Shantanu
@dontstopthinking.bsky.social
Tools Programmer @ Ubisoft Reflections
Reposted by Shantanu
My "No Graphics API" blog post is live! Please repost :)
www.sebastianaaltonen.com/blog/no-grap...
I spend 1.5 years doing this. Full rewrite last summer and another partial rewrite last month. As Hemingway said: "First draft of everything is always shit".
www.sebastianaaltonen.com/blog/no-grap...
I spend 1.5 years doing this. Full rewrite last summer and another partial rewrite last month. As Hemingway said: "First draft of everything is always shit".
No Graphics API — Sebastian Aaltonen
Graphics APIs and shader languages have significantly increased in complexity over the past decade. It’s time to start discussing how to strip down the abstractions to simplify development, improve pe...
www.sebastianaaltonen.com
December 16, 2025 at 6:52 PM
My "No Graphics API" blog post is live! Please repost :)
www.sebastianaaltonen.com/blog/no-grap...
I spend 1.5 years doing this. Full rewrite last summer and another partial rewrite last month. As Hemingway said: "First draft of everything is always shit".
www.sebastianaaltonen.com/blog/no-grap...
I spend 1.5 years doing this. Full rewrite last summer and another partial rewrite last month. As Hemingway said: "First draft of everything is always shit".
Reposted by Shantanu
It’s a good opportunity to know more about Anvil, the engine that powers #AssassinsCreed, and how we approach tech convergence at Ubi. I love this format. Thanks for the chat @gameengineering.bsky.social
youtu.be/vtxXt7E63bQ?...
youtu.be/vtxXt7E63bQ?...
Anvil - Ubisoft’s engine workflow | Nicolas Lopez
YouTube video by Wookash Podcast
youtu.be
December 6, 2025 at 5:46 PM
It’s a good opportunity to know more about Anvil, the engine that powers #AssassinsCreed, and how we approach tech convergence at Ubi. I love this format. Thanks for the chat @gameengineering.bsky.social
youtu.be/vtxXt7E63bQ?...
youtu.be/vtxXt7E63bQ?...
Reposted by Shantanu
We are announced! Network Next is live and accelerating futbol loving fans of REMATCH in South America right now!
www.reddit.com/r/Rematch/co...
www.reddit.com/r/Rematch/co...
From the Rematch community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the Rematch community
www.reddit.com
September 16, 2025 at 6:04 PM
We are announced! Network Next is live and accelerating futbol loving fans of REMATCH in South America right now!
www.reddit.com/r/Rematch/co...
www.reddit.com/r/Rematch/co...
Reposted by Shantanu
July 31, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Reposted by Shantanu
It’s really cool to see my talk freely available for everyone. I’m proud of the work our team accomplished, and it means a lot that it’s now accessible to a wider audience.
Huge thanks to the GDC team for putting it out there!
#AssassinsCreedShadows #GameDevelopment #GDC2025
Huge thanks to the GDC team for putting it out there!
#AssassinsCreedShadows #GameDevelopment #GDC2025
Now on GDC YouTube: Rendering 'Assassin's Creed Shadows'
AC: Shadows is a large systemic open world game with dynamic time of day cycles, a systemic weather system, and seasons. Find out how they made it happen.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj5p...
AC: Shadows is a large systemic open world game with dynamic time of day cycles, a systemic weather system, and seasons. Find out how they made it happen.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj5p...
Rendering 'Assassin's Creed Shadows'
YouTube video by Game Developers Conference
www.youtube.com
May 29, 2025 at 5:42 PM
It’s really cool to see my talk freely available for everyone. I’m proud of the work our team accomplished, and it means a lot that it’s now accessible to a wider audience.
Huge thanks to the GDC team for putting it out there!
#AssassinsCreedShadows #GameDevelopment #GDC2025
Huge thanks to the GDC team for putting it out there!
#AssassinsCreedShadows #GameDevelopment #GDC2025
Reposted by Shantanu
Hardcoded credentials in the Signal archiving tool used by the White House is a five-alarm security dumpster fire.
