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Alex Tardif

@longbool

Senior Graphics Programmer @ Digital Extremes. Previously ZeniMax Online, WB Blog: https://alextardif.com/eden.html

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06.07.2025
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Latest posts by Alex Tardif @longbool

Battlefield 6: Pushing visual fidelity while optimizing for all hardware
Battlefield 6: Pushing visual fidelity while optimizing for all hardware YouTube video by Graphics Programming Conference

Graphics Programming Conference 2025 presentation recordings are now online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRVL...

05.03.2026 23:02 πŸ‘ 45 πŸ” 14 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Vulkan memory barriers and image layouts explained – RasterGrid | Software Consultancy

Vulkan memory barriers and image layouts explained www.rastergrid.com/blog/gpu-tec...

03.03.2026 21:25 πŸ‘ 32 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

For sure, and we have plenty of evidence already that this is true, though I don't think that it gets proper attribution.

25.02.2026 00:59 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Lowballed indeed. I was probably hyped from building what would become ZOS's new, dead engine, none of which has been seen.

The downsides are real, but I'm especially grateful UE5 existed in time for this layoff era, and for catalysing developers of games like Expedition 33.

24.02.2026 03:00 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Excited to share that GPU Zen 4: Advanced Rendering Techniques is officially out. This volume features work from some of the most visually impactful projects of recent years, including #AssassinsCreed , #DOOM , #StarwarsOutLaws and NVidia's Zorah. And a killer cover :)

20.02.2026 01:02 πŸ‘ 87 πŸ” 19 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 2

Exciting :D ordered mine!

20.02.2026 01:59 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
A path traced image of a volumetric bunny in a living room

A path traced image of a volumetric bunny in a living room

Being visited by a dreamy bunny

15.02.2026 02:25 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Forget Superresolution, Sample Adaptively (when Path Tracing) Real-time path tracing increasingly operates under extremely low sampling budgets, often below one sample per pixel, as rendering complexity, resolution, and frame-rate requirements continue to rise. ...

Interesting paper showing great results for replacing standard low-res rendering + temporal upsampling (DLSS) with high-res GBuffer + adaptive sampling. Makes sense given rising costs of lighting computations vs GBuffer. arxiv.org/abs/2602.08642

14.02.2026 14:40 πŸ‘ 37 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

PS5 and PC πŸ‘€

05.02.2026 15:48 πŸ‘ 35 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0
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Something new on the Horizon!

05.02.2026 17:40 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
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Now actually taking advantage of that delta tracking! There were in fact more bugs.

Any closer to the screen and it makes my GPU sing to meπŸ˜†Gonna work on that next

02.02.2026 03:17 πŸ‘ 20 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Nanite Tessellation Nanite Tessellation, aka Nanite Dynamic Tessellation, aka Nanite Dynamic Displacement was the next major feature I worked on after Nanite it...

I'm finally writing up how Nanite Tessellation works. The first few blogs posts are up. More will be coming.
graphicrants.blogspot.com/2026/02/nani...

02.02.2026 02:40 πŸ‘ 160 πŸ” 51 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

You know what else I struggled with? Some silent update that reset my display profile to the manufacturer's instead of sRGB at a critical juncture in my understanding. Ohhhhh my god lmao

28.01.2026 03:03 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Image of a mediocre path tracer

Image of a mediocre path tracer

Enjoying going through "Physically Based Rendering", implemented with DXR.

The chairs here are participating media using delta tracking, which I hope is finally correctπŸ˜†

I'll share the header for it soon + my notes, I struggled with terminology for a while.

28.01.2026 03:01 πŸ‘ 28 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

the engine we use & the games we're making

12.01.2026 01:43 πŸ‘ 41 πŸ” 14 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
Preview
Nanite Assemblies in USD: Part 1 - Scene Structure | Tutorial Part 1 of this 2-part series covers the details of how the Universal Scene Description (USD) format can be structured to author and import Nanite Assemb...

