May I commend the proper explicit use of unsigned math when doing bit tricks of this short. 😁 I've seen... Hilarious mishaps happen when you don't. UB...

The reason it worked so well for blending is that, when your main operation is multiplication, in the logarithmic realm it turns into addition. So blending two rotations in this form is a simple lerp of each coordinate.

Great talk, I have to say! I enjoyed it very much.

Fun fact... When I developed the animation system we used in the original Xbox game "Bruce Lee Quest of the Dragon" I based it all on what you called "rotation vector".

I knew it as just the logarithm of the quaternion. I found it most excellent for blending animations... after taming the winding.

Quest for Fire

Well, the very very first we did on the speccy right on cassette tape. I get shivers every time I remember. 😁

Amen, brother

I've been away from graphics and games for about 10.7 years now, so not that, but for the rest I can relate 😁. Except the "graybeard" thing, I don't take myself seriously enough or my brain doesn't work that way. And I don't seriously think about retirement, so... Maybe I can't really relate 🤪?

Stardust was my first, with my bro. The last was Fusion:Genesis in... 2010? 2011? I was conscripted to help for a bit with performance and graphics. I think that came after a short stint on Halo 4? Memory fades. After that I went to platform (Xbox One) and then out of games altogether.

Hear hear. But unsent email, rather than texts, is the bane of my existence. My drafts folder is quite a trip down memory lane, dozens-long.