Aras Pranckevičius

https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@aras

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

website: https://aras-p.info/
github: https://github.com/aras-p

Public Key

npub1ktc8k8jfpjk57jyds6wwkxeqyajfd00j5hwzpjvgwe6jkmulq4cq4csfyn

NIP-05 Address

aras_at_mastodon.gamedev.place@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqst9urmreyset20fzxcd88trvszweykhhe2thpqexy8vaftd70s2uqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds2tmnzg

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1ktc8k8jfpjk57jyds6wwkxeqyajfd00j5hwzpjvgwe6jkmulq4cq4csfyn

Show more details

Last Notes

2026-10-09 18:40:27 UTC

:blender: 5.3 just entered beta. Among other things (gaussian splatting, dispersion, NPR lighting nodes, DLSS, etc.), the video sequence editor got quite some stuff! Ripple editing, new blade tool, scene strip thumbnails, OpenTimelineIO, hardware video decoding, etc. Details: https://developer.blender.org/docs/release_notes/5.3/sequencer/ and daily builds: https://builder.blender.org/download/daily/ #blender

2026-09-28 12:45:32 UTC

Oh lollums! Now I'm getting emails for offers of $150-$300/hr jobs just to sit and human-review AI-made PRs to random github projects. Depending on where you are in the world, that can be "geez, nice!" money, wtf. Looks like someone's really keen on getting more human training data, eh.
Madness.

2026-09-22 10:49:09 UTC

Once again, we support volumetric dog _and_ volumetric fog at the same time!
And with that, off to #bcon26 :blender:
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/117/314/299/167/243/357/original/4df11bfcac7eda1b.jpeg

2026-09-20 11:59:41 UTC

Petition to start pronouncing “LLM” as “lollum” (similar to Gollum)

2026-09-15 08:04:20 UTC

Accidentally a zucchini
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/117/274/014/904/249/797/original/971adb29b7c0cc79.jpeg

2026-09-14 03:55:44 UTC

No-Face has seen things
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/117/267/375/236/277/145/original/3222587b181f141f.jpg

2026-09-11 15:19:22 UTC

- reply

no ragrets!

2026-09-10 17:09:22 UTC

- reply

turns out, our parents way back “why you sit at the computer all the time? should learn some real job” were right all along, eh

2026-09-10 11:49:27 UTC

So! There are AI agents registering themselves to this mastodon instance (some of them are upfront that they are automated AI agents). But! If you reject their application, after a while they autonomously write an email to the admin (=me), asking for why I have not allowed them in yet. And if I don't want to, the robots would like to know, and demand an explanation why.
I have not responded (yet?).
What a strange world.

2026-09-03 06:02:08 UTC

Saw Linux out there on the streets
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/117/205/586/638/871/912/original/1120c0a8de5029d6.jpeg

2026-09-02 14:52:23 UTC

- reply

wait, you at Sony are all still on PS1 CPUs without hardware floating point puns?!

2026-09-02 14:30:08 UTC

- reply

yes this is getting so bad I want to scream “ieee!”

2026-09-02 14:20:45 UTC

- reply

whatever floats our boats

2026-09-02 11:26:23 UTC

- reply

remainders to be seen

2026-09-02 09:52:05 UTC

- reply

that is not entirely wrong

2026-08-26 08:40:53 UTC

- reply

Shockwave! Geez, we are all old, aren't we :)

2026-08-25 19:11:05 UTC

- reply

holy shit this is good. and excellent music choice!

2026-08-17 14:01:28 UTC

- reply

for gen-z, maybe. for gen-2 it is just fine.

2026-08-17 06:27:39 UTC

- reply

do you have any linqs where that is explained?

2026-08-16 16:23:23 UTC

- reply

What music instrument C# engineers like to play the most? CLRinet.

