TacticalCoderFeb 2014Strongly recommends
In a different style, the "Elevated" demo, coded in 4K (you'll have a hard time believing it if you haven't seen it yet): ▶ this video
in “As much Stack Overflow as possible in 4096 bytes” · View on HN
Elevated by RGBA and TBC
Elevated by RGBA and TBC on HackerTube: recommended by 7 Hacker News commenters across 7 separate months, 2009–2025.
BUTTONTANG
Open on YouTubedemo · evergreen
Elevated is a 4 kilobyte PC demo by RGBA and TBC from Breakpoint 2009. It fly-throughs a realistic procedurally generated landscape with synthesized music and post-processing, all from a tiny executable.
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN repeatedly holds it up as the benchmark for what procedural generation and size-coding can achieve in 4K.
- people recommended it
- 7
- separate months
- 7
- strong recommendations
- 1
- discussed on HN
- 2009–2025
“you'll have a hard time believing it if you haven't seen it yet”
What HN commenters said
12 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
karteumApr 2025Recommends
It's 12 years old now, but I am still extremely impressed by this 64k intro [link] and also by this 4k intro ▶ this video :) And overall this website is extremely interesting with tutorials and code and great explanations [link]
in “The demoscene as a UNESCO heritage in Sweden” · View on HN
dwrodriMay 2020Recommends
I know that a huge part of the demoscene culture is keeping your trade secrets close, but I'd love to see a YouTube playlist where authors or people with significant graphics experience do in-depth teardowns. Those of us like myself who only take a passing interest from afar are still blown away by how amazing results of demos like "elevated" from 2009 [1]. I've heard Iñigo Quílez, but I am curious if there are people interested in doing teardowns of winners moreso than elementary concepts (although of course the latter is much more applciable outside of the demo scene). 1= ▶ this video
in “The Vanishing Of Ashlar: 4kb demo using GPU for sound and pathtracing” · View on HN
userbinatorJul 2016Recommends
Indeed, keep going, and you may reach this level of awesome: ▶ this video (Quite realistic terrain generated by a 4 kilobyte binary, along with music . Source code and its discussion here: [link] )
in “Show HN: A simple infinite world in WebGL” · View on HN
vmindMay 2012Recommends
Cool, but I think my favourite 4k demo is still Elevated, which is much less obviously procedural. ( ▶ this video )
in “Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes” · View on HN
z303May 2010Recommends
Two more by Farbrausch the.popular.demo [link] and Candytron (64K) [link] For some newer releases blunderbuss by Fairlight [link] is very different is style but still very cool and two post about the particle system behind the demo [link] [link] Elevated by Rgba & TBC ▶ this video is a great example of what people can do in 4K, and they even have a presentation about the technical details [link] and State of the Art by Spaceballs [link] is a highpoint of the amiga scene (edited to add, which I should have clicked on the link to see it had already been embedded)
in “The Demoscene -- an Overview” · View on HN
Show 6 more comments
barrettcolinApr 2009Recommends
Check out 'Elevated' - winner of the 4k PC demo category at Breakpoint 2009. It's a fly-through of a realistic looking procedurally generated terrain model with music and some fancy post processing effects all squeezed into a <4096 bytes executable. Even my moderately high-end PC can't run it (I suspect because it shoves an overwhelmingly huge triangle mesh at the GPU) but there's a video here: ▶ this video
in “Awesome Procedural Terrain Generation” · View on HN
d_silinApr 2020Cites it
A couple of other famous short demos: ▶ this video ("Elevated", 4k) [link] ("One of those days", 8k)
in “Memories – 256 bytes demo winner of Revision 2020” · View on HN
userbinatorMay 2014Cites it
Reminds me of this - pretty good looking terrain + animation + sound in a 4 kilobyte executable: ▶ this video How it was done: [link]
in “Realistic terrain in 130 lines of JavaScript” · View on HN
klodolphSep 2012Cites it
> The article's tone implies that these were the 'good old days' when compilers were small and fast. That's reading a lot into two short paragraphs. Tone doesn't come across well in text, and the shorter the text is, the harder it is to figure out tone. I don't hear nostalgia for the 'good old days' in the article, what I hear is, "Wow! What a feat of engineering to fit an IDE and compiler into 40k!" We get the same kick out of watching demo competitions. Have you seen the "Elevated" demo? Including the music, sound effects, textures, everything, it's only 4k... ▶ this video
in “Things That Turbo Pascal is Smaller Than (2011)” · View on HN
slackitoDec 2010Cites it
> For doing data compression has anyone ever heard about using these techniques to generate other things besides 3D game levels? These techniques are routinely used in the demoscene for making 4Kb/64Kb intros. In this kind of intros almost everything is generated procedurally, not only meshes, but also textures and sound. If you are interested you can watch one of these examples: - Elevated (4K intro) Binary: [link] Youtube video: ▶ this video - .kkrieger (96K game) Binary: [link] Gameplay video: [link]
in “Procedural Building Generation in Unreal Engine 3” · View on HN
thristianJan 2010Cites it
For the impatient or people without sufficient hardware, a YouTube recording is here: ▶ this video One of the guys who created this little gem gave a presentation about the technology behind it; slides are here: [link]
in “"Elevated": Landscape generation and music synthesis in 4KB” · View on HN
Topics & tags
Demoscene & retrocomputingCreative coding & generative artComputer graphics & renderingdemosceneprocedural generation4k introsize codingterrain