Don Williamson
@donw.bsky.social
Head of Rendering @ Pacific Light & Hologram
~30 games/engines/platforms including Fable, Splinter Cell, Total War, Dauntless, No Mans Sky, DeepMind Lab.
Lionhead/Microsft, Ubisoft, Google/DeepMind, SEGA, etc.
https://donw.io
https://github.com/Celtoys/
~30 games/engines/platforms including Fable, Splinter Cell, Total War, Dauntless, No Mans Sky, DeepMind Lab.
Lionhead/Microsft, Ubisoft, Google/DeepMind, SEGA, etc.
https://donw.io
https://github.com/Celtoys/
Join us on a journey through 50 years of computer graphics and help realize the path it never got to take by inventing the missing hardware, math, and algorithms! Lead our build/test/release culture and help make our next-generation devices: www.indeed.com/job/seeking-...
Seeking Build & Infrastructure Engineer - San Gabriel, CA 91776 - Indeed.com
Pacific Light & Hologram, Inc.
www.indeed.com
February 4, 2026 at 5:17 PM
Join us on a journey through 50 years of computer graphics and help realize the path it never got to take by inventing the missing hardware, math, and algorithms! Lead our build/test/release culture and help make our next-generation devices: www.indeed.com/job/seeking-...
Before the days of SSR, the water of Fable 1 on Xbox used the screen buffer as a texture source, flipping it and warping texture co-ords.
Other PS2 games would have done this as well since using the frame buffer as a texture source was trivial on the GS.
Other PS2 games would have done this as well since using the frame buffer as a texture source was trivial on the GS.
January 23, 2026 at 9:21 AM
Before the days of SSR, the water of Fable 1 on Xbox used the screen buffer as a texture source, flipping it and warping texture co-ords.
Other PS2 games would have done this as well since using the frame buffer as a texture source was trivial on the GS.
Other PS2 games would have done this as well since using the frame buffer as a texture source was trivial on the GS.
Bah! Not enough Ulster players being called up for the 6N; they are white hot right now. Don't care about 6N results and fear Farrell is fast becoming a World Cup liability. I mean, Lions tour was awesome, but we were the only country to sacrifice long-term progress for it.
January 22, 2026 at 10:31 AM
Bah! Not enough Ulster players being called up for the 6N; they are white hot right now. Don't care about 6N results and fear Farrell is fast becoming a World Cup liability. I mean, Lions tour was awesome, but we were the only country to sacrifice long-term progress for it.
I snapshot many things but one I regret not doing is DEV7 for the Adibou games. It was light years ahead of its time: a non-programmer-friendly, high-level custom language with IDE, debugger & integrated asset pipeline. Again; it was French, and I love that I got to witness their technical prowess.
December 17, 2025 at 9:45 AM
I snapshot many things but one I regret not doing is DEV7 for the Adibou games. It was light years ahead of its time: a non-programmer-friendly, high-level custom language with IDE, debugger & integrated asset pipeline. Again; it was French, and I love that I got to witness their technical prowess.
Playing through Just Cause 3 right now and it's totally brilliant. On the one hand it's gorgeous and fun to zip around everywhere. On the other, despite its impressive open world, it also highlights the astonishing attention to detail GTA 5 had.
December 16, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Playing through Just Cause 3 right now and it's totally brilliant. On the one hand it's gorgeous and fun to zip around everywhere. On the other, despite its impressive open world, it also highlights the astonishing attention to detail GTA 5 had.
Reposted by Don Williamson
There are a couple of live demos too:
Basic testbed: andrewwillmott.github.io/app/DemoApp....
Constrained paths, using quaternion splines for orientation: andrewwillmott.github.io/app/DemoApp....
Basic testbed: andrewwillmott.github.io/app/DemoApp....
Constrained paths, using quaternion splines for orientation: andrewwillmott.github.io/app/DemoApp....
December 1, 2025 at 5:29 PM
There are a couple of live demos too:
Basic testbed: andrewwillmott.github.io/app/DemoApp....
Constrained paths, using quaternion splines for orientation: andrewwillmott.github.io/app/DemoApp....
Basic testbed: andrewwillmott.github.io/app/DemoApp....
Constrained paths, using quaternion splines for orientation: andrewwillmott.github.io/app/DemoApp....