2026-08-10 07:43:06 UTC

"GPU texture address mode collies" meme continues to be my main achievement in life, I think.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/117/070/088/436/871/298/original/a7084604f62cfe5d.jpg

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

2026-06-18 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 not ideal, 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

they are all a bit patchy, tbh

2026-06-14 06:25:53 UTC

- reply

thanks ryg! you are a ray of light

2026-06-14 04:57:57 UTC

- reply

not my area of expertise

2026-06-13 17:25:28 UTC

- reply

a bit pointless comment tbh

2026-06-13 16:34:06 UTC

RE: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@RYStorm/116743570203709579
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
#note1qp9…geuv

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.

2026-05-20 03:57:12 UTC

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

2026-05-04 19:16:45 UTC

- reply

welcome back!

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

2026-04-04 13:49:26 UTC

- reply

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

2026-03-16 19:58:00 UTC

My first reaction to DLSS5 can be summarized as “🤮”. So now this completely discards artistic intent, and replaces all game characters with fake instagram influencers?
Is it just me?
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/dlss5-breakthrough-in-visual-fidelity-for-games/

2026-01-15 19:56:54 UTC

- reply

so now that you know everything, can you confirm that PS6 is going to be 768 PICO-8s duct taped together?

2026-01-13 15:46:58 UTC

Teapot wireframe: ON
Snow effect: ON
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/115/888/568/043/533/489/original/8b1b5616f810c679.jpeg

2026-01-06 04:43:29 UTC

- reply

what, this time it is not EdgeGeom on SPUs?!?! Anyway, congrats! (And oof for Unity…)

2025-12-21 12:21:48 UTC

- reply

I'd think that "I'm generating machine code directly" is kinda the opposite of "portable" already to begin with :)

2025-12-21 10:37:23 UTC

- reply

why it would not work? You have to write into executable memory, but that’s about it.

2025-12-21 09:40:34 UTC

- reply

related to your masm on 64 bit woes; I recall a similar case where just generating (very small amount of) machine code directly was easier than trying to get assemblers to work. Something like:
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/115/756/894/295/225/839/original/4ba0b04c74471f95.png

2025-12-21 07:14:48 UTC

- reply

so that was an introduction alright. How many topics you had drafted after the intro? :P

2025-12-02 08:34:07 UTC

So! This mastodon instance (mastodon.gamedev.place) has 136 custom "emojis" representing various engines & tools often used in gamedev. I made all of them 2+ years ago. Which notable ones have popped up since then that we are missing out on? Here are all the current ones: https://github.com/aras-p/gamedev-emojis

2025-11-12 04:49:17 UTC

"Reflections on My Tech Career" from Bruce Dawson is great, in two parts: https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/10/22/reflections-on-my-tech-career-part-1/ and https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2025/11/10/reflections-on-my-tech-career-part-2/

2025-10-20 10:41:22 UTC

- reply

ohh... I run at 150% display scale on windows... so you're saying that's generally still an unsolved problem in Linux land? o_O

2025-10-20 08:19:22 UTC

So... given that Win10 support is EOL, and I kinda want to avoid Win11... What's the take on Linux these days? I mostly use computer for C++ development: Visual Studio, Fork, Superluminal. What's the least amount of hassle? GPU is nvidia.

2025-10-17 03:55:17 UTC

Oh, so these AI slopbros are explicitly training on GPL code PRs, cool cool. The email asks for what I do think about this offer. Hmm.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/115/387/486/248/942/260/original/252d19f655a9b813.jpeg

2025-10-07 07:48:12 UTC

New thing from the Zstd (and LZ4/xxhash) crowd: OpenZL. A dozen or so building blocks (shufflers, transposers, filters, compressors) that can be chained together. Can automatically build "best" config based on sample data; same decompressor can decompress any config. Nice! https://openzl.org/ (and whitepaper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.03203) #compression #openzl

2025-09-16 15:37:21 UTC

I… I just assembled a poster for an Epic Games service. That was not on my bingo card! #bcon25
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/115/214/715/189/229/952/original/69fa8ddae6cfdfd5.jpeg

2025-09-16 04:10:17 UTC

- reply

nice release, congrats!

