Max Liani
@maxliani.bsky.social
Tracing rays at NVIDIA. Former lighting artist, working on computer graphics rendering tech for all humans and robots alike.
I mostly post stuff about light transport simulation, and my hobby project Workbench.
I mostly post stuff about light transport simulation, and my hobby project Workbench.
Earlier this year I spent a few weekends toying around the math of simulating finance and investments. The only way for me to understand was to write a program that would put the concept into practice. So, I have implemented a Montecarlo simulator that projects family finances.
December 9, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Earlier this year I spent a few weekends toying around the math of simulating finance and investments. The only way for me to understand was to write a program that would put the concept into practice. So, I have implemented a Montecarlo simulator that projects family finances.
OMG! My iPhone just updated to the new version with the “Liquid Glass” design.
OMG, what were they thinking?????????
Of course I saw some of it when it was announced, and I was skeptical… but I didn’t realize it was this bad.
OMG, what were they thinking?????????
Of course I saw some of it when it was announced, and I was skeptical… but I didn’t realize it was this bad.
December 8, 2025 at 10:29 AM
OMG! My iPhone just updated to the new version with the “Liquid Glass” design.
OMG, what were they thinking?????????
Of course I saw some of it when it was announced, and I was skeptical… but I didn’t realize it was this bad.
OMG, what were they thinking?????????
Of course I saw some of it when it was announced, and I was skeptical… but I didn’t realize it was this bad.
I reopened my project for the first time in 6 months... I barely remember which side is up. I told myself, "Do the first thing that cross your mind":
If there is geometry under a light, and its cameraGain is set to zero, the light and the geometry become invisible to camera rays.
If there is geometry under a light, and its cameraGain is set to zero, the light and the geometry become invisible to camera rays.
November 30, 2025 at 7:59 AM
I reopened my project for the first time in 6 months... I barely remember which side is up. I told myself, "Do the first thing that cross your mind":
If there is geometry under a light, and its cameraGain is set to zero, the light and the geometry become invisible to camera rays.
If there is geometry under a light, and its cameraGain is set to zero, the light and the geometry become invisible to camera rays.
Over the month of October, my solar array produced 1.5 MWh, I used 915 kWh to power the house and charge my car. I drew only 3.7 kWh from the grid, exported back 570 kWh.
November 11, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Over the month of October, my solar array produced 1.5 MWh, I used 915 kWh to power the house and charge my car. I drew only 3.7 kWh from the grid, exported back 570 kWh.
Unfortunately, modern rendering (i.e. path tracing, software rasterization, etc…) looks more like pure compute than traditional “graphics”, and implementing such complicated data structures and computation using graphics API feels exactly like GPU computing before CUDA.
GPU computing before CUDA was *weird*.
Memory primitives were graphics shaped, not computer science shaped.
Want to do math on an array? Store it as an RGBA texture.
Fragment Shader for processing. *Paint* the result in a big rectangle.
Memory primitives were graphics shaped, not computer science shaped.
Want to do math on an array? Store it as an RGBA texture.
Fragment Shader for processing. *Paint* the result in a big rectangle.
October 15, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Unfortunately, modern rendering (i.e. path tracing, software rasterization, etc…) looks more like pure compute than traditional “graphics”, and implementing such complicated data structures and computation using graphics API feels exactly like GPU computing before CUDA.
iPhone 17 pro: orange is the new black 🤣
September 11, 2025 at 12:23 PM
iPhone 17 pro: orange is the new black 🤣
Reposted by Max Liani
You remember you made a mistake, so you want avoid doing it again! Just this time you don’t recall exactly what you did wrong, so you end up messing up at the opposite end…
September 2, 2025 at 3:30 AM
You remember you made a mistake, so you want avoid doing it again! Just this time you don’t recall exactly what you did wrong, so you end up messing up at the opposite end…
First rather naive implementation of Stochastic Light Cuts. Here comparing uniform sampling vs SLC with 1spp over 16,000 lights.
July 26, 2025 at 8:59 AM
First rather naive implementation of Stochastic Light Cuts. Here comparing uniform sampling vs SLC with 1spp over 16,000 lights.
It’s been a long break away from my projects. Work deadlines + sickness + low energy slow recovery…
I think I’ll try to make some progress on light transport, at least for a bit. Workbench doesn’t handle many lights (not gracefully at least).
I think I’ll try to make some progress on light transport, at least for a bit. Workbench doesn’t handle many lights (not gracefully at least).
July 25, 2025 at 7:11 AM
It’s been a long break away from my projects. Work deadlines + sickness + low energy slow recovery…
I think I’ll try to make some progress on light transport, at least for a bit. Workbench doesn’t handle many lights (not gracefully at least).
I think I’ll try to make some progress on light transport, at least for a bit. Workbench doesn’t handle many lights (not gracefully at least).
Reposted by Max Liani
Histogram Stratification for Spatio-Temporal Reservoir Sampling
Corentin Salaün, Martin Bálint, Laurent Belcour, Eric Heitz, Gurprit Singh and Karol Myszkowski
(Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Germany & Intel, France)
iribis.github.io/publication/...
Corentin Salaün, Martin Bálint, Laurent Belcour, Eric Heitz, Gurprit Singh and Karol Myszkowski
(Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Germany & Intel, France)
iribis.github.io/publication/...
