pouët.net

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First, I'll need your name, age and occupation to attribute the answers to.

My name is Bent Stamnes, I'm currently 33 years old and I make my living as a Chief Technology Officer at a mobile technology company here in Oslo, Norway.

I'm also a member of Scene.org, the demo scene archive, and a public speaker on all things demo scene. I've spoken at industry events such as FMX in Germany, FITC in Toronto and Amsterdam, and Assembly in Helsinki. I've also held outreach efforts at places such as Pixar, Industrial Light and Magic and Adobe.

In the demo scene I'm an active musician and demo editor/designer.

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1. Since when are you involved with the demo scene?

I've been watching demos since 1987 (I was 9) and actively participating since 1989 (I was 11). I went to my first demo party in 1992 (The Party, in Denmark).

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How did your interest in it start?

As with most people who got to know the scene in the 80s, it was through an older neighbor who swapped software with other people, and sometimes I got to borrow some of the tapes and discs from him. Some of the games were cracked and had a small scroller or star field or some other very simple effect in the beginning, often with music as well. I started running games just to watch these small "intros" because I thought those were way more interesting then the games themselves.

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2. What is the demoscene, exactly? Can you tell me a bit of its history?

The demo scene can be considered the bastard step-child of the warez scene, because the first people who made demos did in fact make those intros in front of cracked games. As with myself, those people started enjoying making the intros to the cracks more than the cracks themselves, and the demo scene spawned out of that.

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3. What is a demo?

A demo is a non-interactive, real-time executable piece of electronic art.

I know that's a bit abstract so I'll try to clarify it: a demo is a piece of software that you run on your computer (or even your mobile phone), exactly like a normal application. But instead of being interactive or doing something, the application takes over the full screen and displays visualizations synchronized to music. That's what a demo is.

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How can you create one? What kind of skills people learn when creating demos?

Creating a demo is most often a team effort, where you have a dedicated programmer who knows C++, DirectX and such, a graphic artist (or "graphician", as they call themselves in the demoscene) who is responsible for 3D models, textures, fonts, backgrounds and colors, and a musician. In some groups (like mine - Excess), the musician is also responsible for editing the demo so that it fits with the music. In the demo scene, this is referred to as "syncing".

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What software is used?

People use all kinds of software to create the assets, just like you would if making an indie game for example (Photoshop and Maya for graphics, Reaper/Logic/Cubase for music and Visual Studio for programming). The end result is an executable file (an application) that is stand-alone and requires no extra assets to run, which means it can be distributed freely as well. Many demos nowadays carry a Creative Commons license too.

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4. How is the demoscene related to the geek/nerd culture, if at all?

I would say that the demo scene started as a geeky subculture. After all, only people with a die-hard interest in computers in back in the 80s even had the chance to become a demoscener. To be a scener you most likely enjoy both computers and visual stuff like animation, motion graphics, programming and such, though the term "scener" don't hold the same sort of "hard core" meaning as it used to. These days the term is a lot more broad, and incorporates everyone from the silent observer to the people who actually makes demos. In my opinion though, you don't truly become a scener until you actually contribute to a demo scene production, but people have different opinions on this. After all, it's just a label like everything else.

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5. What are demoparties, and how many people attend?

Demoparties are events where demosceners gather to talk, relax, make demos and compete. It's usually held over a weekend, in a space that allows for sleeping, a big screen, a large sound system, and fast computers to show all the latest demos released.

At a demo party it is normal to host a wide variety of competitions, like the normal "demo compo" (no size limit), 4k intros (the executable cannot exceed 4096 bytes), music (both mod and MP3-files are allowed, but usually in separate competitions) and graphics (old school - where you have to work with a limited palette and resolution, and new school - where you can use Photoshop, your Wacom tabled and everything else you might think of).

All the entries to the compos are shown on the big screen, and people present at the event vote on their favorites. At the end of the demo party, there is a prize giving ceremony where the winners are announced, and they usually receive plaques, statues or diplomas. The bigger events usually have cash or hardware prizes as well.

There are primarily two kinds of demo parties: big and small. The small ones can range from 10-20 people up to 140-150, while the big ones (such as The Gathering (Norway), Assembly (Finland), Revision (Germany), Evoke (Germany) etc.) has many thousand guests, even though not all are demosceners.