The source code for the TM SGNL apps (basically a backdoored version of Signal used by Trump officials) is public! Since it's open source, I've pushed it to github for easier research micahflee.com/heres-the-so...
Here's the source code for the unofficial Signal app used by Trump officials
Yesterday, I published an analysis of what I could publicly find about TM SGNL, the obscure and unofficial Signal app used by Mike Waltz, and presumably also by Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, ...
micahflee.com
May 3, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Hardcoded credentials in the Signal archiving tool used by the White House is a five-alarm security dumpster fire.
Reposted by Shantanu
Ever wonder what happens between your code and the CPU? @matt.godbolt.org explores how modern processors & compilers boost performance—and what to do when they don’t.
What Every Programmer Should Know about How CPUs Work • Matt Godbolt • GOTO 2024
This presentation was recorded at GOTO Chicago 2024. #GOTOcon #GOTOchgohttps://gotochgo.comMatt Godbolt - Low-level Latency Geek @MattGodbolt RESOURCEShttps:...
youtu.be
April 16, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Ever wonder what happens between your code and the CPU? @matt.godbolt.org explores how modern processors & compilers boost performance—and what to do when they don’t.
Reposted by Shantanu
“I assumed with Sony having paid a lot of money for (Helldivers 2) that they would run the show. Because what do these wild kids in Sweden know? But I've been very pleasantly surprised to see how creator friendly PlayStation has been. Truly impressive” www.thegamebusiness.com/p/helldivers...
How six million Call of Duty players sent Helldivers 2 into a tailspin
“Games that get 19% user score do not generally recover”
www.thegamebusiness.com
April 2, 2025 at 6:30 AM
“I assumed with Sony having paid a lot of money for (Helldivers 2) that they would run the show. Because what do these wild kids in Sweden know? But I've been very pleasantly surprised to see how creator friendly PlayStation has been. Truly impressive” www.thegamebusiness.com/p/helldivers...
Huge congrats to all my colleagues at Ubisoft on the launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows! The game is absolutely incredible - you guys have completely knocked it out of the park with this one. Bravo!
March 21, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Huge congrats to all my colleagues at Ubisoft on the launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows! The game is absolutely incredible - you guys have completely knocked it out of the park with this one. Bravo!
Reposted by Shantanu
I wrote a new blog post!
It's about pseudorandom number generators - what these are, how they work, when you might to use a custom one in GameMaker, and performance comparisons.
yal.cc/gamemaker-cu...
It's about pseudorandom number generators - what these are, how they work, when you might to use a custom one in GameMaker, and performance comparisons.
yal.cc/gamemaker-cu...
![A screenshot of the blog post reads:
# What's a PRNG
Most random number generators that you see on computers are pseudorandom number generators.
These are algorithms that output random-looking numbers based on one or other form of initial seed or state. Same input means same outputs!
Typically each iteration the generator will modify its internal state and return a value.
For example, a tiny, pitiful implementation of Lehmer random number generator might look something like this:
newState = (oldState * 7) % 11;
Given an initial state/seed of 3, this would output
[...]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u3hek6kpzqeee3xa6f65otna/bafkreiafqnvmiytybquifjrskuxxzbb3qute7mdkeqq5pltuamgrjm2wb4@jpeg)
![A screenshot of the blog post reads:
# "Save scumming"
[image: A person with a sword and a shield stands on an isometric tile and innocently looks at a "17%" label above them]
If your game involves chance actions and allows to save/load the game before performing such actions, players will inevitably figure out that they can save and re-load the game to re-try the roll until they get what they want.
GameMaker does not currently allow to save/load state of the built-in random generator (and likely won't in the near future), but with a custom generator, you could save its state along with the game and load it back so that performing the same action after loading the game will always yield the same result.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u3hek6kpzqeee3xa6f65otna/bafkreic4qctlqnihdw5tbhuwzepdkkqcgkfgwyuq65lscczhwgigvd5lru@jpeg)
![A screenshot of the blog post reads:
# WELL512
This is the PRNG that GameMaker itself uses!
