Oliver Franzke
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p1xelcoder.bsky.social
Oliver Franzke
@p1xelcoder.bsky.social
I'm making colored pixels for Double Fine Productions. Lead Programmer of Broken Age. Also worked on Keeper and the remastered versions of Grim, DotT, FT and Monkey Island.
One thing I didn’t cover in the video is how we handle emissive glow. Instead of using a third cubemap (and increasing GPU bandwidth), we used color segmentation: the user picks which part of the base color should glow. It’s surprisingly effective and very cheap.
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
December 2, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
quake brutalism jam update. starting playtests now (grab it in the discord if you want to help) and then gonna squeeze in a final polish / set dressing pass before the deadline
December 2, 2025 at 9:42 AM
If you are curious how the morphs were made in Keeper, then you can watch me create this "monkey-bunny" from scratch utilizing the tech I developed for the game. Enjoy and let me know what you think. :)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9V_...
December 2, 2025 at 8:40 AM
As promised I recorded the creation of a morph (from scratch) using the tech we developed for Keeper. In about an hour I show how we capture the “Essence” of meshes, blend between them, and spice things up with spatial warps.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9V_...
Making a morph from scratch using Keeper's Essence system
YouTube video by p1xelcoder - Oliver Franzke
www.youtube.com
December 1, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
New project: ImAnim "Animation Engine for Dear ImGui" by @soufianekhiat.bsky.social
- Repo github.com/soufianekhia...
- Post github.com/ocornut/imgu...
December 1, 2025 at 11:12 AM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
If you're feeling the spirit of award season blasting out of your body like an excited chestburster, please consider KEEPER when making your #SteamAwards nominations in these three categories:

👁️ Outstanding Visual Style
🎶 Best Soundtrack
😌 Sit Back and Relax

store.steampowered.com
November 28, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
Reading old computer graphics white papers is super fun because every so often you come across the most liminal, weird looking images. Like this one from 1983.
November 28, 2025 at 5:29 PM
I'm finalizing a video in which I create a morph from scratch and it looks like one needs a over-the-top pose for the "key-art" to grab attention. :P
Which one should I use?
November 28, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Todd Vaziri's great Vanity Fair piece reminded me of the Owlbear morphs in DnD Honour Among Thieves. Due to the non-interactive nature of the medium there are lot more tricks one can use. Super cool stuff.
November 27, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
Testing our newest tech advancements: Sparkling Soda! 🍾
(Reminder: Always shake before throwing)

#gamedev #indiegame #unrealengine #funnygaming
November 27, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
Vanity Fair asked me to talk about visual effects, and it was my great honor to show off some of ILM’s terrific work over the years.

Todd Vaziri on Vanity Fair VFX
youtu.be/ERKEsIzTFas?...
ILM's VFX Secrets Behind Star Wars, Transformers & More | Vanity Fair
YouTube video by Vanity Fair
youtu.be
October 7, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
magazine screenshot, computer graphics (1997) archive.org/details/mico...
November 20, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
If you’ve never played Viewfinder you owe it to yourself to do so. It’s like experiencing a truly incredible magic trick AND the puzzles are really clever
Viewfinder (Steam) is $4.74 on Fanatical Flash Sale w/ code OMENVIP buff.ly/OBPVz0E #ad

Deck verified
November 26, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
There's a restored full version of it on YT. I've only seen a crappy VHS recording previously, but this version is amazing.

youtu.be/UPerb922QGM?...
Сталкер (4К, фантастика, реж. Андрей Тарковский, 1979 г.)
YouTube video by Киноконцерн "Мосфильм"
youtu.be
November 26, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Given what I've shown so far it won't come as a big surprise that Annihilation was a huge inspiration for our morph tech. This movie captures how truly weird alien life could be... and weird is what we wanted to achieve in Keeper.
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
November 26, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Here is another fun example of what one could do with the symmetry operator.
On a related note... I do love my job! :)
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
November 26, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
This month marks 23 years in the game industry for me. I've been INCREDIBLY fortunate to have worked with all of the amazing folks that I've worked with, the games that I got to work on and to have had made some life long friends along the way. Truly grateful.
November 25, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
Thank you! To anyone who loved playing Keeper, we'd be tickled if you thought of us when making your #SteamAwards nominations in these three categories:

👁️ Outstanding Visual Style
🎶 Best Soundtrack
😌 Sit Back and Relax

(And if you haven't played Keeper yet, we'd be thrilled if you did!)
#SteamAwards outstanding visual style has to go to @doublefine.com #Keeper, that's the majority of its thing.

Its friggin' beautiful in a way I hadn't experienced before.
November 25, 2025 at 6:10 PM
The symmetry operator is one of my favorite effects in the Keeper morph tech. It is so much fun to play around with since it creates absolutely stunning visual pandemonium like this one.
November 25, 2025 at 8:15 PM
The morph-of-the-week is the awesome "gear door", which was inspired by the "hands door" I talked about. With Lee's concept Nick modelled and animated this morph. I love the fact that gears temporarily appear while the passageway is revealed. The spinning ones are additive.
bsky.app/profile/p1xe...
November 24, 2025 at 7:32 PM
We need more "hand doors" in games like this one from the movie Return to Oz.
November 24, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
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...
November 23, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
November 22, 2025 at 6:04 AM
A major inspiration for the morphs in Keeper is the Nome king and his creatures from the movie "Return to Oz" (1985), which Jeremy brought to our attention. Rock surfaces change shape in unexpected ways and stuff appears / merges with the environment thanks to the wonderful stop motion animation.
November 21, 2025 at 8:43 PM
Reposted by Oliver Franzke
I guess it is time to repost this here
programmerhumor.io/programming-...
November 21, 2025 at 10:17 AM