QuakeCon 2013: The Physics of Light and Rendering - A Talk by John Carmack

Archival copy of the QuakeCon 2013: The Physics of Light and Rendering - A Talk by John Carmack. I grabbed the chapters from twitch and concatenated them with ffmpeg.

[@superiorgamedude]

This dude showed up to a video game convention and gave a science lecture for an hour, and everyone sat there and listened. That is the power of John Carmack.

[@aguywithadog1663]

I see me and you came from the same place

[@superiorgamedude]

@@aguywithadog1663 Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well.

[@alichamas63]

Quakecon audience: "show us some cool new gameplay!" Carmack: "the physics of light is..."

[@solophentii3468]

"Yeah, John Carmack works on a higher wavelength than the rest of us." -John Romero

[@just_childish_7068]

「 OKAY 」 nu

[@muhammedberkonder7802]

so lower frequency?

[@hongkyang7107]

Physics learners would think this is an insult.

[@CTimmerman]

@@muhammedberkonder7802 Given that he's spending 1.5 hours on "ray tracing is simpler than existing tech, except it still uses 100 times the processing power", yes.

[@kdrkdr1128]

@@CTimmerman Optimization.Just like DLSS, newe version offers better performance on already delivered games.

[@Ginanity]

Hearing that guy talk makes me want to code something

[@DaRealKing303]

No joke!

[@Angelo-uv6sv]

Ye me too, I want to boot up a fresh OpenGL project and implement my own raytracer, only to lose motivation an hour later.. yay

[@jmp01a24]

This seems to be nothing about the code, but the theory of how to code it.

[@yunghunt2644]

The best thing is I’d imagine that’s at least part of the reason he does these.

[@angus6858]

@@jmp01a24 90% of programming is conceptualising how to code it

[@orrinization]

They paid to play games at a massive LAN. They stayed for the Carmack.

[@VijayKanta]

This guy is the perfect example of a 'committed' person truly in love with computers and science.

[@archfiend334]

John Carmack has long since transcended his mortal coil and the fact that he maintains a presence in our reality is deeply humbling.

[@SB-xt5jk]

Love listening to this guy talk. It's 7 years later and I have to suspect this talk is timeless at this point.

[@CrayvenMithras]

It's maybe, because he talks about fundamental laws of physics with relation to how humans interact/experience with it/them and how computers simplify and present those. There is nothing speculative or opinion based in his talk and it's wonderful in my opinion. Nearly as being in an university lecture.

[@unfa00]

I love how John just walks onto the stage and starts casually blasting raw science into the crowd for 1 hour straight like it's nothing.

[@TheChannel1978]

Without looking at notes and still structured really well. Just incredible

[@ShawnTheRazor]

I could listen to John Carmack speak for hours without getting bored.

[@mydemon]

John Carmack could speak to you for hours and not get bored

[@axelanderson2030]

@@mydemon lmao

[@r2com641]

And without get anything done

[@ShawnTheRazor]

@@r2com641 Learning stuff man, try it sometime.

[@ShawnTheRazor]

@@mydemon So true 😁

[@slearl]

Most know this guy as a game developer, but he's spitting science better than any professor I've ever had (and infinitely better than Nye or Tyson).

[@jimmea6317]

Nye and Tyson have only proven themselves to be total idiots who really aren’t intelligent thinkers at all over the past decade

[@zhamed9587]

Tyson is a pseudo intellectual.

[@niks660097]

@@zhamed9587 Tyson is an entertainer, not inventor or researcher...

[@mellocelo7083]

My guy talking about ray tracing and physicality based rendering 10 years ago. Truly a professional in love with what he does

[@greenwitte]

Seriously, why is listening to John Carmack so engaging? I know next to nothing on the subject but somehow I'm fully tuned in.

[@trudyandgeorge]

I know, right? I think it's because he's speaking with very little ego. It seems to me he's not concerning himself with how he might be getting perceived while presenting and so none of his mental bandwidth is being consumed by his ego. It's ironic and poetic because of his company's namesake, "ID software".

[@hameed]

Because he’s on a whole other level. There’s not a lot of people who are that smart that can communicate that well with that much passion.

[@akaroth7542]

Helps that he knows it in and out. True mastery of a topic is being able to break down and explain the complexities to a layperson clearly.

[@julesl6910]

Carmack must just read books and discuss things constantly, his stream of consciousness is so perfect

[@disfuncionexe]

y are you usda organic? are you a tomato?

