19 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
dgellowApr 2023Strongly recommends
I see a Inigo Quilez link, I upvote! He's one of those incredible artist-engineer out there always pushing boundaries further and sharing his ideas and techniques publicly. If you have some time today, watch a few of his videos on his youtube channel, it's incredible to see his creation process in action: [link] For example, "Painting a character with maths" is mind-blowing and packed with SO MUCH educative content: ▶ this video
in “Simple Pathtracing” · View on HN
nighthawk454Dec 2022Strongly recommends
Great write up. If anyone wants to explore SDFs more, check out Inigo Quilez - he's a master of this stuff and a great explainer. Painting a Character with Maths: ▶ this video And plenty more on his website in article form: [link] Finally, Shadertoy, a graphics shader playground where you can see (and try!) a lot of this kind of stuff: [link]
in “Signed distance functions in 46 lines of Python” · View on HN
gregsadetskyAug 2021Strongly recommends
Agreed. Check out his incredible videos! Such as this mind-blowing one... ▶ this video "Painting a Selfie Girl, with Maths"
in “Fishdraw: Procedurally Generated Fish Drawings” · View on HN
kn8aJan 2021Strongly recommends
This was a mind blowing example of math and art from last year - perhaps the live coding of the method was even more impressive than the outcome: ▶ this video
in “2020 Mathematical Art Exhibition” · View on HN
sxpJan 2021Strongly recommends
If you don't have an understanding of signed distance fields, ▶ this video is an amazing demo of their power. There are more videos about the fundamentals of SDFs at [link] The interesting thing about this paper is that they replace the mathematical SDF with a neural net that computes SDF_NN(x,y,z) => -1/1 and use this as a compression system for mesh based inputs. This feels like a graphical version of the [link] for NN-based text compression.
in “Neural Geometric Level of Detail: Real-Time Rendering with Implicit 3D Surfaces” · View on HN
JareNov 2025Recommends
Obligatory "this painting is a mathematical formula, a big function on the x and y coordinates of each pixel" video from Iñigo Quilez. ▶ this video
in “Shaders: How to draw high fidelity graphics with just x and y coordinates” · View on HN
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emigreMay 2025Recommends
Check out 'Painting a Character with Maths' [1] (2020) by him, it's a very interesting video. [1] ▶ this video
in “Inigo Quilez: computer graphics, mathematics, shaders, fractals, demoscene” · View on HN
antegamisouSep 2023Recommends
Good to see high quality articles gaining traction. If the article looks too verbose, be sure to check out, as the author cites, Inigo Quilez's videos Painting a Landscape with Maths - [link] Painting a Character with Maths - ▶ this video Bonus: Painting with Maths in Google Sheets - [link]
in “Painting with Math: A Gentle Study of Raymarching” · View on HN
pdpiMar 2023Recommends
And, if we're suggesting Shadertoy, this video by one of its creators is probably worth watching: ▶ this video
in “Procedural 3D mesh generation in a 64kB intro” · View on HN
lifthrasiirMay 2022Recommends
Inigo Quilez, the author of this slide, also has made in-depth videos [1] [2] which might be more accessible to who aren't familiar with shader languages. [1] ▶ this video [2] [link]
in “Making graphics in 4 kilobytes (2008) [pdf]” · View on HN
brundolfMay 2022Recommends
It's very similar to writing shaders. Check out this video for some crazy stuff you can do with equations: ▶ this video
in “Sliderland – Creative coding with 64 HTML sliders” · View on HN
dominicjjApr 2021Recommends
Demos are almost always generated and displayed at runtime. The music is composed of samples generated at runtime by additive synthesis which is just adding waveforms of differing frequencies together when you get down to it. It doesn't take many lines of code to produce CD quality instruments that can be arranged as a soundtrack. Today's 64k intros offload their drawing onto the GPU using shaders and a technique called raymarching which is a form of fixed-step raytracing that can be done in real time. Essentially the objects you see are painted with math: instead of thousands of vertices for a 3d fractal or a complex object, a formula is fed in to the ray marcher and it returns a shape with colors and lighting. Combining shapes using unions and intersections is then done and often the shape formula will take time as a parameter as well. To play with this concept yourself go to [link] and see how shader programs are rendered into incredible scenes with astonishingly few lines of code. For a wonderful look at the creation process, see the grandfather of raymarching Inigo Quilez create a selfie of a girl from scratch using formulas here: ▶ this video
in “Condition: A 64KB WebGL Intro” · View on HN
lligalloJan 2021Recommends
Checkout this video by the author. It makes a full 3d complex scene out of a math formula, with step by step explanation ▶ this video
in “Graphtoy” · View on HN
rozabAug 2025Cites it
This is of course true, but have you ever seen Inigo Quilez's SDF renderings? It's certainly not scalable, but it sure is interesting ▶ this video
in “LL3M: Large Language 3D Modelers” · View on HN
vanderZwanJun 2023Cites it
Could you define "assets", please? What would you consider the assets in these videos by Inigo Quillez, for example? [link] ▶ this video
in “Infinite Photorealistic Worlds Using Procedural Generation” · View on HN
gcrMar 2023Cites it
Inigo Quilez does some incredible stuff with signed distance fields! Those don't use textures in the traditional sense, but see ▶ this video
in “The model for the coins in Super Mario Odyssey is 65% simpler than in SM Galaxy” · View on HN
CyborgCabbageOct 2022Cites it
He has a YouTube channel as well: ▶ this video Also you may like Marble Marcher made by Code Parade, it's a game that uses a similar approach to rendering: [link]
in “Ask HN: What piece of code/codebase blew your mind when you saw it?” · View on HN
silviotSep 2022Cites it
Previous discussion: [link] (36 comments - sep 6th 2022). This video [1] linked there shows how far you can get with this technique. [1] ▶ this video
in “Bauble: A playground for making art with Lisp and math” · View on HN
t8yFeb 2022Cites it
I don't think that people only value the output. Take "Selfie Girl"[0] by Inigo Quilez people appreciate that it's a shader, even people that are not into programming (though they'd need to see the making of video[1]). [0] [link] [1] ▶ this video
in “The performative quality of computer-generated art” · View on HN