11 ms·
We made an animated movie in 8kB
- MrLeap 3y agoI didn't care for the ending. He was just a hungry dude.
- froddd 3y agoRuined the whole tech achievement for me. Great technical approach, rather slim on the creativity. Shame.
- qingcharles 3y agoAs an ex-demoscene coder, this sums up pretty much most demoscene releases o_O
- djmips 3y agoIt's a very lazy ending. Very derivative of early shock animations like Bambi meets Godzilla but with less class.
- Joeboy 3y agoIt's a bit more than 8kB, but if you like unexpectedly dark animated movies about sheep I recommend the Blender Foundation's open movie Cosmos Laundromat[0]. Their movies always seem to be weirdly dark for tech demos for some reason. I thought this one in particular came out really well. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-rmzh0PI3c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-rmzh0PI3c
- vanderZwan 3y ago"Weirdly dark" is a pretty apt description of the Dutch sense of humor, I suspect it's mainly because of that.
- latexr 3y agoBe forewarned: the movie ends with a “to be continued” and the wikipedia page reads: > The film was originally intended to kickstart a feature-length film. A short film sequel was written and designed but never brought to production. In 2020, [the producer] announced that the one film would be the total of the project. So if you don’t feel like having the disappointment of an intriguing concept that you’ll never find the resolution for, maybe skip it.
- hombre_fatal 3y agoWell, it's still a cool video. If you (the same "you" as in my parent comment) can't handle a 12 minute animation about a sheep never reaching its final resolution, maybe you need the practice. ;)
- vanderZwan 3y agoI still hope there will be more Agent 327 videos some day. Either in short form or as feature-length. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN0zPOpADL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN0zPOpADL4
- justsomehnguy 3y ago>So if you don’t feel like having the disappointment of an intriguing concept that you’ll never find the resolution for, maybe skip it. Life is full of unresolved resolutions. If you would always skip them then
- latexr 3y agoOh, come on, what a ridiculous comparison. As if deciding to skip a 10 minute short would reflect in any way on one’s life decisions. This website, man. No wonder the wider internet makes fun of Hacker News. For crying out loud.
- jasomill 3y agoOn a random related note, courtesy of Netflix, the entire movie is available for download from S3 as a series of 18,192 uncompressed EXR images[1], which came in handy when I was experimenting with HDR in DaVinci Resolve. [1] https://opencontent.netflix.com/#h.uyzoa2bivz2j https://opencontent.netflix.com/#h.uyzoa2bivz2j
- maxglute 3y agoDemoscene videos are pretty fun and criminally under viewed. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRQwR4-_0PR9HBI_GZs1nTn7q5LTkGeCN https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRQwR4-_0PR9HBI_GZs1n... I wish there was a channel like retro game mechanics that break them down with good visuals.
- echelon 3y agoWhen we solve AGI, I'd love to see demoscene for intelligence. How much could you compress it? From there, how small can you make a world of mutually intelligent agents? Edit: all these downvoters - don't you dream? There are so many crazy and fantastical things that await.
- maxglute 3y agoI can't wait to eave drop on my smart fridge making small talk with my smart toaster in the morning. Only slightly joking.
- dtx1 3y agoFunnily enough thats Linda what's happening with llms.
- roywiggins 3y ago> When we solve AGI I hope we don't, tbh. Exhibit A: https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
- doublerabbit 3y agoI was going to post my 8kb favourite but then discovered it was 64kb. Been a while. Anyway :https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1dcrV_7JpXQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1dcrV_7JpXQ
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- laurentlb 3y agoA classic! You may be interested in discovering some more recent 64kB intros: https://64k-scene.github.io https://64k-scene.github.io
- 12_throw_away 3y agoSo then I'm going to post my favorite 4k [1], which even if you ignore the file size, is just a very cool use of fractals. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w_xEUoK79o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w_xEUoK79o
- magicalhippo 3y agoI've always been partial to TBL's Stash[1] and Jizz[2], tho I'm a sucker for oldschool goa. Both a "massive" 64k each, still... edit: fun fact, the demos run fine on modern systems (at least Windows) if you run the ixalance versions[3]. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfbjiTrctJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfbjiTrctJs [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXgseVYvhek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXgseVYvhek [3]: https://libsdl.org/projects/ixalance/ https://libsdl.org/projects/ixalance/
- cygenb0ck 3y agooh sweet memories <3
- olddustytrail 3y agoI kind of like these things, but (unless I missed it!) they don't seem to specify their constraints. So clearly the graphics wouldn't fit in 8kB, so what does that mean? It could be a cool SDL competition where you allow a version and a set of assets and then let slip the dogs of war.
