Essay about the demoscene
category: general [glöplog]
a) been exposed to it around 1996 or something while searching for programming tutorials and stuff on the net. But didn't know what it was all about. Got a clue about 4-5 years later, around 2000. Hooked since :)
b) I'd code stuff up for fun anyway, as well do something small and entertaining, so I can do more of them! It's a great source of learning, and the people are cool and just watching to the best stuff out there makes you want to try it too :) And the competition is a nice fun thing as well!
c) There's always the choice between heavy programming and clever tricks and cheats. And there's always room for both :) No matter the power available. I do tihnk that coding is getting more complex nowadays with huge 3D APIs, but it's easier on the sound side, and the tools are better too. I think good demos will always be a combination of good code, good design, good graphics and good music.
About limited size, I agree with xTr1m. 4k have seen blossoming in the past years and that's awesome!
b) I'd code stuff up for fun anyway, as well do something small and entertaining, so I can do more of them! It's a great source of learning, and the people are cool and just watching to the best stuff out there makes you want to try it too :) And the competition is a nice fun thing as well!
c) There's always the choice between heavy programming and clever tricks and cheats. And there's always room for both :) No matter the power available. I do tihnk that coding is getting more complex nowadays with huge 3D APIs, but it's easier on the sound side, and the tools are better too. I think good demos will always be a combination of good code, good design, good graphics and good music.
About limited size, I agree with xTr1m. 4k have seen blossoming in the past years and that's awesome!
Thanks for all new replies! Diverse and interesting information. There are some valid points being made about the phrasing of the questions, however, the replies are all good.
Mah Li: Interesting nutritional information ;)
Mah Li: Interesting nutritional information ;)
Quote:
a) How and when did you become involved in the demo scene?
Late 80s was when I first became aware, with old C64 / Amiga cracktros and early demos, as well as having access to a copy of the original SoundTracker. I've followed the scene continually from then til now, but almost exclusively as a silent observer; still making music, but not releasing it (on the demoscene). I was active on the scene for a short time in the late 90s, though didn't really release anything of note, and then entered another self-imposed long silence until very recently. I still feel a part of the scene; just a quiet one. =)
Quote:
b) What is your motivation, and how do you feel about putting so much time and effort into something with such a limited audience?
I always want to make music that accompanies some sort of visual imagery -- soundtracks, in other words. When I hear music I like I see imaginary animated images, scenes etc in my head. I've sometimes made music for other visual media - short films, amateur music videos etc - but the demoscene was the thing that got me into this way of thinking, and I still think the most complete computer entertainment you can pack into five minutes is an amazing demo with a fantastic soundtrack. I think the fact that the audience is small, educated and relatively underground is part of the charm.
Quote:
c) With present day´s computers being so powerful that the need for heavy programming is diminishing, where do you think the demo scene currently is and should go? Do you think there should be continued focus on filesize and/or hardware restrictions, or rather on design, image quality etc.?
There has *always* been a focus on file size and hardware restrictions. It's just that in the early days those limits were hard-imposed by machines with fixed or almost-fixed hardware configurations, using storage media like floppy disks that didn't exactly lend themselves to 50MB demos. To say nothing of the days of old-school crack intros that had to fit into whatever available space there was left on the disk or even tape! Now, faced with exponentially increasing amounts of available RAM, storage space etc, we set restrictions in order to both create a challenge and to level the playing field. Make no mistake: the focus is *always* on striving for excellent design, code, graphics and music.
I was going to respond by mail, but the response became quite lengthy and I
really like to share it with others as well.
In around 1995, I started visiting demoparties with some other users of the
BBSes I frequented. It was the company of these people that drew me en, not
the demoscene itself (towards which, especially on the PC platform, I had
quite a lot of prejudicies). However, I wanted to release something on every
party I visited, so after some "joke releases" I eventually developed some
skills usable for "more serious" coding and design.