Standing for Well Equidistributed Long-period Linear, it's a RNG with state consisting of an index and 16 unsigned 32-bit numbers. Allegedly it's all-around pretty good.
This is another one where the code almost works if you copy-pasted it:
[...]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u3hek6kpzqeee3xa6f65otna/bafkreiecn2gkz7nbp23i7txygfc2znind3voccl5xhp5vru5iusot57nvy@jpeg)
![A screenshot of the blog post reads:
# MINSTD
This generator is much simpler so it manages to beat some of the extension calls even on VM:
[graphs]
And on YYC, a global version almost beats the C++ raw pointer version!
[graphs]
You can squeeze a little more performance out of it by turning the generator into a set of macros:
[graphs]
Here I'm also testing a script that modifies a self.state variable with a forceinline tag, but that is not as efficient as doing this during a GML build with a macro.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u3hek6kpzqeee3xa6f65otna/bafkreidyvaooylvppfdahfvjnl23sjb5yzrgbzqidrwyjb75czn2kmb42i@jpeg)
March 3, 2025 at 10:06 PM
I wrote a new blog post!
It's about pseudorandom number generators - what these are, how they work, when you might to use a custom one in GameMaker, and performance comparisons.
yal.cc/gamemaker-cu...
It's about pseudorandom number generators - what these are, how they work, when you might to use a custom one in GameMaker, and performance comparisons.
yal.cc/gamemaker-cu...
Reposted by Shantanu
Obsidian is now free for work.
Starting today, the Obsidian Commercial license is optional. Anyone can use Obsidian for work, for free. Explore the organizations that support Obsidian on our site.
obsidian.md/blog/free-fo...
Starting today, the Obsidian Commercial license is optional. Anyone can use Obsidian for work, for free. Explore the organizations that support Obsidian on our site.
obsidian.md/blog/free-fo...
Obsidian is now free for work
Starting today, the Obsidian Commercial license is optional. Anyone can use Obsidian for work, for free. Explore organizations that support Obsidian on our new Enterprise page.
obsidian.md
February 20, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Obsidian is now free for work.
Starting today, the Obsidian Commercial license is optional. Anyone can use Obsidian for work, for free. Explore the organizations that support Obsidian on our site.
obsidian.md/blog/free-fo...
Starting today, the Obsidian Commercial license is optional. Anyone can use Obsidian for work, for free. Explore the organizations that support Obsidian on our site.
obsidian.md/blog/free-fo...
Reposted by Shantanu
I spent the last month reverse engineering Call of Duty's anti-cheat!
Blog post here: ssno.cc/posts/revers...
Blog post here: ssno.cc/posts/revers...
Reverse Engineering Call Of Duty Anti-Cheat
I’ve been reversing Black Ops Cold War for a while now, and I’ve finally decided to share my research regarding the user-mode anti-cheat inside the game. It’s not my intention to shame or promote chea...
ssno.cc
January 20, 2025 at 9:49 PM
I spent the last month reverse engineering Call of Duty's anti-cheat!
Blog post here: ssno.cc/posts/revers...
Blog post here: ssno.cc/posts/revers...
Reposted by Shantanu
CARTOON OF THE DAY
January 21, 2025 at 10:05 PM
CARTOON OF THE DAY
Reposted by Shantanu
I have just made the repo of my C++ STL replacement lib public on github. It's called Bedrock.
It's got the usual things, Vector, String, Atomic etc. but also a very good HashMap and few interesting allocators (details on blog: danglingpointers.com/post/bedrock...)
github.com/jlaumon/Bedr...
It's got the usual things, Vector, String, Atomic etc. but also a very good HashMap and few interesting allocators (details on blog: danglingpointers.com/post/bedrock...)
github.com/jlaumon/Bedr...
GitHub - jlaumon/Bedrock: Minimal C++20 STL replacement library. Simpler, smaller, and in many cases faster.
Minimal C++20 STL replacement library. Simpler, smaller, and in many cases faster. - jlaumon/Bedrock
github.com
December 30, 2024 at 1:08 PM
I have just made the repo of my C++ STL replacement lib public on github. It's called Bedrock.
