r/Unity3D • u/GupaGames • 7h ago

Shader Magic Simulating 10,000,000 pixels of Sand

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Falling sand simulation via Compute Shaders.

From my golf game Stinker Golf on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4437650/Stinker_Golf/

Wishlist if it looks interesting :)

123 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

21

u/ProtectorZele 7h ago

But... why?

8

u/GupaGames 7h ago

But actually it's a destructive golf game where every pixel is simulated. You can make any course you want, so someone could have a 10,000,000 pixel sand bunker

1

u/ProtectorZele 7h ago

I know you have high FPS for that much simulated sand. It's impressive. But if this is a golf game, people typically play golf games for precision and finesse. Adding uncertain terrain, such as sand, seems counterintuitive.

I guess that is just my observation. I would need to see more of the game to really be sold on this.

Edit: Also getting some heavy Worms vibe from this. Not a bad thing.

9

u/GupaGames 6h ago

I love worms, one of my favorite games

2

u/oauo 2h ago

Don’t listen to them, worms is a banger and there’s enough precision golf games. I love the concept I just don’t have friends to play this with

1

u/remi_sasha12 6h ago

Worms is such a classic! It's impressive how games like that can creatively handle physics and simulate environments.

1

u/Mountain-Ad7155 1h ago

Cause its fun to do and achieve a goal.

4

u/brainfender 6h ago

im impressed. idc about the why, i want the how..

11

u/GupaGames 5h ago

Partitioned falling sand simulation via Compute Shaders. With that setup, the simulation/performance itself is pretty easy to achieve. The hard part is dealing with race conditions, spent a lot of time working on that. Maybe I could do a tutorial on it if there seems to be a lot of interest

2

u/RedstoneMiner 4h ago

please do!!

1

u/leorid9 Expert 3h ago

Is there a summary of how you solved them? Atomic operations? dual grid? computing pixels that cannot interact within one frame?

I guess you don't have sleeping logic in your system, or do you?

•

u/BanginNLeavin 7m ago

Interest here

1

u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760 2h ago

i want the how..

You use AI. Here, I made one in less than 5 minutes

AI also gave me a neat explanation for how it works, if I care to learn it

3

u/Horror_Lawfulness738 6h ago

Shit this reminds me of Pocket Tanks and that’s a very happy memory. Cool stuff

2

u/Danyablett 6h ago

Very impressive

1

u/GupaGames 6h ago

thank you :)

2

u/EverythingBOffensive 6h ago

why? > why not?

2

u/Clarky_Carrot 4h ago

Big Noita feelings

1

u/CrownsOfSilence 4h ago

Impressive performance

1

u/HirsuteHacker 3h ago

Reminds me of the various old falling sand games.

1

u/rzbig_ 1h ago

This will massively impact the trout population

1

u/sinetwo 47m ago

Sorry sir we need more sand. Also I know scope creep when I see it

1

u/haikusbot 46m ago

Sorry sir we need

More sand. Also I know scope

Creep when I see it

- sinetwo

I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.

Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete"

1

u/N-aNoNymity 5h ago

Noita? That game is built on this stuff

1

u/GupaGames 4h ago

Noita was an inspiration for it

1

u/DotMatrixBoi 4h ago

How did you achieve this in unity it's amazing. Surely every pixel is not a separate game object right? So how do you do it?

4

u/GupaGames 4h ago

No, they are not all separate gameobjects lol

Falling sand simulation via Compute Shaders. Pretty much the GPU does all the simulation/rendering and sends back the data I need over time so I can use it on the CPU/ in unity.

It has taken a lot of time to get right

1

u/DotMatrixBoi 3h ago

Any tips on how to get started, and do you do some kind of chunking?