Reposted by Don Williamson
I've pushed a few changes to my splines library, github.com/andrewwillmo..., recently, including:
December 1, 2025 at 5:25 PM
I've pushed a few changes to my splines library, github.com/andrewwillmo..., recently, including:
Reposted by Don Williamson
Hurrah! The Nintendo Switch port I’ve been working on is finally done - Moonring is out today!
#gamdev #moonring
www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/...
#gamdev #moonring
www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/...
Moonring DX | Nintendo Switch download software | Games | Nintendo UK
Travel, trade, sneak, fight and sail the world of Caldera in this retro-inspired open-world, turn-based RPG, featuring a mix of hand-crafted world and procedural dungeons.
www.nintendo.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Hurrah! The Nintendo Switch port I’ve been working on is finally done - Moonring is out today!
#gamdev #moonring
www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/...
#gamdev #moonring
www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/...
Ah, nice, yet another "wrote a huge chunk of the bloody engine" credit gets marked up as "additional programming." As a contractor/consultant you have much better financial control over your future but don't ever expect to be part of the team. If you want legitimate credit: put it in your contract.
November 24, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Ah, nice, yet another "wrote a huge chunk of the bloody engine" credit gets marked up as "additional programming." As a contractor/consultant you have much better financial control over your future but don't ever expect to be part of the team. If you want legitimate credit: put it in your contract.
It's coming up on 10 years since I added Global Illumination to UE4 for a client and I still feel immensely sad when colourful games don't attempt the same. They lose out on so much warmth and grounding, and also making lighting artist' life much easier.
(this particular one was voxel cone tracing)
(this particular one was voxel cone tracing)
November 19, 2025 at 9:34 PM
It's coming up on 10 years since I added Global Illumination to UE4 for a client and I still feel immensely sad when colourful games don't attempt the same. They lose out on so much warmth and grounding, and also making lighting artist' life much easier.
(this particular one was voxel cone tracing)
(this particular one was voxel cone tracing)
Reposted by Don Williamson
This is Sektori! A twin-stick shooter I've been making (and documenting the journey) since April 2021. And it finally launched TODAY on Steam, PS5 and Xbox! Here's a fresh launch trailer, all shares highly appreciated. More game info in replies.
#indiegame #ps5 #xbox #steam #indiedev #gamedev
#indiegame #ps5 #xbox #steam #indiedev #gamedev
November 18, 2025 at 10:49 AM
Reposted by Don Williamson
New blog post about the development of Radical Pie:
terathon.com/blog/radical...
terathon.com/blog/radical...
November 1, 2025 at 10:32 PM
New blog post about the development of Radical Pie:
terathon.com/blog/radical...
terathon.com/blog/radical...
Took me AGES to dig this up, I knew I preserved it but I have so many backups. This my first reviewed Shareware game from early 1997 (aged 16). I'd love to frame it but it does look a bit gaudy 😂
November 10, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Took me AGES to dig this up, I knew I preserved it but I have so many backups. This my first reviewed Shareware game from early 1997 (aged 16). I'd love to frame it but it does look a bit gaudy 😂
Looking at my C# code from 15 years ago: it was more verbose but A LOT less noisy. Trying to get to the bottom of it but there's a lot more scoping and brackets these days, with increased use of properties.
November 7, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Looking at my C# code from 15 years ago: it was more verbose but A LOT less noisy. Trying to get to the bottom of it but there's a lot more scoping and brackets these days, with increased use of properties.
Reposted by Don Williamson
I am excited to announce the release of Radical Pie, version 1.0! This is the professional equation typesetting application that I've been working on for the last year. See the website for details.
radicalpie.com
radicalpie.com
October 28, 2025 at 10:39 PM
I am excited to announce the release of Radical Pie, version 1.0! This is the professional equation typesetting application that I've been working on for the last year. See the website for details.
radicalpie.com
radicalpie.com
I never got on with the later levels of Doom 1/2. The earlier levels were a master class in level design, while the later ones were a bit boring for me.
Just played Doom 2 Master Levels, though, and OH MY GOD they are a revelation. Incredibly well made and super fun!
doomwiki.org/wiki/Master_...
