MAK
@makramd.bsky.social
⚠️Actively looking for work⚠️
Freelance & Consulting work.
Photogrammetry
Environmental tech artist
GFX & rendering historian
http://www.artstation.com/makram
https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@makram
Freelance & Consulting work.
Photogrammetry
Environmental tech artist
GFX & rendering historian
http://www.artstation.com/makram
https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@makram
Pinned
MAK
@makramd.bsky.social
· Dec 17
Been a while since I did some photogrammetry based work & man was I rusty. No fancy Structured light/Photometry setup. Just n old Sony ILC-E6000 with its 16-50 kit lens in horrendous lighting conditions and everything else done by hand (cleaning/sculpting, materials creation etc).
Reposted by MAK
November 20, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Reposted by MAK
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...
Next Gen Geometry Wars 👀
November 19, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Next Gen Geometry Wars 👀
Reposted by MAK
Keeper's morphs are authored as scene-graph or more specifically as a scene-tree, which is evaluated bottom-up. I wrote a “compiler” which turns the tree into a command list which can be executed on the GPU. The compiler does a fair amount of optimization (e.g. dead branch pruning) to minimize cost.
November 18, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Keeper's morphs are authored as scene-graph or more specifically as a scene-tree, which is evaluated bottom-up. I wrote a “compiler” which turns the tree into a command list which can be executed on the GPU. The compiler does a fair amount of optimization (e.g. dead branch pruning) to minimize cost.
Reposted by MAK
► The @routinegame.bsky.social devs at Lunar Software sat down with us to talk about different aspects of the game’s development.
Get to know the team even better in their newest devblog: store.steampowered.com/news/app/606...
Get to know the team even better in their newest devblog: store.steampowered.com/news/app/606...
November 18, 2025 at 7:00 PM
► The @routinegame.bsky.social devs at Lunar Software sat down with us to talk about different aspects of the game’s development.
Get to know the team even better in their newest devblog: store.steampowered.com/news/app/606...
Get to know the team even better in their newest devblog: store.steampowered.com/news/app/606...
Reposted by MAK
Blender Foundation and the online developer community proudly present Blender 5.0!
ACES, Adaptive Subdivision, HDR, Storyboarding, Geometry Nodes, 588 bugs fixed, and so much more.
📖 Changelog & Download: blender.org/download/rel...
📺 Video Recap: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wEq... #b3d
ACES, Adaptive Subdivision, HDR, Storyboarding, Geometry Nodes, 588 bugs fixed, and so much more.
📖 Changelog & Download: blender.org/download/rel...
📺 Video Recap: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wEq... #b3d
blender.org
November 18, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Blender Foundation and the online developer community proudly present Blender 5.0!
ACES, Adaptive Subdivision, HDR, Storyboarding, Geometry Nodes, 588 bugs fixed, and so much more.
📖 Changelog & Download: blender.org/download/rel...
📺 Video Recap: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wEq... #b3d
ACES, Adaptive Subdivision, HDR, Storyboarding, Geometry Nodes, 588 bugs fixed, and so much more.
📖 Changelog & Download: blender.org/download/rel...
📺 Video Recap: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wEq... #b3d
Reposted by MAK
RIP to a games industry pioneer and legend, Rebecca Heineman (@burgerbecky.bsky.social) If your unfamiliar, look her up. Her career is like the story of videogames itself.
November 18, 2025 at 3:01 AM
RIP to a games industry pioneer and legend, Rebecca Heineman (@burgerbecky.bsky.social) If your unfamiliar, look her up. Her career is like the story of videogames itself.
Reposted by MAK
The size of the morph proxy mesh is a major factor when it comes to shading cost. If the shape of a morphed object changes dramatically then a conservative proxy wastes GPU cycles. We therefore implemented an implicit selection method which picks the best proxy based on the state of the scene-graph.
November 17, 2025 at 7:15 PM
The size of the morph proxy mesh is a major factor when it comes to shading cost. If the shape of a morphed object changes dramatically then a conservative proxy wastes GPU cycles. We therefore implemented an implicit selection method which picks the best proxy based on the state of the scene-graph.
Reposted by MAK
To reduce the number of ray-marching steps needed to find the surface of our morphs we generate a proxy from the constituent meshes. It must fully enclose the morphed surfaces while remaining as tight as possible to maximize throughput. We want to minimize the red and blue regions in the debug view.
