Delve into the world of graphics and game development. Discuss creating stunning visuals, optimizing game mechanics, and share resources for game developers.

All subtopics
Posts under Graphics & Games topic

Post

Replies

Boosts

Views

Activity

Bone deformation
I have been tasked with creating content for the Apple Vision Pro. Just the 3D content and animation, not the programming end of things. I can't seem to get any kind of mesh deformation animation to import into Reality Composer Pro. By that I mean bones/skin, or even point cache. I work on PC, and my main software is 3DS Max, but I'm borrowing an iMac for this job, and was instructed to use RCP on it for testing before handing things off to the programmer. My files open and play fine in other USD programs, like Omniverse, or USD View, just not Reality Composer Pro. I've seen the dinosaur demo in AVP, so I know mesh deformation is possible. If there are other essential tools that might make this possible, I have not been made aware of them. I am experimenting with bouncing things off of Blender, in case that exports better, but not really having luck there either -though my results are different. Thanks.
0
0
107
Sep ’25
How to properly pass a Metal layer from SwiftUI MTKView to C++ for use with metal-cpp?
Hello! I'm currently porting a videogame console emulator to iOS and I'm trying to make the renderer (tested on MacOS) work on iOS as well. The emulator core is written in C++ and uses metal-cpp for rendering, whereas the iOS frontend is written in Swift with SwiftUI. I have an Objective-C++ bridging header for bridging the Swift and C++ sides. On the Swift side, I create an MTKView. Inside the MTKView delegate, I run the emulator for 1 video frame and pass it the view's backing layer for it to render the final output image with. The emulator runs and returns, but when it returns I get a crash in Swift land (callstack attached below), inside objc_release, which indicates I'm doing something wrong with memory management. My bridging interface (ios_driver.h): #pragma once #include <Foundation/Foundation.h> #include <QuartzCore/QuartzCore.h> void iosCreateEmulator(); void iosRunFrame(CAMetalLayer* layer); Bridge implementation (ios_driver.mm): #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> extern "C" { #include "ios_driver.h" } <...> #define IOS_EXPORT extern "C" __attribute__((visibility("default"))) std::unique_ptr<Emulator> emulator = nullptr; IOS_EXPORT void iosCreateEmulator() { ... } // Runs 1 video frame of the emulator and IOS_EXPORT void iosRunFrame(CAMetalLayer* layer) { void* layerBridged = (__bridge void*)layer; // Pass the CAMetalLayer to the emulator emulator->getRenderer()->setMTKLayer(layerBridged); // Runs the emulator for 1 frame and renders the output image using our layer emulator->runFrame(); } My MTKView delegate: class Renderer: NSObject, MTKViewDelegate { var parent: ContentView var device: MTLDevice! init(_ parent: ContentView) { self.parent = parent if let device = MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice() { self.device = device } super.init() } func mtkView(_ view: MTKView, drawableSizeWillChange size: CGSize) {} func draw(in view: MTKView) { var metalLayer = view.layer as! CAMetalLayer // Run the emulator for 1 frame & display the output image iosRunFrame(metalLayer) } } Finally, the emulator's render function that interacts with the layer: void RendererMTL::setMTKLayer(void* layer) { metalLayer = (CA::MetalLayer*)layer; } void RendererMTL::display() { CA::MetalDrawable* drawable = metalLayer->nextDrawable(); if (!drawable) { return; } MTL::Texture* texture = drawable->texture(); <rest of rendering follows here using the drawable & its texture> } This is the Swift callstack at the time of the crash: To my understanding, I shouldn't be violating ARC rules as my bridging header uses CAMetalLayer* instead of void* and Swift will automatically account for ARC when passing CoreFoundation objects to Objective-C. However I don't have any other idea as to what might be causing this. I've been trying to debug this code for a couple of days without much success. If you need more info, the emulator code is also on Github Metal renderer: https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS/blob/ios/src/core/renderer_mtl/renderer_mtl.cpp#L58-L68 Bridge implementation: https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS/blob/ios/src/ios_driver.mm Bridging header: https://github.com/wheremyfoodat/Panda3DS/blob/ios/include/ios_driver.h Any help is more than appreciated. Thank you for your time in advance.
