Developer @redshift3d · C++ & graphics programming · VFX Sharing experiments from my bench Atmospheric & participating media rendering · Personal accounthttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.comhttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mzo5k6u4vq26Some experiments from my #houdini cloud plugin development. Trying different ideas to nail down the exact voronoi noise details for the best looking cloud06 Nov 2026 19:47 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mzo5k6u4vq26https://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mzlral3ofa2bI've decided to make a #Houdini plugin out of my renderers procedural cloud system. It allows one to create giant cloudscapes and very small details at once.Besides the giant cumulonimbus clouds, it will also create super wispy fractus clouds.05 Nov 2026 21:01 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mzlral3ofa2bhttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mzb3r72rm22rI'm working on a new procedural cloud system. Currently it's pretty basic but I'm planning on adding more detail using the Nubis clouds methods from the Guerilla games presentations. A little bit more wispy details at the bottoms of the clouds would be nice!01 Nov 2026 15:10 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mzb3r72rm22rhttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mz72qnitzp24I love cryptomatte! I mean not particularly using them (they are for sure handy) but visualizing cryptomatte is so satisfying.31 Oct 2026 19:47 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mz72qnitzp24https://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mz4kbqgkzp2kJust finished implementing the uniform volumes. Now for this volume segments, the scattering and shadow caluclation is done analytically. Which cut down the render time by %90 and halved the relative noise 🥳 The assets are again from Samuel Krug: samk9632.gumroad.com/l/xgdnzw30 Oct 2026 19:47 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mz4kbqgkzp2khttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3myzzsszl332yBtw the promo image for the Zenith is actually from my renderer. It's the brute force spectral atmosphere model rendered from a camera that's roughly 45km up. More about it here: https://sergeneren.com/2026/04/25/brute-force-atmospheric-path-tracer/29 Oct 2026 19:47 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3myzzsszl332yhttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3myxjdvkybk2yMesh lights in Solaris done! Who doesn't love a radiative guy spinning in fog. But the render times for the volume is is still too much, I'm thinking of going towards an analytic volume model for easy scatter like the Karma uniform volume28 Oct 2026 19:47 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3myxjdvkybk2yhttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3myuvkbrf3r2pOne thing I love about my renderer is that there is no feature that is device specific. Everything supported on CPU is also supported by GPU and XPU. For example volumetric progressive photon mapping.27 Oct 2026 18:47 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3myuvkbrf3r2phttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mysiduwcwe2bI'm working on a new volumetric shader which I call "Cloud Volume", evrything is super simplified and only has scattering and no absorption (sigma_t = sigma_s). With all the tricks for extinction and anisotropy falloffs with a single parameter. The cloud vdbs are from Samuel Krug and WDAS26 Oct 2026 19:45 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mysiduwcwe2bhttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mysa5hc5i52bAt this point I lost track of how many hours of rendering I've done to make my brute force atmospheric scatering model to match the 2021 paper from Alexander Wilkie. But the result is very satisfying now. I had to play around the Ozone table a bit26 Oct 2026 17:19 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mysa5hc5i52bhttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mypyksike425Some explosion workflow today with the LPEs supported in my renderer. Intensities are normalized to Beauty25 Oct 2026 19:58 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mypyksike425https://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mypiaksp5k2oI also released a #Houdini Copernicus network plugin called Zenith recently. I allows one to create ray traced lens flares directly in COP network and is already slap comp ready. Meaning it can directly interact with the scene camera while working in #Solaris context. sergeneren.com/zenith/25 Oct 2026 15:05 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mypiaksp5k2ohttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3myphvfgfac2oI've been working on Volumetric progressive photon mapping for some time. The hardest part turned out to be combining the light path vertices of photons with camera/indirect rays, so the LPE AOVs work correctly. Now the caustics from specular vs transmission can be separated25 Oct 2026 14:59 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3myphvfgfac2ohttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mynbthfgek2rI published my first VS Code extension called EXRView🎉. It allows one to directly visualize openexr images inside VS Code. It supports multi-part and multi-layer files, tiled and scanline, subsampled channels and deep images.24 Oct 2026 18:05 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mynbthfgek2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3myn2kjqfh22wNow on to the random walk subsurface scattering. Fixed a critical bug and looks like it now renders ok. A quick comparison to #houdini Karma shows I'm within the %1 error range. The model is from: https://threedscans.com/vienna/penelope/24 Oct 2026 15:55 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3myn2kjqfh22whttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3mykqqxxp5s2nReporting in with my renderer for the mandatory usd kitchen set render for any hydra delegate. #solaris #hydra23 Oct 2026 17:55 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3mykqqxxp5s2nhttps://bsky.app/profile/sergeneren.com/post/3myfrpqmgcc2zWorking on the "A Practical and Controllable Hair and Fur Model for Production Path Tracing" paper in my @sidefx.bsky.social hydra delegate renderer this weekend. The model and the fur is from Houdini capybara test model.21 Oct 2026 18:28 +0000at://did:plc:b7pitkk56zai52rdqjislzqa/app.bsky.feed.post/3myfrpqmgcc2z