Rune Skovbo Johansen

Indie game developer, procedural generation enthusiast, Dane in Finland. I made Eye of the Temple, now working on The Big Forest.

Public Key

npub1vz5eac3nvy8el29dtpn0y8qzcjl5sevasyuffy8avtecrfjyxw0st6pys7

NIP-05 Address

runevision@mastodon-gamedev-place.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsxp2v7ugekzrul4zk4sehjrspvf06gvkwczwy5jr7k9uup5ezr88cpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43q99avpr

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relay.ditto.pub

Author Public Key

npub1vz5eac3nvy8el29dtpn0y8qzcjl5sevasyuffy8avtecrfjyxw0st6pys7

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Last Notes

2026-04-17 09:25:21 UTC

For my game's terrain, I've long mulled over how to combine the epicness of grand mountains with the "what's around the corner?" intrigue of smaller cliffs and hills.
On top of that, how to meaningfully integrate my erosion technique into it.
After a lot of fiddling over the past two days, I think I may be onto something.
#GameDev #ProcGen
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/419/324/306/692/594/original/f8d707968aabc37e.mp4

2026-03-30 17:58:01 UTC

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@nprofile…5x8e Thanks a lot Aras! Yeah I think you have mentioned it before :)
My skills as a programmer are very spotty and uneven, but I do try to make the most of the things I excel at, and am fortunate to be in a position where I can focus on that.
Now, if I could also learn one day how to do profiling properly...

2026-03-30 14:49:22 UTC

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Here's the Shadertoy where you can paint eroded mountains and islands with your mouse, right in the browser:
https://www.shadertoy.com/view/sf23W1
#ProcGen #vfx #GameDev
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/318/676/974/582/673/original/1618446d7e95de28.mp4

2026-03-30 13:40:44 UTC

My erosion filter is out! Video, blog post, and shader source.
It emulates erosion without simulation, so it's fast, GPU friendly, and trivial to generate in chunks.
Explainer video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4V21_uUK8Y
Companion blog post:
https://blog.runevision.com/2026/03/fast-and-gorgeous-erosion-filter.html
#ProcGen #vfx #GameDev
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/318/406/903/982/804/original/4793a811d361d3b6.mp4

2026-03-26 08:28:25 UTC

I know I've been talking about this for over six months now, but I swear I'm working towards releasing the source 😅 - along with an explainer video and a blog post.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/294/530/107/771/273/original/e9cc8a806bdb0f7b.png

2026-03-21 11:34:36 UTC

‪Archipelago
#ProcGen
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/266/950/417/614/768/original/afd2a97dd7fac7df.mp4

2026-03-07 20:31:46 UTC

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@nprofile…5x8e Do you know what the performance is like for tiny input sizes, specifically generating a hash based on one to four integers? As you know, this is relevant for procedural generation, but do I understand right that the small input sizes for this use case was not the focus of the comparison?

2026-02-27 15:18:16 UTC

Karel Crombecq, lead programmer and technical director for Dungeon Alchemist, open sourced the Straight Skeleton algorithm they use to generate roofs. It's a complex algorithm that took a long time to get right, tested for robustness on their large user-base, and now generously shared with the world.
It's implemented in C# for Unity, and licensed under the MIT license:
https://github.com/Briganti-Games/Straight-Skeleton-Generator
#ProcGen
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/116/143/259/309/345/774/original/3b7e80438c4a4c66.jpg

2026-02-09 20:45:11 UTC

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@nprofile…3q9y I don’t know much about this, but I know that @nprofile…csyt definitely does. https://mastodon.social/@JulianOliver/113489003640111152

2026-02-05 09:25:46 UTC

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@nprofile…3q9y Sure, but then all comparisons to the existing real world most wealthy people go out the window, as they'd be dead poor compared to hypothetical you.

2026-02-05 07:39:58 UTC

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@nprofile…3q9y A trillion dollars divided by eight billion is 125 dollars. Is that what you mean by a life changing amount?

2026-02-02 08:51:13 UTC

As part of exploring getting away from Google products, I thought it would be a good idea to go back to using a mail client (via IMAP) instead of a web interface for email, so I could switch providers in the future without having to switch workflow.
But damn, how can most mail clients still be so bad? Gmail popularized threaded conversations (with sent and received mails in one) in 2004, and yet neither Apple Mail or Thunderbird support it in 2026?