2025-07-23 03:39:31 UTC

- reply

the winning move is to turn off slack and never turn it on again!

2025-06-13 03:59:02 UTC

“jemalloc Postmortem” https://jasone.github.io/2025/06/12/jemalloc-postmortem/

2025-06-10 03:39:49 UTC

Apple WWDC is happening, so: 20 years ago at WWDC Unity 1.0 has launched. I think it did have a massive effect of the whole game development! Also, 20 years in games tech is a really long time. #unity :unity:
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/656/987/420/203/549/original/1f5232a832f28d0c.jpeg

2025-06-05 10:01:19 UTC

Skribidi - "Nimble bidirectional text stack for UIs" by @npub1rx7…v92v looks very cool. https://github.com/memononen/Skribidi

2025-05-22 11:12:05 UTC

- reply

thank you!

2025-05-20 19:08:17 UTC

- reply

Here’s me shocked at sudden year increase, and Ren trying to calm me down
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/541/729/735/103/235/original/21b1861fe5b7998d.jpeg

2025-05-20 13:15:53 UTC

So one thing led to another, and I turned 44, AMA

2025-04-30 19:45:01 UTC

Teapot vs Tulips
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/428/627/926/063/036/original/d045e24d47c41863.jpeg

2025-04-09 04:13:57 UTC

"Senior Engineer tries Vibe Coding" is excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2C2CNmK7dQ

2025-03-28 15:51:10 UTC

- reply

out of interest (have deleted my LI some years ago), is that still happening? I know job requirements used to speak of ninjas and rockstars umpteen years ago, I had assumed that fad is over by now…

2025-03-28 15:45:07 UTC

- reply

now now, there’s no need to insult actual rockstars like this!

2025-03-22 19:50:27 UTC

Ok, time for some reflection
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/207/819/236/483/967/original/98a6c8c4bd8ac25a.jpeg

2025-03-19 04:42:34 UTC

“Please stop externalizing your costs directly into my face” https://drewdevault.com/2025/03/17/2025-03-17-Stop-externalizing-your-costs-on-me.html

2025-01-04 18:53:55 UTC

- reply

great video, thanks ❤️ This answer to "do you think AI will ever be able to write a good song?" question by Nick Cave -- way back from 2019! -- I often think about. https://www.theredhandfiles.com/considering-human-imagination-the-last-piece-of-wilderness-do-you-think-ai-will-ever-be-able-to-write-a-good-song/
There's also his later (2023) answer about ChatGPT writing lyrics: https://www.theredhandfiles.com/chatgpt-making-things-faster-and-easier/

2024-12-20 17:56:06 UTC

RenderDoc :renderdoc: 1.36 is out, and while it contains DXIL debugging, raytracing capture and other magic things... it also now can load and display tiled & mipmapped EXR files! For the, I dunno, three of us who use :renderdoc: as an EXR viewer :) https://github.com/baldurk/renderdoc/releases/tag/v1.36

2024-12-17 19:16:30 UTC

Oh, turns out this :mastodon: instance (mastodon.gamedev.place) has been running for 7 years already. Not a terribly bad result! Here's what I wrote about it at the very start: https://aras-p.info/blog/2017/12/04/Gamedev-Mastodon-mastodon.gamedev.place/

2024-12-06 12:42:27 UTC

"Mission: Importable - Ghost of Tsushima PC Postmortem" is good. Iteresting to see that the very 1st step is getting debug markers correct, so you can look at frame structure in RenderDoc :renderdoc: (without RenderDoc large parts of PC gfx dev would fall sideways...). Would have not expected "emulate PS API on D3D12" to work as well as it did for them, good job! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tostM4-rK6o #GPC2024

2024-11-24 07:22:16 UTC

- reply

it’s not a leak, it is revealing design thinking! Please “leak” more! ;)

2024-11-22 12:57:31 UTC

- reply

like, even the whole asset dependencies concept I feel like is not known about widely enough

2024-11-22 12:56:35 UTC

- reply

oh wow, that is pretty cool! I’m wondering how many of “yeah this is actually possible” workflows are possible, just Unity does not clearly tell people about them

