Comment by amjoshuamichael

14 days ago

Graphics programming analysis done using examples written in WebGL–genius. Hypertext that takes full advantage of the medium. This reminds me of something I'd see on https://pudding.cool/, but it goes far more in depth than anything there. Absolutely fantastic article.

I've been using MSAAx4 in my rendering engine for some time and only recently have considered switching to a FXAA / TAA implementation. I'm actually not sure I'm going to go through with that now. I definitely learned a lot here, and will probably use the analytical approach for UI items, I hadn't heard about that anywhere.

Not often you see graphics-programming stuff on HN. For anyone interested in more graphics write-ups, this list of frame breakdowns is one of my favorite resources:

https://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/

I really dislike TAA, especially on lower framerates. There's too much ghosting. I often switch it to a slower algorithm just so I don't get ghosting.

  • It’s very strange. I had a vivid dream, only about 5 hours ago, where I was debating the drawbacks of TAA with some scientists in a lab (likely because Half Life has been in the news this week). I think I dream about rendering algorithms once every several years.

    And now today there’s this post and your comment here in the front page.

    • As randomly connected graphs fill in, they quickly must produce patterns. The patterns are non-random (thus they are a pattern!), but essentially "chosen" from all possible patterns randomly.

      Which is another way of saying: a proof of God would be going through life without a constant stream of surprisingly meaningful coincidences.

      Unbiased reality is inherently a blind but inventive "Creator".

  • My feeling is if I can render at 4K I can just not do AA at all. It really looks quite fine without, at least for me.

    • Yes, on high density displays this is very much possible. Eye based SSAA, the worse your prescription the better the quality. On my Pixel 9 Pro, the no AA circle demo is perfect on native 1440p resolution without AA. But dense foliage in 3D scenes will definitely ruin that. Motion induced shimmering is inescapable I think, without some kind of filtering.

    • No AA on 4K/high-DPI has been almost perfect for me, but I still occasionally notice thin edges flickering and objects getting dithered when fading in or out. It's definitely better than TAA though, which just ends up smearing everything that moves.

    • I tried that initially, but I found that it still wasn't quite satisfactory. My game's art style has a lot of straight edges, to be fair.