HackerTube

I painted a Landscape with Mathematics

Inigo Quilez7 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2022–2025
YouTube
tutorial · intermediate · evergreen · 2022–2025 on HN

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.

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

9 comments from Hacker News

@fasterik2023-08 · in “OP drew these corals with mathematical equations”

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. ▶ this video He deserves to have at least as many subscribers as other math YouTube channels like Verisatium and 3Blue1Brown.

Strongly recommends View on HN
@thewanderer19832025-01 · in “VoxelSpace: Terrain rendering algorithm in less than 20 lines of code (2020)”

>It looks really good for such a simple algorithm. I love this! If you like that, you should check out Inigo Quilez ▶ this video Here is the shadertoy link with code link

Recommends View on HN
@tombh2024-08 · in “Programming terrain from scratch using C++ and OpenGL by Shamus Young (2006)”

I just finished watching a live-coding session (from 2 years ago) by Inigo Quilez (ex Pixar), where he constructs an entire ray-marched landscape using only maths (mostly SDFs) in pure GPU shader code. The stream: ▶ this video The demo: link

Recommends View on HN
@sph2023-10 · in “Interactive Intro to Shaders”

Welcome to the Internet, superMayo! If you want to see what the Masters can do with shaders, let me introduce you to Inigo Quilez and his shader art: ▶ this video EDIT: I did not notice you are the author of this article. It's very well done, and I've been looking for more approachable and interactive tutorials on the arts of shader coding.

Recommends View on HN
@antegamisou2023-09 · in “Painting with Math: A Gentle Study of Raymarching”

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 - ▶ this video Painting a Character with Maths - link Bonus: Painting with Maths in Google Sheets - link

Recommends View on HN