I wrote up a guide for authoring Nanite Assembly USD files in Unreal Engine 5.7. Part 1 covers the requisite structure of the USD scene.

dev.epicgames.com/community/le...

14.01.2026 22:53 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
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Zootopia 2 took hundreds of artists, TDs, and engineers to make; I was lucky enough to be a small part of it all! Here are some of my personal thoughts/notes from working on Zootopia 2, along with some pretty pictures.

blog.yiningkarlli.com/2025/12/zoot...

07.01.2026 09:23 πŸ‘ 40 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
How to Vulkan in 2026 - How to Vulkan How to write Vulkan graphics code in 2026

My "How to Vulkan in 2026" @vulkan.org #Vulkan guide is now publicly available at www.howtovulkan.com

I still consider it a preview, though I'm mostly happy with it and only plan on changing minor things and incorporating some feedback.

03.01.2026 18:15 πŸ‘ 76 πŸ” 29 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
An Experimental Approach to printf in HLSL Bringing the best form of debugging to shaders!

"An Experimental Approach to printf in HLSL" from the one and only
www.abolishcrlf.org/2025/12/31/P...

31.12.2025 22:05 πŸ‘ 14 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Alex Tardif: Graphics Programmer

New post up!

Bindless Oriented Graphics Programming
alextardif.com/BindlessProg...

30.12.2025 21:45 πŸ‘ 66 πŸ” 18 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1

For my holiday break project I’ve been sketching out an idea to help soften the on-ramp for beginners learning D3D12: a header file that (very lightly) wraps the D3D12 API and only exposes the latest/most-useful bits through straightforward function definitions with ImGui-style inline documentation.

29.12.2025 22:31 πŸ‘ 49 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
State of GPU Hardware (End of Year 2025)

I wrote a blog post describing state of GPU market and what does it mean for support of new GPU features
asawicki.info/articles/sta...
Thanks to @asawicki.info for letting me publish on his blog

29.12.2025 14:16 πŸ‘ 41 πŸ” 13 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
Warframe | Wake Up, Tenno (featuring Werner Herzog)
Warframe | Wake Up, Tenno (featuring Werner Herzog) YouTube video by PlayWarframe

Warframe, also cool :-) www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_BB...

12.12.2025 03:06 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
πŸ‡ meshoptimizer v1.0 Mesh optimization library that makes meshes smaller and faster to render

After nine years of development, meshoptimizer has reached its first major version, 1.0!

This release focuses on improvements in clusterization and simplification as well as stabilization. Here's a release announcement with more details on past, present and future; please RT!

meshoptimizer.org/v1

08.12.2025 16:56 πŸ‘ 248 πŸ” 76 πŸ’¬ 9 πŸ“Œ 1
Soulframe | Preludes - Official Founders Showcase Trailer
Soulframe | Preludes - Official Founders Showcase Trailer YouTube video by Soulframe

Soulframe is cool :-)

26.11.2025 04:23 πŸ‘ 6 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

The post on using spatial hashing with raytraced ambient occlusion attracted quite a bit of interest so I expanded it into a blog post to discuss how it works behind the scenes to both reduce the noise and its cost. interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2025/11/23/s...

23.11.2025 21:05 πŸ‘ 102 πŸ” 29 πŸ’¬ 4 πŸ“Œ 1
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New blog post! Behind the scenes of some of the techniques involved in making our last PC demo πŸ’« gboisse.github.io/posts/this-i...

05.11.2025 21:15 πŸ‘ 112 πŸ” 38 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 1
SIGGRAPH 2025 Advances: STRAND-BASED HAIR AND FUR RENDERING IN INDIANA JONES AND THE GREAT CIRCLE
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

#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

11.11.2025 23:45 πŸ‘ 45 πŸ” 20 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

This is a goldmine, thank you!

12.11.2025 01:03 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

I'm about to get into this too :-) Any favorite resources you recommend?

10.11.2025 01:45 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0