NIR did not exist yet)

2026-05-08 03:54:28 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…c3sc is this a subtoot of “DGF super compression”, or of something else

2026-05-08 03:50:58 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…tdpa nice post! Audience is probably dozens of us who are both into compilers and shaders, but this audience likes it very much :)

2026-05-07 13:37:20 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4e67 why you can’t use Unity’s?

2026-05-06 11:35:53 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4e67 @nprofile…zt48 windows and soon linux, so yeah Mac is “tough luck”

2026-05-06 11:30:58 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4e67 this is why one uses @nprofile…zt48 :)

2026-05-05 18:27:58 UTC

There’s a known rule that every 3D code that works has an even number of axis sign errors.
New rule: every image processing code that works has an even number of errors where width is confused with height.

2026-05-04 08:09:02 UTC

- reply

Still trying to convince Unity that buggy shadows (that were not buggy before) is perhaps a bug. https://discussions.unity.com/t/terrain-lod-shadows-switching-issue/1630925/3

2026-05-03 07:37:49 UTC

Metric: “we need to increase Copilot usage”. Solution is easy, make it co-author all the commits.
In every large company various metrics tend to become the actual goal. e.g. at Unity at some point there was a metric to “fix many bugs”. Sounds good! What actually happened often tho, was that bugs were simply closed without an actual fix. Because the graphs presented to the management still look great!

2026-05-02 06:56:08 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…sx6q my garden

2026-05-02 06:55:57 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…sm4q I did model this after Utah teapot :)

2026-05-02 06:07:38 UTC

Happy to report that the wireframe teapot still works!
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/503/481/882/875/695/original/6eeb06c7208bf103.jpeg

2026-05-02 03:13:58 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…x9sp yeah

2026-05-01 12:34:16 UTC

“Cycles Texture Cache” writeup about new tiled/mipmapped texturing system in #blender 5.2 :blender: https://code.blender.org/2026/05/cycles-texture-cache/

2026-04-29 08:03:01 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…zdn5 subscribing! I'm on CLion, but the typing latency and general "it loads all my CPU cores with _something_ all the time" is getting on my nerves. All my projects are CMake based, what are other IDEs good for this on Linux?

2026-04-28 18:06:03 UTC

- reply

And yes, of course one can use AI/LLM/ML tools "for good use" in a way where that actually improves productivity, removes some menial tasks, enables small teams to do larger things.
Just like someone could use blood money for good things. That's still blood money tho.
I don't like this, don't like this at all. Oof.

2026-04-28 18:04:09 UTC

- reply

Some people are really, really against gen-AI stuffs, especially among artists (some are not! this should be obvious)
And yes, you could argue that back when blockchain, or web3, or NFTs were happening, some of these companies were blender fund members too, and genAI is not "categorically different" from that. Maybe. But also, most of the former list were vehicles to drain speculative investors money, whereas whole AI already has much wider effects.

2026-04-28 18:01:10 UTC

- reply

To expand: of course Blender needs money to pay salaries etc (hey, I'm doing my part! a bit!). It's a tough problem, in how to get money, and from whom, and how consistent they are with funding, and how much they *really* just do funding vs expect something in return, etc. etc. I don't envy anyone doing these decisions.
Still.

2026-04-28 16:43:18 UTC

I can’t say I’m a fan :(

2026-04-28 07:04:00 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…622w @nprofile…hm63 mine is Hugo too, website https://aras-p.info and actual “source” of it https://github.com/aras-p/aras-p.hugo
Hugo tries to do “everything” these days, but I just ignore everything I don’t care about. Singe executable that I just put into version control means I don’t have to worry about updates.

2026-04-25 05:16:52 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…3v4s ✅ IS IT PROVIDING?
✅ IS IT VALUE?
✅ IS IT FOR?
✅ IS IT THE?
✅ IS IT SHAREHOLDERS?

