# Hyperfy Discord - 2025-06-03

## Overall Discussion Highlights

### New Rendering Pipeline Development
- **Alpha Release Approaching**: Ashxn is leading implementation of a new rendering pipeline with significant visual and performance improvements
- **Key Features**: Ambient occlusion (AO) and occlusion culling dramatically enhance visual quality and performance
- **Community Testing**: Available on "render-pipeline" branch for testing, with developers actively sharing screenshots and feedback
- **Performance Gains**: Notable improvements observed even in complex environments that would have struggled previously
- **Visual Impact**: The AO implementation particularly impressed users, making low-poly models look significantly better

### Texture Optimization Techniques
- **Format Recommendations**: Vox shared extensive insights comparing PNG and WebP formats
- **PNG Benefits**: For baked textures with gradients, PNG (even at 512x512) provides better quality than larger WebP textures while using less VRAM
- **WebP Use Cases**: Recommended for most PBR textures, colors, and as a transparent PNG replacement
- **Texture Atlases**: Vox shared innovative texture atlases for building entire scenes with a single drawcall and for machinery with UV scrolling effects

### Community Concerns
- **Communication**: Some members expressed desire for more substantive updates rather than memes
- **Scam Warning**: A community member warned about potential scammers impersonating Hyperfy on Solana
- **Website Issues**: Team acknowledged they're working on a new website (hyperfy.xyz) to better redirect users
- **Documentation Access**: Users reported difficulty finding current documentation

## Key Questions & Answers

### Rendering & Development
- **Q**: Is there an easy way to have texture offsets not affect the normal map? (Shiffty)  
  **A**: "Nah they're linked right now but it would be nice to control them individually" (Ashxn)

- **Q**: Anyone knows where to find the docs right now? https://hyperfy.how/ 404 (mrtzhckr)  
  **A**: "https://docs.hyperfy.xyz" (Ashxn)

- **Q**: The version we get from GitHub is Hyperfy V2 right? (Cayden0207)  
  **A**: "Yup 🙂" (Ashxn)

- **Q**: Have you launched on Solana? (Kicale)  
  **A**: "Not yet" (CheddarQueso 🧀)

### Texture Optimization
- **Q**: What compression level is recommended for WebP textures? (Ashxn)  
  **A**: "You might be able to get away with a 95% WebP, but for baked textures with gradients, compression can be problematic regardless of resolution." (vox)

- **Q**: What tool can be used for resizing textures? (vox)  
  **A**: "https://glb.babylonpress.org/" (vox)

## Community Help & Collaboration

### Texture & UV Handling
- **Helper**: b0gie | **Helpee**: Shiffty  
  **Context**: Texture offsets affecting normal maps  
  **Resolution**: b0gie created a demo with separate planes for diffuse and normal maps, allowing independent UV scrolling

### Documentation Access
- **Helper**: Ashxn | **Helpee**: mrtzhckr  
  **Context**: Finding documentation  
  **Resolution**: Provided correct docs link and promised to fix outdated link in GitHub readme

### Texture Optimization Knowledge Sharing
- **Helper**: vox | **Helpee**: Community  
  **Context**: Texture optimization for 3D models  
  **Resolution**: Shared detailed insights on PNG vs WebP usage, recommending PNG for baked textures with gradients and WebP for most other cases

### Visitor Analytics Implementation
- **Helper**: 0mka | **Helpee**: Gert-Jan Akerboom  
  **Context**: Discord hyp and world chat/msg/player data  
  **Resolution**: Offered help with visitor analytics implementation

### Scam Warning
- **Helper**: Kicale | **Helpee**: CheddarQueso 🧀  
  **Context**: Warning about scammers impersonating Hyperfy on Solana  
  **Resolution**: Team was made aware of the potential scam

## Action Items

### Technical
- Test new render-pipeline branch and provide feedback (Ashxn)
- Fix hyperfy.how link in GitHub readme (Ashxn)
- Implement screen-space distance culling for better performance (Ashxn)
- Investigate performance spike on world enter (b0gie)
- Use PNG format for baked textures with gradients to maintain quality while optimizing VRAM usage (vox)
- Use WebP at 95-100% quality for most PBR textures, colors, and as transparent PNG replacement (vox)
- Skip denoising algorithms during baking and apply denoising via compositing later for better results (vox)
- Utilize texture atlases to reduce drawcalls by joining/instancing meshes (vox)

### Documentation
- Document ambient occlusion as a per-world setting (Ashxn)
- Document occlusion culling as a per-world setting (Ashxn)
- Create a banner redirecting to official resources (vox)
- Post more substantive updates (MUDBONE)

### Feature
- Add ability to control texture offsets and normal maps independently (Ashxn)
- Consider implementing fishing mechanics (drdoge.eth)
- Explore possibility of rendering as vector SVG for better quality (b0gie)
- Consider tokenizing texture atlases for the Hyperfy marketplace (untitled, xyz)
- Eliza integrations (MUDBONE)