Dogma demomaking
category: general [glöplog]
thank you for annoying sour old men
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- create a demo using only particles, no other effects allowed
- use only 3 colours (or use a fixed palette like in the Evoke pixel graphics compo)
Did these, although the approaches to these came naturally during the development.
I think the idea of dogma demomaking is intriguing, although it focuses on the process and not the end result. I guess there are two main schools on that, one that focuses on the technical aspect and the process and the other on the actual end result without putting too much weight on how it is achieved.
Personally I'm firmly in the latter camp. I've been doing some quick C64 tests in a machine code monitor on an actual computer lately, and while it's got a distinct feel to it, I'm absolutely not willing to sacrifice my hard-earned comfort. My demos will suck just as much without me handicapping myself.
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DOGMA LEVEL 5
let AI do it for you
DOGMA LEVEL 5.1
Let AI do it for you and get away with it without being burned alicve as a witch:er on pouet. ;o)
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i would probably agree if you'd replace "DOGMA" with "FUNDAMENTALISTIC WANKER"
Oh Havoc amazing how you manage to cheer up every thread you participate!
+ :D
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Just wait for DOGma Dikkie DikOh Havoc amazing how you manage to cheer up every thread you participate!
More complex encoding/build than decoding/replay is just one of the fundamental asymmetries in computing - just like div being more expensive than mul, or modular exponentiation being cheaper than discrete logarithm.
So when restricting the creation step to the comparably modest computing power required for consumption, less... well, impressive demos are to be expected, at least when watched at face value.
Writing a novel on a slate using only a hammer and a chisel is impressive in its own way, however.
So when restricting the creation step to the comparably modest computing power required for consumption, less... well, impressive demos are to be expected, at least when watched at face value.
Writing a novel on a slate using only a hammer and a chisel is impressive in its own way, however.
Does it count as dogma level 1 if content development is done using an engine-specific simulator that I wrote myself, but all testing of the actual demo code happens on a real machine? If so, Phosphorizer qualifies.
Blueberry: If something qualifies is entirely up to the artist, interpretation, and possible debate. Sounds good to me. :-)
Is this about the effort? Or amount of pain? Or yearning of the more simpler days? Or energy efficiency? Or trying to force people to learn the lower levels of the abstraction layer stack?
And don't forget easy prototyping and tweaking in modern powerful languages, as opposed to having to finish most of the effect before you even get to see it with your outer eyes.
I wonder what you mean by "existed at the time" though, what time? 1992, when the Amiga 500 series was discontinued? Just picking the nits here, of course. The availability of tools, documentation and support has always increased and improved over time.
If this gives you or others something enjoyable to strive for, then I wish you all the luck. Be yourself no matter what they say. I'll be staying at Dogma level 0, however.
I wonder what you mean by "existed at the time" though, what time? 1992, when the Amiga 500 series was discontinued? Just picking the nits here, of course. The availability of tools, documentation and support has always increased and improved over time.
If this gives you or others something enjoyable to strive for, then I wish you all the luck. Be yourself no matter what they say. I'll be staying at Dogma level 0, however.
Nosferatu: I gave an example with DPaint3 vs. Dpaint4. And of course you can interpret this differently.
Hot Multimedia: The reasons why you would choose to use a dogma would be entirely up to you. Some of my personal motivations:
1. It's an additional challenge to come up with tools and methods of the same mindset as the demo itself. Like for example: I can do not only a 3d engine on my target platform, I can also do a prototype language, sourcecode preprocessor or compiler on the target platform. Why would I want to apply a lesser, more lazy and boring mindset to the toolchain than to the demo? Why waste CPU cycles?
2. Immersion in the platform, doing everything on the Amiga again. I can still use and have fun with the tools and methods that existed at the time when demos were made that I want to compare myself with today.
3. Already mentioned: Excitement about what kind of demos I could have come up 30 years ago, if I've had the same skills and tastes I have today
4. I question that improved disproportionality in computing power for cross development has led to better demos. In my observation it might even trend in the opposite direction. Of course this is purely subjective and could open up an entirely new topic.
Hot Multimedia: The reasons why you would choose to use a dogma would be entirely up to you. Some of my personal motivations:
1. It's an additional challenge to come up with tools and methods of the same mindset as the demo itself. Like for example: I can do not only a 3d engine on my target platform, I can also do a prototype language, sourcecode preprocessor or compiler on the target platform. Why would I want to apply a lesser, more lazy and boring mindset to the toolchain than to the demo? Why waste CPU cycles?
2. Immersion in the platform, doing everything on the Amiga again. I can still use and have fun with the tools and methods that existed at the time when demos were made that I want to compare myself with today.
3. Already mentioned: Excitement about what kind of demos I could have come up 30 years ago, if I've had the same skills and tastes I have today
4. I question that improved disproportionality in computing power for cross development has led to better demos. In my observation it might even trend in the opposite direction. Of course this is purely subjective and could open up an entirely new topic.
Great motivations imo! But should this sort of meta-information affect the compo results?
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Great motivations imo! But should this sort of meta-information affect the compo results?
Ideally there should be separate compos for each dogma level, much like the (often insufficiently) subdivided ZX Spectrum.
