pouët.net

There's a lot of talk about "art" in the demoscene and discussions about unoriginal and copied graphics, but this also applies to demos. Imaginative ideas in demos are so rare. It's all glowing lines, vectors or flybyes with not much originality involved.

Its strange how Fairlight and TBL get criticised for stealing ideas when most demos are stealing ideas from previous demos.

Some demos/intros are different like a few by Keops, some occasional MFX releases and ASD stuff and they can feel really absorbing like you're in another world. But where is the art, creativity and imagination in demos?

AGA killed imagination!!

Everyone has great ideas at times but when the next deadline comes and begs for a fast release it's about doing what you are already familiar with. A lot of times I am pondering that if someone gave a lot of time to himself to get away from the ordinary ideas and try to imagine something more original (either in terms of code, effects, transitions, design, idea, concept or anything) then we could get the results you await to see more frequently. I think.

Short response : there ain't no such things as art, creativity and imagination in demos.
Long response : there ain't no such things as art, creativity and imagination in demos, for now. :)

... though I've been told there could be some form of art, creativity and imagination in some intros. But for now, it's mostly speculation. :)

agreed. i would argue that tiny demos (4k and under) force you to be imaginative

We've had this discussion before. Your trolling is getting less imaginative.

Preacher: Do you mean trolling is part of demomaking process? *g*

No, I was just pointing out that he's repeating himself in trolling. That's not very imaginative, artistic or creative, now is it?

preacher has leading.

besides, in demos, as in everything else (bread, beer, psychedelic trance, women) 90% is crap and unimaginative, 9% is decent, 0.9% is actually really good, and only 0.1% or less is truly and utterly amazing.

uncle-x has facts.

imagination is how obscure your sources are, even to you.

Preacher can't answer the question so turns it against the asker. You're not a politician are you?

I don't recall discussing this before.

Black backgrounds are the cause of the creativity-lack in demos.

ROTFL

ps: you think keops' demos lack imagination?! o_0

I wonder actually if the lack of much imagination is due to deadlines like optimus said. Does anyone seriously start out thinking 'Yeah, gonna make me another boring flyby!'? I bet most start out thinking how they're going to make a real monster demo full of never-before-seen stuff. But when you want to get something out for the party in a couple of weeks, you only have time for the flyby.

I pretty much agree, deadlines are the real killer here. However without deadlines we probably wouldn't do anything.

preacher has leading.

Keops uses some old concepts (cubes, scrollers), but presents them in very imaginative scenes and injects creative variations.

I think Psonice is right about everyone's intentions to do something grand and unique, but maybe it is deadlines or maybe they are restricted by technical skills.

It can't be too hard having objects rotating on a screen with no predetermined course, but getting them to tell a story, create an atmosphere and resemble something worldly, then it must surely get more complicated. It's probably easier just to improve on existing routines or give them new colours and angles etc.

psonice: yep

or is it the 'why create smth totally new when you can just stick with smth you know that'll work?' (either technically, visually and crowdpleasing-wise)

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."

Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899

Hahaha, zplex, I just love that kind of quote ! :D

the current game hype will kill all the techy demos anyway... I think debris was the last real killer tech demo, but no one who experienced the the "quality" of today's games will ever be wowed by any new tekk oriented demo. the industry will kill the scene, or the scene has to change it's mind. bla... although, i'm complete noob, i see no way for the scene, if it doesn't change direction very soon. demos can be great medium for human expression, may it be art or just imagninations, evolving visions... - demos shouldn't/can't compete with music video clips or even games techwise, because they are a completely unique medium with its own rules (sorry my english).

hrm.. I'm not sure... yes, a lot of demo's are very unimaginative, but, from what *I* have seen, these are *mainly* PC demos... BP'08 PC compo was basically only the same *BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM --rotating object-- BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM* (( nothing wrong with that. but too much of the same.. o.O ))

Indeed, 4k demo's make people limited, thus forcing them to take a walk on the wild side. You may not make a winning demo, maybe not the best demo on the party, but it has more chance to be a demo that people will remember, that will stay stuck in their heads and come back to.

Also, who cares? the scene has been dead since Dutch Breeze anyway.