June 19, 2025 at 1:31 AM
Histogram Stratification for Spatio-Temporal Reservoir Sampling
Corentin Salaün, Martin Bálint, Laurent Belcour, Eric Heitz, Gurprit Singh and Karol Myszkowski
(Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Germany & Intel, France)
iribis.github.io/publication/...
Corentin Salaün, Martin Bálint, Laurent Belcour, Eric Heitz, Gurprit Singh and Karol Myszkowski
(Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Germany & Intel, France)
iribis.github.io/publication/...
I really, really, really dislike year-based software version numbers.
May 30, 2025 at 9:18 AM
I really, really, really dislike year-based software version numbers.
The Vulkan porting is complete 🎉 The last missing piece was the primordial raster renderer, which I am not sure why I keep around :)
All in all, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.
All in all, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.
May 25, 2025 at 7:29 AM
The Vulkan porting is complete 🎉 The last missing piece was the primordial raster renderer, which I am not sure why I keep around :)
All in all, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.
All in all, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.
The amount how pieces to track to share a texture between Vulkan and CUDA feels a bit over the top. Each of these need to be constructed and destroyed, otherwise GPU memory leaks...
I wish we just had pointers and that's it.
I wish we just had pointers and that's it.
May 23, 2025 at 7:05 AM
The amount how pieces to track to share a texture between Vulkan and CUDA feels a bit over the top. Each of these need to be constructed and destroyed, otherwise GPU memory leaks...
I wish we just had pointers and that's it.
I wish we just had pointers and that's it.
Components selection and editing work again.
May 18, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Components selection and editing work again.
I am doing things I a rush lately… Hopefully a better structure will emerge from the mess and a rewrite will follow.
May 18, 2025 at 1:41 AM
I am doing things I a rush lately… Hopefully a better structure will emerge from the mess and a rewrite will follow.
Some progress: the grid, selection, wireframe, light gizmos, reverse Z-buffer, path-tracer/raster compositing and a few more bits. It's all coming back together.
May 17, 2025 at 2:55 AM
Some progress: the grid, selection, wireframe, light gizmos, reverse Z-buffer, path-tracer/raster compositing and a few more bits. It's all coming back together.
And... it's upside down 🤣
May 11, 2025 at 8:14 AM
And... it's upside down 🤣
It's still a mess, but bit progress today, UI fully working. With an empty scene the program renders at 12kHz, which is ridiculous! This compared to 4kHz of the OpenGL implementation. To get there I had to hack through GLFW and dear imgui docking where some "expensive" windows system calls were made
May 10, 2025 at 3:32 AM
It's still a mess, but bit progress today, UI fully working. With an empty scene the program renders at 12kHz, which is ridiculous! This compared to 4kHz of the OpenGL implementation. To get there I had to hack through GLFW and dear imgui docking where some "expensive" windows system calls were made
Why is this texture taking so long to upload… I don’t get it… it’s just a 1k texture…
Looking closer:
size_t k_resolution = 1024;
size_t k_channels = 1024;
size_t size = k_resolution* k_resolution * k_channels;
I shouldn’t write code past 8pm…
Looking closer:
size_t k_resolution = 1024;
size_t k_channels = 1024;
size_t size = k_resolution* k_resolution * k_channels;
I shouldn’t write code past 8pm…
a close up of a man 's face with his eyes closed
ALT: a close up of a man 's face with his eyes closed
media.tenor.com
May 4, 2025 at 3:07 AM
Why is this texture taking so long to upload… I don’t get it… it’s just a 1k texture…
Looking closer:
size_t k_resolution = 1024;
size_t k_channels = 1024;
size_t size = k_resolution* k_resolution * k_channels;
I shouldn’t write code past 8pm…
Looking closer:
size_t k_resolution = 1024;
size_t k_channels = 1024;
size_t size = k_resolution* k_resolution * k_channels;
I shouldn’t write code past 8pm…
Small progress today: my GUI library system is partially working. Textures and picking are still missing though.
May 3, 2025 at 8:36 AM
Small progress today: my GUI library system is partially working. Textures and picking are still missing though.
Reposted by Max Liani
Our #GDC25 talk on RTX Mega Geometry and how it was used in UE5 and Alan Wake 2 is now available on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kblm...
GDC 2025 | Scale Up Ray Tracing in Games With RTX Mega Geometry - Full Session Replay
YouTube video by NVIDIA Game Developer
www.youtube.com
April 30, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Our #GDC25 talk on RTX Mega Geometry and how it was used in UE5 and Alan Wake 2 is now available on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kblm...
The easy part of porting to VK the imgui-based portion of Workbench UI is done. Now to the hard part...
April 26, 2025 at 5:49 AM
The easy part of porting to VK the imgui-based portion of Workbench UI is done. Now to the hard part...
Rainbow cubes are back!
It's likely most of you didn't know me when all my posts were rainbow cubes... As I am preparing to port Workbench to VK, I am back to basics.
It's likely most of you didn't know me when all my posts were rainbow cubes... As I am preparing to port Workbench to VK, I am back to basics.
April 21, 2025 at 6:03 AM
Rainbow cubes are back!
It's likely most of you didn't know me when all my posts were rainbow cubes... As I am preparing to port Workbench to VK, I am back to basics.
It's likely most of you didn't know me when all my posts were rainbow cubes... As I am preparing to port Workbench to VK, I am back to basics.