4 MILLION HORSEPOWER OF MIMETIC POLYALLOY
January 5, 2016 12:00 PM   Subscribe

20,000 cars in Trackmania, flowing like liquid metal. Cars start at 1.37. tw: dubstep

h/t RPS: "The video is the culmination of half a year of work by organiser L4Bomb4, who collected the replays recorded in Trackmania United Forever and Trackmania Nations Forever, then converted and rendered 12,000 of them in the newer Trackmania 2: Stadium. “Unfortunately, the skins of the cars got lost in the process, but I could render with 12k cars at a pretty high quality without the game crashing,” writes L4Bomb4 on the video’s YouTube page. Another person, Danixks, edited the video and used a compositing technique to include 8000 further replays that would crash the game if rendered at the same time. The result is 20,000 cars on a single track."
posted by Sebmojo (36 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
This isn't meant for any disrespect but what is the point of this? To show how intensely a computer can render graphics? I don't get it.
posted by tunewell at 12:06 PM on January 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


I think it's just a crazy little thing that people who like this game made.

That or someone has been reading the "grey goo" entry in my nightmare journal.
posted by history_denier at 12:09 PM on January 5, 2016


I like the fact that enough racecars, in aggregate, will start to act like a fluid.

I'd love to see this done with a Madden game.

(What is the point of this? Well, what is jazz, really?)
posted by mhoye at 12:12 PM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Latest in a long tradition:

1,000 Replays circa 2007

1,500 Replays circa 2006

10,000 Replays circa 2011

Trackmania players are known to be a bit ridiculous
posted by matrixclown at 12:13 PM on January 5, 2016 [6 favorites]


(What is the point of this? Well, what is jazz, really?)

Well, for one thing, it's not a mashed-up simultaneous replay of 20,000 different solos.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:18 PM on January 5, 2016


I can appreciate this for the technical accomplishments, but holy hell the overly-produced intro camera work and the bland EDM made it really unwatchable for me. It's much better if you fast forward to the actual running of the cars while playing yakety sax on another tab.
posted by numaner at 12:23 PM on January 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


so the cars are bosons?
posted by andrewcooke at 12:32 PM on January 5, 2016


Well I liked it.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 12:36 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


This isn't meant for any disrespect but what is the point of this? To show how intensely a computer can render graphics? I don't get it.

What is the point of a beautiful morning, or the flight of a butterfly.
posted by Sebmojo at 12:37 PM on January 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


IMAGINE 20,000 MALDONADOS.
posted by machaus at 12:52 PM on January 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Previously
posted by isauteikisa at 12:53 PM on January 5, 2016


I love it when Metafilter starts arguing about Art, and like 90% of both sides get personally offended.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:55 PM on January 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


There's something weirdly sinister and half-alive in this, like an alien horde or cockroach nightmare.
posted by bassomatic at 12:57 PM on January 5, 2016


I think I prefer the 1K from 2007. Maybe because you can still pick out individual cars, or maybe because I prefer Moby to dubstep.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:00 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


IMAGINE 20,000 MALDONADOS.

So like, what, 1500 complete circuits?
posted by kmz at 1:00 PM on January 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


I love it when Metafilter starts arguing about Art, and like 90% of both sides get personally offended.

YOU'RE AN INANIMATE FUCKING OBJECT!
posted by numaner at 1:01 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


This isn't meant for any disrespect but what is the point of this? To show how intensely a computer can render graphics? I don't get it.

To me what's interesting is that these are replays of individual people driving through this course, racing, screwing around, or whatever. I don't see any indication that each replay was submitted by a different person, but it's at least a bunch of people, and a bunch of time/experiences/decisions. And by laying them on top of one another we see the variations and the similarities. Folks make their own decisions, but a lot of the time they do make very similar choices, and they're all operating in within the constraints of the driving physics, so the overall result sort of behaves like a fluid.
posted by aubilenon at 1:04 PM on January 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


The thing that confuses me is that the all-of-the-cars part looks out of scale compared to the intro. I get it that this is for the choir who is already familiar with this kind of thing. Did that car dissolve into super tiny ant-cars? No, but it looks that way the first three times I looked.
posted by rhizome at 1:15 PM on January 5, 2016


On a tangent, Trackmania remains one of my favorite games of all time - it's great to pick up and play for 30 minutes or go all night seeing new tracks and improving your skills. It's a Hot Wheels game where you can actually drive on and create the tracks you wanted as a kid. You don't collide with other cars racing at the same time, so it's all about driving the best line and hitting your turns. There are several different types of 'maps' made for this game (full speed, tech, dirt, etc)... most servers (that I see) will run one type of map exclusively.