- kristianp 3y agoIf you look in the download link they give [1], the zip file contains multiple different 8kB exe files, for different resolutions. So it seems the target is executable size. [1] http://aduprat.com/pub/The_Sheep_and_the_Flower.zip http://aduprat.com/pub/The_Sheep_and_the_Flower.zip
- jsheard 3y agoFor PC intros the rules are generally that your 8kB (or whatever size) executable has to run alone, with no other files, on a bone stock install of Windows with no internet access. That means that yes, the graphics and sound are all generated on the fly by the 8kB exe.
- olddustytrail 3y agoBut stock version of Windows has a ton of stuff you can use. All sorts of graphics and audio files. And that again depends on which version you're basing it on. I think it would be cool to run a competition with more specific (and platform independent) set of constraints. I guess I should spend more time thinking about how to organise it myself than complaining that no-one else has!
- msk-lywenn 3y agoIt's usually forbidden to rely on those files as they can disappear with updates of windows. The best example I can think of is General MIDI. The files were avaialble with XP and below, and is now often explicitly forbidden because it's not available anymore or not in the same form making demos incompatible. It's also often forbidden to use the filename to store data. There was that case of the 256B demo that relied on a deep hierarchy of directories to work :)
- tiffanyh 3y agoHas anyone been able to download it? The download keeps failing, and the file is already 165kb (zipped) partially downloaded. So is this truly 8kb?
- mrb 3y agoYes I downloaded the ZIP, here I put it on my website: https://www.zorinaq.com/pub/The_Sheep_and_the_Flower.zip https://www.zorinaq.com/pub/The_Sheep_and_the_Flower.zip (SHA256: 91327f463ff5edaae89e1e6fd386f313c33d1f171c84f9e843e263af3d034321) After extracting it contains these files (the zip archive is large because it contains a ~200 kB JPEG screenshot): 8159 bytes: The_sheep_and_the_flower-1280x720.exe 8143 bytes: The_sheep_and_the_flower-1920x1080.exe 8159 bytes: The_sheep_and_the_flower-3840x2160.exe 8157 bytes: The_sheep_and_the_flower-640x360.exe 206507 bytes: The_sheep_and_the_flower.jpg 1014 bytes: The_sheep_and_the_flower.nfo
- skrebbel 3y agoYes. The zip is bigger than 8kb because it includes a screenshot and builds for various screen resolutions. Try the scene.org download link here https://demozoo.org/productions/322612/ https://demozoo.org/productions/322612/
- laurentlb 3y agoOn Chrome, the download works better when I right-click and select "Save link as". Chrome mentions that it's not secure because it's http. I've just uploaded the file here, maybe it will work better: https://ctrl-alt-test.fr/dl/The_Sheep_and_the_Flower.zip https://ctrl-alt-test.fr/dl/The_Sheep_and_the_Flower.zip If you open the zip file, you'll see multiple files. The biggest (200kB) is a screenshot for reference. It's not used, you can delete it. We didn't include a resolution selector in the executable file; instead we provided one binary for each resolution (e.g. The_sheep_and_the_flower-1920x1080.exe).
- ant6n 3y agoIt’s a kind of ironic beauty to minify this project all the way down to 8kb for example by developing a minifying source-to-source compiler, and then using a parameter-by-copied-executable scheme for the screen resolution.
- Lumocra 3y agoThis is amazing, love how funny and creative the story is given the constraints! Truly impressive. Would love to hear more technical details on how corners have been cut to shave off some bytes.
- laurentlb 3y agoTo see micro-optimizations and how we iterated, you may look at the history of the repository: https://github.com/ctrl-alt-test/mouton/commits/main/ https://github.com/ctrl-alt-test/mouton/commits/main/ There's a commit (https://github.com/ctrl-alt-test/mouton/commit/79d2d1eab7a222b434b7041d8fc9bce4e60524f8 https://github.com/ctrl-alt-test/mouton/commit/79d2d1eab7a22...) where we save many bytes by removing a performance optimization. We originally wanted to keep it, but we realized we were short on bytes and that optimization was not required on recent-ish GPUs.
- djmips 3y agoThe audio is more enjoyable to me than the visuals. Good job with that.