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7. Apparently demoparties started with copyparties, so there was some relationship with the warez scene in its infancy. Is this correct?

Since the people who made those intros for cracks in games were part of the cracking groups in the warez scene, it was only natural for them to tag along to copy parties as well. As with the demo sections of those groups, the demo parties soon separated from copy parties and formed their own events, where the focus was making demos, not pirating software.

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s this why some keygens and other warez software have mod music and sometimes animations in them?

It's become popular these days to include such things in cracks again, like it was in the very beginning. Only this time around it's the warez scene which is imitating the demo scene instead of the other way around.

It's important to recognize that while the demo scene and the warez scene stemmed from the same roots and has crossed paths in the past, they are not connected at all these days, and haven't been for decades. There are even demo groups and warez groups with the same name, but consisting of entirely different people, like Razor 1911 for example.

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6. How is the demoscene related to the mod music scene? Are they the same?

The mod music scene and the demo scene came from the same origins for sure, and every demo group with respect for themselves has a proper mod musician on board. At some point in the 90s, when trackers became very capable (with Fast Tracker II being the most popular), tracker software suddenly became many people's first contact with the demo scene. Because they were more interested in making music that could stand on it's own instead of connected to a demo, a separate scene formed itself quite naturally, and the mod music scene was born.

They live quite separate lives now, especially since the whole Gameboy chip/mod-music scene became very trendy and a hipster favorite, but there are some places on the web where they both gather and chat. Gameboy musicians with demo scene background can also be found playing gigs at demo parties as well as in normal clubs.

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Reading through what you wrote, I was left with a question. You said that a demo is not interactive and that it takes over your computer screen.

Correct. There are very few examples of the opposite so in 99.99% of all demos, they go full screen (or run in windowed mode if so desired).

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Back in Windows 95 and Windows 98, Windows included some nice "screensavers". Now in Windows 7, they are just about gone. Back then, some people even made commercial screensavers, and some pushed the meaning of screensavers (like Johnny Castaway, which was created by a gaming company).

In terms of the screensavers and the demo scene, there is this famous example:

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=232

..which was re-released with different text as the "Gizmozone screensaver"
which was the first "demo" a lot of people saw:

http://www.ultimatesavers.com/index.asp?ID=2837

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It was, to a lot of people who began using computers at the time, the first kinds of real-time computer-generated animation they have seen. Could these be called demos, although very simple ones and lacking music?

No. In order for something to be a demo, it has to be created as such. Something that has the same visual aesthetics but was never meant to be art won't be considered a demo. A single-effect visualization isn't the same as a demo, and demos typically has multiple parts. Also, demos have music as an essential component.

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Or rather, was the development of said screensavers potentially influenced by what was going in the demoscene back then?

Possibly, but I can't confirm that with certainty. I do know that many music visualizers (like the ones shipping with WinAMP and the such) were indeed inspired by the demo scene.

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You said that the tools are similar to those used by indie games. Did some game developers start out as sceners?

Sure - Team17, FunCom, DICE, Remedy and others were all either founded by demosceners or had demosceners as among their first employees.

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One other question: do you know any demogroups who are or were based here in Brazil, or any demos created by Brazilians?

Actually I don't, but I do know there are a few people trying to get a Brazilian demo party off the ground. They have started a thread on Pouet (a popular demo scene hangaround), and this Facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_193436677375846

Perhaps you can find some Brazilian demosceners to talk to there?

They live quite separate lives now, especially since the whole Gameboy chip/mod-music scene became very trendy and a hipster favorite, but there are some places on the web where they both gather and chat. Gameboy musicians with demo scene background can also be found playing gigs at demo parties as well as in normal clubs.

"A demo is a form of interactive electronic art and not generated in real time," says Stamnes, who we met in 1987 at age 11.

I've been watching demos since 1987 (I was 9)

"A demo is a form of interactive electronic art and not generated in real time," says Stamnes, who we met in 1987 at age 11.

"A demo is a form of interactive electronic art and not generated in 1987 at age 11," says Stamnes, who we met in real time