2026-02-01 11:30:41 UTC

Aww, AI generated puppy is sad that I canceled my Spotify subscription
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/115/995/144/322/180/909/original/7f8726d30ed9c6d8.png

2025-11-13 10:03:52 UTC

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@nprofile…f4xf Yeah! I think it's intentional, kind of. This form factor for some reason feels more at home in the living room than something shaped like a flat tower or a VHS player. E.g. some wifi routers also look a lot like speakers.

2025-10-29 20:29:47 UTC

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@nprofile…fnpd Thanks!

2025-10-29 18:18:49 UTC

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@nprofile…3jr3 Thanks! Apparently six weeks minimum in cast, then maybe six weeks more. But the fact I’m not in any pain makes me cautiously optimistic.

2025-10-29 18:14:51 UTC

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@nprofile…xlvy Well I’m already not bipedal anymore.

2025-10-29 18:11:57 UTC

Foot cast and crutches was not on my bingo card when this week started, but sometimes you just stumble while walking around in your home, catch the fall with your foot in a most unfortunate way, and there you go, a Jones fracture for you. Apparently.

2025-10-20 20:42:10 UTC

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@nprofile…fnpd Heads up, a recent conversation elsewhere suggested that trying to get Linux installed as dual-boot co-existing with another OS has an elevated risk of leading to all kinds of trouble. https://bsky.app/profile/nifflas.bsky.social/post/3m3f5miy75c2m

2025-10-10 13:15:39 UTC

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@nprofile…gvnm Thanks! I just realized I forgot how to open the settings window though...

2025-10-10 12:57:23 UTC

Help guys, is this a shadow bias issue or a z-fighting issue? There's also some weird bug with the day-night cycle lighting.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/115/349/981/774/053/155/original/d67aa6d221ca36f0.mp4

2025-10-06 08:24:54 UTC

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@nprofile…t3wn To be fair I don't know who broke what when. My emails have probably always been unauthenticated, and there are real issues with spam that are currently getting worse, and which probably only authentication can solve. So there may be good reasons for Yahoo now bouncing unauthenticated mails, and in the world we live in, I probably do need authentication. But not offering any solutions for individuals sucks, as does not making it clear that the "send mail as" feature is unreliable.

2025-10-06 08:18:18 UTC

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What do other people with their own domains use? Running my own mail server or similar is out of the question, I'm not very technical when it comes to IT/admin work.
I have no experience with Google Workspace; it seems highly geared towards large organizations, with lots of bloat that's useless to me. It has an "individual" tier too, but that doesn't have the custom domain email authentication support as far as I can see. Apparently being an individual with one's own domain is unheard of. 2/2

2025-10-06 08:12:41 UTC

For decades I've been using Gmail with its "send mail as" feature to have my own domain (runevision.com) appearing as the "from" address. Today I experienced a mail outright bouncing due to lack of SPF or DKIM authentication.
A bit of research reveals that without paying for Google Workspace, there's no way to fix this. Regular Gmail's "send mail as" feature is broken in practice, as email handlers such as Yahoo will now categorically reject mails using it. 1/2

2025-08-22 13:09:43 UTC

I made a configurable multi-plot utility Shadertoy
https://www.shadertoy.com/view/WclyzB
For the erosion video I'm working on, I want to show some function graph synced with erosion parameter changes. I wasn't happy with the existing function plotting examples I could find, so made my own here.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/115/072/577/015/362/170/original/aaf35b9c6eb9b7f2.mp4

2025-08-12 16:07:12 UTC

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@nprofile…kmgm I can't see anything there about being able to animate shader variables via keyframes?

2025-08-12 11:52:59 UTC

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@nprofile…qfys @nprofile…kksy Shadertoy has various syntax that's specific to Shadertoy, so no general shader support in other apps or tools will support Shadertoy unless specifically designed to support it.

