u/Bat_kraken

Released today, May 13th.

Okay, it all starts with the desire to create something... Then, I start thinking about what I feel like doing. It's been a while since rasterization entered the equation; I've spent over a year studying and testing alternatives where I use ray tracing, more specifically ray marching.

I learned to create 3D noise equations, tested volumetry, SDFs, some pretty crazy calculations, rendered low-resolution images by parallelizing the video card, learned how temporal image reconstruction works... But even so, things are complicated, because it's not just about thinking about what programming is, but thinking about what it says within the context in which things are established and what is or is not perceived.

I've been theorizing for a while about bringing back 3D models, thinking about rendering low-poly models with fewer than 1000 triangles in low resolution... That's too few for detail, but accepting stylized rendering, it could work if the focus is more on the silhouette and not so much on the richness of detail. To make 3D models work, a BVH acceleration framework would be necessary.

But, since we're talking about low resolution and temporal reconstruction, in addition to low-poly models with the rule of having fewer than 1000 triangles, simply separating the model into separate objects and applying a basic AABB to each would probably give us great performance even on weaker computers.

The problem is that, no matter how much I see the possibility, the feeling that keeps coming back is that this formalist desire is, above all, cowardice! It's not advanced technique that's lacking, it's the ability to understand that aesthetics is less about a supposed beauty of clear representations and more about the capacity to speak through a reading that doesn't stop within a concept of interpreting what is or isn't seen and perceived. It's about affect, it's about even those who understand reinterpreting.

This is where the idea of ​​creating four calculated rays for the same pixel comes in, a non-deterministic graphics engine, because unlike sampling like multisampling which does this aiming to mix colors to smooth aliasing... The idea is that the rays compete with each other in terms of speed to see who paints the pixel first, running the risk of overwriting because the objective is no longer a precise calculation but to play with the video card. To see what happens when the video card fights with itself.

I spend some time dissecting the idea, realizing and acknowledging how, in the end, despite being interesting... This isn't the result of a yearning for something more; it's just boredom because I've already done everything with ray tracing, and now there's nothing left to explore except the idea of ​​doing something complicated simply because it is.

I could make a simpler non-deterministic engine, just adding noise that distorts the normal in natural 3D space, less laborious, less costly for the video card, and still achieve a similar effect, and along with the low resolution... we have a similar and considerably lighter result.

A contradictory feeling begins to emerge; it's not cowardice, it's clarity... It's the notion that only doing what gives me pleasure isn't good because nothing else fits within the pleasure of being but nothingness. There's no more room for the beyond when you know more than you already are. The secret isn't to explore technique further, it's to understand that the next step isn't a more complex technique, it's to deepen my understanding of what I've already tested and mastered.

Everything needed to create isn't a more sophisticated technique, it's in seeing how to be more creative within fields I don't yet master, it's in reading new things, learning new languages ​​(not programming languages), but understanding the philosophy of art, aesthetic philosophy, the historical materialism that gave rise to the entire way contemporary art has formed, shaping what is no longer seen simply from the perspective of the final product... but from the context in which the work exists from the point of view of the people.

I have to do what I hate, what bothers me, what makes me deeply angry. Not out of superficial masochism, but out of a desire to go beyond, not only what I understand, but what I don't understand, I have to break conventions, invent, fill myself with lust for how much, in the end... I can't say what I'm doing, but I know what I wanted to feel when I was filled with lust before writing all the code in one day.

But that's not enough. No matter how well it works, no matter how tough it is, if I'm content with just my vision, I'm only fantasizing about an ideal scenario and not actually exploring... I have to look at what I've done and ask myself, for days, weeks, even months if necessary, if I'm not complacent with the idea of ​​this incredibly stressful method I created to shape the code and force myself to see... Is this me doing my best? Or have I just convinced myself that after weeks of exhausting all possibilities, I simply didn't fantasize that now I did it right just because I wrote what I decided was the most challenging thing I could imagine?

What do you think of the method?