- Fredkin 3y agoWhen connecting to this site I get SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG. Also malwarebytes blocks it. Odd because it seems to be clean here https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/5dc759a5c5f69aec6c7ba19591fcc5d1ca0e4ac645f8e2ea58e129048fb5b60c?nocache=1 https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/5dc759a5c5f69aec6c7ba1959...
- walth 3y agoSloot lives!!! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloot_Digital_Coding_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloot_Digital_Coding_System
- latexr 3y ago> In 1999, just days before the conclusion of a contract to sell his invention, Sloot died suddenly of a heart attack. The source code was never recovered, and the technique and claim have never been reproduced or verified. What rotten luck, for everyone.
- fouc 3y ago> but a key piece of the technology, a compiler stored on a floppy disk,[9] had disappeared and, despite months of searching, was never recovered.[10] spooky
- fareesh 3y agoKilled by a time traveller. That technology led to an apocalyptic period
- MenhirMike 3y agoAlways remember: If you think the current world is bleak and problematic, ask yourself how many time travelers prevented an even worse situation.
- explaininjs 3y agoWho’s to say we’re living in the corrected branch? Commit fae12 doesn’t benefit from a patch being applied to its great grand parent and the history since then being rebased off of that.
- bemusedthrow75 3y agoLordy, I hope this is actually a branch in a corrupted filesystem. It doesn’t speak well of time travellers if this is a corrected branch.
- tombert 3y agoI know the tech behind it is pretty different, but this reminds me of .kkrieger from back in the day. An entire 3d FPS, compressed down to 96k. It was pretty neat. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger
- speps 3y agoThe backstory written by one of the authors is worth a read: https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/metaprogramming-for-madmen/ https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/metaprogramming-for...
- nickstinemates 3y agoRazor 1911. Pure nostalgia.
- zamadatix 3y agoSurprisingly fun, particularly with the care in the little details, for 8kb. Well done!
- Humphrey 3y agoReminds me of the assignment for a 3rd Compouter Science unit. We had to create a short movie using only c++, and then our last lecture of the year was a movie showing of all of them. Most were very similar to this in terms of style and simplicity. It was definitely the longest amount of time I spent on any assingment!
- dmateos 3y agoWere you able to use libs like sdl or opengl etc?
- steren 3y agoI'm the creator of the original movie this movie took inspiration from (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khWXdkryBE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khWXdkryBE4). Very impressive to see the remake fit fit in 8kB considering the original is MBs of Blender, SVG and Audio files Yay, the Creative Common license was actually useful! I wish the authors had actually used the same hedgehog character and audio melody.
- jkingsman 3y agoYay Creative Commons! My heart is warmed any time I see someone sharing their work freely like that.
- account42 3y agoSpecifically, CC-BY-SA. Not all crative commons licenses are actually useful - all the no-derivative ones shouldn't be bundled under the same label and the non-commercial clauses just cause problems because it isn't clear what counts as a commercial use.
- RecycledEle 3y agoVery cool.
- garganzol 3y agoTechnically impressive, but the fate of the main movie actor saddens me. (Spoiler: a curious sheep gets smashed by a sledgehammer).
- ant6n 3y agoLooks like an anvil to me.
- qwertox 3y agoThe image of the post is 38.8 KB in size. It's hard to imagine how this animation fits easily 4 times in that image, that is, including the renderer and the sound engine.
- psychoslave 3y agoThink about this that way: how much a screenshot of this post would take vs how much it takes in its textually described form? Yes the demo is still impressive, but the fundamental behind the wonderful work are clear and can be summarized in an approachable explanation as the post admirably do.
- snvzz 3y ago8KB is a demoscene category. Pouet has a nice index[0] of these. 0. https://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?type%5B%5D=8k&page=1 https://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?type%5B%5D=8k&page=1
- userbinator 3y agoAnd the entry in this article was ranked 2nd place; if you're curious, 1st place is here: https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=94143 https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=94143
- snvzz 3y agoContext: We are talking about Revision 2023[0]. I haven't run the pc prods, but definitely ran the Amiga prods; Always fun. 0. https://www.pouet.net/party.php?which=1550&when=2023 https://www.pouet.net/party.php?which=1550&when=2023
- Gormo 3y agoUnfortunately, the binaries don't run under WINE.
- laurentlb 3y agoThanks for the report, I didn't test with WINE. I suspect it's a problem due to the compression. I've found an open bug report for WINE related to Crinkler, it might be the same: https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53321 https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53321
- llacb47 3y agoMy laptop's integrated graphics card did not enjoy that.
