← Back to context

Comment by danbruc

3 years ago

I can wrap my head around zooming in - conceptually you run any life simulation you want, i.e. a base level game of life, and then recursively decompose each cell into the 2²² cells of a OTCA metapixel.

Zooming out I find much harder to make sense of. What does it look like if you zoom out infinitely often? Is there some limit? If you take an empty universe with all cells dead there seems to be nothing at first, but at closer inspection there is of course still a lot of stuff going on in all the dead metapixels making up the empty universe. After zooming in a couple of times it would be hard to tell that zooming out a bit would leave you with an empty universe. And it would not have to be an empty universe, it could be anything.

6 comments

danbruc

Reply
phoe-krk  3 years ago

> What does it look like if you zoom out infinitely often?

Make a sharp backwards roll of your mouse wheel and see for yourself - it'll turn on the autopilot mode.

  • consumer451  3 years ago

    I am really enjoying this full screen with auto-zoom-out at the slowest speed setting. If the controls faded like media player controls do in full screen, I would be perfectly satisfied.

    This inspired a bit of awe in me, especially after I learned from another comment here that each game is unique.

    edit: Oh wow, of course it's last month's Bubbles creator.

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33566924

  • danbruc  3 years ago

    Already tried that, does not zoom quickly enough to reach infinity before I have to go to bed.

    • phoe-krk  3 years ago

      I don't think you need to reach infinity to realize it's OTCA metapixels all the way down and OTCA metapixels all the way up. In a way, it just loops forever.

      1 reply →