Today at not-GDC, Khronos Group announced the release of Vulkan Ray Tracing, with initial support via beta drivers to NVidia cards.

Details from the Vulkan announcement:

Vulkan Ray Tracing consists of a number of Vulkan, SPIR-V, and GLSL extensions, some of which are optional. The primary VK_KHR_ray_tracing extension provides support for acceleration structure building and management, ray tracing shader stages and pipelines, and ray query intrinsics for all shader stages. VK_KHR_pipeline_library provides the ability to provide a set of shaders which can be efficiently linked into ray tracing pipelines. VK_KHR_deferred_host_operations enables intensive driver operations, including ray tracing pipeline compilation or CPU-based acceleration structure construction to be offloaded to application-managed CPU thread pools.

Vulkan Ray Tracing shaders are SPIR-V binaries which use two new extensions. The SPV_KHR_ray_tracing SPIR-V extension adds support for ray tracing shader stages and instructions; SPV_KHR_ray_query adds support for ray query shader instructions. Developers can generate those binaries in GLSL using two new GLSL extensions, GLSL_EXT_ray_tracing and GLSL_EXT_ray_query, which are supported in the open source glslang compiler. Engineers at Khronos member companies, including NVIDIA, have also added support for the SPIR-V extensions to DXC, Microsoft’s open source HLSL compiler, enabling Vulkan Ray Tracing SPIR-V shaders to be authored in HLSL using the syntax defined by Microsoft, with minimal modifications.

Beta drivers are available from NVidia here although it should be cautioned, these drivers are very much for developers only!  You can read more about the announcement in this 20 page pdf presentation, as well as a more in-depth technical overview of raytracing support in this blog post.

You can learn more about raytracing support in Vulkan in the video below.

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GameDev News 3D

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By AppleInsider Staff
Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 05:11 pm PT (08:11 pm ET)

Code discovered in the gold master of iOS 13.4 reveals each of Apple’s new iPad Pro models, released on Wednesday, boast 6GB of RAM and the company’s U1 Ultra Wideband chip, the latter of which could be used to locate rumored “AirTag” device trackers.

Code spelunking performed by 9to5Mac shows all versions of the new 2020 iPad Pro get identical 6GB allotments of system memory, 2GB more than all but the highest tier 1TB configuration of 2018’s iPad Pro.

The additional RAM will assist iPad Pro’s new A12Z processor chew through critical tasks and should allow more apps or browser tabs to be open simultaneously in the background.

Not much is known about Apple’s A12Z processor beyond its 64-bit architecture and 8-core graphics capabilities, but Apple claims the chip outpaces most laptop PCs available today.

Beyond memory, iOS 13.4 code reveals the fourth-generation iPad Pro integrates Apple’s U1 Ultra Wideband chip. The company fails to mention U1 support in documentation released today as part of the hardware announcement, but it can be assumed that the tablet will include features similar to iPhone 11.

Introduced in 2019 with iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, the U1 chip uses UWB technology for spatial awareness as it applies to other similarly equipped devices. For example, iPhone 11 can precisely determine its location relative to another nearby iPhone 11 or, as revealed today, 2020 iPad Pro.

Currently, the U1 is limited to prioritizing AirDrop recipients (accomplished by pointing an iPhone 11 to another iPhone 11 or 11 Pro), but that is expected to change in the near future. Apple is rumored to release a Tile-like tracker that is a shoo-in for UWB integration.

It’s been a while since we’ve heard much about Pokémon Sword and Shield. In fact, the last major news about it was the reveal of the new mythical monkey Zarude, and before this in January, we found out about the Expansion Pass coming to the game, and the launch of Pokémon Home.

Today, though, Nintendo’s attention has briefly returned to Sword and Shield – with a new update released for the game. Unfortunately, it’s not all that much. According to the official patch notes over on the Nintendo support page, several issues have been fixed to improve the gameplay experience:

Ver. 1.1.1 (Released March 17, 2020)

• Fixed several issues to improve gameplay experience.

