Shader Alien 👽, 2D GPU Grass 🌿, Unity UI Scaling 🎛️
🛸 Experimental 3D & Shader Wizardry
Fake 3D Alien in Three.js: No Mesh, Just Shader Math
A senior developer has created a “3D” alien in Three.js with zero geometry—no mesh, textures, or vertices. The entire scene is a fullscreen quad, with every pixel computed in a fragment shader using raymarched signed distance fields to fake depth and volume. It’s a striking example of geometry-free, GPU-driven art that technical artists are increasingly embracing. You can also jump into the interactive demo to tweak the alien’s colors and explore related shader experiments.
How Jarl Renders Countless 2D Grass Blades at 60 FPS
Jarl’s grass system throws out traditional meshes and treats grass as pure image data, rebuilt every frame on the GPU. Using PCG hashing, blue noise, and an atomicMax-packed depth buffer, the game renders thousands of bending, wind-driven blades that sort correctly around characters and walls. The post walks through compute passes, motion modeling, AA tricks, and hard-earned performance lessons. It’s packed with ideas for anyone exploring compute-driven rendering in Bevy, wgpu, or WebGPU.
🎮 Game UI & Animation Craft
Mastering Unity UI Toolkit Scaling: Panel Settings Explained
Unity 6.5+ quietly gives UI Toolkit the same scaling power UGUI’s canvas scaler had, and this video shows exactly how to use it. You’ll learn where Panel Settings live on the Panel Renderer, what each scale mode actually does, and how they affect UI layouts from 800×600 up to ultrawide. The creator uses the old Canvas Scaler as a visual tool to demystify Match Width/Height, Shrink, Expand, and Constant Physical Size.
Building a Motion Toolkit: How Animators Shape Game Stories Through Movement
Animator Martin Sordel shares a practical “motion toolkit” for turning character movement into storytelling in games. Drawing on Laban Movement Analysis, archetypes, and emotion theory, he shows how different characters should move differently even when feeling the same emotion. He also explores the narrative power of props, touch, micro-goals, and action–reaction pairs to reveal personality in tiny moments. It’s a dense, actionable guide for animators and narrative teams who want their characters to truly live on screen.