HackerTube.dev

I painted a Landscape with Mathematics

Inigo Quilez · 812.5K views · 2022-04-10 · 42:00

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

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.

On Hacker News

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

Recommended by 7 HN people across 7 months · HN mentions 2022–2025

Topics

Computer graphics & renderingCreative coding & generative artDemoscene & retrocomputing
Search by tags
raymarchingshadersshadertoyprocedural terraindemosceneglsl

What people said

fasterik · 2023-08 · Strong recommendation

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 subscribers as other math YouTube channels like Verisatium and 3Blue1Brown.

Read the original HN comment ↗
thewanderer1983 · 2025-01 · Recommendation

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

Read the original HN comment ↗
tombh · 2024-08 · Recommendation

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: [VIDEO] The demo: [LINK]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Inigo Quilez, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources