Oliver Franzke
@p1xelcoder.bsky.social
I'm making colored pixels for Double Fine Productions. Lead Programmer of Broken Age. Also worked on Keeper and the remastered versions of Grim, DotT, FT and Monkey Island.
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
If you're feeling the spirit of award season blasting out of your body like an excited chestburster, please consider KEEPER when making your #SteamAwards nominations in these three categories:
👁️ Outstanding Visual Style
🎶 Best Soundtrack
😌 Sit Back and Relax
store.steampowered.com
👁️ Outstanding Visual Style
🎶 Best Soundtrack
😌 Sit Back and Relax
store.steampowered.com
November 28, 2025 at 10:00 PM
If you're feeling the spirit of award season blasting out of your body like an excited chestburster, please consider KEEPER when making your #SteamAwards nominations in these three categories:
👁️ Outstanding Visual Style
🎶 Best Soundtrack
😌 Sit Back and Relax
store.steampowered.com
👁️ Outstanding Visual Style
🎶 Best Soundtrack
😌 Sit Back and Relax
store.steampowered.com
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
Reading old computer graphics white papers is super fun because every so often you come across the most liminal, weird looking images. Like this one from 1983.
November 28, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reading old computer graphics white papers is super fun because every so often you come across the most liminal, weird looking images. Like this one from 1983.
I'm finalizing a video in which I create a morph from scratch and it looks like one needs a over-the-top pose for the "key-art" to grab attention. :P
Which one should I use?
Which one should I use?
November 28, 2025 at 2:06 PM
I'm finalizing a video in which I create a morph from scratch and it looks like one needs a over-the-top pose for the "key-art" to grab attention. :P
Which one should I use?
Which one should I use?
Todd Vaziri's great Vanity Fair piece reminded me of the Owlbear morphs in DnD Honour Among Thieves. Due to the non-interactive nature of the medium there are lot more tricks one can use. Super cool stuff.
November 27, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Todd Vaziri's great Vanity Fair piece reminded me of the Owlbear morphs in DnD Honour Among Thieves. Due to the non-interactive nature of the medium there are lot more tricks one can use. Super cool stuff.
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
Testing our newest tech advancements: Sparkling Soda! 🍾
(Reminder: Always shake before throwing)
#gamedev #indiegame #unrealengine #funnygaming
(Reminder: Always shake before throwing)
#gamedev #indiegame #unrealengine #funnygaming
November 27, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Testing our newest tech advancements: Sparkling Soda! 🍾
(Reminder: Always shake before throwing)
#gamedev #indiegame #unrealengine #funnygaming
(Reminder: Always shake before throwing)
#gamedev #indiegame #unrealengine #funnygaming
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
Vanity Fair asked me to talk about visual effects, and it was my great honor to show off some of ILM’s terrific work over the years.
Todd Vaziri on Vanity Fair VFX
youtu.be/ERKEsIzTFas?...
Todd Vaziri on Vanity Fair VFX
youtu.be/ERKEsIzTFas?...
ILM's VFX Secrets Behind Star Wars, Transformers & More | Vanity Fair
YouTube video by Vanity Fair
youtu.be
October 7, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Vanity Fair asked me to talk about visual effects, and it was my great honor to show off some of ILM’s terrific work over the years.
Todd Vaziri on Vanity Fair VFX
youtu.be/ERKEsIzTFas?...
Todd Vaziri on Vanity Fair VFX
youtu.be/ERKEsIzTFas?...
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
magazine screenshot, computer graphics (1997) archive.org/details/mico...
November 20, 2025 at 10:59 AM
magazine screenshot, computer graphics (1997) archive.org/details/mico...
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
If you’ve never played Viewfinder you owe it to yourself to do so. It’s like experiencing a truly incredible magic trick AND the puzzles are really clever
Viewfinder (Steam) is $4.74 on Fanatical Flash Sale w/ code OMENVIP buff.ly/OBPVz0E #ad
Deck verified
Deck verified
November 26, 2025 at 9:41 PM
If you’ve never played Viewfinder you owe it to yourself to do so. It’s like experiencing a truly incredible magic trick AND the puzzles are really clever
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
There's a restored full version of it on YT. I've only seen a crappy VHS recording previously, but this version is amazing.
youtu.be/UPerb922QGM?...
youtu.be/UPerb922QGM?...