Apart from this, that’s it! The next major update for the game is part one (The Isle of Armor) of the Expansion Pass. This will be released in June and The Crown Tundra is expected to follow. You can head over to the eShop right now and pick up the pass for £26.99 / $29.99.

Pokémon Home has also been updated to Version 1.0.1. Like Sword and Shield, it has a patch fixing several issues to improve the overall gameplay experience.

Have you noticed anything else about the latest patch for Sword and Shield? How about Home? Leave a comment down below.

There have been some reasonably exciting Super Smash Bros. Ultimate events so far this year. Just last week, for example, we got three new Ring Fit Adventure spirits. While this week isn’t quite as impressive, it’s still an interesting premise.

This week’s event takes on the form of a “reflection” tournament, limiting the line-up to fighters that can use reflection techniques. A lot of projectile items will also appear. As usual, this event will last a total of three days and starts on Friday.

Will you be participating in this upcoming Smash Bros. Ultimate tournament? Comment below.

Overlooking the morbid title, I Am Dead was perhaps one of the most charming reveals during the recent Nintendo Indie World Showcase. It’s a puzzle adventure game being published by Annapurna Interactive –known for titles such as Donut County – and is being developed by Hollow Ponds and Richard Hog (best known for Hohokum and Wilmont’s Warehouse).

I Am Dead is described as a “heartfelt story” about exploring the afterlife and has you following the story of Morris Lupton, a recently deceased museum curator on a tiny island named Shelmerston. Morris gets reunited with the ghost of his dog Sparky and then discovers a volcano is about to erupt and destroy the island.

Together, the duo must uncover ancient mysteries and prevent the island’s volcano from erupting to save their home. To help with their mission, Morris uses his newfound power, allowing him to peer inside objects and people to reveal their contents and memories.

Along the way you will discover many stories about the history and folklore of Shelmerston, and its cast of curious inhabitants and visitors: tourist finches, the fishfolk, morlos, and the Legend of Aggi – the one who originally silenced the volcano…

I Am Dead will launch “later this year” on the Nintendo Switch as a timed-exclusive. Is this an indie title you would be interested in trying out? Leave a comment below.

Introducing Echo.
An evolutionary robot programmed with a rapidly adapting artificial intelligence, Echo represents the cutting edge of technology. pic.twitter.com/aStyP5F4Al

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) March 18, 2020

This tutorial shows you everything you need to know to help you master the essential remove() method of the most fundamental container data type in the Python programming language.

Definition and Usage:

The list.remove(element) method removes the first occurrence of the element from an existing list. It does not, however, remove all occurrences of the element in the list!

Here’s a short example:

>>> lst = [1, 2, 99, 4, 99]

>>> lst.remove(99)

>>> lst

[1, 2, 4, 99]

In the first line of the example, you create the list lst. You then remove the integer element 99 from the list—but only its first occurrence. The result is the list with only four elements [1, 2, 4, 99].

Try it yourself:

Syntax:

You can call this method on each list object in Python. Here’s the syntax:

list.remove(element)

Arguments:

Return value:

The method list.remove(element) has return value None. It operates on an existing list and, therefore, doesn’t return a new list with the removed element

Video:

Code Puzzle:

Now you know the basics. Let’s deepen your understanding with a short code puzzle—can you solve it?

# Puzzle

presidents = ['Obama', 'Trump', 'Washington']

p2 = presidents[:2]

p2.remove('Trump')

print(presidents)

# What's the output of this code snippet?

You can check out the solution on the Finxter app.

Overview:

There are some alternative ways to remove elements from the list. See the overview table:

Next, you’ll dive into each of those methods to gain some deep understanding.

remove() — Remove An Element by Value

To remove an element from the list, use the list.remove(element) method you’ve already seen previously:

>>> lst = ["Alice", 3, "alice", "Ann", 42]

>>> lst.remove("Ann")

>>> lst

['Alice', 3, 'alice', 42]

Try it yourself:

The method goes from left to right and removes the first occurrence of the element that’s equal to the one to be removed.

