The hottest Graphics Substack posts right now

The MEGA65 Digest for March 2023 features files, features, hardware, and a programming exercise to play with.
An external floppy disk drive option with modern features and compatibility for the MEGA65 is available for pre-order.
A colorful, low-resolution 80x50 Mandelbrot Set can be created using BASIC programming on the MEGA65, showcasing the computer's capabilities.

Retro 8-bit aesthetics in games today are more advanced due to improved memory and technology.
Memory constraints in older systems influenced the visual style of games from the past.
Advancements in CPU power had less impact on traditional game genres compared to memory limitations.

Deciding the structure for GPU draw commands involves implementing various elements like rounded rectangles, softness, masking, rotations, and color gradients to draw complex GUI elements.
Consider the requirements and constraints of the GUI design, such as the need for bezier curves for specific use cases beyond SDF rounded rectangles.
Improving the efficiency of drawing rectangles by simplifying parameters like corner radius, using turns instead of radians for rotations, and implementing a unified command struct for specifying properties of the draw commands.

Conditional compilation is used to switch between Metal and OpenGL backends.
The process of creating shaders in OpenGL involves more boilerplate code compared to Metal.
Error reporting in OpenGL requires additional boilerplate code compared to Metal.

The Jump Flooding Algorithm can be used to generate distance fields around textures for various effects like outlines, shadows, and glows.
The algorithm involves multiple passes sampling a 3x3 area at varying scales, focusing on opaque pixels and empty space.
You can make variations to the algorithm based on your needs, like using floating-point surfaces for a greater distance range or calculating the internal distance for a proper SDF.

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Signed Distance Functions (SDFs) are useful for creating shapes like circles and boxes in shaders.
SDFs allow for easy anti-aliasing and adding outlines to shapes in shaders.
SDFs are versatile and can be used for various effects like glows, shadows, and direct lighting in shaders.

The post discusses creating a Victorian photojournalist with a steampunk camera using AI tool DALL-E.
The content includes developing marketing graphics for Feola Factory to explore the usefulness of AI tools.
Upcoming topics on the blog include a Weekly Review and Easter Egg roundup, along with Foto.Feola.Friday.

In 2014, Apple introduced Metal as a high-performance graphics API for iOS, catering to graphics-intensive applications like mobile games.
Metal provided low-level access to GPU hardware, aiming to improve performance by reducing bottlenecks caused by OpenGL ES drivers running on the CPU.
Developers using Metal had to work more closely with the hardware, writing shaders and managing rendering pipelines for efficient graphics processing.