2024-10-24 11:51:55 UTC

In the middle of #bcon24, Cycles team is reviewing pull requests with integrals and formulas and stuff. As one does.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/113/362/253/284/513/298/original/53998e074677ba29.jpeg

2024-10-02 04:02:31 UTC

- reply

This is one of "all the apps automagically update themselves" reality downsides: it used to be that software you have stays the same, on the same computer. Now, computer stays the same, but software (slowly but surely) gets slower. Needs more memory, no longer acceptably works on non-SSD, etc. etc.

2024-10-02 04:00:46 UTC

Was trying to figure out why laptop of mother-in-law was very slow. It is 7 years old, 4GB RAM, HDD, so yeah. But it used to be not slow! Constant updates of both Windows and Chrome make everything sluggish. Even bringing up task manager takes half a minute. *One* app there that is still snappy? Picasa. Because it was discontinued before the laptop was made, so it had *zero* updates that would make it slower.

2024-09-21 05:03:46 UTC

- reply

you mean they also did a groundbreaking discovery that computers can display more than six colors?! or — gasp — vary the color a bit across a rectangle on screen?! what a time to be alive!

2024-09-19 18:51:29 UTC

Whoa. D3D is switching to SPIR-V as shader bytecode format! This is excellent, and I guess lets them move away from their llvm 3.7 fork easier. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/directx-adopting-spir-v/

2024-09-15 14:54:54 UTC

How it started / how it is going. Never been to Utah, but the wireframe teapot is now here! Dog for scale.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/113/142/142/791/447/342/original/38fea493a59096c1.jpeg
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/113/142/142/856/022/057/original/533801c4ebf1a3a9.jpeg

2024-09-10 04:00:47 UTC

- reply

And no mastodon/"fediverse" is not a sustainable and scalable answer. You still need someone to run the servers (costs $$$) and do moderation (costs human work and sometimes human misery).
Like, this instance running at all is a combination of Someone paying a $700 bill each.and.every.month, and about 5 moderators looking at reports and user registrations each.and.every.day. *So far* this has been working. Will it keep on working? Who knows! Forever? Probably not :/

2024-09-10 03:59:20 UTC

Cohost shutting down (https://cohost.org/staff/post/7611443-cohost-to-shut-down) is sad but not surprising. Unfortunately.
People saying "I wish media was not like today! I'd gladly pay $N for a nice no-nonsense / no-ads social platform". And then they don't.

2024-09-08 18:02:04 UTC

Monica Harrington's story on early days of Valve & Half-Life is a good read! https://medium.com/@monicah428/the-early-days-of-valve-from-a-woman-inside-bf80c6b47961

2024-09-07 11:55:48 UTC

"No CPU, no GPU, no memory" demo category is cool! You actually make an ASIC that outputs a VGA signal. My friend ReJ just made one. "The Drop", 3.5k logic gates, displays pictures and plays muzak. Submitted to Tiny Tapeout. Source: https://github.com/rejunity/tt08-vga-drop
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/113/096/139/891/860/181/original/5f4753b56952e92f.mp4

2024-08-21 07:18:27 UTC

- reply

I don't know, and that's why I'm a code monkey and not some biz guy :) But yes a good question. And it is entirely possible that Unity without VC would not exist at all today.
Heck, I think Unity without JR becoming CEO back then would probably not exist today. There was *a lot* of internal power fighting among C suite and everything was a mess for about a year before JR became CEO.

2024-08-21 07:10:51 UTC

- reply

Also, maybe having multiple visions at once, which are conflicting with each other, is also not great. And trying to solve multiple visions by "let's hire everyone!" just means all the usual growth pains, plus an unsustainable business due to massive burn rate. Unity "the engine" was close to 1500 people at one point, ffs.

2024-08-21 05:15:25 UTC

I wrote some random thoughts about Unity https://aras-p.info/blog/2024/08/11/Random-thoughts-about-Unity/