0
0
490
Mar ’25
Metal triangle strips uniform opacity.
I have this drawing app that I have been working on for the past few years when I have free time. I recently rebuilt the app in Metal to build out other brushes and improve performance, need to render 10000s of lines in realtime. I’m running into this issue trying to create a uniform opacity per path. I have a solution but do not love it - as this is a realtime app and the solution could have some bottlenecks. If I just generate a triangle strip from touch points and do my best to smooth, resample, and handle miters I will always get some overlaps. See: To create a uniform opacity I render to an offscreen texture with blending disabled. I then pre-multiply the color and draw that texture to a composite texture with blending on (I do this per path). This works but gets tricky when you introduce a textured brush, the edges of the texture in the frag shader cut out the line. Pasted Graphic 1.png Solution: I discard below a threshold fragment float4 fragment_line(VertexOut in [[stage_in]], texture2d<float> texture [[ texture(0) ]]) { constexpr sampler s(coord::normalized, address::mirrored_repeat, filter::linear); float2 texCoord = in.texCoord; float4 texColor = texture.sample(s, texCoord); if (texColor.a < 0.01) discard_fragment(); // may be slow (from what I read) return in.color * texColor; } Better but still not perfect. Question: I'm looking for better ways to create a uniform opacity per path. I tried .max blending but that will cause no blending of other paths. Any tips, ideas, much appreciated. If this is too detailed of a question just achieve.
1
0
94
Mar ’25
Place a box on a wall or on the floor
Hi, I wanted to do something quite simple: Put a box on a wall or on the floor. My box: let myBox = ModelEntity( mesh: .generateBox(size: SIMD3<Float>(0.1, 0.1, 0.01)), materials: [SimpleMaterial(color: .systemRed, isMetallic: false)], collisionShape: .generateBox(size: SIMD3<Float>(0.1, 0.1, 0.01)), mass: 0.0) For that I used Plane Detection to identify the walls and floor in the room. Then with SpatialTapGesture I was able to retrieve the position where the user is looking and tap. let position = value.convert(value.location3D, from: .local, to: .scene) And then positioned my box myBox.setPosition(position, relativeTo: nil) When I then tested it I realized that the box was not parallel to the wall but had a slightly inclined angle. I also realized if I tried to put my box on the wall to my left the box was placed perpendicular to this wall and not placed on it. After various searches and several attempts I ended up playing with transform.matrix to identify if the plane is wall or a floor, if it was in front of me or on the side and set up a rotation on the box to "place" it on the wall or a floor. let surfaceTransform = surface.transform.matrix let surfaceNormal = normalize(surfaceTransform.columns.2.xyz) let baseRotation = simd_quatf(angle: .pi, axis: SIMD3<Float>(0, 1, 0)) var finalRotation: simd_quatf if acos(abs(dot(surfaceNormal, SIMD3<Float>(0, 1, 0)))) < 0.3 { logger.info("Surface: ceiling/floor") finalRotation = simd_quatf(angle: surfaceNormal.y > 0 ? 0 : .pi, axis: SIMD3<Float>(1, 0, 0)) } else if abs(surfaceNormal.x) > abs(surfaceNormal.z) { logger.info("Surface: left/right") finalRotation = simd_quatf(angle: surfaceNormal.x > 0 ? .pi/2 : -.pi/2, axis: SIMD3<Float>(0, 1, 0)) } else { logger.info("Surface: front/back") finalRotation = baseRotation } Playing with matrices is not really my thing so I don't know if I'm doing it right. Could you tell me if my tests for the orientation of the walls are correct? During my tests I don't always correctly identify whether the wall is in front or on the side. Is this generally the right way to do it? Is there an easier way to do this? Regards Tof
0
0
438
Feb ’25
Swift game sometimes runs on efficiency cores then snaps back to performance cores
I've been working on Swift game which is not yet launched or available for preview. The game works in such a way that it has idle CPU while the user is thinking and sustained max CPU and GPU on as many cores as possible when he makes a move. Rarely, due to OS activity or something else outside of my control (for example when dropping the OS curtain even if for just a bit then remove it), the game or some of its threads are moved to efficiency cores which results in major stuttering which persists precisely until the game is idle again at which point the game is moved back on performance cores - but if the player keeps making moves the stuttering simply won't go away and so I guess compuptation is locked onto efficiency cores. The issue does not reproduce on MacCatalyst on Intel. How do I tell Swift to avoid efficiency cores? BTW Swift and SceneKIT have AMAZING performance especially when compared to others.