- gtirloni 3y agoAfter each second the "this is impossible!" thoughts got stronger.
- iandanforth 3y agoPoor sheep.
- Civitello 3y agoI want to know more about how the irises were done.
- lifthrasiir 3y agoRelevant code: https://github.com/ctrl-alt-test/mouton/blob/86b0364/Intro/src/shaders/mouton.frag#L548-L576 https://github.com/ctrl-alt-test/mouton/blob/86b0364/Intro/s...
- jacquesm 3y agoThat's both hilarious and absolutely amazing. Finally a movie where I couldn't predict the ending :)
- megiddo 3y agoWait until you hear about the demo scene!
- userbinator 3y agoAfter watching a lot of demoscene stuff and reading about how it's done, you start understanding the limits, and things like the sheep (and especially those conical sections for legs) become obvious how they can be expressed as very compact equations and similarly animated. However, it's interesting that AFAIK the majority of these demos rely on the GPU and its powerful 3D acceleration capabilities, but 2D (Japanese)anime-style demos seem to be rare and nonexistent in the smaller sizes. Is 3D animation actually easier? As a side-note, "mouton" is the French word for "sheep", and thus "mutton".
- lifthrasiir 3y agoGiven that most 2D animations would still depict events in 3D space, it would be far easier to describe 3D events directly in general.
- throwaway17_17 3y agoI think the way you described it explains the prevalence of 3D for demos. Geometric shapes in 3D can be described in closed form equations requiring a minimum of storage, however, the only ‘mathematical’ way to store 2D style animation is as SVG curves for outline and then a space filling algorithm for the coloring of those areas. The curves are, I am making a back of the envelope guess, going to require as much storage for a single arc/line as the description of a geometric volume in total. Then there is the issue of storing the animation of those curves which is going to require even more space, compared to the relatively small transformation matrix for the 3D volume. I would also guess the complexity of the rendering algorithm would increase (both in actual algorithmic and space complexity). — Caveat: one could argue that storing a series of bitmaps and then playing them back like a flip book could be ‘mathematical’, especially if some procedural uncompressing algorithm was used to generate full frames from on some change differential, but I don’t think that exists and the space requirement would be huge compared to 3D volumetric descriptions.
- nine_k 3y agoI don't see why interesting 2D animation could not be made using closed forms. A rectangle takes 2 parameters for shape, and 2 for position; 3 if you rotate it. Similarly for an ellipse. Realistically you also need a Z-index. The soft-min function mentioned in the post would allow to merge 2D shapes the same way as 3D shapes, at the expense of one additional parameter. An approach similar to the signed depth field and ray marching can be used to determine boundaries, and thus the kind of painting inside. This would require to start a scan line at a position which is guaranteed to be outside of any of the shapes; this must be easy. Texturing would be harder, but, knowing the position inside the shape relative to its center, it would be possible to procedurally generate nice gradients, regular textures like bricks or scales, or noisy textures like fur. Using the same trick with calculating the gradient would allow to create nice thick / styled outlines. Doing this on a CPU would, of course, be pretty slow, so this would need to be written as a bunch of shaders somehow. I don't see why it won't work though: each shader could take one scanline, they would share the same geometric model, and shaders are good at doing a lot of FPU math in parallel.
- dukeofdoom 3y agoVery nice. I'm currently playing around with pygame, and trying to make vfx in it. Trying to mimic a bomb explosion with red particles coming off, and smoke. So curious how these animations are done from scratch with just circle and line primitives.
- bch 3y ago99.9% great for young children :/
- wiether 3y ago> P.S. For comparison, the text of this article contains around 21,000 characters, so it would take 21kB. That's exactly what I was thinking about while reading the article!
- Sparkyte 3y agoThat was incredible! Reminds me of that fully 3d game in 96kb.
- jbverschoor 3y agoThe youtube is 16.1MB for comparison (1920x1080), so a rate of 2000
- mrfinn 3y agoThere's a whole genre in demoscene dedicated to 4kb productions. Most popular example till the current date is Elevated (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGdUDGo2Gxw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGdUDGo2Gxw), which in an entirely different way, provides also an incredibly good cinematic feeling. Made by wizards it must be.
- verisimi 3y agoI was expecting some sort of ultra high definition film - 4k, to the power of 4! But it actually refers to an incredibly small video size (8kilobytes)
- Agingcoder 3y agoIn my time that was called ‘ I wrote a 4k intro’