2025-08-12 11:22:55 UTC

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There is an graphics application called Natron which has a Shadergraph node, and this might be the closest to what I'm thinking of. Unfortunately it seems like a daunting tool to learn, and it only support Shadertoy 0.8.8 (WebGL 1.0) and not the current Shadertoy 0.9 (WebGL 2.0).
https://natron.readthedocs.io/en/v2.3.15/plugins/net.sf.openfx.Shadertoy.html

2025-08-12 08:04:14 UTC

I'm working on a video where I use Shadertoy for a lot of the visualizations. It's quick and fun to test things and make simple procedural animations, but I really really miss a keyframe editor. Shadertoy plus a timeline with keyframes would be so powerful.

2025-08-03 08:47:38 UTC

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@nprofile…z4fl Exactly, that’s what I normally do. It just sounded like maybe there was a quicker way to check at a glance based on the reply from @nprofile…v284, but I guess not.

2025-08-02 20:47:40 UTC

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@nprofile…v284 @nprofile…z4fl How do you request “feed” from the blog’s root? Blogs generally encode the feed URL via website metadata in the HTML header, but I don’t know how to check if a blog has a feed without checking the HTML source or trying adding it to my feed reader.

2025-07-23 19:25:02 UTC

I finally managed to apply the erosion filter to my game's terrain.
1st image is without erosion.
2nd image is applying erosion naively. The high-frequency details confuse the erosion filter and creates lots of little spikes.
3rd image is applying the erosion to low frequency parts of the terrain only, and adding the high frequency details afterwards. Plus some parameter tweaks to make peaks less sharp and add a third erosion octave.
#ProcGen #GameDev
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/904/183/551/480/183/original/dc4f2792afbcb85a.png
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/904/183/636/658/582/original/7a82169f1ec8b15c.png
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/904/183/568/108/578/original/ac8a54b3664a79c6.png

2025-07-19 08:53:31 UTC

Really cool video that made me understand sound harmony and dissonance at a more fundamental level:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCsl6ZcY9ag

2025-07-18 09:49:03 UTC

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@nprofile…a729 @nprofile…d23x I dunno, it was pretty close to that in the first iPhone?
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/873/607/236/055/119/original/17b4e401b8073a69.jpg

2025-07-15 19:14:48 UTC

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@nprofile…gvnm I don’t bike much in Winter here, but some people do. It’s possible to get studded bike tires.

2025-07-15 18:31:18 UTC

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@nprofile…gvnm Here in Turku there's often only a bike lane on one side of the road, which is used for both directions. I think hand sign for stopping is not used. Bell is almost never used; more chill approach. No experience with biking in other cities. Oh, and oddly, bikes have yield to cars in Finland in some cases where the opposite would be the case in Denmark.

2025-07-15 17:21:13 UTC

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@nprofile…gvnm It was great seeing you Aras, I'm glad that worked out! And nice meeting your family :) Enjoy the rest of your Finland stay!

2025-07-12 12:27:11 UTC

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The tree leaves are now swaying in the wind. The "Grasslands - Stylized Nature" pack the trees are from actually already included a wind effect, but I implemented some simple tweaks to make it more to my liking. What do you think?
#GameDev #IndieGameDev
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/840/254/787/643/068/original/d58a18e628b08fbc.mp4

2025-07-11 14:16:08 UTC

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Here's a fly-by with the new trees. The fact that they cast/receive shadows even in the distance makes a huge difference compared to the old Unity billboard ones, which destroyed the sense of depth in the distance.
#ProcGen #GameDev
(Video of old trees here: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@runevision/112186261304893345)
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/835/020/923/036/964/original/9a62b846480a1e58.mp4

2025-07-09 17:03:15 UTC

I got translucency working on the trees ☀️🌳
Hell yeah, let's stroll!
#GameDev #ProcGen
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/824/353/423/124/298/original/0ce292b1f8f74a8c.mp4

2025-07-06 18:53:26 UTC

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@nprofile…sq5t Do you mean alpha to coverage when you say dither to alpha? Otherwise I’m not familiar with what it means.

2025-07-06 18:03:27 UTC

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@nprofile…sq5t Is that in a custom engine? I’m using Unity - currently built-in pipeline, forward rendering. What you wrote is mostly already over my head.

2025-07-06 17:51:47 UTC

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Is this something that would get slightly easier if I use deferred rendering instead of forward? I have an intuition that then the imposters and the real models would add the same kind of data to the buffers which could then be handled the same way in the deferred passes? I don’t know much about how custom shaders work in deferred rendering though.