[@youngknight5589]

I didn't realize a game convention like this would have a computer science talk but considering its John Carmack it makes sense

[@akaroth7542]

Quake people are the right people. I was a UT diehard...but now I just want arena shooters to come back. I'd love another Quake.

[@OhmVibe]

John's got the coolest aura about him. Radiates genius-level intellect, combined with a refreshing mixture of passion & humility.

[@OBGynKenobi]

Would be interested to see him do the same talk now to compare how the tech has changed in 7 years.

[@Wobbothe3rd]

He left id software so the physically based rendering stuff isn't what he's directly working on. He was fully committed to VR development until recently, now he's working mostly on AI. Id software continued to use physically based rendering in Doom Eternal (which was awesome), but Carmack had long left by the time the game was started.

[@DailyDB]

The only difference is ray tracing is 500 times slower not 1000 times slower

[@mydemon]

The basics don't change, they're timeless

[@RelatedGiraffe]

I think this is a lecture in the history of computer graphics, and for being that, it is superb. And John Carmack speaks in a way that makes you want to learn. It's not so much a lecture in physics, even if he speaks a bit about that too.

[@flamendless]

Wow. This is the first time im hearing his voice. Really calming and encouraging

[@thedddemon]

encouraging?!

[@mydemon]

That's because he's not firing you from the company you've cofounded together

[@HiAdrian]

What a very informative talk and Q&A, totally worth it. Thanks for uploading!

[@christopherbronson3275]

Here we have, as Civvie11 puts it: "Super genius alien-in-person-suit" "Time-travelling space wizard" "Time-travelling interdimensional overgenius and actual rocket scientist" "Experimental artificial intelligence gone rogue" "Benevolent hyperintelligent architect of the post-singularity simulation we all live in" "Sentient galaxy brain meme" "Hyperspace cybernetic intelligence and juvenile delinquent" "Psychic super soldier prototype and Brazilian jiu jutsu practicioner" "The vessel that houses energy-based 4th-dimensional being" "Earth-stranded Nihilanth" "Part-time astrophysicist and our only insurance against an overwhelming alien incursion" "Death-frightening scion capable of seeing through the illusionary world before our eyes" "The ageless organism housed inside the meat suit we call John Carmack, because its real name is unpronouncable by the human tongue" "Perfected human analogue and Jace Hall asphyxiator" "Engineering elemental and Luddite nemesis" "Resident of the binding in between space that holds reality together" giving a glimpse of his A.I. driven brilliance to us lesser 3rd dimensional beings

[@christopherbronson3275]

@@parker9163 I mean don't we all?

[@parker9163]

@@christopherbronson3275 I don't. I think a lot before I speak.

[@christopherbronson3275]

@@parker9163 I'm very sure carmack does too. Or did you mean civvie?

[@98230983290]

I've been saying similar things about Tim Sweeney, the minds behind every novel 3d engine are out of this world.

[@AlexDemskie]

John Carmack didn't learn any of this in school, he's a drop out. If you asked him what he was doing when he was making his game engine, he wouldn't refer to it as studying. All of this knowledge that he's showcasing he learned on his own at his own pace. It's all about having the passion and conviction to stick with it. That's whats so awesome about the internet. No longer is any of this knowledge confined within college institutions. It's out there for everyone.

[@4partmedia]

Meh. Even John himself would inform new programming students to get formal, school education. 🤨

[@noshowjackie]

Bravo for this comment. All the iD team legends.

[@jimmybailey7198]

Exactly! That moment when you learn something YOUR WAY and gain an intense and deep understanding of a subject WITHOUT conventional schooling. Literally a "the amount of fucking around directly equates to the level of finding out" idea

[@ZombieLincoln666]

Carmack also has said he would have benefitted from taking CS classes

[@grandmasterofthrow6238]

It also helps to be a literal genius.

[@Killadey]

2 minutes in and I already love this guy!

[@HumanBladeG0D]

This needs to be shown in high school classes! Such a great presentation, informative and succinct... He covered weeks of instruction in this lecture 😮

[@eddieh7962]

How is this video not way more popular thank u KZbin algorithm

[@Euquila]

I think John Carmack and Warren Spector are the greatest names in PC gaming

[@AddyVDH]

Such an interesting talk John Carmack is the man.

[@bigbro890]

We as humans need like 10x more John Carmacks and we'll be fine

[@reoire843]

So only 10 of them? I think we need at least a million. The world desperately needs more intelligence.

[@bigbro890]

@@reoire843 I guess I was thinking people like John Carmack when I was commenting. We could definitely use more than 10 :)

[@lukynator]

Great talk!