November 14, 2025 at 7:16 PM
To reduce the number of ray-marching steps needed to find the surface of our morphs we generate a proxy from the constituent meshes. It must fully enclose the morphed surfaces while remaining as tight as possible to maximize throughput. We want to minimize the red and blue regions in the debug view.
Reposted by MAK
Batteries are essential to keep your C.A.T. running, but they drain fast.
Always search the base for spares. You never know when you’ll need them…
Always search the base for spares. You never know when you’ll need them…
November 14, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Batteries are essential to keep your C.A.T. running, but they drain fast.
Always search the base for spares. You never know when you’ll need them…
Always search the base for spares. You never know when you’ll need them…
Reposted by MAK
Here is a close-up (and partial slow-down) of one of my favorite morphs in the game: the bridge in the Mountain Shrine. When I first got the rock to look like flowing water at the end I was elated. :)
November 13, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Here is a close-up (and partial slow-down) of one of my favorite morphs in the game: the bridge in the Mountain Shrine. When I first got the rock to look like flowing water at the end I was elated. :)
Reposted by MAK
Here we go! After 2 years of doodling, my second sketchbook will be released in a little less than 2 weeks. 64 pages, softcover, sold worldwide through amazon, 123 Robot heads in traditional pen and ink. #robot #bot #mech #mecha #droid #doodle #illustration #sketch #scifi
November 13, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by MAK
Reposted by MAK
I just posted part two of my career retrospective during which time I work at four different companies, blog, and then retire:
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/r...
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/r...
November 11, 2025 at 6:32 AM
I just posted part two of my career retrospective during which time I work at four different companies, blog, and then retire:
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/r...
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/r...
Reposted by MAK
A retrospective of my tech career - a work-focused autobiography, basically - feels a bit vain, but I'm hopeful that it is interesting or useful enough to justify that.
If nothing else writing it up forced me to try to remember what actually happened.
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/10/22/r...
If nothing else writing it up forced me to try to remember what actually happened.
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/10/22/r...
Reflections on My Tech Career – Part 1
I’ve been lucky enough to have had a successful career as a software developer. Spanning six companies and thirty-seven years I’ve had the opportunity to work on Elastic Reality, Xbox, Windows, Ste…
randomascii.wordpress.com
October 22, 2025 at 9:05 PM
A retrospective of my tech career - a work-focused autobiography, basically - feels a bit vain, but I'm hopeful that it is interesting or useful enough to justify that.
If nothing else writing it up forced me to try to remember what actually happened.
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/10/22/r...
If nothing else writing it up forced me to try to remember what actually happened.
randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/10/22/r...
Reposted by MAK
🚨 "The Making of Double Fine's Keeper" is now available! 🚨
Many of you have been asking for this one; we're happy to say the cameras continued to roll here at the studio during Keeper's development. Come see how this very special game came to be, from the team themselves! 😊
youtu.be/1OOfRTfMnx0
Many of you have been asking for this one; we're happy to say the cameras continued to roll here at the studio during Keeper's development. Come see how this very special game came to be, from the team themselves! 😊
youtu.be/1OOfRTfMnx0
The Making Of Double Fine's Keeper
HEADLINE - Double Fine shocks with unprecedented development transparency!
Wait, what do you mean we do this all the time? ....33 episodes? Who has time for that in this day and age!? Thankfully,…
youtu.be
November 12, 2025 at 8:23 PM
🚨 "The Making of Double Fine's Keeper" is now available! 🚨
Many of you have been asking for this one; we're happy to say the cameras continued to roll here at the studio during Keeper's development. Come see how this very special game came to be, from the team themselves! 😊
youtu.be/1OOfRTfMnx0
Many of you have been asking for this one; we're happy to say the cameras continued to roll here at the studio during Keeper's development. Come see how this very special game came to be, from the team themselves! 😊
youtu.be/1OOfRTfMnx0
Reposted by MAK
I’ve talked about how Keeper’s morphs use distance fields (DFs) as their surface representation. But if there are no polys, how do we render them? A DF gives the distance to the nearest surface at any point, which we can exploit for rendering by marching along the view ray until we hit the surface.
November 12, 2025 at 6:45 PM
I’ve talked about how Keeper’s morphs use distance fields (DFs) as their surface representation. But if there are no polys, how do we render them? A DF gives the distance to the nearest surface at any point, which we can exploit for rendering by marching along the view ray until we hit the surface.
Specs of the Steam Machine & Steam Frame are underwhelming as fuck. Steam Machine is definitely aimed at non enthusiast given its low specs & Frame is worst than a Quest (it doesn't support pass-through Wtf ?)