2025-07-06 17:47:04 UTC

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@nprofile…sq5t Yeah I’m currently trying to use GPU Instancer Pro and that adds a further layer of complications.

2025-07-06 17:44:34 UTC

I’m once again looking into the problem of getting trees to look decent in the distance by using octahedral impostors which support shadows and intersections. Problem is, I really need custom shading to make the tree foliage look nice, but then I also have to make impostor versions of those shaders, but also, the foliage and bark doesn’t use the same shader, and argh, everything is so complex.

2025-06-27 07:34:32 UTC

These days I use Bluesky and Mastodon equally, and usually cross-post to both. I do it manually, which is often not an issue, but for posts with multiple images it's really a drag due to the alt text requiring a lot of clicks on both ends to copy-paste.
I wish there was a simple automated Bluesky-to-Mastodon cross-posting solution. (The other way is not great, as the Bluesky character limit is smaller.) I tried Buffer a while ago, but it was bloated and didn't cover the basics well.

2025-06-25 18:36:10 UTC

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@nprofile…d23x The real answers were the items we made along the way

2025-06-08 05:22:28 UTC

While in Japan on holiday, I’m seizing the chance to do important research on aerial perspective.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/646/066/391/099/161/original/03c13b36510dd898.jpeg
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/646/066/472/810/456/original/17e9c16b33533d49.jpeg
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/646/066/488/076/003/original/939b08323f27f116.jpeg

2025-05-29 09:20:19 UTC

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@nprofile…d23x @nprofile…mrwr @nprofile…rwsn Sure, sure. To the average user they aren't significant issues, and certainly smaller than the issues/hassle of base stations. By now there are way more inside-out headsets out there than ones using base stations. But different people have different needs.

2025-05-29 07:45:27 UTC

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@nprofile…d23x @nprofile…mrwr @nprofile…rwsn Inside-out tracking without base stations has worked great for years, at least in the headsets that does it best. When people can play Beat Saber at Expert+ difficulty, tracking can’t be too much of an issue. That said, it does have the issue of not supporting custom trackers, and it’s sensitive to too dark or too bright (outdoor) lighting of the environment.

2025-05-28 14:46:45 UTC

With over a hundred pages, my personal website is on the larger side. I started it all the way back in 1998, and I've lost track of all the ways it has looked and functioned over the years.
I've done a bit of digital archaeology to rediscover its past:
https://runevision.com/about/evolution/
#webdesign
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/586/005/552/156/449/original/6bdcad9bcd7bde63.png

2025-05-20 16:22:50 UTC

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@nprofile…gvnm Thanks! Yeah, somewhat sad. Then again, I'm happy where I am now, and Unity - eh - maybe Unity will be able to turn things around one day? And there's probably at least a few people who work there now who like their job there, even if it's no longer a good place for most of us old-timers.

2025-05-20 16:11:10 UTC

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@nprofile…gvnm Congrats!
By the way, I finally got around to listening to that Wookash podcast episode you were in (since I was traveling, and that's the only time I listen to podcasts). Very nice listen!

2025-05-20 14:07:32 UTC

I wrote a bit about the many features I worked on at Unity Technologies 2009-2020, while the company grew from 20 to 3000 people.
Get a peek behind the scenes of some familiar Unity features, as well as a few that never shipped.
https://runevision.com/tech/unitywork/
#gamedev #unity3d

2025-05-03 12:04:02 UTC

I'm taking a break from gamedev to work on some improvements to my personal website. Did you know that for 20+ years it's been powered by a Microsoft Access database of all things? Apart from the blog (which is only one part of the website) all pages have to be edited in this ancient database program, since I never bothered to implement online editing functionality.
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/443/802/410/926/728/original/442e049accc1e3bd.png

2025-04-27 16:25:03 UTC

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@nprofile…k0gr good writeup. My primary reference for pros/cons is this document by nothke: https://gist.github.com/nothke/a3ba1d26668e33955b5ed44b59c67c3f
So many of the cons there are deal breakers to me. A few of them has since been addressed, but I think most still remain?

2025-04-15 16:28:59 UTC

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@nprofile…sq5t I assumed these already didn't operate within the law, but I have no idea.