[@goteblensnorkin8572]

this is what an actual smart person sounds like, no true answer is simple, it has infinite layers

[@peezieforestem5078]

"and concatenated them with ffmpeg" - that is pure gold

[@JJBerthume]

☠️☠️

[@WillyKillya]

I had this video saved in a playlist for a long time, can't believe I waited so long to watch it! I would like to start making video games, but I'm also very interested in computer science in general, physics, and math and this electric combined all of them in a way that was absolutely fascinating and incredibly informative to me! John Carmack is UNREAL 🤭

[@kostasp8631]

Simply A Living Legend 👍

[@Tumoxa89]

Great, thank you very much.

[@jatmachado]

I could watch John talking about anything for hours...

[@smithtimothy93]

Watching in 2022 with a RTX 3090 is pretty cool. He seems to make the case that it isn't just the hardware getting fast enough for Ray tracing but the rasterized solutions keep getting more complicated so it makes sense for RT to take over. Crazy stuff

[@LimitedWard]

How the hell does he stay on topic?

[@chrismofer]

his brain hyperthreads

[@Auvisome]

@@rokker333 cry dork

[@JoeyBullet222]

Idk but he's holding an IPad. 🤔

[@forthehomies7043]

I'm not exactly sure what my tiny brain was expecting when I clicked on this video, but I feel like I just learned more than I did in my entire high school and college career by watching this particular John Carmack video

[@kylereilly3259]

His ability to convey the information in a digestible way is incredible.

[@arsnakehert]

Great talk

[@tjames6427]

when he brought up heat I thought of how heat can bend light like how a mirage happens. I wonder if we could use bending of light to our advantage somehow like a cloaking device for things of all sizes such as buildings. of course it would only work on level surface but could be quite a unique illusion

[@techinperspective]

History lessons, science class, and resource optimizations all combined.

[@TerabyteForever]

He is a walking encyclopedia. Appreciated.

[@ProPowerMax]

That man knew in 2013 what people still think is bullshit today, that Raytracing is the future. He said maybe 1-2 Orders of magnitude more processing power, a that time the GTX 680 had 3.5 Billion Transitors, now a 3090 has 28.3 Billion Transitors, so around 1 Order of magnitude.

[@bricaaron3978]

First, you're comparing a 680 to a 3090, which is entirely invalid no matter how you look at it. In fact, given what NVIDIA has done to the naming scheme and pricing, it would be more legitimate to compare the 680 to the _3070_ rather than the 3080. Second, this entire talk was about lighting. Carmack was talking about _full path tracing_ -- the _lighting_ of games using raytracing instead of traditional rasterization-based techniques -- not the use of raytracing for effects. Games are not path traced, and games will not be path traced for a very long time, if ever (but that gets into a discussion that only makes me angry). Third, no reasonable person believes that raytracing should not be the future. The issue is just exactly when that will happen, and that depends upon a number of unpleasant realities that many people either don't understand or don't want to acknowledge -- such as the fact that the Great Consolization of 2008 occurred, and all AAA games are console games today. If consoles don't support something, it's never going to be mainstream. Not unless someone succeeds in a AAA PC Gaming Renaissance, which I dream about.

[@EximiusDux]

@@bricaaron3978 I don't know if you realized this but PC gaming always used to be a lot smaller in scope than console gaming. Most people, kids, teens, and tweens were gaming on consoles ever since the Super Nintendo and Sega Megadrive era. The PS2 was the king of the gaming world during the early 2000s , while PC gaming was the "hobby of the few". The PS2 even beat PC Graphics cards during its launch (2000) as the PS2 had 2 extra processors used for what essentially was "vertex processing". Consumer PC gaming shifted to "modern pixel and vertex shaders" around 2004. So no, there was absolutely no "Consolization" in 2008. The more correct view is that PC gaming became more accepted over time and slowly began to compete with consoles starting from 2010 and upwards.

[@bricaaron3978]

​@@EximiusDux The last AAA games developed for PC hardware, PC controls, and the sensibilities and preferences of the PC market were released in 2007. Beginning in 2008, every AAA game has been designed for console hardware, console controllers, and the sensibilities and preferences of the console market. That means either: 1. Developed solely for consoles 2. Developed for consoles and ported to/also released on PC 3. Simultaneously developed for both console and PC (About 0.01% of post-2007 AAA games -- L4D, L4D2, Portal 2 being the only ones I can think of). Since 2008, not one AAA game has been developed for the PC market, and despite common misconceptions there is no valid reason for this. The Great Consolization of 2008 happened.

