elevated by Rgba & TBC | 4k intro (FullHD 1080p demoscene demo)

Demoscene High-Quality Videos (Annikras)
21 HN recommenders · recommended in 23 months, 2009–2026
YouTube
317K views · 15 years ago · demo · evergreen

Elevated is a 4-kilobyte intro by Rgba and TBC that won the PC 4k competition at Breakpoint 2009. A flying camera tours a procedurally generated mountain landscape with music, and all of the visuals and sound are generated in real time by the 4096-byte executable.

HN treats it as the standard example for introducing people to the demoscene and for showing how much a tiny program can do compared with bloated modern software.

“Everything you see and hear is procedurally generated by the 4096 byte executable, in real time.”
Shaders & real-time visualsGenerative art
#demoscene#4kintro#proceduralgraphics#real-time#shaders#iq

38 comments from Hacker News

o
@onename2025 · in “Inigo Quilez: computer graphics, mathematics, shaders, fractals, demoscene”
When I want to show people what an intro is and tell them a bit about the demoscene, I usually show them the intro Elevated, which won the PC 4k compo at Breakpoint 2009. For me it really shows the talent of Iq and the other people who created it. It’s truly amazing what can be done in just 4 kilobyte! Elevated by Rgba & TBC: ▶ this video Iq's slides on the Elevated intro: link Sourcecode: link
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T
@TheJoeMan2023 · in “A new line drawing method for the cycle savvy”
This is still my favorite: Elevated ▶ this video
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w
@walterbell2026 · in “Elevated demoscene PC 4kb exe intro 8K 60FPS - Rgba and TBC (2009) [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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k
@karteum2025 · in “The demoscene as a UNESCO heritage in Sweden”
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
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m
@mrfinn2024 · in “We made an animated movie in 8kB”
There's a whole genre in demoscene dedicated to 4kb productions. Most popular example till the current date is Elevated (▶ this video), which in an entirely different way, provides also an incredibly good cinematic feeling. Made by wizards it must be.
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s
@stiray2023 · in “4k Intro: Elevated by Rgba and TBC”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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p
@pezezin2022 · in “Sonic 3D: Director's Cut (2019)”
> 64Kb demo generating really good mountain landscape. Do you mean Elevated? It is actually 4 kB, even more impressive: ▶ this video link
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d
@d_silin2020 · in “Memories – 256 bytes demo winner of Revision 2020”
A couple of other famous short demos: ▶ this video ("Elevated", 4k) link ("One of those days", 8k)
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u
@userbinator2018 · in ““Modern” C++ Lamentations”
The size comparisons are also very useful, if anything to show that even the simple "non-Modern" C++ program already has quite a bit of bloat. Compilation takes 0.064 seconds, produces 8480 byte executable I am experienced with Asm so I can come up with an instinctive order-of-magnitude estimate, but even those who aren't should try to roughly estimate how many machine instructions are required to implement that code, and come to the conclusion that over 8000 bytes for three nested loops with not much in them, a comparison, some arithmetic, and a handful of library function calls seems rather excessive. Even 800 would be on the high side --- somewhere around 100-200 bytes is my estimate. Also, watch this 4k demo (everything you see and hear is generated in realtime by a 4096-byte executable): ▶ this video
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u
@userbinator2017 · in “Terrain rendering in fewer than 20 lines of code”
IMHO not very many 64Ks have reached the amazingness of this 11 minute one from 2000: link ...and for 4K, this one from 2009: ▶ this video
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M
@M4v3R2016 · in “Making graphics in 4 kilobytes (2008) [pdf]”
Obligatory link to Elevated - a 4 kilobytes animated 3D demo with music by rgba (authors of PDF in the OP) & TBC: ▶ this video For me, achieving something like this in 4k is just mindblowing.
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j
@jsheard2016 · in “Source code for 4kb demoscene production “Elevated” released”
Release info: link Binary: link Video: ▶ this video Everything you see and hear is procedurally generated by the 4096 byte executable, in real time. It still blows my mind 7 years after release...
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