Top all-time · #4400
Marmoset Toolbag
Company blog · marmoset.co/postsdesignprogramming
Marmoset Toolbag is the company blog at marmoset.co, writing about design and programming. Since 2014, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 21 times, most often “Basic Theory of Physically-Based Rendering”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (15) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Marmoset's physically based rendering (PBR) theory pages as introductions to the topic, and its Hexels isometric pixel-art tool, which commenters mention as software.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 15 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Marmoset Toolbag is the all-in-one creative software package for 3D artists. Toolbag 5 is Available Now – UDIMs, Bevel Shader, New Painting Tools, & more…
Most-linked posts?
- /hexels/4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-12-29
- /posts/physically-based-rendering-and-you-can-too/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-09-13
- Basic Theory of Physically-Based Rendering2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-08-04
What Hacker News says?
For what it's worth, I agree that the web needs something like WebGL to cover the Flash use cases (animated ads and casual games). Not sure why you need voxel.css, though. When would you use it instead of http://www.marmoset.co/viewer ?
Comment linking /viewer
on “Voxel.css”Submitted Physically-Based Rendering, and You Can Too as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere is no clear definition, further adding to the confusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physically_based_rendering https://marmoset.co/posts/basic-theory-of-physically-based-r...
Comment linking /posts/basic-theory-of-physically-based-rendering/
on “Filament: Physically-based rendering engine”Submitted Basic Theory of Physically-Based Rendering as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLight reflects/diffuses of metals if different way then from non-metallic objects (insulators). This gives metals characteristic shine you can't replicate without metalic particles in real world (metalic paints). PBR Shaders take this into account and this creates so called "metalness workflow" instead of "specular workflow". With specular workflow you would specify color of diffused light and color of reflected lig…
Comment linking /posts/physically-based-rendering-and-you-can-too/
on “Blender 2.79 released”Submitted Basic theory of physically-based rendering (2015) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionTextures can create the illusion that certain small deformities exist. This is often used for scratches and things that are not always modeled. https://www.marmoset.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/lenstextu... Scratches like these could sometimes be painted directly onto the texture - or maybe sculpted onto a higher-resolution model and then "baked" down to the lower-resolution model. In this step lots of data from ho…
Comment linking /posts/physically-based-rendering-and-you-can-too/
on “Blender 2.79 released”Submitted Basic Theory of Physically-Based Rendering as a story · 1 points
HN discussionPBR (Physically-based render) Shaders are extremely realistic. The Suzanne monkey example is pretty neat, but you can find mindblowing examples from other artists. [1] 1. https://www.marmoset.co/posts/physically-based-rendering-and...
Comment linking /posts/physically-based-rendering-and-you-can-too/
on “Blender 2.79 released”Cool concept! It reminds my of Hexels: http://www.marmoset.co/hexels
Comment linking /hexels
on “Show HN: Triangul-Art – make pixel art but with triangles”https://marmoset.co/hexels/
Comment linking /hexels/
on “A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art (2015)”I think marmoset hexels[0] has an isometric grid, haven't used it myself. I have used the iso(axonometric) grid in Inkscape. [0]: https://marmoset.co/hexels/
Comment linking /hexels/
on “Rx v0.3 Released, a modern and minimalist pixel editor in Rust”This looks like https://www.marmoset.co/hexels/ (which is awesome)
Comment linking /hexels/
on “Show HN: Triangulart – Isometric graphic editor, like pixel art with triangles”Previous 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 /toolbag/learn/pbr-practice
on “Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice”For those like me who want to learn more in 10 minutes, this link appears to be decent: https://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
Comment linking /toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
on “Pragmatic physically based rendering: Intro”I've used Hexels for isometric tinkering in the past. It's pretty intuitive and it excels at grid based digital art in my experience. No affiliation. https://marmoset.co/hexels/
Comment linking /hexels/
on “Isobuild – Interactive isometric design tool”Thanks! I'm assuming svg is more compute heavy, especially with animations and when its big. Maybe a gif might work if you want to keep the animation? You'd probaby want to look at how to make it high quality and small[1] Maybe a gif with dithering[2] might look nice? [1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=blog+making+small+gifs+high+... [2]: https://marmoset.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Dither_upres2...
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Dither_upres2.gif
on “Same. Leaving Apple Hardware”So PBR has become the default in the industry since starting around 2009 but really took off around 2013 - 2014. It was adopted because it could represent a larger range of physical surfaces then previous models while looking more consistent and being easier to understand [0]. Before then most 3d games either used Phong or Blinn-Phong [1] but they were hard to control for artists and they didn't really represent man…
Comment linking /posts/physically-based-rendering-and-you-can-too/
on “4th edition of Physically Based Rendering is now freely available online”Hexels ( https://marmoset.co/hexels/ ) is a good piece of software for making isometric pixel art (animated, too!).
Comment linking /hexels/
on “Isometric Pixel Art”
