Zero GPU Cost and 4-Minute Daily Runs — Making Real Rain Fall on a Still Image with ffmpeg displace
A 30-minute ASMR rain video costs me nothing but electricity, and the daily job that builds it dropped from 7–8 minutes to a little over 4. No video-generation model, no GPU rental, no editing. One still image, a physics simulation of raindrops written in Python, and ffmpeg's displace filter. For context on why I built this: in my second year of university I was making ¥100k a month, stacked side…
The story begins with the author explaining how a 30-minute ASMR rain video cost them nothing beyond electricity. However, generating daily 30-minute videos proved to be costly and time-consuming. The author then discovered that to create an ASMR rain video, all they needed was a single still image, a physics simulation of raindrops in Python, and ffmpeg's displace filter.
This approach eliminated the need for video generation models, GPU rentals, and editing. The author emphasizes that the only cost of generation was CPU time, making it a cost-effective solution.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
