Ignacio Castaño🍉

Master swimmer, mountain climber, and stand up coder.
I work on texture processing tools at Ludicon.
Formerly at Roblox, Thekla (The Witness), NVIDIA, OddWorld, Relic, Crytek.

About Me: https://ludicon.com/castano
Blog: https://ludicon.com/castano/blog
GitHub: https://github.com/castano/
strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/castano80

Last Notes

2026-06-30 16:50:02 GMT

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Coevolution? 🤔

2026-06-30 16:09:33 GMT

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I always thought that very spicy foods were the result of human artificial selection.

2026-04-24 18:08:05 GMT

Some reading for the weekend:
Implementation details of Apple's lossy texture compression format.
https://www.ludicon.com/castano/blog/2026/04/metal-lossy-compression-format/
Enjoy!

2025-04-25 18:58:28 GMT

Ha, that also got me excited, until I had the same realization…
https://bird.makeup/users/sebaaltonen/statuses/1915694759244349467

2025-03-06 18:38:42 GMT

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I’ve written a detailed blog post covering everything that’s new in Spark 1.2, check it out here:
https://www.ludicon.com/castano/blog/2025/03/spark-1-2/
Boosts appreciated!

2025-03-06 18:37:40 GMT

I'm excited to announce that Spark 1.2 is finally out!
This release brings major optimizations, new formats, and expanded platform support, solidifying Spark as the go-to solution for all your real-time GPU texture compression needs.
What’s new?
- Massive performance improvements thanks to extensive f16 vectorization.
- New codecs: HDR support through RGBM formats, ETC2, BC3-YCoCg, ASTC 6×6, and sideband codecs for transcoding.
- New platforms: Now supports Android TV and consoles.

2025-02-20 09:35:18 GMT

I wrote a blog post about the journey to get GPU texture compression working everywhere, with some historical bits about how I got into this field. Check it out!
https://www.ludicon.com/castano/blog/2025/02/gpu-texture-compression-everywhere/

2024-11-17 04:02:11 GMT

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Thanks for sharing this. I heard the fake story on the news and thought it was bizarre. It’s disgusting that NPR went along with it and never issued a retraction.