pouët.net

I stumbled upon some FXWARS submissions on YouTube the other day, and thought that it could be a fun thing for coders. In essence, a challenge is submitted (say: "rubber vector") and people submit their entries online, then people vote to find the winner. Alone, this might not sound very exciting, but I think there is something very tempting with a "short and sweet" dip in the collective pissing contest that is the demoscene. :) Instead of a 6 month project, involving many people, it's just you and your shader editor of choice, more or less.

I believe that's why 4k's are so popular as well (at least they were, until the danes and that one really annoyingly good spanish guy started owning everything :)

The results of the challenges could be open sourced, and serve as a basis for a new demo effect examples and source archive, alongside a good forum etc. (ref. this thread)

Inspiration from here: http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=139

so instead of a coder spending 2 months on a proper demo he envisions, you want him to do 4 random standard effects. it might be cool for new/uncreative people who are starting to get the grips with coding graphics, but i dont see how it'll be interesting for the leets. but i guess there is nothing like running it and seeing how it picks up or dies out.

Yeah, there is no guarantee of success of course, but it seems to me that the most constructive coder discussions on Pouet happens when someone posts a question about something, and then suddenly two or three really good coders start discussing the best way of going about solving the problem.

Something like this could act as a catalyst for fruitful discussions among coders, well-versed and newbies alike.

i could probably see it happening on a party as a compo i guess... sponsored maybe?

I might participate if someone organized something.

Hmm I don't find the idea really appealing. In the end this kind of competition will bring 10 versions of the same boring effect without any direction or creativity.

Not that party compos are filled with incredibly innovative demos with amazing directions or anything, but still, this kind of competitions will make things even worse IMO.

It's a limitation, just like 256 bytes or executable music, and it will enchance creativity, not inhibit it. If the task is generic enough like for example "3d starfield", is the traditional kind of starfield the only thing you can really think of?

Preacher: that's exactly what I was thinking. An open and generic, very briefly described, challenge -- and where people show their strengths is thinking outside the box about it, like your starfield example.

Preacher: technical limitation != innovation limitation.

We can indeed afford the first one but we already need badly enough the second one not to add constraints or limits to it.

Again, it's just my opinion, I'm sure some people will like the idea ;)

we already need badly enough the second one = innovation

if i hear "thinking outside the box" one more time i'm gonna break someone's jaw with a clawhammer
seriously

(and i'm absolutely in the best of moods today)

Breaking somebody's jaw with a clawhammer... that's creative! you are definitely thinking outside the box! :)

i think he's already thinking outside the MMA!

gloom: I like your "display hack" competition idea. It would probably help bringing "beginners" up to speed (given that people with an actual clue ("leets") participate, too). exchange of information between like-minded people is never bad. (btw: http://www.displayhack.org/ is still available..). and what preacher said (i.e. I don't see this as an "innovation limitation", like keops put it)

(rant aside: Unfortunately pouet does not work very well for the latter since the BBS is not "hierarchical" (ever wondered why most threads drift off after a few pages?))

However, as with all good ideas, it requires someone to actually sit down, bring it to life and then let people check it out.

#amycoders/irc used to have regular mini-coding challenges. the idea worked and was very successful. but then there were clear inherent limitations to be overcome with amiga coding and the success (in other words: whose code was the best) was pretty obvious just from reading the sourcecode of the entrants.

Keops: I think I might not have explained myself clearly enough then -- here, allow me to give an example from a musicians point-of-view. Many scene musicians (and others) usually have one or more forums they hang around at. We have one of these in Norway, where a lot of electronic music producers attend. This forum has a monthly "fast compo" (or "speed compo" or "samplepack compo", depending on how I translate it :) where a seriously limited sample-pack is released, and then people have a week to create a track (no longer than 4 minutes) out of that. Only very basic post-processing (like EQ and compression) is allowed, no additional synths or softsynths etc.

Now, following your logic, restraints should have turned these compos into a "this-sounds-just-like-that"-fest, which is the opposite of what does happen: every month 10-15 songs are entered, and with a few exceptions, they sound NOTHING alike. Each track is very creatively done, and when you listen to them in a playlist, it's even hard to tell they were spawned out of the same basic sample-set.

If we could achieve something like this for demo effects, I think it could be really badass.

Also: there is something to be said for lowering the threshold of getting people into the scene. While many people might think that getting a full demo going (let alone, getting people to work with you to do the music and the graphics and the massive 3D models) is an overwhelming task, something like this could be a small 1st step for them. And, when each challenge is over, one could have a period of good coder-discussions going on about what tricks where used, which technique is the fastest/best-looking etc.

This isn't something to replace conventional demos, but something to complement them, and: to spawn new partnerships and new ideas.

Gloom: I think you did, *I* just don't find that idea interesting but I'm sure other people will ;)

The idea is not fresh at all by the wat, we've had that on IRC for years and the outcome has never been interesting, it usually was a bunch of rushed "prods", all with the same effect and without the slightest ounce of innovation or direction. So bad that most people usually didn't submit them on Pouet.

Also, making "a full demo" is not necessarily an overwhelming task, I strongly disagree. A demo doesn't have to have 10 effects with 10 different themes. Unclex and Kurli, among others, proved many times that you can make a kickass demo based on a single effect, given good ideas are there to support the demo as a whole.

keops: no it really isn't / doesn't need to be. but it is a different task that involves more people than just the coder (gfx artists, musicians, editors, directors, ..). what gloom suggests is pure "coder art" and that is usually called "display hack" and pbly. it is the root of the demoscene, as we know it.

There really aren't much coder-only and "realtime" graphics/sound related forums out there, the most interesting infos can be found on blogs/web sites of individuals.

There does not seem to be a "community site" for these "display hack" style codes. The best thing that springs to my mind is for example gamedev.net.

gloom, sounds good like a good idea, now organize it. :)

go make a demo about it!

sounds cool to me :)

go make a compo about it now! ;)

there where a couple of comps in the past that i really miss. it was competition with simple effects like fire, water, particle-explotions etc.. (software rendering). it can be done today with hardware, but it would be quite different, you'd use triangles and shaders instead. the former compos i was talking about dont exists anymore because of graphics-hardware of course. today you dont render to a pixel-buffer like 0xa000, memory buffer or whatever, but the hardware does it, its a little different. graphics compos today really depend on what hardware you have, and demos too of course. if your card doesnt support shader x.0 or whatever then someone with shader version(s) lower cant run it and he or she can't run and see what was so special about it. in the old days almost everyone had mcga vga or whatever and could run mode13h, those with knowledge in vesa-modes could do the effects in extended modes or "super-modes" <- just a made up word.., you know what i mean hopefully :p. usually you could switch between modes to run a particular effect or demo in mode13 to see the product anyway. it was much easier back then, someone may say the opposite, but imho 99% had mode13, and today not everyone have the latest shaders. whatever, its late here. i just wanted to rant a few words.

rydi: That didn't really make too much sense to me, but if the rant was about software rendering being more fun/cooler/more elite, a challenge such as this wouldn't put any restrictions on programming language or method.. I think that would be the best way, to just let people use what they are used to, and just look at the result.

Shader 3.0 is like software rendering anyway.

I am all for this idea. I'd definitely participate. Also guys, if you are planning for a displayhack portal, I'd suggest get the domain (http://displayhack.org) actually even I might get it if needed.