Сталкер (4К, фантастика, реж. Андрей Тарковский, 1979 г.)
YouTube video by Киноконцерн "Мосфильм"
youtu.be
November 26, 2025 at 7:47 PM
There's a restored full version of it on YT. I've only seen a crappy VHS recording previously, but this version is amazing.
youtu.be/UPerb922QGM?...
youtu.be/UPerb922QGM?...
Given what I've shown so far it won't come as a big surprise that Annihilation was a huge inspiration for our morph tech. This movie captures how truly weird alien life could be... and weird is what we wanted to achieve in Keeper.
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
November 26, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Given what I've shown so far it won't come as a big surprise that Annihilation was a huge inspiration for our morph tech. This movie captures how truly weird alien life could be... and weird is what we wanted to achieve in Keeper.
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
Here is another fun example of what one could do with the symmetry operator.
On a related note... I do love my job! :)
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
On a related note... I do love my job! :)
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
November 26, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Here is another fun example of what one could do with the symmetry operator.
On a related note... I do love my job! :)
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
On a related note... I do love my job! :)
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
This month marks 23 years in the game industry for me. I've been INCREDIBLY fortunate to have worked with all of the amazing folks that I've worked with, the games that I got to work on and to have had made some life long friends along the way. Truly grateful.
November 25, 2025 at 10:04 PM
This month marks 23 years in the game industry for me. I've been INCREDIBLY fortunate to have worked with all of the amazing folks that I've worked with, the games that I got to work on and to have had made some life long friends along the way. Truly grateful.
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
Thank you! To anyone who loved playing Keeper, we'd be tickled if you thought of us when making your #SteamAwards nominations in these three categories:
👁️ Outstanding Visual Style
🎶 Best Soundtrack
😌 Sit Back and Relax
(And if you haven't played Keeper yet, we'd be thrilled if you did!)
👁️ Outstanding Visual Style
🎶 Best Soundtrack
😌 Sit Back and Relax
(And if you haven't played Keeper yet, we'd be thrilled if you did!)
#SteamAwards outstanding visual style has to go to @doublefine.com #Keeper, that's the majority of its thing.
Its friggin' beautiful in a way I hadn't experienced before.
Its friggin' beautiful in a way I hadn't experienced before.
November 25, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Thank you! To anyone who loved playing Keeper, we'd be tickled if you thought of us when making your #SteamAwards nominations in these three categories:
👁️ Outstanding Visual Style
🎶 Best Soundtrack
😌 Sit Back and Relax
(And if you haven't played Keeper yet, we'd be thrilled if you did!)
👁️ Outstanding Visual Style
🎶 Best Soundtrack
😌 Sit Back and Relax
(And if you haven't played Keeper yet, we'd be thrilled if you did!)
The symmetry operator is one of my favorite effects in the Keeper morph tech. It is so much fun to play around with since it creates absolutely stunning visual pandemonium like this one.
November 25, 2025 at 8:15 PM
The symmetry operator is one of my favorite effects in the Keeper morph tech. It is so much fun to play around with since it creates absolutely stunning visual pandemonium like this one.
The morph-of-the-week is the awesome "gear door", which was inspired by the "hands door" I talked about. With Lee's concept Nick modelled and animated this morph. I love the fact that gears temporarily appear while the passageway is revealed. The spinning ones are additive.
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
November 24, 2025 at 7:32 PM
The morph-of-the-week is the awesome "gear door", which was inspired by the "hands door" I talked about. With Lee's concept Nick modelled and animated this morph. I love the fact that gears temporarily appear while the passageway is revealed. The spinning ones are additive.
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
We need more "hand doors" in games like this one from the movie Return to Oz.
November 24, 2025 at 12:15 PM
We need more "hand doors" in games like this one from the movie Return to Oz.
