I do my PhD on physically based (differentiable) rendering, material appearance modeling/perception @tsawallis.bsky.social's Perception Lab I enjoy photography, animation/VFX/games, working on my renderer, languages and contributing to open source.https://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalidhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mjpilh42622sI hope many more will follow. [contains quote post or other embedded content]17 Apr 2026 17:54 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjpilh42622shttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mjp7whityk2fMore personal renderer tales: Unidirectional path tracing + manifold next event estimation Wanted to see how far I can get with caustics without using Photon mapping. (excuse the sloppy water surface, which is procedural itself)17 Apr 2026 15:19 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjp7whityk2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mjgs3ngsgk2qHow wet can water get? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufupe0YLVA014 Apr 2026 06:50 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mjgs3ngsgk2qhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3miygas22a22thttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/technology/anthropic-claims-its-new-ai-model-mythos-is-a-cybersecurity-reckoning.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZVA.XwyL._nZT9PgIoXgB&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/technology/anthropic-claims-its-new-ai-model-mythos-is-a-cybersecurity-reckoning.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZVA.XwyL._nZT9PgIoXgB&smid=url-share&utm_source=tldrnewsletter08 Apr 2026 13:41 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3miygas22a22thttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mihhmtb7fk2lToday's my first day of the second year of my doctoral degree and I want to share some things I struggle with and things I learned throughout the first year. Just a brain dump and no particular order. Feel free to add yours :) 1/n01 Apr 2026 19:50 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mihhmtb7fk2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mhvaaks46k2pOffline rendering tales. Just implemented a BVH in my own renderer using the surface area heuristic and iterative traversal. Meanwhile, brute force still hasn't finished (30+ mins).25 Mar 2026 13:50 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhvaaks46k2phttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mhadnd7oyk2fBeen trying to implement OpenPBR (academysoftwarefoundation.github.io/OpenPBR/) in Mitsuba. Here are some preliminary results with the spectral renderer. The geometry is the standard shader ball available in @openusd.bsky.social. It's pretty neat to visualise different light-surface interactions.17 Mar 2026 06:25 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mhadnd7oyk2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mh7i5mer3c2kword.16 Mar 2026 22:13 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mh7i5mer3c2khttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mh76njo6vc2lFound something potentially useful for the neural graphics folks: arxiv.org/abs/2603.08824 TL;DR: Package finds soft surrogates for otherwise non-differentiable functions. Has an implementation for Torch: https://github.com/a-paulus/softtorch & Jax: https://github.com/a-paulus/softjax https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.0882416 Mar 2026 19:23 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mh76njo6vc2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mgtvnonouc2f@godotengine.org received the infamous Nvidia RTX branch: https://github.com/NVIDIA-RTX/godot A path tracer is included among other things.12 Mar 2026 07:43 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgtvnonouc2fhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mgotaxbi5s2qAdobe open sourced their OpenPBR implementation: https://github.com/adobe/openpbr-bsdf10 Mar 2026 07:16 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgotaxbi5s2qhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mgklr3elmk2yFinal Fantasy XVI 14/10. Onto the expansions!08 Mar 2026 14:52 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mgklr3elmk2yhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mg7vjrqst22aIs there anyone by chance who uses colemap-dh on a split columnar keyboard and has a bulletproof layout for symbols? I still struggle to find a comfortable symbol layer.04 Mar 2026 08:47 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mg7vjrqst22ahttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mg3br3fsh22vNew bugfix is available for: https://github.com/pixelsandpointers/mitsuba-scene-description Now nested plugins serialize/resolve correctly in your scene, so you can start using BlendedBSDFs :)02 Mar 2026 12:43 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mg3br3fsh22vhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mfp6xwoemc2rI was today's years old: https://github.com/rlguy/Blender-FLIP-Fluids25 Feb 2026 17:21 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfp6xwoemc2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mfn4yehn422hLate to the party, but… I just had the most cinematic encounter in my entire video game career fighting against a primed Titan in #FFXVI. Good job @square-enix-games.com, I’m flabbergasted.24 Feb 2026 21:40 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfn4yehn422hhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mfjfvjn5ds27G'day! I've just published a new version of mitsuba-scene-description to GitHub and PyPI: https://github.com/pixelsandpointers/mitsuba-scene-description I've changed the generation process, so you no longer need to manually clone and build the API yourself. The Mitsuba plugin API will now be generated during package build. 1/x23 Feb 2026 10:09 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfjfvjn5ds27https://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mf7cuoozm22qUnfortunately, I left Claude fixing Arxiv compilation errors. Apparently, it changed a citation in the process (that was right in v1 of the paper). I am currently reviewing all the citations now again by hand and preparing a new version that fixes these. I will also post them here: 1/x [contains quote post or other embedded content]19 Feb 2026 09:48 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mf7cuoozm22qhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3mf2omhhxhs2dNot gonna lie, I'm impressed by Unreal's new layered material system (Substrate): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1ncs8M6Lkg Reminds me a lot of Wenzel's and Andrea's work on layered BSDFs, but for real-time graphics. Happy to see it in Unreal. https://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/publications/2007/weidlich_2007_almfs/ https://rgl.epfl.ch/publications/Jakob2014Comprehensive17 Feb 2026 13:35 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3mf2omhhxhs2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3meym3xhids2dSorry for the wait (been to China for 4 weeks between the years), but I finally managed to update the pre-print with more results and the code is now also available on: https://github.com/ag-perception-wallis-lab/MRD If you run into issues, let me know. [contains quote post or other embedded content]16 Feb 2026 17:45 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3meym3xhids2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3meixwc5bh22sHappy to announce that I will be giving a remote talk @vssmtg.bsky.social this year. I will be presenting our recent pre-print MRD: Metamers rendered differentiably (arxiv.org/abs/2512.12307). Happy to take questions before the presentation in May, or live during the online Q&A. #VSS2026 #VSS26 https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.1230710 Feb 2026 12:34 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3meixwc5bh22shttps://bsky.app/profile/handle.invalid/post/3meiptlf54c2qThat’s cool. 🤓 [contains quote post or other embedded content]10 Feb 2026 10:09 +0000at://did:plc:kutrsf5pzrkdsgp2vvmlnasx/app.bsky.feed.post/3meiptlf54c2q