I remember long time ago in some retro forum not coding related someone had a similar idea with using a computer. Like, what if for a month I pretend it's same month 40 years ago and I have my Zx Spectrum and the local magazines of the time, I read reviews of new games and try to play those ones. But no internet allowed, except for getting the software of the time, maybe from ebay on cassette, like it was 1984 or something. Do that for a month, but you are also not allowed to login to the internet or use modern computers for anything even outside of gaming, haha. Some guy had this wild idea. Don't know if he ever did, the concept theorticaly seems fun or not. But means you will stop using PC/internet even for your job or daily communication. Like you really travelled back in time.
DeluxePaint III ? Too newschool >>> Graphicraft !
Manage to create something up-to-date and modern entirely made on an unexpanded A500 with some tool like Seka 1.5 (or even C-Mon)/Soundtracker I (or II) and the meager tools that were available to the common back in the days, i'll worship you (and don't forget to manage you floppies disks with Climate).
Manage to create something up-to-date and modern entirely made on an unexpanded A500 with some tool like Seka 1.5 (or even C-Mon)/Soundtracker I (or II) and the meager tools that were available to the common back in the days, i'll worship you (and don't forget to manage you floppies disks with Climate).
hitchhikr: Never liked climate! There are better tools. Check out wshell. :-)
If voters take that into consideration, who could deny it to them?
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But should this sort of meta-information affect the compo results?
If voters take that into consideration, who could deny it to them?
seems there's plenty of FUNdamentalists on this thread, how about making your amiga demo on a vic20? :)
Optimus, hitchhikr: Please note that level 1 is no big deal if applied to an Amiga. It just gives a little bit of recognition to people who are willing to keep an actual machine in working condition, and run their things from a network share, for example. All demos on any platform not coded against an emulator are level 1, so what's the big deal?
Level 2 is getting a bit more interesting, but it still doesn't pose a huge challange for an Amiga. You can use a 68030 or even 68060, advanced tools like TVPaint, Lightwave, audio processing, gcc and whatnot. Level 3 would be too hard for me at the moment, but let's see, there are huge gaping "loopholes" even for level 3, like tons of advanced software and 68030 accelerators already existing when RSI Megademo came out, but maybe you don't know this :)
Level 2 is getting a bit more interesting, but it still doesn't pose a huge challange for an Amiga. You can use a 68030 or even 68060, advanced tools like TVPaint, Lightwave, audio processing, gcc and whatnot. Level 3 would be too hard for me at the moment, but let's see, there are huge gaping "loopholes" even for level 3, like tons of advanced software and 68030 accelerators already existing when RSI Megademo came out, but maybe you don't know this :)
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We have a lot more knowledge accumulated today, and this is what I find exciting: Given you are getting beamed into 1988, what kind of demos can you do with this knowledge?
This is interesting. If the only difference in demos between now and 1988 was the ease of production nowadays (due to hardware advancement and cross-development) that would mean that this scene is braindead. I believe it not to be (braindead that is), so my guess is that if you were beamed back to 1988 with current knowledge, the demos you’d make there (or rather then) would be nothing like the demos that were originally being made back then. But what exactly would they look like, I agree, is a VERY intriguing question, which could perhaps be answered (to a degree) by trying the dogmacoding challenge.
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"Better" demos is quite a subjective thing, and yes, hard to quantify and open to debate.4. I question that improved disproportionality in computing power for cross development has led to better demos. In my observation it might even trend in the opposite direction. Of course this is purely subjective and could open up an entirely new topic.
Point remains that vastly superior computing power on the production side made demos possible that otherwise weren't.
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Point remains that vastly superior computing power on the production side made demos possible that otherwise weren't.
This point remains theoretical. Modelling 3d worlds on a PC for animation playing, compression and optimization with GPUs, visually analyzing each and every byte in memory and bus cycle in emulation etc. bring a kind of debauchery to the platform which I refuse and prefer to resist.
We cross-coders have exploited this disproportionality, it was fun while it lasted, compos and awards were won, but at some point you might want to look out for new challenges, not just quantitative improvements.
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Optimus, hitchhikr: Please note that level 1 is no big deal if applied to an Amiga. It just gives a little bit of recognition to people who are willing to keep an actual machine in working condition, and run their things from a network share, for example. All demos on any platform not coded against an emulator are level 1, so what's the big deal?
Level 2 is getting a bit more interesting, but it still doesn't pose a huge challange for an Amiga. You can use a 68030 or even 68060, advanced tools like TVPaint, Lightwave, audio processing, gcc and whatnot. Level 3 would be too hard for me at the moment, but let's see, there are huge gaping "loopholes" even for level 3, like tons of advanced software and 68030 accelerators already existing when RSI Megademo came out, but maybe you don't know this :)
Talking to me ?
Yes 68030 accelerators were even available before that, i remember the TecSoft/Wild Copper guys claimed to own the fastest 68030 based Amiga running in Europe in 1988/89.
They were available but they weren't really available as they just costed way too much money for anyone but professionals to be able to afford such devices.
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It can be proven quite easily. Or at least not disproven easily.This point remains theoretical.
An example: For this C-64 4K demo i packed some tables (sine, arctan and others) lossily to a bunch of just a few floats (Nth-degree polynomials, with N=3 to 5 or so), for those floats to be run through the POLYX ROM function by the C-64 at demo init-time, to recreate the curves.
Now, i would never try to polyfit anything on the C-64 itself. And i'm pretty sure it would take a long while.