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Technically high end demos can demotivate people as it's hard to catch up.

Poorly designed demos leave people disinterested.

I don't think it's the same thing. A demo with really shitty code but great design is still hugely appealing and gets people interested in the scene - and it's not that hard to compete against if you have some good designers as well as a competent coder. Something with bad design but amazing code leaves a lot of people turned off, and leaves other people thinking the code aspect might be out of their reach.

Maybe we need to focus on design a bit more.

summary:
you need a top notch invitetro for the scene in general ;)

To be honest I made my first demo thinking "With a little work I can make better stuff than these."

With my first demo I was thinking: "There must be some other guys out there who are doing something similar". I wonder how many young people have the same question in 2012...

this all just points to various browser-based efforts to me. the "really shitty code" psionce talks about but still with good visuals, accessibility Gloom talks about. I wonder if there are existing communities of people doing that who either aren't aware of the scene or aren't aware it still exists.

if the newcomer doesnt come to the community, the community will come to the newcomer!!!!!11

why should demoscene shift from its traditional artforms to numedia new ones, then it's no longer a demoscene anymore either. i'd say, accept that artistic trends come and go and enjoy it while this one lasts. ;)

Metoikos: yes, undoubtedly they exist.

I've been talking to a few people over the last week from outside the scene. One was aware of the scene but not involved (and has been following IQ's stuff and doing some cool raymarching work even). Another pretty much writes demo effects as part of his job (not sure yet if he was aware of the demoscene, I'll ask). When I've asked these people if they'd be interested in making a demo the reaction is usually that it's a cool idea, and most agree to take part :)

Ah, and I just got an email back from somebody else that's pretty enlightening.. I'll see if it's okay to paste that up.

that's encouraging, psonice.

so, a newcomer/noob/newbie or whatever you wanna call it, comes into the demoscene for the first time. he uses all those libraries, and just calls some function from a class called lib->Load3DSMax("scene/cityscene.max"); or something like that. and then: lib->PlayScene(); where's the fun in that?
Okay so he/she made a demo with some simple library or he/she made a demo by using a tool. he saw it was easy and though, wow! i made a better demo than the one who made that cube on that c64 which only had 16 colors. he wouldnt understand about the scene. other sceners had to teach him or he had to read some history or have some technical knowledge. i think the demoscene is about two things.. the one part is about the technical knowledge, the other is about having beer with friends and watching the democompo or whatever you wanna call it. some would only be interested in the technical part, some other would only be interested in the social community, because he/she think its cool to hang with other demosceners.

one point about the first thing i said. i believe recruitment to the demoscene is trying to make history about the demoscene available. (of course there are, but maybe we need more?) teach about the technicalities to the newcomer so that he/she atleast have a chance to know what its all about, because sceners who've been in the scene allready know things that newcomers dont know. if newcomer know read some history about computers and the demoscene bit, he may be or may not get more interessted. if he is not, then maybe demoscene is not for him, or maybe he just wants to be there but not be productive. thats allowed too! :P now i was talking specifically about coders. because without coders, no demos. blah.. ill quit talkikng. it got more shitty than i imagined.

This is from an email I got back earlier from a guy who's done a lot of realtime graphics stuff previously, and is an interested outsider - he's aware of the scene, has watched recent demos, but isn't involved at all. I'd suggested that maybe people only see the top-end demos, and the perceived skill gap might be something that puts people off joining.

Really nice article, don't take the following too serious:

"the Commodore 64 has doubled its popularity in the last two years"
>Commodore sceners become parents at a very late time because they spent their youth creating demos already. In 2009 all their children were born. That's why they return late to code again.

"Atari refuses to die"
>Of course it does, the's the best platform because it is f---ing limited. That's encouraging for nerds like me.

"The scene is growing more social ..it's a natural response to the consistently "virtual" lives we lead online"
> Fully agree. Without the strange people from the internet, I would have hardly finsihed any of my past releases. I have graphician and a musician in Poland and another musician at the end end of Germany and I could participate via Internet in a compo somehwere else in the world.

So there's a person who doesn't see a point in 4k intros. What now? Ban them and save the scene?

I would say that the problem is trying to compare the oldschool and the newschool, limited and unlimited, chiptune and dubstep or instrumentals etcetc.

Mainly, the scene is its own problem.

Yeah, the 4k part - I think there's just some people who 'get' size coding and appreciate it, and others who look at the end result and think it's a waste of time.

The thing to learn from that is that amazing 4kbs are only going to appeal to a small group of people.. but I think we knew that anyway. I've often heard people say "wow, all that in just 4kb? amazing.. imagine what they could do with a few hundred MB!"

The first paragraph is more interesting to me. He's seen some great demos, and thought it's way out of his reach and the scene is not for him. Knowing the kind of stuff he does, it isn't.

Also, about iq: he's a great ambassador for the scene, but he's usually doing stuff at quite a high level (I struggle to follow it quite often too). We could do with more people doing tutorials and such like iq, but at a lower level. And doing some really good demos like elevated that get noticed so that people get to know their sites :)

as a programmer i would say. its loads of different categories to choose from and its a problem for me to find out what category(ies) i should aim at. but few last months x86 assembly has been something i found fruitful working on. last few weeks i worked on an algorithm for a oldschool demoscene effect. i found it interesting and fun. so why not let people decide for themselves what they like to do instead of pushing them to do some thing rather than the other. the end result is either good or bad for the viewer (if that is the right word to use), but as long as the author had some fun and interrest doing it, it shouldnt matter that much. so open up or have platforms open for those who like to work on that particular platform. one could have a poll asking what platform do you like to make a demo on or something. i think the scene is not just about one platform, but all platforms. now democompos and introcompos reflect that very easily.

Relevant question: How many of the "well known outside the scene" demos in recent years have not been size-coded?

If size coding only appeals to a limited number of people, and we're only known for 4/64KB stuff, that could be a pretty big factor.

There is only one definite solution to this problem and it is

 

yeah, get known for more stuff.

Don't get rid of size limited. Trust me, when kb showed Elevated to a room full of games industry people, twice, the room was so you could hear a pin drop, and each time somebody swore at the end.
That means something.

also, see discussion above about size limits encouraging people to focus on one effect or so.

actually not twice, three times, iirc.

metoikos: that is inspirational.

yea, sometimes size limitations can open up new doors

No need to throw anything out I think, except maybe a few rules in the competitions (and even there, only for the main demo competition).

I don't see this as a time when the scene is dying and we have to save it - in fact I reckon if we did nothing at all that decline would bottom out and maybe even rise again, just like it does on the C64 chart.

Instead it's a time of opportunity. There's a massive amount of creative stuff going on out there. People are making cool stuff, coded and in realtime, demonstrating their skills. That *is* the demoscene. We've just become somewhat insulated from everything else that's going on. Lets bring it all together again :)

When I speak to people outside the scene, they often enjoy watching demos but think they are not good enough for those things. We need a Demoscene for Dummies manual!

I like to show people some Razor1911 and bitFlavour demos: They are fun to watch and not intimidating at all.


That's why there are tools. Use Crinkler, 4klang, Shader Minifier, and make a 4k intro in two days! The Shadertoy is also a great way to get into 4k coding.
For full-size demos, there's a big number of tools and libraries. We really need some "make your first demo" tutorials, to show people how easy it actually is to get started. Once you have made a simple effect, it's really fun to modify and tweak the code.