0
0
115
Mar ’25
Deterministic RNG behaviour across Mac M1 CPU and Metal GPU – BigCrush pass & structural diagnostics
Hello, I am currently working on a research project under ENINCA Consulting, focused on advanced diagnostic tools for pseudorandom number generators (structural metrics, multi-seed stability, cross-architecture reproducibility, and complementary indicators to TestU01). To validate this diagnostic framework, I prototyped a small non-linear 64-bit PRNG (not as a goal in itself, but simply as a vehicle to test the methodology). During these evaluations, I observed something interesting on Apple Silicon (Mac M1): • bit-exact reproducibility between M1 ARM CPU and M1 Metal GPU, • full BigCrush pass on both CPU and Metal backends, • excellent p-values, • stable behaviour across multiple seeds and runs. This was not the intended objective, the goal was mainly to validate the diagnostic concepts, but these results raised some questions about deterministic compute behaviour in Metal. My question: Is there any official guidance on achieving (or expecting) deterministic RNG or compute behaviour across CPU ↔ Metal GPU on Apple Silicon? More specifically: • Are deterministic compute kernels expected or guaranteed on Metal for scientific workloads? • Are there recommended patterns or best practices to ensure reproducibility across GPU generations (M1 → M2 → M3 → M4)? • Are there known Metal features that can introduce non-determinism? I am not sharing the internal recurrence (this work is proprietary), but I can discuss the high-level diagnostic observations if helpful. Thank you for any insight, very interested in how the Metal engineering team views deterministic compute patterns on Apple Silicon. Pascal ENINCA Consulting
0
0
132
2w
authenticateHandler events not being received on iOS 18
I work on a team that provides an SDK for another game to handle various tasks like authentication. They are experiencing a case where devices using iOS 17 are failing to authenticate with GameCenter, receiving the message "The requested operation could not be completed because local player has not been authenticated." We imagine this is because they still have some setup to finish regarding GameCenter itself, and we're working with them to take care of that. However, on iOS 18, their app ends up waiting indefinitely for GameCenter authentication messages that it never receives. That's where we're puzzled. We expect them to have the same outcome regardless of OS version. We initiate GameCenter authentication by setting an authenticateHandler after some initial application setup. The handler has code to account for UI, errors, and successful authentication. On iOS 17, it's clear that it's getting called as expected because they receive an indication that the player isn't authenticated. But on iOS 18, it looks like the same handler code on iOS 18 isn't being called at all. Are there differences in how iOS 18 interacts with the authenticationHandler that we somehow aren't accounting for? Or is there potentially something else that we're doing incorrectly that is manifesting only on iOS 18? Here's a simplified version of our login function code (in Obj-C++). There is no OS-specific code, and the job that owns this function does stay in scope until after authentication is complete. void beginLogin() { // Snip: Check if the user is already logged in. // Snip: Prevent multiple concurrent calls to this function. auto authenticateHandler = ^(UIViewController* gcViewController, NSError* error) { if (gcViewController != nil) { // Snip: Display the UI } else if (error != nil) { // Snip: Handle the error. } else { if ([[GKLocalPlayer localPlayer] isAuthenticated]) { // Snip: Handle successful authentication. } else { // Snip: Handle other case. } } }; [[GKLocalPlayer localPlayer] setAuthenticateHandler: authenticateHandler]; }
2
0
153
May ’25
Metal recommendedMaxWorkingSetSize vs actual RAM on iPhone (LLM load fails)