Just played Doom 2 Master Levels, though, and OH MY GOD they are a revelation. Incredibly well made and super fun!
doomwiki.org/wiki/Master_...
Master Levels for Doom II
The Master Levels for Doom II were released on December 26, 1995 by id Software as an expansion pack for Doom II. It was also included as a bonus on the Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil Xbox game disc in ...
doomwiki.org
November 3, 2025 at 10:57 AM
I never got on with the later levels of Doom 1/2. The earlier levels were a master class in level design, while the later ones were a bit boring for me.
Just played Doom 2 Master Levels, though, and OH MY GOD they are a revelation. Incredibly well made and super fun!
doomwiki.org/wiki/Master_...
Just played Doom 2 Master Levels, though, and OH MY GOD they are a revelation. Incredibly well made and super fun!
doomwiki.org/wiki/Master_...
I'm frankly astonished that we still can't tell our x64 CPUs to not add entries to the BTB. We have millions of bounds checks, sanitiser guards, type checks, overflow checks, etc. polluting the BTB. When all we need is a "BTB says no" and a forward branch.
Xbox 360 PPC tw instruction be sad :(
Xbox 360 PPC tw instruction be sad :(
October 23, 2025 at 11:48 AM
I'm frankly astonished that we still can't tell our x64 CPUs to not add entries to the BTB. We have millions of bounds checks, sanitiser guards, type checks, overflow checks, etc. polluting the BTB. When all we need is a "BTB says no" and a forward branch.
Xbox 360 PPC tw instruction be sad :(
Xbox 360 PPC tw instruction be sad :(
It must be every few months I become horrified at C# authors significantly ballooning the surface area of the language. Today I found Primary Constructors and I had to WTF. Each new generation of C# programmer must have fundamentally incompatible styles.
October 17, 2025 at 11:27 AM
It must be every few months I become horrified at C# authors significantly ballooning the surface area of the language. Today I found Primary Constructors and I had to WTF. Each new generation of C# programmer must have fundamentally incompatible styles.
LAPACK/BLAS have a neat vector normalisation trick: find the max axis and divide each component by that before rsqrt and scale. Avoids overflow and gradual underflow due to squaring in the rsqrt. If the max axis is tiny then all axes are tiny so the components can be considered roughly proportional.
October 9, 2025 at 9:58 AM
LAPACK/BLAS have a neat vector normalisation trick: find the max axis and divide each component by that before rsqrt and scale. Avoids overflow and gradual underflow due to squaring in the rsqrt. If the max axis is tiny then all axes are tiny so the components can be considered roughly proportional.
There are days when I look at colourful, cartoony models up close and get annoyed at the polygonal silhouettes. Mainly because a small team in Santa Monica solved this 25 years ago on a Playstation 2 and I love that technology so much (tfrags!) . Using Lisp.
October 7, 2025 at 9:23 PM
There are days when I look at colourful, cartoony models up close and get annoyed at the polygonal silhouettes. Mainly because a small team in Santa Monica solved this 25 years ago on a Playstation 2 and I love that technology so much (tfrags!) . Using Lisp.
Reposted by Don Williamson
This game is all Glowmade, a crazy-talented team making a game they love. I played a small part on their custom engine, building lots since the WonderWorlds days (e.g. lighting model pretty much the same). This one has my own RHI across PC, Xbox and Playstaion too.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRr0...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRr0...
Beat This Game, Win $250,000
YouTube video by MrBeast Gaming
www.youtube.com
October 4, 2025 at 12:07 PM
This game is all Glowmade, a crazy-talented team making a game they love. I played a small part on their custom engine, building lots since the WonderWorlds days (e.g. lighting model pretty much the same). This one has my own RHI across PC, Xbox and Playstaion too.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRr0...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRr0...
It's days like this I remember why I wrote Remotery. I'm building a 32-bit app and I recall Total War: Rome 2 being very tight on memory where no existing profiler would run without crashing. I had to write a custom one that ended up being the inspiration for Remotery.
October 3, 2025 at 10:59 AM
It's days like this I remember why I wrote Remotery. I'm building a 32-bit app and I recall Total War: Rome 2 being very tight on memory where no existing profiler would run without crashing. I had to write a custom one that ended up being the inspiration for Remotery.