I have never really bought the idea of "limited audience", or this
self-centered "you make it, you watch it" mentality. During all eras of the
demoscene (especially in the early-to-mid-1990s, I think), there has been a
striving for "world domination" or "becoming a legend". Becoming famous in
the demoscene is just the first step, and beyond the barriers of the scene
lies a potential audience that can be, at its best, hundreds or thousands
times greater than the self-centered community.
Personally, I see "average demos", regardless of how well-crafted they are,
as something I wouldn't waste any creative time on. I always need to have a
feeling that I'm doing something groundbreaking (with at least an illusion
of potential for massive fame from a massive audience) in order to motivate
myself to doing anything more time-consuming.
The basic questions that need to be asked here are "What makes demoscene
unique?" and "What are the areas where the application of this uniqueness
yields the most outstanding results?"
In my opinion, hard-core explorative programming is something that is very
close to the essence of the demoscene. You can't remove or marginalize it
without losing the essence as well. Another thing that can't be removed is
the attitude towards constraints and challenges. I can't give a definition
of what exactly makes the demoscene unique, but I regard these two things as
part of the definition. Without them, we might have a community of abstract
artists and electronic musicians who like beer and old computers, but we
wouldn't have a demoscene.
I'm not telling that we should stick with age-old formats and established
traditions. On the contrary, the demoscene should be more active in finding
new territories where to express its "uniqueness" and "core attitudes".
Traditional compo categories are important, of course, but there should be
more demoscene artists who step out of the box every now and then in order to do
something totally different. For example, there are vast dark zones between
the concepts of "demo", "game", "generative art" and "interactive art", and
doing some excursions into these zones might prove quite fruitful.
really like to share it with others as well.
Quote:
a) How and when did you become involved in the demo scene?
In around 1995, I started visiting demoparties with some other users of the
BBSes I frequented. It was the company of these people that drew me en, not
the demoscene itself (towards which, especially on the PC platform, I had
quite a lot of prejudicies). However, I wanted to release something on every
party I visited, so after some "joke releases" I eventually developed some
skills usable for "more serious" coding and design.
Quote:
b) What is your motivation, and how do you feel about putting so much time
and effort into something with such a limited audience?
I have never really bought the idea of "limited audience", or this
self-centered "you make it, you watch it" mentality. During all eras of the
demoscene (especially in the early-to-mid-1990s, I think), there has been a
striving for "world domination" or "becoming a legend". Becoming famous in
the demoscene is just the first step, and beyond the barriers of the scene
lies a potential audience that can be, at its best, hundreds or thousands
times greater than the self-centered community.
Personally, I see "average demos", regardless of how well-crafted they are,
as something I wouldn't waste any creative time on. I always need to have a
feeling that I'm doing something groundbreaking (with at least an illusion
of potential for massive fame from a massive audience) in order to motivate
myself to doing anything more time-consuming.
Quote:
c) With present day4s computers being so powerful that the need for heavy
programming is diminishing, where do you think the demo scene currently is
and should go? Do you think there should be continued focus on filesize
and/or hardware restrictions, or rather on design, image quality etc.?
The basic questions that need to be asked here are "What makes demoscene
unique?" and "What are the areas where the application of this uniqueness
yields the most outstanding results?"
In my opinion, hard-core explorative programming is something that is very
close to the essence of the demoscene. You can't remove or marginalize it
without losing the essence as well. Another thing that can't be removed is
the attitude towards constraints and challenges. I can't give a definition
of what exactly makes the demoscene unique, but I regard these two things as
part of the definition. Without them, we might have a community of abstract
artists and electronic musicians who like beer and old computers, but we
wouldn't have a demoscene.
I'm not telling that we should stick with age-old formats and established
traditions. On the contrary, the demoscene should be more active in finding
new territories where to express its "uniqueness" and "core attitudes".