Context I’m deploying large language models on iPhone using llama.cpp. A new iPhone Air (12 GB RAM) reports a Metal MTLDevice.recommendedMaxWorkingSetSize of 8,192 MB, and my attempt to load Llama-2-13B Q4_K (~7.32 GB weights) fails during model initialization. Environment Device: iPhone Air (12 GB RAM) iOS: 26 Xcode: 26.0.1 Build: Metal backend enabled llama.cpp App runs on device (not Simulator) What I’m seeing MTLCreateSystemDefaultDevice().recommendedMaxWorkingSetSize == 8192 MiB Loading Llama-2-13B Q4_K (7.32 GB) fails to complete. Logs indicate memory pressure / allocation issues consistent with the 8 GB working-set guidance. Smaller models (e.g., 7B/8B with similar quantization) load and run (8B Q4_K provide around 9 tokens/second decoding speed). Questions Is 8,192 MB an expected recommendedMaxWorkingSetSize on a 12 GB iPhone? What values should I expect on other 2025 devices including iPhone 17 (8 GB RAM) and iPhone 17 Pro (12 GB RAM) Is it strictly enforced by Metal allocations (heaps/buffers), or advisory for best performance/eviction behavior? Can a process practically exceed this for long-lived buffers without immediate Jetsam risk? Any guidance for LLM scenarios near the limit?
0
0
409
Oct ’25
Metal and Swift Concurrency
Hi, Introducing Swift Concurrency to my Metal app has been a bit challenging as Swift Concurrency is limited by the cooperative thread pool. GPU work is obviously not CPU bound and can block forward moving progress, especially when using waitUntilCompleted on the command buffer. For concurrent render work this has the potential of under utilizing the CPU and even creating dead locks. My question is, what is the Metal's teams general recommendation when it comes to concurrency? It seems to me that Dispatch or OperationQueues are still the preferred way for Metal bound tasks in order to gain maximum performance? To integrate with Swift Concurrency my idea is to use continuations that kick off render jobs via Dispatch or Queues? Would this be the best solution to bridge async tasks with Metal work? Thanks!
5
0
1.1k
Apr ’25
How to use CharacterControllerComponent.
I am trying to implement a ChacterControllerComponent using the following URL. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/realitykit/charactercontrollercomponent I have written sample code, but PhysicsSimulationEvents.WillSimulate is not executed and nothing happens. import SwiftUI import RealityKit import RealityKitContent struct ImmersiveView: View { let gravity: SIMD3<Float> = [0, -50, 0] let jumpSpeed: Float = 10 enum PlayerInput { case none, jump } @State private var testCharacter: Entity = Entity() @State private var myPlayerInput = PlayerInput.none var body: some View { RealityView { content in // Add the initial RealityKit content if let immersiveContentEntity = try? await Entity(named: "Immersive", in: realityKitContentBundle) { content.add(immersiveContentEntity) testCharacter = immersiveContentEntity.findEntity(named: "Capsule")! testCharacter.components.set(CharacterControllerComponent()) let _ = content.subscribe(to: PhysicsSimulationEvents.WillSimulate.self, on: testCharacter) { event in print("subscribe run") let deltaTime: Float = Float(event.deltaTime) var velocity: SIMD3<Float> = .zero var isOnGround: Bool = false // RealityKit automatically adds `CharacterControllerStateComponent` after moving the character for the first time. if let ccState = testCharacter.components[CharacterControllerStateComponent.self] { velocity = ccState.velocity isOnGround = ccState.isOnGround } if !isOnGround { // Gravity is a force, so you need to accumulate it for each frame. velocity += gravity * deltaTime } else if myPlayerInput == .jump { // Set the character's velocity directly to launch it in the air when the player jumps. velocity.y = jumpSpeed } testCharacter.moveCharacter(by: velocity * deltaTime, deltaTime: deltaTime, relativeTo: nil) { event in print("playerEntity collided with \(event.hitEntity.name)") } } } } } } The scene is loaded from RCP. It is simple, just a capsule on a pedestal. Do I need a separate code to run testCharacter from this state?
