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Nicolas Lopez

@nicolas-lopez.bsky.social

Technical Architect and GPU Plumber on Assassin's Creed & Anvil Engine at Ubisoft MTL. I speak for myself.

547 Followers  |  229 Following  |  65 Posts  |  Joined: 07.11.2024
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Posts by Nicolas Lopez (@nicolas-lopez.bsky.social)

Direct3D 11.3 Functional Specification

Float to R8_UNorm conversion has a permitted tolerance of 0.6ulp in the DX spec. 0.55/255 on some GPUs rounds down to 0 and on others rounds up to 1/255. Dangerous behavior when R8_UNorm NumFramesAccumulated=0 is used by a denoiser to mark invalid history... microsoft.github.io/DirectX-Spec...

24.02.2026 04:38 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 18    ๐Ÿ” 4    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Simon Rodriguez Renderistically - Simon Rodriguez

[BLOG] A frame analysis of Dark Souls III
blog.simonrodriguez.fr/articles/202...

A detailed look at how the FromSoftware game renders a frame, with step-by-step comparisons and explanations.

21.02.2026 22:25 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 27    ๐Ÿ” 13    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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I am happy to announce publication of my chapter titled "Real-Time Neural Network Implementation for GPUs" in GPU Zen 4 book, available now.

Chapter comes with full MIT-licensed source code, available on Github here: github.com/boksajak/MLP...

The book is available on Amazon.

20.02.2026 15:57 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 36    ๐Ÿ” 6    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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I'd like to share @daqilin.bsky.social and I co-authored a chapter in the latest GPU Zen 4 book.

We cover the engineering details of implementing ReSTIR GI & PT in UE5's NvRTX branch, adopted in NVIDIA's Zorah project showcased at CES and GDC last year.

The book is now available on Amazon.

20.02.2026 17:10 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 50    ๐Ÿ” 10    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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I've been working with Spherical Gaussians recently as a representation for irradiance in realtime raytracing.

Ended up deriving quite a few new approximations relating to SGs and diffuse lighting. Ended up with something both cheap and accurate. Check it out:

www.shadertoy.com/view/WX3fRB

11.02.2026 14:50 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 77    ๐Ÿ” 10    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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GPU Zen 4: Advanced Rendering Techniques GPU Zen 4: Advanced Rendering Techniques [Engel, Wolfgang Friedrich, Reznikov, Laura, Bazhenov, Kirill, Lopez, Nicolas, Blanco, Victor] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. GPU Zen 4: Advanced Rendering Techniques

โ€ชAvailable now on Amazon:โ€ฌ
โ€ชStandard Edition: a.co/d/0cvhJuSU โ€ฌ
โ€ชDeluxe Edition: a.co/d/07t0MZGz%E...
โ€ชKindle version is comingโ€ฌ

20.02.2026 01:28 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 8    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I didnโ€™t know it existed!

20.02.2026 01:16 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Excited to share that GPU Zen 4: Advanced Rendering Techniques is officially out. This volume features work from some of the most visually impactful projects of recent years, including #AssassinsCreed , #DOOM , #StarwarsOutLaws and NVidia's Zorah. And a killer cover :)

20.02.2026 01:02 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 87    ๐Ÿ” 19    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 5    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2

Best bagels, our office is literally next street :D

18.02.2026 15:38 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Adventures in Neural Rendering In recent years, neural networks have started to find their way into many areas of rendering. While antialiasing and upscaling are probably the most wellโ€‘known uses, theyโ€™re far from the only onesโ€”โ€ฆ

Iโ€™ve recently been tinkering with MLPs, exploring different ways they might be used in rendering to get a feel for their potential. I also put together a blog post with some initial impressions. interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2026/02/10/a...

10.02.2026 21:12 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 25    ๐Ÿ” 6    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Software occlusion culling in Block Game My GPU is the integrated Radeon Vega 8 that comes with my AMD Ryzen 7 5700G CPU. I tell you this so you know that my workstation is not a graphical computing powerhouse. It is, in fact, quite weak. To...

My blog post about how software rendered depth based occlusion culling in Block Game functions is out now! enikofox.com/posts/softwa...

#GameDev #ProcGen ๐ŸŽฎ

16.01.2026 22:10 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 256    ๐Ÿ” 55    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 3    ๐Ÿ“Œ 2

I and the team had the chance to talk to @digitalfoundry about our port of #assassinscreedshadow including some behind the scene debug views

15.01.2026 16:53 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 15    ๐Ÿ” 1    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Assassin's Creed Shadows on Switch 2: The Making of an "Impossible Port" "All the investments we had in scalability really paid off."

