GLSL floats to ints syntax

 welp...don't want to go looking for this again:

    int idx= int(payload.flip);

visual studio BKM and ensuring HLSL files are built after changes are made

 so...you have an .hlsl file and you want to make sure your changes trigger a rebuild do not use the pre-build for the solution. instead, click on the .hlsl and use a custom build tool. the final thing you have to do is to tell visual studio to treat the output as content and fill in the content field with your compilation output artifact(s).

Stochastic LOD sample from nvidia

neat sample, needs minor cleanup to compile on my VS2019 solution. may not be anything wrong with the right environment, etc. just my config:

several #include <iostreams>

disabled 'treat errors as warnings'.

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/implementing-stochastic-lod-with-microsoft-dxr/

several live objects after sample executes/shuts down, not going to resolve at this time.

hints at authoring/presenting a good talk

 Need to review this before starting any new presentation:

http://graphics.stanford.edu/~kayvonf/misc/cleartalktips.pdf

visualization components for future use

https://observablehq.com/@d3/gallery

ack to Marissa Du Bois for the pointer. 

Phrases that make you sound weak..but sometimes isn't that exactly the goal?

 https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/07/overused-words-and-phrases-that-make-you-sound-weak-less-confident-according-to-grammar-experts.html

Game market, game ecosystem stats

 https://www.wepc.com/news/video-game-statistics/

row major and column major major confusion

Capturing for posterity:

TL;DR: C is row major, XMMATRIX* is row major, HLSL is column major. 

A comment here explains rationale:

https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/649263-matrix-multiplication-order/

And you can tell HLSL to flip to row major.

Buffers

 read this: http://www.joshbarczak.com/blog/?p=1260

D3D Feature Levels

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/direct3d12/hardware-feature-levels

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/new-in-directx-feature-level-12_2/

https://walbourn.github.io/direct3d-feature-levels/