Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 18

One of the classic game types is the First Person Shooter, done in such things as Doom, and the upcoming Doom3. Typically, these are large installations. With the sounds, art, and meshes, some games now require a Gigabyte to install.

http://www.theprodukkt.com/ has released a complex FPS that fits in just 96K. In order to do that, they had to employ scads of NKS-type thinking.

Here is a quote from the description:

- We do .not. have some kind of magical data compression machine that is able to squeeze hundreds of megabytes of mesh/texture and sound data into 96k. We merely store the individual steps employed by the artists to produce their textures and meshes, in a very compact way. This allows us to get .much. higher data density than is achievable with normal data compression techniques, at some expense in artistic freedom and loading times.

Attachment: kkrieger-beta.zip
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Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 18

With some more looking at this stuff, I found the world of demoscenes. These objects are full multimedia productions with music and 3-D objects, all crammed into programs of 64K or less.

I attach a demoscene called Beyond, which is actually smaller than 48K in size. Despite the tiny size, it generates a number of galaxies, planets, and realistic looking space scenes. Quite amazing. And well in line with NKS.

Note... it's a Windows program. There are similar demoscenes for Linux and Windows.

Attachment: beyond.zip
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Registered: Oct 2003
Posts: 20

This is truly quite astonishing. Could you provide some more information on how it is done?

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Seth J. Chandler
Foundation Professor of Law
University of Houston Law Center
Houston, Texas 77204

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Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 712

While I don't know the details of these particular programs, I see the basic idea. The point is to view compression differently, not operating on the data afterwards, but via the rules that generate it, beforehand. The underlying idea being the familiar NKS intuition that simple rules can produce complicated results.

Since the graphics artists use visual editors to create their computer artwork in the first place, their actual control inputs to their editor are all that actually needs to be kept as pure data. Then those control inputs can be fed to the same routines their tools use to generate the computer art. Rather than generating that art once and storing the results, which takes a lot more space.

This is somewhat like keeping only the rule 30 specification rather than the pattern that rule actually makes when run. That the rules then produce a striking variety of images, is an example of relatively simple rules producing complicated results when iterated.

The iterations in this case correspond to things like "draw this shape at this scale and rotation in this succession of positions" - the sort of thing a computer artist's development tools typically do for him. The innovation here is to keep only the control inputs and not their results, in the executable.

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Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 18

I'll be writing a column about these for maa.org. Jason is exactly right. These fantastically compressed movies are basically rules and programs to exploit those rules.

In the attached 82K file are 8 demoscenes. All are for Windows systems, though there are demoscenes for all other systems, especially Commodore 64 and Amiga.

The first category -- 256 bytes
Lattice -- a camera inside a crystal lattice
Spin -- a flying Sierpinski gasket on fire
Tube -- meshed 3D spirals.

Next category -- 4K programs
Cosmoblop -- Text rendition of the sun
saveme -- Mangled rolling cubes
Angeles-XP -- A very colorful city
micropolis -- city, train, and giant robot

I also include a 64K program, The
Prophecy. The space scenes, nature scenes, and city scenes are all quite spectacular.

Attachment: demoscenes.zip
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Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 712

The dimension and equation based joke was that with 70 parameters you could make an elephant, and with 80 you could make it dance. The rule based, simple program version would seem to be, with 4k you can make a city and with 64k you can run a movie of it being blown up, complete with soundtrack. Algorithmic complexity theory, call the office...

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Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 3

Better models produce better compression. Fractal compression works on that premise as well.

We are simply creating a division between code and data, but no such realistic division exists. One might try to argue that a database is 'pure' data, but it has no usefulness without software to display, manipulate, etc. One might try to argue software is 'pure' code, but every programmer uses constants, or external data.

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Registered: Oct 2003
Posts: 20

Perhaps the fact that Ed Pegg's work could be done is so obviously implicit in a New Kind of Science that I should not have been astonished by his accomplishment. Nonetheless, despite some familiarity with the ideas of NKS, and even with Jason Cawley's apt explanation that, in some sense, there is nothing fundamentally unfamiliar going on here, I will still confess to being blown away. To me, Pegg's work is one of the most powerful demonstrations I have seen of the force behind the ideas in NKS. I think it fulfills one of the greatest functions of art, which is to communicate to receptors of the brain not touched in ordinary life. Three cheers for the work. And three cheers to the forum organizers for recognizing the importance of having an Art forum in which NKS can be explored. The rational part of me looks forward to the maa.org article.

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Seth J. Chandler
Foundation Professor of Law
University of Houston Law Center
Houston, Texas 77204

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Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 18

The MAA article is already online.
maa.org : 64 K or Less.

Actually, none of this is my work, I just happened to find it. I give references to the original creators of all of these works.

At The Assembly Gems Page, they have a program for the Game of Life automata in 65 bytes, along with full code. I haven't played with pure assembly in awhile, but I'm hoping to figure out the smallest possible self-contained program for Rule 30.

--Ed Pegg Jr

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Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 3

Originally posted by edpegg
I'm hoping to figure out the smallest possible self-contained program for Rule 30.

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Last edited by Rickey Bowers Jr. on 08-20-2004 at 04:26 PM

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