gitwtfhub

wtf is stickshow?

keijiro/stickshow — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-07-28 · repo last pushed 2025-10-15

147C#Audience · developerComplexity · 3/5QuietSetup · easy

TL;DR

A Unity demo project showing how to render huge crowds of simple stick-figure characters on screen at once using GPU instancing, without slowing down your game.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Renders huge crowds
      Each figure moves individually
      Keeps frame rate stable
    Tech stack
      Unity
      C#
      GPU instancing
      Custom shaders
    Use cases
      Stadium crowd scenes
      Massive army battles
      Learn performance tricks
    Audience
      Game developers
      Technical artists
      Unity beginners
    Approach
      Code sample not tutorial
      Explore and adapt
      Sparse README

Code map

Detail Auto

An interactive map of this repo's files and how they connect — its source is parsed live in your browser. Click Visualize to build it.

filefunction / class

Why would anyone build with this?

REASON 1

Build a stadium game with thousands of cheering fans in the stands.

REASON 2

Create a battle scene with a massive army without cratering frame rate.

REASON 3

Learn GPU instancing techniques by studying a working Unity example.

REASON 4

Adapt the rendering pattern to your own 3D models and movement data.

What's in the stack?

UnityC#GPU InstancingRenderMeshInstancedCustom Shaders

How it stacks up

keijiro/stickshowsynacktiv/dcomillusionistparalives-free/paralives-money-cheats
Stars147143154
LanguageC#C#C#
Last pushed2025-10-15
MaintenanceQuiet
Setup difficultyeasyhardeasy
Complexity3/55/52/5
Audiencedeveloperresearchergeneral

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you spin it up?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Requires Unity installed, just open the project and hit play to see the demo.

No license information is provided in this repository.

Wtf does this do

StickShow is a demo project for Unity that shows how to display huge crowds of simple stick-figure characters on screen at the same time, all moving and behaving individually, without slowing down your game or app. Under the hood, it uses a Unity graphics feature called GPU instancing, specifically a method known as RenderMeshInstanced. In plain terms, instead of treating each stick figure as a separate object that the computer has to manage one by one, it sends a batch of instructions to the graphics card all at once. Each figure can still have its own unique data (like position or movement) thanks to a custom shader, but the rendering work is done in a single efficient pass rather than thousands of individual draws. The main audience is game developers or technical artists working in Unity who want to learn this performance technique by studying a working example. A practical scenario: you are building a stadium game and want thousands of cheering fans in the stands, or a battle scene with a massive army, situations where rendering each character normally would crater your frame rate. This project demonstrates the pattern so you can adapt it to your own models and data. The README is intentionally sparse, it is essentially a code sample with a visual demo rather than a tutorial. You are expected to open the Unity project, explore the setup, and learn from how it is constructed. The value is in the implementation itself, not in documentation.

Yoink these prompts

Prompt 1
Help me adapt the StickShow GPU instancing pattern from Unity to render my own low-poly character models instead of stick figures. What parts of the shader and script do I need to change?
Prompt 2
I want to add individual animations to each stick figure in the StickShow demo so they can cheer or wave differently. How would I pass animation data through the custom shader using RenderMeshInstanced?
Prompt 3
Explain how the StickShow project uses RenderMeshInstanced to draw thousands of characters in one pass. What makes this faster than treating each character as a separate GameObject?
Prompt 4
I cloned the StickShow Unity project and want to increase the crowd size to 50,000 figures. What performance considerations and buffer limits should I be aware of when scaling up GPU instancing?

Frequently asked questions

wtf is stickshow?

A Unity demo project showing how to render huge crowds of simple stick-figure characters on screen at once using GPU instancing, without slowing down your game.

What language is stickshow written in?

Mainly C#. The stack also includes Unity, C#, GPU Instancing.

Is stickshow actively maintained?

Quiet — no commits in 6-12 months (last push 2025-10-15).

What license does stickshow use?

No license information is provided in this repository.

How hard is stickshow to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is stickshow for?

Mainly developer.

View the repo → Decode another repo

This repo across BitVibe Labs

Don't trust strangers blindly. Verify against the repo.