0
0
139
May ’25
Metal 4: When is it ok to dealloc a MTLBuffer's memory
I have something like this drawing in an MTKView (see at bottom). I am finding it difficult to figure out when can the Swift-land resources used in making the MTLBuffer(s) be released? Below, for example, is it ok if args goes out of scope (or is otherwise deallocated) at point 1, 2, or 3? Or perhaps even earlier, as soon as argsBuffer has been created? I have been reading through various articles such as Setting resource storage modes Choosing a resource storage mode for Apple GPUs Copying data to a private resource but it's a lot to absorb and I haven't been really able to find an authoritative description of the required lifetime of the resources in CPU land. I should mention that this is Metal 4 code. In previous versions of Metal, the MTLCommandBuffer had the ability to add a completion handler to be called by the GPU after it has finished running the commands in the buffer but in Metal 4 there is no such thing (it it were even needed for the purpose I am interested in). Any advice and/or pointers to the definitive literature will be appreciated. guard let argsBuffer = device.makeBuffer(bytes: &args,... argumentTable.setAddress(argsBuffer.gpuAddress, ... encoder.setArgumentTable(argumentTable, stages: .vertex) // encode drawing renderEncoder.draw... ... encoder.endEncoding() // 1 commandBuffer.endCommandBuffer() // 2 commandQueue.waitForDrawable(drawable) commandQueue.commit([commandBuffer]) // 3 commandQueue.signalDrawable(drawable) drawable.present()
0
0
52
1w
Turn-Based Game and Invitations
I have two devices (iPod, iPhone), each using a different Apple ID. I have an existing game to which I'm adding TBM. When the iPod invites the iPhone, it sends an iMessage invite to the iPhone; when I click on that message, I get "Retrieving", then Game Center in Settings is opened, not my App (same version installed on both devices). I start my App on the iPhone and that match is not shown in the Matchmaker View Controller. When I send an invite from the iPhone to the iPod and I click on the iMessage invite, the app starts but the match isn't listed in the MatchMaker ViewController on the iPod (but is on the iPhone). In addition, when I click on the info circle on the iPhone, it who's the two players and "App Store" under the Game Center name. However, When I do the same on the iPod, it has a "Play your turn" there. Any ideas?
0
0
449
2w
CMake unable to generate the Xcode file described in this tutorial
In the Creating A 3D Application With Hydra Rendering tutorial on the Apple Developer website, on the last step where I execute this command: cmake -S ~/Users/macuser/CreatingA3DApplicationWithHydraRendering/ -B ~/Users/macuser/CreatingA3DApplicationWithHydraRendering/ I keep getting an error: CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:5 (include): include could not find requested file: /Users/macuser/USDInstall/bin/pxrConfig.cmake I've tried to follow the instructions as mentioned in the README.md file included in the project files at least 5 times as well as moving the pxrConfig.cmake file around and copying it in different folders, then executed the command and was still unsuccessful into generating the proper file expected to compile and render the HydraPlayer renderer. How do I get cmake to generate the Xcode file to create the HydraPlayer renderer?
1
0
149
May ’25
Why does game mode not get triggered for my App?
I think I really have tried everything and I did all according to official documentation to support game mode on iOS or iPadOS but it doesn't matter what I do it just doesn't get triggered. Funny enough it works during development when I install it via Xcode but as soon as it is live on the store and when I install it from there game mode doesn't get triggered anymore. What I have atm I have added (even though it is deprecated) <key>GCSupportsGameMode</key> <true/> I have set the (but it seems only supported for macOS) <key>LSApplicationCategoryType</key> <string>public.app-category.games</string> I have added <key>LSSupportsGameMode</key> <true/> It just doesn't work. Is there anything else what needs to be done? Should the flag LSSupportsGameMode not be enough normally? The reason why this is so annoying is that my app is a real time streaming app and I want to profit from minimised background activities for smoother gameplay and more consistent frame rates like mentioned in the documentation.
