And there was also the opposite, John Carmack in particular didn't have a problem with using huge amount of data, "Rage" is an application of this idea. The game uses a single, huge, non-repeating "megatexture", with elaborate caching strategies to keep it playable even on slow media (HDD/optical). The idea was to give complete freedom to artists and not require them to be mathematicians. Further down the line, he even considered using sparse voxel octrees, i.e. even more huge 3D textures.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have Inigo Quilez ( https://iquilezles.org/ ). He literally draws with maths, and he is famous for his 4k demoscene productions. The problem is that about no one else is capable of doing what he does.