pouët.net

Commercial/game-engine demos

category: general [glöplog]
wooh i'm so shocked! gloom finally open to something!?! the whole world is collapsing!
added on the 2009-11-08 15:47:55 by aftu aftu
gloom: since i clearly don't know shit about the "inner working" of the awards (maybe if this secret working process was described on the homepage, the situation would be different...), i'm desperately waiting for enlightenment!
to start with, if it is really all purely democratic voting (after objective evaluation of each and every production from the voting pool; which is by the way decided how? everything the public nominate?), as you hint at, how did you decide how many productions to include in each category?

Quote:
some personal grudge towards me

did the possibility ever occurred to you that maybe some people's dislike of you is triggered by your very own behaviour, instead of being irrational personal hate?

oh and i feel sooooo sympathetic towards the poor handicapped jury members with their own stuff nominated :)
added on the 2009-11-08 15:49:32 by blala blala
Kusma: that's the question - as a coder, how do you feel about it?
added on the 2009-11-08 15:49:59 by gloom gloom
For me (if i may express my opinion sorry), it is a problem of intellectual property. As long as you have an authorization from your employer (preferably written) then why not...

Furthermore, it can actually be a good idea to beta test your game engine in the "real world" if you lack resources for testing... So it is not something that is necessarily a drawback for the company..
added on the 2009-11-08 16:01:00 by nystep nystep
to stick to the demo in question: https://store.unity3d.com/shop/ says Unity3D is "free for personal and commercial use". http://unity3d.com/unity/unity-end-user-license-2.x seems to reinforce that.
added on the 2009-11-08 16:07:39 by Gargaj Gargaj
Quote:
gloom: since i clearly don't know shit about the "inner working" of the awards (maybe if this secret working process was described on the homepage, the situation would be different...),

You're right, it should be featured prominently on the Awards website, especially since it has been pointed out so many times on Pouet and elsewhere. Also, seeing how you assumed the worst right off the bat makes it even more important to highlight.
Quote:
i'm desperately waiting for enlightenment! to start with, if it is really all purely democratic voting (after objective evaluation of each and every production from the voting pool; which is by the way decided how? everything the public nominate?), as you hint at, how did you decide how many productions to include in each category?

Feel free to email the awards staff at awards-staff@scene.org with your questions. I'm sure they would be delighted to respond to you. There is off course the odd chance they'll point you to the many, many existing threads on Pouet detailing those exact question.
Quote:
did the possibility ever occurred to you that maybe some people's dislike of you is triggered by your very own behaviour, instead of being irrational personal hate?

Of course, but I don't really give it much thought if the process goes like this: "Gloom said something, quick, call him names!" with no relevance to what was being said, which was the case with both your and Knos' comment. In my book, that makes it irrational at least, if not personal.
Quote:
oh and i feel sooooo sympathetic towards the poor handicapped jury members with their own stuff nominated :)

Did I ask for sympathy for being nominated twice in one year for the same category? If so, that was rude of me, seeing how it was extra hard to be nominated last year, which makes those two nominations all the more sweet.
added on the 2009-11-08 16:09:52 by gloom gloom
Gargaj: sure, but that is just related to the actual legality of distributing the executable (which should of course be legal, and in the case of Unity3D, is), not the scenes opinion on using the engine in the first place, which is what I'm curious about.
added on the 2009-11-08 16:14:12 by gloom gloom
got that - i was merely noting that from a compo organizer perspective (which was the original question, in the original post) i don't see anything technically wrong with it, as it passes the rules.
added on the 2009-11-08 16:17:20 by Gargaj Gargaj
...not that anyone would be able to find out if a demo is made with a warez version of visual studio - but that's a whole different issue...
added on the 2009-11-08 16:18:00 by Gargaj Gargaj
you seem to forget that this sort of stuff is called
machinima since years.
so why do you want to do a scene demo out of it?

i agree that there is a need to solve this probably growing problem.
at the end you have to decide...
do you want to call machinima stuff scene demos?
or do you want to put them under the wild "demo" label?

the first one would probably be quite dangerous and destroy the idea
as soon as the compos get flooded by machinima movies and the crowd votes for it without having a clue what the difference is.
second option would be a wise choice but brings up the question what should happen with demos done with werkzeug.
i dont see a difference between UE or werkzeug
added on the 2009-11-08 16:23:53 by xeNusion xeNusion
What about the licenses?
added on the 2009-11-08 16:28:51 by xernobyl xernobyl
My 2 cents: just let the people vote.

