Top all-time · #4482
Interplay of Light
Personal blog · interplayoflight.wordpress.comprogramming
Interplay of Light is a personal blog at interplayoflight.wordpress.com about programming. Since 2015, 17 different Hacker News readers have linked it 63 times, most often “Async Compute All the Things”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-02-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for graphics programming writing on real-time rendering, GPU design and shading. Commenters point to its reading list of rendering material and to a learning-path article.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Async Compute All the Things4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2025-05-27
- GPU Utilisation and Performance Improvements3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-08-29
- Low-Level Thinking in High-Level Shading Languages3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-12-29
- A quick introduction to DirectX workgraphs3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-06-29
- Spatial hashing for raytraced ambient occlusion2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-11-23
- Raytraced Global Illumination Denoising2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-03-26
- Readings on the State of the Art in Rendering2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-09-30
- Experimenting with FP16 in Shaders2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-12-30
- How to start learning graphics programming?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-07-08
- Shader Tips and Tricks2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-01-22
What Hacker News says?
> Are you arguing for a better software abstraction, a different hardware abstraction or both? I don't speak for Raph, but imo it seems like he was arguing for both, and I agree with him. On the hardware side, GPUs have struggled with dynamic workloads at the API level (not e.g. thread-level dynamism, that's a separate topic) for around a decade. Indirect commands gave you some of that so at least the size of your d…
Comment linking /2024/09/09/an-introduction-to-workgraphs-part-2-performance
on “I want a good parallel computer”Submitted How Unreal Renders a Frame as a story · 317 points
HN discussionHi, I'm the author of both the Solari (Lumen) and Meshlet (Nanite) PRs, and I'm happy to see interest in them! To expand on pcwalton's answer: Solari is _extremely_ experimental. I'm basically entirely scrapping my previous version[1] based on Radiance Cascades[2], and starting over with ReSTIR[3] techniques. Don't expect it anytime soon, but I'm definitely having fun working on it! The real technical blockers to So…
Comment linking /2023/12/17/a-gentler-introduction-to-restir/
on “Bevy 0.13: ECS-driven game engine built in Rust”Submitted How to Read Shader Assembly as a story · 76 points
HN discussionHow Unreal renders a frame is also interesting: https://interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/how-unreal...
Comment linking /2017/10/25/how-unreal-renders-a-frame/
on “Basic GPU design concepts”Submitted A quick introduction to DirectX workgraphs as a story · 49 points
HN discussionPrevious years: http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2014-shading-course... http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2013-shading-course... http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2012-shading-course... http://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2011/index.html (not sure there was one in 2011...) http://renderwonk.com/publications/s2010-shading-course/ This is a good, high-level intro: https://www.marmoset.co/toolb…
Comment linking /2013/12/30/readings-on-physically-based-rendering/
on “Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice”Submitted Low-Level Thinking in High-Level Shading Languages as a story · 4 points
HN discussionit would be cool to see a more comprehensive comparison including methods with raytracing they have MLAB in their performance comparison table, is that ray traced? from this blog i think it sounds like it there's a rasterized version and a way to use ray tracing https://interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2023/07/30/raytraced-...
Comment linking /2023/07/30/raytraced-order-independent-transparency-part-2/
on “Implementing Order-Independent Transparency”Submitted Raytracing, a 4 Year Retrospective as a story · 4 points
HN discussionMarmoset's articles are a great intro. Probably the most accessible I've found. If anyone wants to read a lot more, here's a collection of possibly a majority of the non-academic material to be found online: https://interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/readings-o...
Comment linking /2013/12/30/readings-on-physically-based-rendering/
on “Pragmatic physically based rendering: Intro”Submitted Raytraced Global Illumination Denoising as a story · 4 points
HN discussionHere's an article[0] by Kostas Anagnostou that I found helpful. He's spent over 2 decades in the graphics industry. His article gives a path for learning from the top of the stack and going down to the lower level stuff afterwards. TL;DR is Shadertoy -> Unity/Unreal -> Direct3D/OpenGL [0] https://interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2018/07/08/how-to-sta...
Comment linking /2018/07/08/how-to-start-learn-graphics-programming/
on “New Vulkan Documentation Website”Submitted Spatial hashing for raytraced ambient occlusion as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted GPU Utilisation and Performance Improvements as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Async Compute All the Things as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Meshlets and Mesh Shaders as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The hidden cost of shader instructions as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Low-level thinking in high-level shading languages 2023 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Experimenting with FP16 in Shaders as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Abstracting the Graphics API for a toy renderer as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Read Shader Assembly as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted GPU Architecture Resources as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to start learning graphics programming? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Async Compute All the Things as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Async Compute All the Things as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Meshlets and Mesh Shaders as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Gentler Introduction to Restir as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Raytraced Order Independent Transparency as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Experimenting with FP16, Part 2 as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