1
0
439
2w
OCR does not work
Hi, I'm working with a very simple app that tries to read a coordinates card and past the data into diferent fields. The card's layout is COLUMNS from 1-10, ROWs from A-J and a two digit number for each cell. In my app, I have field for each of those cells (A1, A2...). I want that OCR to read that card and paste the info but I just cant. I have two problems. The camera won't close. It remains open until I press the button SAVE (this is not good because a user could take 3, 4, 5... pictures of the same card with, maybe, different results, and then? Which is the good one?). Then, after I press save, I can see the OCR kinda works ( the console prints all the date read) but the info is not pasted at all. Any idea? I know is hard to know what's wrong but I've tried chatgpt and all it does... just doesn't work This is the code from the scanview import SwiftUI import Vision import VisionKit struct ScanCardView: UIViewControllerRepresentable { @Binding var scannedCoordinates: [String: String] var useLettersForColumns: Bool var numberOfColumns: Int var numberOfRows: Int @Environment(.presentationMode) var presentationMode func makeUIViewController(context: Context) -&gt; VNDocumentCameraViewController { let scannerVC = VNDocumentCameraViewController() scannerVC.delegate = context.coordinator return scannerVC } func updateUIViewController(_ uiViewController: VNDocumentCameraViewController, context: Context) {} func makeCoordinator() -&gt; Coordinator { return Coordinator(self) } class Coordinator: NSObject, VNDocumentCameraViewControllerDelegate { let parent: ScanCardView init(_ parent: ScanCardView) { self.parent = parent } func documentCameraViewController(_ controller: VNDocumentCameraViewController, didFinishWith scan: VNDocumentCameraScan) { print("Escaneo completado, procesando imagen...") guard scan.pageCount &gt; 0, let image = scan.imageOfPage(at: 0).cgImage else { print("No se pudo obtener la imagen del escaneo.") controller.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil) return } recognizeText(from: image) DispatchQueue.main.async { print("Finalizando proceso OCR y cerrando la cámara.") controller.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil) } } func documentCameraViewControllerDidCancel(_ controller: VNDocumentCameraViewController) { print("Escaneo cancelado por el usuario.") controller.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil) } func documentCameraViewController(_ controller: VNDocumentCameraViewController, didFailWithError error: Error) { print("Error en el escaneo: \(error.localizedDescription)") controller.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil) } private func recognizeText(from image: CGImage) { let request = VNRecognizeTextRequest { (request, error) in guard let observations = request.results as? [VNRecognizedTextObservation], error == nil else { print("Error en el reconocimiento de texto: \(String(describing: error?.localizedDescription))") DispatchQueue.main.async { self.parent.presentationMode.wrappedValue.dismiss() } return } let recognizedStrings = observations.compactMap { observation in observation.topCandidates(1).first?.string } print("Texto reconocido: \(recognizedStrings)") let filteredCoordinates = self.filterValidCoordinates(from: recognizedStrings) DispatchQueue.main.async { print("Coordenadas detectadas después de filtrar: \(filteredCoordinates)") self.parent.scannedCoordinates = filteredCoordinates } } request.recognitionLevel = .accurate let handler = VNImageRequestHandler(cgImage: image, options: [:]) DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated).async { do { try handler.perform([request]) print("OCR completado y datos procesados.") } catch { print("Error al realizar la solicitud de OCR: \(error.localizedDescription)") } } } private func filterValidCoordinates(from strings: [String]) -&gt; [String: String] { var result: [String: String] = [:] print("Texto antes de filtrar: \(strings)") for string in strings { let trimmedString = string.replacingOccurrences(of: " ", with: "") if parent.useLettersForColumns { let pattern = "^[A-J]\\d{1,2}$" // Letras de A-J seguidas de 1 o 2 dígitos if trimmedString.range(of: pattern, options: .regularExpression) != nil { print("Coordenada válida detectada (letras): \(trimmedString)") result[trimmedString] = "Valor" // Asignación de prueba } } else { let pattern = "^[1-9]\\d{0,1}$" // Solo números, de 1 a 99 if trimmedString.range(of: pattern, options: .regularExpression) != nil { print("Coordenada válida detectada (números): \(trimmedString)") result[trimmedString] = "Valor" } } } print("Coordenadas finales después de filtrar: \(result)") return result } } }
0
0
555
Jan ’25