Removed Element Does Not Exist

If you’re trying to remove element x from the list but x does not exist in the list, Python throws a Value error:

>>> lst = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Ann']

>>> lst.remove('Frank')

Traceback (most recent call last): File "<pyshell#19>", line 1, in <module> lst.remove('Frank')

ValueError: list.remove(x): x not in list

pop() — Remove An Element by Index

Per default, the pop() method removes the last element from the list and returns the element.

>>> lst = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Ann']

>>> lst.pop() 'Ann'

>>> lst

['Alice', 'Bob']

But you can also define the optional index argument. In this case, you’ll remove the element at the given index—a little known Python secret!

>>> lst = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Ann']

>>> lst.pop(1) 'Bob'

>>> lst

['Alice', 'Ann']

clear() — Remove All Elements

The clear() method simply removes all elements from a given list object.

>>> lst = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Ann']

>>> lst.clear()

>>> lst

[]

del — Remove Elements by Index or Slice

This trick is also relatively unknown among Python beginners:

• Use del lst[index] to remove the element at index.
• Use del lst[start:stop] to remove all elements in the slice.

>>> lst = list(range(10))

>>> lst

[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

>>> del lst[5]

>>> lst

[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9]

>>> del lst[:4]

>>> lst

[4, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Related blog articles:

• Check out my full slicing tutorial that makes you a master slicer in 15 minutes or so!

List Comprehension — Remove Elements Conditionally

Okay, this is kind of cheating because this method does not really remove elements from a list object. It merely creates a new list with some elements that meet your condition.

List comprehension is a compact way of creating lists. The simple formula is [ expression + context ].

• Expression: What to do with each list element?
• Context: What list elements to select? It consists of an arbitrary number of for and if statements.

The example [x for x in range(3)] creates the list [0, 1, 2].

You can also define a condition such as all odd values x%2==1 in the context part by using an if condition. This leads us to a way to remove all elements that do not meet a certain condition in a given list.

>>> lst = list(range(10))

>>> lst_new = [x for x in lst if x%2]

>>> lst_new

[1, 3, 5, 7, 9] 

While you iterate over the whole list lst, the condition x%2 requires that the elements are odd.

Related blog articles:

• Check out my full list comprehension tutorial for maximal learning!

Python List remove() All

The list.remove(x) method only removes the first occurrence of element x from the list.

But what if you want to remove all occurrences of element x from a given list?

The answer is to use a simple loop:

lst = ['Ann', 'Ann', 'Ann', 'Alice', 'Ann', 'Bob']

x = 'Ann' while x in lst: lst.remove(x) print(lst)

# ['Alice', 'Bob']

You simply call the remove() method again and again until element x is not in the list anymore.

Python List Remove Duplicates

How to remove all duplicates of a given value in the list?

The naive approach is to go over each element and check whether this element already exists in the list. If so, remove it. However, this takes a few lines of code.

A shorter and more concise way is to create a dictionary out of the elements in the list. Each list element becomes a new key to the dictionary. All elements that occur multiple times will be assigned to the same key. The dictionary contains only unique keys—there cannot be multiple equal keys.

As dictionary values, you simply take dummy values (per default).

Related blog articles:

• Check out my ultimate dictionary tutorial for maximal learning!

Then, you simply convert the dictionary back to a list throwing away the dummy values. As the dictionary keys stay in the same order, you don’t lose the order information of the original list elements.

Here’s the code:

>>> lst = [1, 1, 1, 3, 2, 5, 5, 2]

>>> dic = dict.fromkeys(lst)

>>> dic

{1: None, 3: None, 2: None, 5: None}

>>> duplicate_free = list(dic)

>>> duplicate_free

[1, 3, 2, 5]

Python List remove() If Exists

How to remove an element from a list—but only if it exists?