[@EximiusDux]

@@bricaaron3978 I can follow that reasoning. Can't blame the developers for going for the biggest market first, where the most gamers of all types can be found.

[@bricaaron3978]

@@EximiusDux *"Can't blame the developers for going for the biggest market first, where the most gamers of all types can be found."* First, a given console platform is not necessarily the biggest market for any given game or genre. A rampant fallacy that has existed for a long time is that of lumping all console platforms together, and then comparing _that_ to PC, which is dishonest and makes no sense. You can't add PS and XBox together and compare that to PC --- PS and XBox are not the same platforms, and have different development requirements, just like PC is different than consoles. But apart from that, they haven't gone for the biggest market first --- _they have gone for the biggest market *only*._ You're acting like developers release a console game first, and then release a PC game --- but all they do is release a console game, and then toss-port that console game over to PC and call it a day.

[@ddha0000]

i wish all my lecturers where like john, hooked on every word

[@eugenealive]

John 'zillions of photons' Carmack

[@chrismason7066]

I was at this front row. This guy is a genius. And before it started. They let draw on the board "el guapo was here!" He was a good sport. Didnt ask for a picture but good guy and a genius

[@codesamurai8131]

He speaks remarkably well considering 90% of the time he's talking to computer processors. Was surprised how interesting he made the otherwise dry topic of light, physics, rasterization, texture properties and so forth.

[@proosee]

That's simply not true. Computer processor doesn't need any programming language - those are made for humans. Most of the time, the real task is to use programming language to communicate your idea to other people that can read your code, modify it, fix it etc. Actually, the fact that some program "works" is far less relevant than you think if you work in a team. The heck, some people have problems understand their own code after few months when they are about to change it. That's a real challenge here.

[@bricaaron3978]

@@proosee *"The heck, some people have problems understand their own code after few months when they are about to change it."* That probably has a lot to do with poor commenting, no?

[@joshuabermudez2372]

It's amazing that John Carmack is speaking completely from memory. Absolutely no notes or teleprompter!

[@TheNerd]

I came here to hear John Carmac talk about Computer Graphics, I left wishing he was my physics teacher back in school.

[@noahkirkpatrick8912]

Hey Carmack make some good haptics!!!!! We're almost there.

[@NXTangl]

I wonder how compressed sensing will impact the tracing techniques...in general, it is a good way to recover samples from sparsity, and since most rays aren't going to be useful there's definitely an underlying sparsity.

[@googleone5867]

He just keeps going

[@HeyBudGames]

While you may not need to know how light works to flip a light switch and utilize it, it sure gives me perspective how much goes into making that switch effective for lay people like me.

[@ballzac314]

As a physicist who specialises in optics and also tinkers with ray-traced rendering, none of this is new to me, but I'm still finding Carmack makes the topic very engaging.

[@iamcassilis4085]

bull shit

[@TheUltimateBlooper]

@@iamcassilis4085 Not exactly. I'm a 3D artist and I've done a load of research myself before even finding this video back in 2013 (happily suggested to me by youtube). However, I do have to keep referencing this video to other people, because the masses still think AO passes are realistic and they don't know jack about pathtracing, raytracing, GI, etc - which is very evident by the backlash to raytracing in games.

[@Gnight787]

I want Alton brown and John carmack to do just a show about super geeky aspects of basic parts of life

[@privacyprivacy8708]

Thermal imaging ? Broad spectrum? Aerospace? Wow

[@DaVanillaThrilla]

Carmack is basically the Vince McMahon of video gaming.

[@Ravangers]

that popping sound driving me crazy

[@earlgrey2130]

Why are there people playing tennis in the background??

[@ZombieLincoln666]

it's good exercise

[@Nekro_bird]

Damn I was like 12 minutes in and I didn’t notice NOW I CAN’T UNHEAR IT

[@miinyoo]

One of the things that really struck out is that he is talking of facets on curved surfaces. The reality is all curved surfaces have facets. Down at the atomic level quantum mechanics dictates there be facets. They're just so very tiny and subtly overlap that the facets blend into the curvature. But with enough precision, we absolutely can detect the facets inherent in everything. That's how x-ray crystallography works and x-ray diffraction images work when imaging intermolecular facets.

[@Eidolon108]

He's so dreamy

[@Yupppi]

What if we came up with a cheap way to express roundness like circle's circumference, without approximation to flat surfaces/straight lines? Some brilliant idea that just allows you to draw the round shape itself without figuring it out from another way.