Traditional compo categories are important, of course, but there should be
more demoscene artists who step out of the box every now and then in order to do
something totally different. For example, there are vast dark zones between
the concepts of "demo", "game", "generative art" and "interactive art", and
doing some excursions into these zones might prove quite fruitful.
short for b) ... One wonderful text i found that explains this is here :
http://www.codercorner.com/DemosEtMerveilles.htm
but it's in french...
To me it's something VERY deep...The need for self-realization, achievement, personal completenes...hard to explain.
Probably it's linked with the first deep impressions you got with this material, and the fact that it's quite underground.
I remember having seen a very interesting social-oriented study about the demoscene, too, that dealt with this...said that all demosceners fell into one category (among 4 types of people) when submitted to some psychology test.
dunno where i found that paper now :)
paalsteinhard:
Falmouth!
My brother had an internship in Penryn and I went to visit him some time ago...
I keep some really great memories about that small place in wales, filled with students...spent one night at a party in falmouth in the club that's in the middle of the town! Maybe you know that.
wish you a good time.
a) Watching the cracktros for C64 games back in 1988. Soon I was more interested in those than in the games themselves, and discovered the demoscene.
b) I code (mostly for old machines) because it is fun to see the end result, and that I enjoy learning to code on odd hardware. If I then get some good feedback (thumbs up on pouet etc.) it's a bonus of course.
c) For me the demoscene "core" will always be about finding neat tricks/optimizations/cheats that lets you do things on a computer that exceeds what it was originally meant to do.
This has of course diminished quite a bit on modern hardware, so I'll probably continue to focus on the old stuff, as some other brave old farts will contiune to do as well probably!
But of course, I also enjoy the "modern" demos, both the bombastic ASD/FLT/FR large demos as well as the amazing size coding efforts that some do.
b) I code (mostly for old machines) because it is fun to see the end result, and that I enjoy learning to code on odd hardware. If I then get some good feedback (thumbs up on pouet etc.) it's a bonus of course.
c) For me the demoscene "core" will always be about finding neat tricks/optimizations/cheats that lets you do things on a computer that exceeds what it was originally meant to do.
This has of course diminished quite a bit on modern hardware, so I'll probably continue to focus on the old stuff, as some other brave old farts will contiune to do as well probably!
But of course, I also enjoy the "modern" demos, both the bombastic ASD/FLT/FR large demos as well as the amazing size coding efforts that some do.
Thank you all so much for this very enlightening information! I see there are many quite different opinions, something which can only be a good thing, as it should keep the scene developing and thriving for years to come:D
I am writing for my bare life, deadline feels a bit too close for comfort. I hope i will do you all justice.
Helloworld: I am writing this from Penryn, and i bet you went to Mango Tango, where i coincidentally went clubbing yesterday.
Cheeers!
I am writing for my bare life, deadline feels a bit too close for comfort. I hope i will do you all justice.
Helloworld: I am writing this from Penryn, and i bet you went to Mango Tango, where i coincidentally went clubbing yesterday.
Cheeers!
a) How and when did you become involved in the demo scene?
I like to say the same story again. That I found the demoscene a bit late in 1998, quite accidentally, I found a CD from a magazine saying something about demos, it had demos from 1991-1993 and I had an old 486 then and it was like finding a hidden treasure and the feeling was great then because I had no internet, no connection to the external world, no geek friends who also knew what this is all about (and the scene was pretty dead in greece in 98) and it was like some lost secret or something, with old legends burried deep into history or something. Then I found the boards (csipd, remember?), the sites, have seen the birth of pouet, coded my first starfield and palsma in qbasic, met the first sceners near my place, watched demos for the first time in my old CPC, even was obsessed with scene girls I discovered, it was like a dream. Which though fades away by the years when you are used into this and you sometimes wish you'd start from the beginning reliving this.
b) What is your motivation, and how do you feel about putting so much time and effort into something with such a limited audience?
