Fri
15
Jun 2012

There was a competition announced on forum.warsztat.gd in making a 4k executable graphics. In case you don't know what is it: It is a category well known on demoscene where you have to write a program - Windows executable in assembler, C, C++, Java, HTML or any other language, that fits into 4 KB size limit and generates a static, nice looking image. Obviously there is no way to store a bitmap inside such size, so the graphics must be generated procedurally. For list best prods in this category, see this search query on pouet.net.

I participated in this competition and here is my entry with source code: gfx_4k_Reg.zip. EXE file itself has 1259 bytes. Archive has password "demoscene" (needed because server of my hosting company rejects archives containing unusual EXE files like this, thinking it is a virus :)

Not very impressive, but keep in mind that I coded it in about 2-3 hours, with little previous experience in this kind of coding. If you are interested in how such program is made, I used:

• Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Express - to code my project in C++.
• DirectX 9.0c (Shader Model 3.0) - to write a pixel shader in HLSL that calculates color of every pixel on a fullscreen quad.
• Framework for 4k intros (i4k_D3D9) from 1k/4k demo framework and
    examples by Inigo Quilez - as a starting point for Visual C++ project, because coding such small program has some special requirements about project properties and the code itself.
• Crinkler 1.3 - alternative, compressing linker that makes compiling such small EXE possible.
• Shader Minifier 1.1.1 by Laurent Le Brun - to process HLSL source of my shader to smaller size.
• A formula for generating noise in pixel shader by Michael Pohoreski.
• Rest of the image is Mandelbrot and Multibrot fractal.

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