Drawing Ray Tracing: Nostalgic CG

Back in the day, the cutting edge of beautiful CG was ray tracing. It really felt like a high-performance computer was working at full capacity to render it. That retro feel is quite refreshing.

The January 1988 issue of MSX Magazine featured a ray tracing program. It was part of an MSX party special, a project to decorate with CG like a Christmas tree to set the mood. How fun.

Running it took an incredibly long time. It required 'BASIC-kun,' and even then it took an hour, but I, who didn't have BASIC-kun at the time, recklessly spent about 12 hours drawing it.

There's a sphere floating above a checkered floor, with light reflecting off it. It's amazing that it was made with a BASIC program that wasn't even that long. I believed I would understand it once I became an adult, but that day never came...

The 'MSX2+ Powerful Utilization Guide' included a ray tracing program for SCREEN 12 that supported natural images. I wish they wouldn't put things like this on the color pages of books. There's a thrill to seeing it on screen, but isn't it a letdown if you already know what it looks like?

I suddenly remembered it and thought, couldn't a modern AI draw that nostalgic image in an instant? So I tried having Google Gemini draw it. Here is the prompt.

Draw an image like the ray tracing I spent 12 hours drawing on an MSX back in the day

256 colors, 256x192 resolution

The floor is a black and white checkerboard

Colorful spheres are floating

The silver sphere has total reflection

It drew it too beautifully; it doesn't understand the concept. The gradients are supposed to be much rougher. After some back-and-forth, this is what I got it to redraw.

It's still pretty, but since AI tends to overreact, if you say too much, it intentionally lowers the resolution to make it a mosaic screen, so I think this is the correct answer as it depicts the memory beautifully.

I also had its rival, ChatGPT, draw it.

See? It's intentionally drawing it roughly, which feels disingenuous. It's a matter of taste, but I'm not a fan. When I told it to make it look like natural image mode, it turned into this.

Hmm. ChatGPT has no sense. That red sphere is just like the 'Vaa!' thing from Gradius/Salamander, isn't it?

I liked the Google Gemini ray tracing, so I set it to appear as a thank-you for 'likes' on note. So, regardless of whether it's an old one or a new one, if you give me a 'like,' you can see the spheres just by pressing it. Follow me too, please.

Why don't you try ray tracing with the latest AI and transcend time yourself?