2026-04-24 06:29:01 UTC

"We have Sebastian Aaltonen at home". Aaltonen at home:
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/458/267/542/645/863/original/445c247f72f2a63b.jpeg

2026-04-22 18:12:42 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…c3sc devil’s advocate point could be that maybe they don’t post about all the cases that were just fine.
Anyhoo, what’s your overall feeling about AI for coding? Mine is convoluted and complicated :/ I can see areas where it is useful and improves things, but also plenty of problems and gotchas too…

2026-04-17 10:18:12 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4e67 no, the suggested workaround globally raises the terrain detail everywhere. which works around the worst artifacts, yes, but at expense of negating their claimed "performance optimization"

2026-04-17 07:06:57 UTC

- reply

...aaand closed with "lol sorry, won't fix" :/ https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues/terrain-shadows-changing-shape-when-they-are-viewed-at-a-different-angle-from-the-same-position

2026-04-16 18:14:21 UTC

Oh, so turns out #unity has introduced a terrain shadow bug somewhere between 2022.3.7 and 2022.3.62, i.e. in the "critical bugfixes only!" LTS release train. Nothing related mentioned in the release notes. The bug is still present in all later versions (6.5 a8 is latest I checked). Fun fun fun!
The bug is: when there's a very steep terrain cliff behind camera, and light is also from behind, sometimes shadows use really low res LOD.
Let's see if a bug report goes anywhere...
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/415/742/511/802/037/original/749ce93f5b7f962a.mp4

2026-04-14 16:24:54 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…3vpz this post did not make me mad!

2026-04-10 15:26:12 UTC

There’s an old cemetery in Vilnius that for one week a year looks like this (Scilla siberica in bloom)
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/381/107/412/996/827/original/ad3f433f0acc3f24.jpeg

2026-04-09 07:23:48 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…celm my impression is that most usage of sin/cos for PRNG in shaders comes from ancient days of shadertoys, back when it was WebGL1 only; there's a million shaders written that way. These days when you can actually have integers (incl WebGL2), a PCG based PRNG is much cheaper and better quality, but of course not all shadertoys have been updated.

2026-04-05 18:42:50 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…yk06 great interview, and the title does not do it justice - it is so much more than about Spark!
Your stories in beginning about programming on paper rang a bell. I used to do that too on ZX, but the reason was that my cassette player could not record, only load programs. Programming on paper and typing that in is a workaround :)

2026-04-04 13:49:26 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…px8z yep, https://youtu.be/0Zfsn82MF3E?is=5ycPdjzWpUF8aiJ-

2026-04-03 17:29:53 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…gj9s haha indeed

2026-04-03 16:27:31 UTC

This birch tree has grown a light saber
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/341/712/313/101/973/original/680ab8a0b4833ced.jpeg

2026-04-02 17:08:22 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…c3sc is a nice infographic!

2026-04-02 13:08:32 UTC

Interesting! harfbuzz 14 adds GPU rendering via @nprofile…3mmn Slug algorithm. https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/releases/tag/14.0.0

2026-04-01 05:24:25 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…22w0 sudont, when you don’t want to do something, but with superuser rights.
Oh wait, that actually exists https://github.com/cbondurant/sudont

2026-04-01 04:51:46 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…22w0 frag.exe for when your HDDs are too fast

2026-04-01 03:48:46 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…u7p7 did anyone find the place where claude code is supposedly "similar to a full game engine", as was claimed by some of their folks a while ago?

2026-03-31 18:26:40 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…qcgs yeah very much like you wouldn't want to dump "something really complex" 3D into OBJ, there are practical limits how much 2D stuff you can dump into SVG before it becomes not usable :/

2026-03-31 17:56:15 UTC

I was today years old when I realized that just like OBJ files are really useful to write while debugging 3D stuff, SVG files are useful for 2D cases! So obvious, but I never did it before! Well, turns out an old dog can still learn some new tricks. Example: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/156622

2026-03-31 09:12:56 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4l5v I know! You could try this on my old ToyPathTracer: https://github.com/aras-p/ToyPathTracer

2026-03-30 17:12:37 UTC

- reply

@nprofile…4e67 most excellent. Did I tell you that you have a superpower of going really deep into rabbit holes like that, emerging with fantastic stuff?

2026-03-30 17:00:58 UTC

Rune's work here is brilliant! Most excellent blog post and the visualizations (incl. in the video form for y'all kids :)). The "paint mountains with a mouse, right in shadertoy" is wonderful cherry on top. https://www.shadertoy.com/view/sf23W1