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
The post on using spatial hashing with raytraced ambient occlusion attracted quite a bit of interest so I expanded it into a blog post to discuss how it works behind the scenes to both reduce the noise and its cost. interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2025/11/23/s...
November 23, 2025 at 9:06 PM
The post on using spatial hashing with raytraced ambient occlusion attracted quite a bit of interest so I expanded it into a blog post to discuss how it works behind the scenes to both reduce the noise and its cost. interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2025/11/23/s...
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
A major inspiration for the morphs in Keeper is the Nome king and his creatures from the movie "Return to Oz" (1985), which Jeremy brought to our attention. Rock surfaces change shape in unexpected ways and stuff appears / merges with the environment thanks to the wonderful stop motion animation.
November 21, 2025 at 8:43 PM
A major inspiration for the morphs in Keeper is the Nome king and his creatures from the movie "Return to Oz" (1985), which Jeremy brought to our attention. Rock surfaces change shape in unexpected ways and stuff appears / merges with the environment thanks to the wonderful stop motion animation.
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
I guess it is time to repost this here
programmerhumor.io/programming-...
programmerhumor.io/programming-...
November 21, 2025 at 10:17 AM
I guess it is time to repost this here
programmerhumor.io/programming-...
programmerhumor.io/programming-...
With the rising platform we recognized, that the morph tech isn't good at growing branches organically. Much later in the project Danielle used Houdini to make these awesome growing vines for the glyphs. Unfortunately we never got the chance to combine these with a morph.
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
November 21, 2025 at 8:56 AM
With the rising platform we recognized, that the morph tech isn't good at growing branches organically. Much later in the project Danielle used Houdini to make these awesome growing vines for the glyphs. Unfortunately we never got the chance to combine these with a morph.
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
This Morph-of-the-Week is the growable platform - one of our earliest production morphs. Starting with the awesome concept by @leepetty.bsky.social the states were modelled by Nick. Once captured I set up the scene-graph and animated the morph. @lanethan.bsky.social added the cool foliage and fruit.
November 20, 2025 at 8:21 PM
This Morph-of-the-Week is the growable platform - one of our earliest production morphs. Starting with the awesome concept by @leepetty.bsky.social the states were modelled by Nick. Once captured I set up the scene-graph and animated the morph. @lanethan.bsky.social added the cool foliage and fruit.
In the Fall of 2021 - long before "AI" lost its soul - I did some experiments with early generative image models. Running a recording of myself looking around the room through VQGAN yielded in a wonderfully bizarre mess.
November 19, 2025 at 10:09 PM
In the Fall of 2021 - long before "AI" lost its soul - I did some experiments with early generative image models. Running a recording of myself looking around the room through VQGAN yielded in a wonderfully bizarre mess.
Okay I'm considering recording the creation of a morph from scratch. What is your favorite open domain static mesh, so I can use it?
Unreal assets are best, but Blender or stuff that can be imported into Blender is okay too. It needs to be a solid opaque mesh.
Please send me your suggestions. :)
Unreal assets are best, but Blender or stuff that can be imported into Blender is okay too. It needs to be a solid opaque mesh.
Please send me your suggestions. :)
November 19, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Okay I'm considering recording the creation of a morph from scratch. What is your favorite open domain static mesh, so I can use it?
Unreal assets are best, but Blender or stuff that can be imported into Blender is okay too. It needs to be a solid opaque mesh.
Please send me your suggestions. :)
Unreal assets are best, but Blender or stuff that can be imported into Blender is okay too. It needs to be a solid opaque mesh.
Please send me your suggestions. :)
I realized early on that a spatially constant cross-fade is nice, but for maximum expressiveness, spatial variance is required. We’ve added support for different transitions as a component that’s parented to the associated operation’s scene-tree node. You can even use a two-point Bézier spline...
November 19, 2025 at 7:14 PM
I realized early on that a spatially constant cross-fade is nice, but for maximum expressiveness, spatial variance is required. We’ve added support for different transitions as a component that’s parented to the associated operation’s scene-tree node. You can even use a two-point Bézier spline...