I hope everyone is staying healthy throughout these troubling times. Currently, many of us are either not working or working from home and are subject to local restrictions on movement and activities. While the world is in a very worrying position, I have found a silver lining: there's a lot of stuff to do for programmers stuck at home. This includes, for example, doing amazing work and posting it in the Handmade Network Discord server's #project-showcase channel, or writing valuable technical information for others to read. Additionally, if your name happens to be Ryan, it might be recording some podcast episodes...
Podcast Episode #1 Live
Actually, funny I mention that, because my name is Ryan, and I have a podcast episode prepared for you! In this very first episode of the Handmade Network Podcast, I speak with a long-time community member, and artificial intelligence industry veteran Demetri Spanos. Check it out here! Alternatively, hit the Podcasts link at the top of the page, where you'll also be able to find future episodes. You can also subscribe to the podcast series on major podcast apps, including both Google Play and Apple Podcasts.
The next episode will be released in two weeks from the date of this post.
rxi's Software Rendering Blog Post
Community member rxi, known for amazing showcase posts in the Discord server and seemingly creating high quality, polished software on a whim, recently posted a blog post that briefly outlines the technical structure of a cached software renderer. The techniques outlined in the article are particularly useful for UI applications, where little-to-no content of the screen changes across frames. It is a very interesting read; I recommend you take a look!
Community Showcase
So much amazing work, all written from scratch, has gone through #project-showcase this month. As usual, I can't highlight everything, so if you want to browse all of the work that people have been doing, I recommend [url=]joining the Discord server[/url] and seeing for yourself!
Chen's Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion in Monter
Chen showed off some work that has been done on the visuals in Monter recently. In this image, we can see ray-traced ambient occlusion being used to create higher-quality lighting visuals throughout the scene.
rxi's 2-bit Tile Map Editor
rxi manages to continue to amaze all of us. In this image, rxi demonstrated a 2-bit tilemap that is used to construct a final output tilemap, selecting tiles based on a set of rules, performing automapping. Several variants have been shown, including similarly interesting scenes with just a single bit per tile.
Bokkob's Gameplay of Nirion
Bokkob showed off some gameplay on Nirion in this short clip. The game looks like it is coming along super well... I can't wait to play it!
Closing Remarks
That's all for now, everyone. Stay safe, stay healthy, and take care!
Ryan
