Watch four billion years of humanity in a pixel shader Rock Paper Shotgun Support us Join our newsletter Visit our store Sign in / Create account If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Watch four billion years of humanity in a pixel shader A long way from making armour shiny News by Graham Smith Contributor Published on Jan. 30, 2022 8 comments Me, in 2000: ah, so shaders can make textures in Quake 3 look glowy or wibbly. Me, in 2016: oh, okay, so shaders can also be used to create shoals of fish in Abzu. Me, right now: wait, so shaders can also be used to tell the story of a planet over four and a half billions years, from a lump of molten rock to the formation of mountains, rivers, and human cities. Humanity, an in-browser shader created by David A. Roberts, is worth the four minutes it takes to watch. If you'd rather, instead of clicking the link above, you can watch the animation with some music on Vimeo: The animation runs through six main stages in its development of a planet: protoplanet, in which the surface is red hot; the shifting of tectonic plates to establish moutains and oceans; hydraulic erosion, which marks the terrain with rivers; global climate, which depicts the changing of seasons; the distribution of life, including plants, herbivores and predators; and finally humanity, as we construct cities. Its creator, David A. Roberts, has written a lengthy explanation of how each of these stages are constructed, including the scientific models on which its based and examples of the code used to recreate it within a shader. It's particularly impressive how the different simulations interact: climate follows from the distribution of oceans, and life, including plant growth, responds to climate. The simulation ends by depicting humanity burning through all available fossil fuels, "resulting in the disappearance of humanity from a significant portion of the planet." Oof. I'm coming to all of this late. Roberts created the shader back in 2018 and it gained attention online when he wrote the breakdown of how it works last year. He's since written another post breaking down the experience of going "viral". A shader is just a program designed to run on a GPU and they're typically used to give instructions for how pixels should be drawn on screen. I know that GPUs are powerful enough to do all sorts of things, but still I am knocked down every time a shader is used for something other than making a skeleton glow. More News Jack King-Spooner's next handcrafted game has a teaser demo out Judero brings chat and action in the Scottish Borders Alice O'Connor 17 hours ago 1 If you were hoping for any Overwatch 2 balance changes then you'll have to wait until season two The next season begins in December CJ Wheeler 18 hours ago 3 The Dead Space remake will chuck random Necromorphs at you as you wander the Ishimura In space, no one can hear you proper bricking it CJ Wheeler 18 hours ago 8 Valve register mysterious new Neon Prime trademark in the US It doesn’t seem to be for a particularly colourful Steam Deck CJ Wheeler 20 hours ago 11 Latest Articles What are we all playing this weekend? Well? Alice O'Connor an hour ago 22 Past Wordle answers Here's an archive of previous Wordle words Ollie Toms 2 hours ago 1 Wordle answer today (Saturday 15 October) Hints and the answer to today's Wordle word Rebecca Jones 9 hours ago Overwatch 2 hero tier list Which are the best heroes in Overwatch 2? Ollie Toms 16 hours ago Supporters Only You're probably better than me at One Many Nobody You go on without… uh, you? Sin Vega 17 hours ago Supporter podcast - The Nate Files episode 13: dry bones Bad science is also FUN science! Alice Bell 18 hours ago Japanese dating show Love Wagon has surprising parallels with Yakuza and Persona My new obsession Ed Thorn 2 days ago If you're hankering after Bayonetta 3, Valkyrie Elysium might be a good substitute It's not out on PC until next month, but the console demo has been a surprise charmer Katharine Castle 1 week ago 4 We've been talking, and we think that you should wear clothes Total coincidence, but we sell some clothes Buy RPS stuff here