How Ubisoft brought AC Shadows to Switch 2: "Some people called it an impossible port, and it can sound a bit impossible at the beginning... but the key is to understand the specificities of the GPU architecture."
www.digitalfoundry.net/features/ass...

15.01.2026 15:33 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 89    ๐Ÿ” 7    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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No Graphics API โ€” Sebastian Aaltonen Graphics APIs and shader languages have significantly increased in complexity over the past decade. Itโ€™s time to start discussing how to strip down the abstractions to simplify development, improve pe...

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".

16.12.2025 18:51 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 466    ๐Ÿ” 191    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 19    ๐Ÿ“Œ 12

โ€œObviouslyโ€ :)

14.12.2025 15:34 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Congrats to you!

14.12.2025 01:43 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Digital Foundry's Best Game Graphics of 2025 - PC/PS5/Xbox/Switch 2 - Another Amazing Year
YouTube video by Digital Foundry Digital Foundry's Best Game Graphics of 2025 - PC/PS5/Xbox/Switch 2 - Another Amazing Year

#AssassinsCreedShadows named 2nd best looking game of 2025 by @digitalfoundry.
โ€œAnvil at a super next-gen levelโ€ made me smile.
Countless hours of work behind thisโ€”very happy to see it recognized.

youtu.be/nZ7pc4M-Uuk?...

13.12.2025 23:01 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 29    ๐Ÿ” 2    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 6    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Huge congrats to #ClairObscurExpedition33! So proud to see a French game take the top spot. An absolutely stunning achievement, your work inspires so many of us. Bravo ร  toute lโ€™รฉquipe!

12.12.2025 11:39 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 11    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

"Microbenchmarking NVIDIAโ€™s Blackwell Architecture: An in-depth Architectural Analysis", focusing on the tensor cores arxiv.org/pdf/2512.02189

11.12.2025 22:59 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 8    ๐Ÿ” 3    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Anvil - Ubisoftโ€™s engine workflow | Nicolas Lopez
YouTube video by Wookash Podcast Anvil - Ubisoftโ€™s engine workflow | Nicolas Lopez

Itโ€™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?...

06.12.2025 17:46 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 40    ๐Ÿ” 9    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Glad to see this fixed!

26.11.2025 00:18 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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New blog post! Behind the scenes of some of the techniques involved in making our last PC demo ๐Ÿ’ซ gboisse.github.io/posts/this-i...

05.11.2025 21:15 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 112    ๐Ÿ” 38    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
Dear ImGui | On UI Architecture with Omar Cornut
YouTube video by Wookash Podcast Dear ImGui | On UI Architecture with Omar Cornut

ลukasz from Wookash Podcast (@gameengineering.bsky.social) has posted a lengthy conversation I recorded with him a few weeks ago:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KPU...
It's really awkward for me to watch it so I'll assume it's just confused rambling :)

08.11.2025 20:03 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 65    ๐Ÿ” 14    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
ReGIR - An advanced implementation for many-lights offline rendering | Tom Clabault Tom Clabault's website

ReGIR - An advanced implementation for many-lights offline rendering tomclabault.github.io/blog/2025/re...

20.10.2025 19:30 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 29    ๐Ÿ” 7    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Inside NVIDIA GPUs: Anatomy of high performance matmul kernels - Aleksa Gordiฤ‡ From GPU architecture and PTX/SASS to warp-tiling and deep asynchronous tensor core pipelines.

"Inside NVIDIA GPUs: Anatomy of high performance matmul kernels", includes a great intro to GPU architecture and PTX/SASS: www.aleksagordic.com/blog/matmul

01.10.2025 19:36 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 56    ๐Ÿ” 12    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
RAY TRACING THE WORLD OF ASSASSIN'S CREED SHADOWS (Advances in Real-Time Rendering SIGGRAPH 2025)
YouTube video by SIGGRAPH Advances in Real-Time Rendering RAY TRACING THE WORLD OF ASSASSIN'S CREED SHADOWS (Advances in Real-Time Rendering SIGGRAPH 2025)

Ray tracing The World of #AssassinsCreedShadows (Siggraph 2025) available on YouTube youtu.be/2K-rwy4aMmU?...

30.09.2025 08:08 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 24    ๐Ÿ” 3    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Fixing C
YouTube video by Neokineogfx Fixing C

This new video by Timothy Lottes will be the craziest way of programming you've seen for a long time. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrL7...

23.09.2025 17:48 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 16    ๐Ÿ” 4    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

I had 3 of those. They all failed me the same way.

01.09.2025 13:21 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 0    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0

Idk, but 40 looks closer to 60 than to 30 to me and this is wild

30.08.2025 02:42 โ€” ๐Ÿ‘ 1    ๐Ÿ” 0    ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0    ๐Ÿ“Œ 0