It's got the usual things, Vector, String, Atomic etc. but also a very good HashMap and few interesting allocators (details on blog: danglingpointers.com/post/bedrock...)
github.com/jlaumon/Bedr...
It's got the usual things, Vector, String, Atomic etc. but also a very good HashMap and few interesting allocators (details on blog: danglingpointers.com/post/bedrock...)
github.com/jlaumon/Bedr...
Reposted by Shantanu
What does it mean for something to be Turing complete?
I answer this question, and more, through a series of fully interactive Turing machine simulations! Play, pause, step forwards and backwards, and even write your own Turing machine programs in my latest blog post.
samwho.dev/turing-machi...
I answer this question, and more, through a series of fully interactive Turing machine simulations! Play, pause, step forwards and backwards, and even write your own Turing machine programs in my latest blog post.
samwho.dev/turing-machi...
December 20, 2024 at 10:33 PM
What does it mean for something to be Turing complete?
I answer this question, and more, through a series of fully interactive Turing machine simulations! Play, pause, step forwards and backwards, and even write your own Turing machine programs in my latest blog post.
samwho.dev/turing-machi...
I answer this question, and more, through a series of fully interactive Turing machine simulations! Play, pause, step forwards and backwards, and even write your own Turing machine programs in my latest blog post.
samwho.dev/turing-machi...
Reposted by Shantanu
Some of my fav work I did on SW:Jedi Survivor.
Joined late during production of the game so had to produce work at lightening speed while learning the engine and systems. Sometimes you never get as much time as you like on levels, so you have to learn to take short cuts to get the quality you want.
Joined late during production of the game so had to produce work at lightening speed while learning the engine and systems. Sometimes you never get as much time as you like on levels, so you have to learn to take short cuts to get the quality you want.
November 21, 2024 at 12:51 AM
Some of my fav work I did on SW:Jedi Survivor.
Joined late during production of the game so had to produce work at lightening speed while learning the engine and systems. Sometimes you never get as much time as you like on levels, so you have to learn to take short cuts to get the quality you want.
Joined late during production of the game so had to produce work at lightening speed while learning the engine and systems. Sometimes you never get as much time as you like on levels, so you have to learn to take short cuts to get the quality you want.
Reposted by Shantanu
You know what I hear a lot about in this industry? Imposter syndrome.
I made the 8th best-selling game of all time. By all rights, I should feel like an authority. I don’t. I have it too.
Here’s my advice to devs out there: Ignore it. You’re better than you think you are.
I made the 8th best-selling game of all time. By all rights, I should feel like an authority. I don’t. I have it too.
Here’s my advice to devs out there: Ignore it. You’re better than you think you are.
November 24, 2024 at 4:42 AM
You know what I hear a lot about in this industry? Imposter syndrome.
I made the 8th best-selling game of all time. By all rights, I should feel like an authority. I don’t. I have it too.
Here’s my advice to devs out there: Ignore it. You’re better than you think you are.
I made the 8th best-selling game of all time. By all rights, I should feel like an authority. I don’t. I have it too.
Here’s my advice to devs out there: Ignore it. You’re better than you think you are.
Reposted by Shantanu
𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕗 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕗𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕤 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕠 𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖.
November 18, 2024 at 10:20 PM
𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕗 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕗𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕤 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕠 𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖.
Reposted by Shantanu
The Telltale game engine has a cutscene tool called the "Chore tool" (chore is short for choreography), for constructing cinematic sequences out of component parts. The tool and its name has a heritage that goes all the way back to one of the original tools built for making LucasArts SCUMM games.
November 9, 2024 at 11:43 PM
The Telltale game engine has a cutscene tool called the "Chore tool" (chore is short for choreography), for constructing cinematic sequences out of component parts. The tool and its name has a heritage that goes all the way back to one of the original tools built for making LucasArts SCUMM games.
Hey hey, is this place any better than Twitter??
September 6, 2024 at 9:40 PM
Hey hey, is this place any better than Twitter??