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Elevated by RGBA and TBC

BUTTONTANG · demo · Watch on YouTube

Demoscene & retrocomputingCreative coding & generative artComputer graphics & rendering

What it is

Elevated is a 4 kilobyte PC demo by RGBA and TBC from Breakpoint 2009. It fly-throughs a realistic procedurally generated landscape with synthesized music and post-processing, all from a tiny executable.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN repeatedly holds it up as the benchmark for what procedural generation and size-coding can achieve in 4K.

  • 7 people recommended it
  • 7 different months
  • 1 strong recommendations
  • first 2009, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “you'll have a hard time believing it if you haven't seen it yet”

    A 4K demo that is hard to believe until seen

    TacticalCoder, 2014-02 · Strong recommendation · in “As much Stack Overflow as possible in 4096 bytes”

  2. “fly-through of a realistic looking procedurally generated terrain model with music and some fancy post processing effects”

    Fly-through of procedural terrain with music in a 4KB executable

    barrettcolin, 2009-04 · Recommendation · in “Awesome Procedural Terrain Generation”

  3. “is a great example of what people can do in 4K”

    Great example of what can be done in 4K

    z303, 2010-05 · Recommendation · in “The Demoscene -- an Overview”

  4. “my favourite 4k demo is still Elevated, which is much less obviously procedural.”

    Commenter's favourite 4k demo, not obviously procedural

    vmind, 2012-05 · Recommendation · in “Infinite complexity in 4096 bytes”

  5. “Quite realistic terrain generated by a 4 kilobyte binary, along with music”

    Level of awesome to aim for in procedural terrain

    userbinator, 2016-07 · Recommendation · in “Show HN: A simple infinite world in WebGL”

  6. “Those of us like myself who only take a passing interest from afar are still blown away by how amazing results of demos like”

    Amazing 2009 demo results; commenter wishes for in-depth teardowns

    dwrodri, 2020-05 · Recommendation · in “The Vanishing Of Ashlar: 4kb demo using GPU for sound and pathtracing”

  7. “Still-impressive 4k intro”

    karteum, 2025-04 · Recommendation · in “The demoscene as a UNESCO heritage in Sweden”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: demoscene, procedural generation, 4k intro, size coding, terrain

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