The problem is that if you try to remove an element from the list that doesn’t exist, Python throws a Value Error. You can avoid this by checking the membership of the element to be removed first:

>>> lst = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Ann']

>>> lst.remove('Frank') if 'Frank' in lst else None

>>> lst

['Alice', 'Bob', 'Ann']

This makes use of the Python one-liner feature of conditional assignment (also called the ternary operator).

Related blog articles:

• Check out my ternary operator tutorial and boost your skills!

Python List remove() Thread Safe

Do you have a multiple threads that access your list at the same time? Then you need to be sure that the list operations (such as remove()) are actually thread safe.

In other words: can you call the remove() operation in two threads on the same list at the same time? (And can you be sure that the result is meaningful?)

The answer is yes (if you use the cPython implementation). The reason is Python’s global interpreter lock that ensures that a thread that’s currently working on it’s code will first finish its current basic Python operation as defined by the cPython implementation. Only if it terminates with this operation will the next thread be able to access the computational resource. This is ensured with a sophisticated locking scheme by the cPython implementation.

The only thing you need to know is that each basic operation in the cPython implementation is atomic. It’s executed wholly and at once before any other thread has the chance to run on the same virtual engine. Therefore, there are no race conditions. An example for such a race condition would be the following: the first thread reads a value from the list, the second threads overwrites the value, and the first thread overwrites the value again invalidating the second thread’s operation.

All cPython operations are thread-safe. But if you combine those operations into higher-level functions, those are not generally thread safe as they consist of many (possibly interleaving) operations.

Where to Go From Here?

The list.remove(element) method removes the first occurrence of element from the list.

You’ve learned the ins and outs of this important Python list method.

If you keep struggling with those basic Python commands and you feel stuck in your learning progress, I’ve got something for you: Python One-Liners (Amazon Link).

In the book, I’ll give you a thorough overview of critical computer science topics such as machine learning, regular expression, data science, NumPy, and Python basics—all in a single line of Python code!

Get the book from Amazon!

OFFICIAL BOOK DESCRIPTION: Python One-Liners will show readers how to perform useful tasks with one line of Python code. Following a brief Python refresher, the book covers essential advanced topics like slicing, list comprehension, broadcasting, lambda functions, algorithms, regular expressions, neural networks, logistic regression and more. Each of the 50 book sections introduces a problem to solve, walks the reader through the skills necessary to solve that problem, then provides a concise one-liner Python solution with a detailed explanation.

Kicking off the Indie World Showcase was the premiere of Blue Fire – a 3D action-adventure from the Argentine developer, Robi Studios. It’ll launch first on the Nintendo Switch this summer, as a timed-exclusive.

As the player, you’ll explore the mysterious and “beautiful forgotten kingdom” of Penumbra, while you slash and platform your way through enemies. Discover secrets of the long-forgotten land, explore mystical temples, encounter survivors and take on stage quests to collect valuable items. Below is a look and some of the features you can expect:

A Haunting World – Travel through the perished world of Penumbra to explore unique areas filled with diverse enemies, sharp 3D platforming challenges, quests, collectibles and more.

Slash Your Way Through Great Adversaries – Encounter dangerous enemies with distinct fighting styles and partake in intense combat-platforming boss fights.

Encounter Peculiar Survivors – A long time has passed since Penumbra fell into darkness, but those that survived the kingdom’s fall will aid your journey to unlock valuable rewards.

Collectibles – Once a rich and lush kingdom, Penumbra is filled with many collectibles and items to discover, loot, collect, sell, trade and purchase.

Upgrades – No great warrior can battle the dangers lurking in Penumbra without the proper equipment. Upgrade your swords, collect valuable amulets and unlock new abilities to transform into a fierce fighter.

Lost in the Void – Far from Penumbra, there is a lost land called The Void. Find Void entrances throughout the world to uncover abstract platforming challenges that require great

Do you like the look of Blue Fire? What did you think of it compared to the other Nindies revealed today? Leave a comment below.