Blurb:
Cool particle systems have been popping up in games across the last decade. Why are these novel particle systems a new thing? What tech enables them? How many particles can a midrange gpu draw?
Topics covered: particle definition, gpu instancing, iterated function systems, the chaos game, matrix transformations, linear interpolation, fragment shader bottlenecks, point list meshes, extensions and applications of iterated function systems
It’s why John Carmack (created Wolfenstein, Doom, Rage, and made the engine that drives Half Life, Call of Duty and many more) is so revered. He’s straight up a tech wizard.