A few links:

Press forward maps (almost like autoplaying levels in other games, you simply press forward and the track does the work for you): here and here (dubstep warning) via RPS

A tutorial on advanced driving techniques, needed for the best times

ESWC 2015 Grand Finals

[Dignitas] Spam is a streamer who participates in various Trackmania events and posts them on Youtube.

Free version on Steam - Trackmania 2 is the most recent version but Nations Forever was my introduction to the game.
posted by isauteikisa at 1:16 PM on January 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


This reminds me of a Monte Carlo simulation. I wonder if such a thing could be useful for the game designers, tracking median finish times for a track, average speed, identifying choke points, etc.
posted by fings at 1:25 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Now I want to see this in BeamNG:Drive with all the destructo-physics, but... I'm pretty sure 20,000 physically simulated, deformable cars would cause even high end desktops to burst into flames just trying to parse the object list before the first ray was traced.

YOU'RE AN INANIMATE FUCKING OBJECT!

THAT'S INANIMATE CARBON ROD TO Y... oh, never mind, please carry on. Faster.
posted by loquacious at 1:43 PM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


I like the fact that enough racecars, in aggregate, will start to act like a fluid.

Well, a fluid which can pass through a pipe in the same amount of time if you double, quadruple, or multiply by a thousand the total number of particles, and which, no matter how much you pour into a vessel, will only every fill it one particle deep.
posted by straight at 2:01 PM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Reminds me of the Replicators from Stargate.
posted by jeribus at 2:03 PM on January 5, 2016


Trackmania needs no justification. It is simple and pure joy.
posted by boo_radley at 2:15 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


That one guy who stuck the landing on top of that building and doodled around for a little while as if to say, "Fuck yeah, dunno what happened but that was cool!" I wonder if he knows he's the only player to manage that.
posted by ardgedee at 2:23 PM on January 5, 2016 [9 favorites]


(What is the point of this? Well, what is jazz, really?)

Well, for one thing, it's not a mashed-up simultaneous replay of 20,000 different solos.

You are apparently unfamiliar with the Free Jazz Mashup Society.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:24 PM on January 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


Reminds me of rush hour in Shengyang.
posted by fairmettle at 2:32 PM on January 5, 2016


I don't see any indication that each replay was submitted by a different person, but it's at least a bunch of people

I think the numbers next to the drivers' usernames in the credits are how many runs each one did.
posted by juv3nal at 3:04 PM on January 5, 2016


You are apparently unfamiliar with the Free Jazz Mashup Society.

I'm going to assume that my continued ignorance of it is something to be treasured.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:12 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think the numbers next to the drivers' usernames in the credits are how many runs each one did.

Hah, I stopped watching before that. So yeah, it's 30 different drivers. Which is less fun than if it were more people.
posted by aubilenon at 3:23 PM on January 5, 2016


Well, a fluid which can pass through a pipe in the same amount of time if you double, quadruple, or multiply by a thousand the total number of particles, and which, no matter how much you pour into a vessel, will only every fill it one particle deep.

it's similar to a bose-einstein condensate, i think.
posted by andrewcooke at 3:43 PM on January 5, 2016


So is this the wave of the future, or a particle of pointlessness? I say it has characteristics of both, but that's just an observation.

Less flippantly, it did catch my attention and made me think, while being quite lovely to look at. If gaming does want viable pretensions to art, then this sort of kinetic surrealism that messes with reality through physics and time may be fruitful. You can't do it any other way - I suppose it's an offshoot of animation - and there's other stuff in the same vein out there, like the mutant animals evolving gaits and that unhinged homunculus that lollops through suburban landscapes. Enough for an overcooked article declaring a new genre, certainly.
posted by Devonian at 5:49 PM on January 5, 2016


Also having a hard time understanding the point; I can't eat this video, or use it to buy liquor, or even have sex with it. It seems like all I can do is watch it? Is this a bug, or is it supposed to be like this, or what?

You're just not trying hard enough
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:18 PM on January 5, 2016


If gaming does want viable pretensions to art

games are art the same way telephones are conversations
posted by Sebmojo at 8:10 PM on January 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


Very cool, it's like a weird combination of liquid and a swarm of bees. I'm especially struck by how it looks like water waves when the "ooze" hits an object in the track.

It's also an interesting visualization of decision trees. You start with a single car because every single player starts in the same place, then it branches out into all of the different directions you could choose to go, then further out, then some of the cars crash… Eventually they all flow into the same exit (finish line?).
posted by mmoncur at 11:11 PM on January 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


You are apparently unfamiliar with the Free Jazz Mashup Society.

It got it's start in Pawnee, Indiana.

To bring this back on-topic, the makers of that video must have some research that shows that they're viewers really LOVE this game.
posted by VTX at 6:46 AM on January 6, 2016


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