HackerTube

THE VIDEO SHELF · procedural graphics

I painted a Landscape with Mathematics

Inigo Quilez live-paints a mountain landscape using only math in a shader, building up from a basic polynomial noise surface through fractal terrain, lighting and atmosphere. The code runs in real time on Shadertoy so viewers can edit it as they follow along.

Watch & explore the libraryYouTube ↗

Why HN readers recommended it

HN commenters point to it as the best demonstration of procedural graphics from a master, accessible to beginners yet deep enough for advanced viewers.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel
Inigo Quilez
Topic
procedural graphics
Format
tutorial
Level
intermediate
HN recommenders in dataset
7
HN mentions in dataset
9
Recommendation years in dataset
2022–2025

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

  • Indeed, Inigo Quilez is "the guy" for this kind of stuff. He co-created ShaderToy and has worked on effects and modeling for multiple Pixar films. My favorite video of his is Painting a Landscape with Maths. [VIDEO] He deserves to have at least as many …

    fasterik on Hacker News · 2023-08
    In OP drew these corals with mathematical equations

  • 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] [LINK] [2] [VIDEO]

    lifthrasiir on Hacker News · 2022-05
    In Making graphics in 4 kilobytes (2008) [pdf]

  • Thankfully for the graphics the very person who did the graphics in this Elevated demo is very generous with their time. Inigo Quilez has many instructional videos on his channel in how to code procedural graphics from the very beginner to the advanced. I link …

    djmips on Hacker News · 2022-06
    In Source code for 4kb demoscene production “Elevated” released (2016)

Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.

Keep exploring