[@TorQueMoD]

Jesus, what a legend. What I'd give for 1/16th of his programming knowledge.

[@jampozbear]

Holy shit Carmack is devastating... as always

[@Rondo2ooo]

After years of getting dragged out of this type of things with a nice family but boring jobs, I find myself with a hunger for diving deep into computer science again. Watching John reminds me it.

[@Bozothcow]

I always say, the early game developers were mathematicians and computer scientists first.

[@here4good]

Finally, the kind of education that's actually interesting!

[@jonradoff570]

Still a great talk

[@unl0ck998]

There's a popping sound every 10 seconds that is driving me crazy.

[@foxfining4210]

cool talk

[@privacyprivacy8708]

I got big tables of Data Sir

[@privacyprivacy8708]

Quick question Id software after, does it still continue?

[@centercity1]

yeh but that information is scattered all over the place and finding it takes time unless you know exactly what it all means already... also most people don't know jack shit about that stuff until there doing it for years or just flat out don't get it, so its great that his giving this talk to inform the noobs. also getting people excited about advocating for a standardized real materials and lighting toolset to work with is always great

[@nachtmarv]

Carmack talking about PBR before it was cool

[@baggern]

nah in 2013 PBR was already strictly implemented in mainstream titles like Ryse or Killzone Shadow Fall and to a lesser extent done in many AAA games starting with Crysis 1 which did some stuff that could be considered PBR for foliage. Also in 2013 the PBRT book was also already released

[@spider853]

When he talks about the softshadow multisampling does he refers as raytracing they environment geometry? If yes then its is done on GPU? if yes then does the game has a raytracer engine just for softshadows and other minimal raytracing things?

[@SpandanChatterjee2904]

If I could go back to school, damn, I'd ditch all books and listen to John Carmack! He knows his stuff. Let me repeat that: HE KNOWS HIS STUFF.

[@LucaMolari]

Great talk J!

[@Nisstyre56]

Most people don't understand the basics. You can't expect to learn about the newest advancements before you understand classic mechanics.

[@Pulseczar1]

Wouldn't be surprised if Trent Reznor did the intro music.

[@sephjfox]

To understand light, you must become light

[@billykotsos4642]

Classic

[@jvetter713]

And I thought the programming I do is complicated. This is nuts.

[@NobleNobbler]

I'm just trying to figure out why I can't debug the constructor in my angular code. :|

[@johnmh3180]

Cool 😎😎👍

[@lukestumpf4384]

Doing the lords work 🙏

[@MrFelixdodd]

Fantastic talk from a pioneer. Unsure about 2 orders of magnitude for PT rendering to be viable for RT however. He doesn't mention the GPU/PT marriage is getting decent convergence in seconds on current hardware. It is ready for the offline market already. Also surprised that he doesn't detail texture map evolution and how it has underpinned rasterization engines, from lightmaps, normalmaps, spec, etc, rather than Geo/normals/smoothing which texture maps replaced; plus megatexture tech.

[@charliebaby7065]

he said modo!!!! yaa!!

[@fabian3677]

Do you have any link for those videos you mentioned so you can share?

[@Eldjarn86]

A 3 years worth of university classes on the physics of light in a youtube video from a video game programmer. This brain is the literal 9000IQ being of our time

[@ZombieLincoln666]

settle down

[@chrismofer]

37:16 curious what promotional NASA cgi he's talking about

[@xXNURBSXx]

Ever thought about creating your own game engine? then pay attention. This is important knowing how light works.

[@arvindhmani06]

John Carmack has a strong "kid who knows he's smart and isn't afraid to share knowledge at the risk of sounding condescending but isn't trying to do so" vibe

[@roberte2945]

Based on everything I've read about the man, he's just... on another level compared to most people. He's a genius.

[@privacyprivacy8708]

Optical? Mirror ?

[@rsplayz7777]

Me at first date: 36:16 Double Speed

[@00GMS00]

Electrodark intro

[@The_Professor123]

30:00 Accidentally draws a pokéball

[@Cthulch]

Well if you have a co-founder like that, no wonder you're making great things.

[@TykeMison_]

@29:32 John Carmack draws a pokeball

[@arvindhmani06]

Damn, until he drew the "equator" on it, it looked like something from an adult graphic novel.

[@_b001]

He's living in 4th dimension

[@spookyanonymous1466]

The crazy part is everybody listens

[@thomaspynchon2871]

THIS FUCKING GUY IS SMART AS SHIT.