2025-04-15 16:15:31 UTC

I'm kind of fascinated by the fact that spam emails (at least almost all the ones I receive) have dropped all pretense of coming from real people or organizations and instead treat the "from" name as a mini subject line. Presumably the target audience are none the wiser, but still...
Hello mr. Kills your liver (if that is even your real name),
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/342/869/699/715/845/original/2eaddc71cb8548cd.png

2025-04-10 14:58:48 UTC

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@nprofile…gvnm I think so? But it's not yet the recommended solution for game UI in Unity as they acknowledge it doesn't do everything as well yet. So I'll have to wait passing any judgement ;)

2025-04-10 14:46:49 UTC

Isn't it curious that Unity, Unreal and Godot all use very similar UI (and underlying representation) for how a UI element is anchored to its parent container?
This is based on the work I did for Unity's UI system that shipped in Unity 4.6 in 2015. It was later copied by Unreal and Godot - in Unreal's case, even before Unity 4.6 went out of beta!
No hard feelings - I'm proud to have been behind this "industry standard" :)
#gamedev #ui #ux
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/314/209/288/731/336/original/8731f382abfb5e7a.png

2025-04-08 19:08:22 UTC

Current look of my procedural creature generation. Some progress - more of them look quite decent now, though there are still frequent artefacts and unacceptable results. (Yes yes I know, shipit! etc.) Classic procedural generation; no AI involved.
#ProcGen
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/303/912/965/185/749/original/a6ffe09e21fe92cd.mp4

2025-04-02 19:49:57 UTC

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@nprofile…gvnm Watched it now too. Great movie to watch in the cinema! The only rendering things that kept distracting me was that the dark grey cat every so often appeared light grey or nearly white to me. Like it’s lighting was inconsistent with the environment immediately around it. Limitations of a hacky fur shader? Or was it only me who perceived it’s shade to change?

2025-03-25 16:28:16 UTC

I can finally work on my procedural creature parametrization again, now on a much better foundation.
After working on parametrization matrix math and custom tools for the past five weeks, the results are coming together. Here's a demo of my derived parametrization tool.
#ProcGen
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/224/011/105/676/048/original/fb5458a1f5a56d11.mp4

2025-03-07 14:32:15 UTC

For my procedural creatures, I'm still working on a (generic mathematical) system for manually creating a derived higher-level parametrization based on an original parametrization.
I got some great pointers about using the matrix pseudoinverse and made a working implementation of that which works for one level of "parents", but I'm still unsure how to expand this approach to support an arbitrary hierarchy of parent parameters.
#math
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/114/121/633/536/404/648/original/a7e7e1c6e1b5f31c.png

2025-02-25 13:23:26 UTC

I've been pondering a new paradigm for my procedural creatures, where instead of trying to design a high-level parametrization by reducing the amount of parameters, I aim for a hierarchy of parameters where some have large effects and others are for fine tuning.
I've been exploring the mathematical foundation of this on paper and noted down my thoughts in this Google doc. Not sure if it makes sense to anyone but me, but if it does, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rHYf1wPzj5-fvcGvRwSpNB0JinX-j387WPyRPkzgR34/edit?usp=sharing

2025-02-11 19:24:28 UTC

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@nprofile…gvnm How much of the "going to shit" is impacting your own everyday life in a tangible way here and now? I mean, if you stopped using the Internet and reading the news, how much of the "going to shit" would you still perceive? I'm genuinely asking, because I don't know your situation. In mine, I'm fortunate that a lot of it is only via Internet and news, and I'm very deliberately curating how I consume that in order to minimize the negative impact on my well-being.

2025-02-07 13:36:40 UTC

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By popular request I've added support for color RGB dithering, CMYK halftone, true 1-bit low-res effects, and much more to the Surface-Stable Fractal Dithering repo!
See it all in this groovy feature demo video (I spent a long time on it) and 🔊sound on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzjWBmhO_1E
#gamedev #vfx
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/113/962/869/866/679/126/original/89c1d412465c4737.mp4

2024-10-01 13:57:57 UTC

Hi! I'm Rune, a full-time solo indie game developer (art, design, code, ...).
After releasing my first game 'Eye of the Temple' I've been busy developing procedural generation tech for my current game 'The Big Forest'. I often post about it; here's a sampling of my experiments.
#GameDev #IndieDev #ProcGen
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/113/232/515/428/817/330/original/4246be8c433f43b0.mp4