It would be a good idea to display a list of third-party components used on the title/author screen before the entry is shown in the compo. I don't see all that much difference between using unity3d and using direct3d.
added on the 2009-11-08 16:32:59 by Ger Ger
Quote:
Of course, but I don't really give it much thought if the process goes like this: "Gloom said something, quick, call him names!" with no relevance to what was being said, which was the case with both your and Knos' comment. In my book, that makes it irrational at least, if not personal.

well, i censored myself the last 10 times you said something, so this was as good time as any. And it's not totally irrelevant as both issues has to do with your sense of moral. (btw, Knos' comment? where? am i blind?)
added on the 2009-11-08 16:35:20 by blala blala
you seem to forget that this sort of stuff is called
machinima since years.
so why do you want to do a scene demo out of it?

i agree that there is a need to solve this probably growing problem.
at the end you have to decide...
do you want to call machinima stuff scene demos?
or do you want to put them under the wild "demo" label?

the first one would probably be quite dangerous and destroy the idea
as soon as the compos get flooded by machinima movies and the crowd votes for it without having a clue what the difference is.
second option would be a wise choice but brings up the question what should happen with demos done with werkzeug.
i dont see a difference between UE or werkzeug
added on the 2009-11-08 16:37:02 by xeNusion xeNusion
Quote:
the first one would probably be quite dangerous and destroy the idea
as soon as the compos get flooded by machinima movies and the crowd votes for it without having a clue what the difference is.


Hurrah, it's the "new innovation X will cause the entire scene to suddenly go batshit insane and forget what a good demo looks like" argument!
added on the 2009-11-08 16:40:59 by gasman gasman
xeNusion: Except here you are not required to own the game for which the demo was made. Here everything is contained in a single small zip (or not so small, I've just checked the UDK executable alone weights 30 Mb) and works with a single double click.

A more valid argument would be using a freeware game to make demos with it, but considering nowadays games weight more than 100 Mb I think their use gets quickly ruled out (unless you do a wild demo).
added on the 2009-11-08 16:50:35 by Blue Ion Blue Ion
blala: I apologize if I behave so outrageously that you have had to "contain yourself" for so long before "speaking out" - what a horrible person I must be. :) With regards to "my morals", you're starting to make so little sense that I suggest we just stop and discuss the point of the thread, like all the others others are doing. (oh, and the comment I was talking about is right there in the first post in this thread, but hey, if your first instinct is just to ignore what I write and hit the slander-button, that's on you :)

Xenusion: Well, I don't think it's much of a problem. The scene isn't suddenly going to be washed over by hordes of machinima-prods, described as demos. It's more a question about the edgecases, as for example, if someone uses the newly released UT3 engine to make an executable and contribute that to a party to compete with "normal" demos.
added on the 2009-11-08 16:53:38 by gloom gloom
Blue Ion: and, of course, it's a matter of the assets (graphics and such), so boiling it down it goes something like this: is it okay to have a demo that is "coded" by a commercial engine (and yes, the Unity3D is a commercial engine, even though one of the licenses offer free (as in beer) distribution of the executable) next to a "normal" demo in a compo? To make the point perfectly clear: I'm interested because I arrange demoparties and wonder what to do if the issue ever comes up in that context.
added on the 2009-11-08 16:56:00 by gloom gloom
some engines are free now.
no need to own the game.

youre true probably you can sort it out by keeping the sizelimit to 64mb or lower.
but then you will end up seeing abstract stuff and cubes until the end of time.


added on the 2009-11-08 17:00:14 by xeNusion xeNusion
@gloom: like i said i would put it into the wild category.
you just need a useful compo rule for it
added on the 2009-11-08 17:02:58 by xeNusion xeNusion
Quote:
gloom: I'd say that disallowing commercial engines makes no sense at all. The relationship between the renderer technology provider (or any other technology provider, for that matter) and the demo maker should be irrelevant to the compo organizers. They could be members of the same demo-group, members of the same online community, employees of the same company, employees of partner companies or whatever. Where do you draw the line, and how do you enforce it?


+1 for kusma.

come ON what kind of discussion IS this? who the hell flying fuck and soforth cares where exactly the code comes from (a few exceptions where due, such as recompiling someone else's demo source with different art)?

and its not like most commercial/freeware game-oriented engines are anywhere near ideal for making demos that dont look like (perhaps advanced) levelviewers.
added on the 2009-11-08 17:53:11 by superplek superplek
then again, there are commercial assets involved in most demos these days (3rd party libraries, borrowed game company work, etc etc), so that is quite a grey area. so the whole borrowed game engine, i don't really care, if they can do a kickass demo with it.. fine. also, i have yet to see a kickass production with a borrowed game engine, i guess ppl who produce kickass productions are able enough to write their own engines too, so 'the problem' is selfregulating :)
Quote:
(a few exceptions where due, such as recompiling someone else's demo source with different art)?

I assume you are referring to cases like this? ;)
added on the 2009-11-08 18:17:43 by kusma kusma
that said, and copyright issues aside in this case, what's the difference in using unity3d and using google image search?
added on the 2009-11-08 18:20:02 by Gargaj Gargaj
Let's not forget that most game engines are suitable for 3d flybys and not for effect-heavy or abstract demos (for any reasonable definition of an effect). Try to do an ASD style demo with smooth transitions between scenes maintaining constant framerate and no meantime loading with a game engine. Good luck with that. Also, coding your own 3d engine is not only educational but fun. I don't expect sudden flood of made-with-random-commercial-3d-engine demos anytime soon.
added on the 2009-11-08 18:21:44 by masterm masterm

login