If it was only the audience that mattered? People staring at us wonder how can we put so much effort and give it away for free. No money from it they say? One friend told me a nice quote: "Fame. It's the money of the internet :)". Anyways, it's more stuff. You want to do something that gives you a meaning, something honorable, something different that will make people cyberwow. There are many other reasons. Every scener is here for his own reasons yet there are many common ones. It's also not only the demoscene but all the other communities, there is something common here. People doing hard creative work not for money, not for job. A lot of crazy project that always makes you wonder what is the strong motive behind all this labour? See the open source community. People are wondering. Some cannot understand, some do. For me just having a job and a life is not enough. For others it is.
c) With present day´s computers being so powerful that the need for heavy programming is diminishing, where do you think the demo scene currently is and should go? Do you think there should be continued focus on filesize and/or hardware restrictions, or rather on design, image quality etc.?
Whatever anyone pleases. In the past we had those fights, whether we should do demos in dos, windows, software or 3d acceleration. If you for some reasons wanted to code for 8bits, some people would ask why?
Personally I am really curious about the procedural algorithms in size competition entries, especially 64k. 4ks are cool too and 256btros are still fun when you miss assembly coding (although lately, with my vista machine,.. duhh :PPP and dosbox is too slow for a heavy effect :(
I agree it's a bit restrictive. Sometimes I fed up with the process of having to kill few bytes for a 4k and so changing some things with the hope the compiler and compressor will give you those 10 bytes. 256b are a bit better because you know how many bytes an opcode takes and it makes some sense even if it's restrctive because in the real world, no big damage would be done if you had 257 bytes and not 256 (except if you wanted to code on boot sector and fit stuff). 64k are better because procedural stuff are interesting (and I admit I haven't tried enough, I was mostly stuck in 256b and 4k because of easier and faster releases) and I will move towards that point for sure.
I am happy there are always demos on various 8bit, 16bit and console scenes no matter if it's 2010 or 2050. If the scene misses heavy hardcore code on PC, it finds it in oldskool scenes. I like the diversity in the scene. I also used to fight about silly stuff back then. Some people for example don't like flash demo. I would care in the past but I don't. I will watch one flash demo and I may even like it or not.
I like to say the same story again. That I found the demoscene a bit late in 1998, quite accidentally, I found a CD from a magazine saying something about demos, it had demos from 1991-1993 and I had an old 486 then and it was like finding a hidden treasure and the feeling was great then because I had no internet, no connection to the external world, no geek friends who also knew what this is all about (and the scene was pretty dead in greece in 98) and it was like some lost secret or something, with old legends burried deep into history or something. Then I found the boards (csipd, remember?), the sites, have seen the birth of pouet, coded my first starfield and palsma in qbasic, met the first sceners near my place, watched demos for the first time in my old CPC, even was obsessed with scene girls I discovered, it was like a dream. Which though fades away by the years when you are used into this and you sometimes wish you'd start from the beginning reliving this.
b) What is your motivation, and how do you feel about putting so much time and effort into something with such a limited audience?
If it was only the audience that mattered? People staring at us wonder how can we put so much effort and give it away for free. No money from it they say? One friend told me a nice quote: "Fame. It's the money of the internet :)". Anyways, it's more stuff. You want to do something that gives you a meaning, something honorable, something different that will make people cyberwow. There are many other reasons. Every scener is here for his own reasons yet there are many common ones. It's also not only the demoscene but all the other communities, there is something common here. People doing hard creative work not for money, not for job. A lot of crazy project that always makes you wonder what is the strong motive behind all this labour? See the open source community. People are wondering. Some cannot understand, some do. For me just having a job and a life is not enough. For others it is.
c) With present day´s computers being so powerful that the need for heavy programming is diminishing, where do you think the demo scene currently is and should go? Do you think there should be continued focus on filesize and/or hardware restrictions, or rather on design, image quality etc.?