#valve
#valve
November 12, 2025 at 6:14 PM
Specs of the Steam Machine & Steam Frame are underwhelming as fuck. Steam Machine is definitely aimed at non enthusiast given its low specs & Frame is worst than a Quest (it doesn't support pass-through Wtf ?)
#valve
#valve
Reposted by MAK
Announcing: New @steampowered.com Hardware, coming in 2026:
Steam Controller
Steam Machine
Steam Frame.
Watch our jazzy announcement video and wishlist now: steampowered.com/hardware
Steam Controller
Steam Machine
Steam Frame.
Watch our jazzy announcement video and wishlist now: steampowered.com/hardware
Steam Hardware
The Steam Hardware family officially expands in early 2026.
steampowered.com
November 12, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Announcing: New @steampowered.com Hardware, coming in 2026:
Steam Controller
Steam Machine
Steam Frame.
Watch our jazzy announcement video and wishlist now: steampowered.com/hardware
Steam Controller
Steam Machine
Steam Frame.
Watch our jazzy announcement video and wishlist now: steampowered.com/hardware
Reposted by MAK
I wrote a bunch of compute shader code to hook into Lumen which evaluates mathematical light shapes. On the CPU side we are using perceptual filtering to pick the most important lights. It was a lot of fun! :)
bsky.app/profile/leep...
bsky.app/profile/leep...
I did a lot of lighting on Keeper and it was a joy to have a fully dynamic lighting system, which made shifts in areas like this easy to do. We also had custom Lumen-based lights that @p1xelcoder.bsky.social put together that helped us hit the painterly/stage lighting look we were after.
November 11, 2025 at 7:07 PM
I wrote a bunch of compute shader code to hook into Lumen which evaluates mathematical light shapes. On the CPU side we are using perceptual filtering to pick the most important lights. It was a lot of fun! :)
bsky.app/profile/leep...
bsky.app/profile/leep...
Reposted by MAK
I did a lot of lighting on Keeper and it was a joy to have a fully dynamic lighting system, which made shifts in areas like this easy to do. We also had custom Lumen-based lights that @p1xelcoder.bsky.social put together that helped us hit the painterly/stage lighting look we were after.
November 11, 2025 at 4:17 PM
I did a lot of lighting on Keeper and it was a joy to have a fully dynamic lighting system, which made shifts in areas like this easy to do. We also had custom Lumen-based lights that @p1xelcoder.bsky.social put together that helped us hit the painterly/stage lighting look we were after.
Reposted by MAK
#SIGGRAPH2025 Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games course talk recording of "Strand-Based Hair And Fur Rendering In Indiana Jones and The Great Circle" by Sergei Kulikov from MachineGames is now online: youtu.be/jSE1XXBEK-w
SIGGRAPH 2025 Advances: STRAND-BASED HAIR AND FUR RENDERING IN INDIANA JONES AND THE GREAT CIRCLE
YouTube video by SIGGRAPH Advances in Real-Time Rendering
youtu.be
November 11, 2025 at 11:45 PM
#SIGGRAPH2025 Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games course talk recording of "Strand-Based Hair And Fur Rendering In Indiana Jones and The Great Circle" by Sergei Kulikov from MachineGames is now online: youtu.be/jSE1XXBEK-w
SIGGRAPH 2025 Advances: STOCHASTIC TILE-BASED LIGHTING IN HYPEHYPE
advances.realtimerendering.com/s2025/conten...
youtu.be/8O44TBN4sQc?...
advances.realtimerendering.com/s2025/conten...
youtu.be/8O44TBN4sQc?...
SIGGRAPH 2025 Advances: STOCHASTIC TILE-BASED LIGHTING IN HYPEHYPE
YouTube video by SIGGRAPH Advances in Real-Time Rendering
youtu.be
November 11, 2025 at 9:35 PM
SIGGRAPH 2025 Advances: STOCHASTIC TILE-BASED LIGHTING IN HYPEHYPE
advances.realtimerendering.com/s2025/conten...
youtu.be/8O44TBN4sQc?...
advances.realtimerendering.com/s2025/conten...
youtu.be/8O44TBN4sQc?...
Reposted by MAK
A LOT of industry folks need to take "I think there's a very high possibility that this is all a bunch of horseshit" to HEART.
November 7, 2025 at 11:43 PM
A LOT of industry folks need to take "I think there's a very high possibility that this is all a bunch of horseshit" to HEART.