Whatever anyone pleases. In the past we had those fights, whether we should do demos in dos, windows, software or 3d acceleration. If you for some reasons wanted to code for 8bits, some people would ask why?
Personally I am really curious about the procedural algorithms in size competition entries, especially 64k. 4ks are cool too and 256btros are still fun when you miss assembly coding (although lately, with my vista machine,.. duhh :PPP and dosbox is too slow for a heavy effect :(
I agree it's a bit restrictive. Sometimes I fed up with the process of having to kill few bytes for a 4k and so changing some things with the hope the compiler and compressor will give you those 10 bytes. 256b are a bit better because you know how many bytes an opcode takes and it makes some sense even if it's restrctive because in the real world, no big damage would be done if you had 257 bytes and not 256 (except if you wanted to code on boot sector and fit stuff). 64k are better because procedural stuff are interesting (and I admit I haven't tried enough, I was mostly stuck in 256b and 4k because of easier and faster releases) and I will move towards that point for sure.
I am happy there are always demos on various 8bit, 16bit and console scenes no matter if it's 2010 or 2050. If the scene misses heavy hardcore code on PC, it finds it in oldskool scenes. I like the diversity in the scene. I also used to fight about silly stuff back then. Some people for example don't like flash demo. I would care in the past but I don't. I will watch one flash demo and I may even like it or not.
Hey Norwegians.
Anyone know if Norge Rundt have covered kindergarden or something like that?
Anyone know if Norge Rundt have covered kindergarden or something like that?
a) How and when did you become involved in the demo scene?
A: Had seen PC-based cracktros and ATOM.EXE but it didn't click for me until Spacepigs' Megademo. Then I just about fucking lost it and said "I have GOT to find out more about this scene". Also, USA has big history with making music with PCs (our tracker scene is/was orders of magnitude larger than our demoscene) so all of the pc speaker modplayers fueled the fire.
b) What is your motivation, and how do you feel about putting so much time and effort into something with such a limited audience?
A: My motivations back then were to see if I could match other sceners. My main motivation today in democoding is to make my scener friends laugh (not with jokes, but with clever programming/ideas/attempts/concepts).
c) With present day´s computers being so powerful that the need for heavy programming is diminishing, where do you think the demo scene currently is and should go? Do you think there should be continued focus on filesize and/or hardware restrictions, or rather on design, image quality etc.?
A: Since I'm an oldskooler I am most impressed by 64K and smaller productions. There will always be room for larger (100MB?) classic demos though, since there will always be sceners who are in it for the art and design and not necessarily coding. And lest you think me an old man, I do recognize that the TRUE art of the demoscene is not the individual elements but the synergy of all of them together making a 4th unique thing that is the true art. So no matter the size, if it all comes together, it rox.
A: Had seen PC-based cracktros and ATOM.EXE but it didn't click for me until Spacepigs' Megademo. Then I just about fucking lost it and said "I have GOT to find out more about this scene". Also, USA has big history with making music with PCs (our tracker scene is/was orders of magnitude larger than our demoscene) so all of the pc speaker modplayers fueled the fire.
b) What is your motivation, and how do you feel about putting so much time and effort into something with such a limited audience?
A: My motivations back then were to see if I could match other sceners. My main motivation today in democoding is to make my scener friends laugh (not with jokes, but with clever programming/ideas/attempts/concepts).
c) With present day´s computers being so powerful that the need for heavy programming is diminishing, where do you think the demo scene currently is and should go? Do you think there should be continued focus on filesize and/or hardware restrictions, or rather on design, image quality etc.?
A: Since I'm an oldskooler I am most impressed by 64K and smaller productions. There will always be room for larger (100MB?) classic demos though, since there will always be sceners who are in it for the art and design and not necessarily coding. And lest you think me an old man, I do recognize that the TRUE art of the demoscene is not the individual elements but the synergy of all of them together making a 4th unique thing that is the true art. So no matter the size, if it all comes together, it rox.
