pouët.net

commercial engine are the "auto tunes" of the demoscene :)

* Why would you use an engine instead of writing stuff in lower level code?
Because you think you should be concentrating on things on a higher level of abstraction, or try to express yourself in a reduced, constrained, domain-specific or otherwise specialized "language" (i.e. set of things you can say and what happens when you say them).

* Why would you create a new engine instead of using an existing one?
Because you want to learn how engines are made, or you want to have one that creates a different "language" than what any existing engine can provide.

Right?

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many people asked where to draw the line, someone had to do it.

There are some legitimate concerns that your line might have been drawn using a third party commercial tool.

Preacher says all the right things!

Nice try absence to resurect the discussion ;P But I think the line was already drawn.

Oh, you're right! Someone wrote a bunch of underscores, so I guess now the topic will not be discussed further.

That's pretty much the situation, yes.

Still the same feeling, parallel discussions with no relation: Some guys ask why we don't create a new category, and some other guys say the scene is not threatened. Is "scene threat level" the criteria to create a category?
Why do we sort demos by platform and executable size?
What is the criteria to create a new platform or size limit?
Why don't we say "the hell with 64ks, all we want is good demos" ?

A point that was raised is the wish for a level playing field when competing for prizes. The worry is that using a third-party engine is like doping in sports. Then you can ask how level the playing field is to begin with, e.g. when a group already has an "in-house" engine from an earlier demo. You can also argue that none of it matters, because votes are driven by emotion rather than technical insight. Shouldn't the motivation be to have fun rather than win prizes anyway? And then you get 18+ pages of heated discussion. :)

Note that smaller parties with low or no prizes frequently throw demo, 64 k, 4 k, Windows, Amiga, etc. in the same compo due to few entries. People seem to have a jolly good time nonetheless!

First, thank you so much for answering accurately ;)
- Drawing the line between engines : Demo size would be better than engine as a criteria.
- Demo visual quality does not always drive votes: Agreed.
- Demomaking is not about winning prizes : Agreed.
Get your points

I have often wanted this: in a party, after the demo is shown, have a, like, an hour long seminar with the guys/girls discussing HOW THEY DID IT!! Without that, the whole thing is useless!! Anyone else want this too?
..and bring back Hugi "Discussion of demos" (where, for example, I read about how a.d.d.i.c.t. and Produkkt were created), BACK!

Or you could just go ask the guys at the party?

yeah, only a very very small fraction of people have NOT been forthcoming about just talking about how they did X and Y in their demo. There's really no point of keeping it a mystery anyway. Or at least I'll reserve my right to ridicule the people that insist on such mystery-keeping tradition.

visy: I will NEVER reveal my ancient secrets to YOU!!! MUAHAHAHAHAH!

you don't have to, i already know how to disassembly 68k, 6502 and z80 asm xD

britelite: Is your demo source code for sale though!??!?

i hope they are not as expensive as BITS

I've heard BITS contributed to science a lot ;-O

absence: of course! 0,20€ per line of 68k asm!

I'm in India, and I don't have the money to run around Europe.

...and I want it on video anyway, to peruse at my leisure. How is my mind supposed to work after days of no sleep, probably no BATHS (happened at Sundown! :( ), and probably some liqour?

Imagine how the creators of the prods feel at that time ;)

point being giving a presentation of an hour or so after the compo is quite unreasonable. These things are often finished just after the deadline; very often the authors are quite exhausted. And if your suggestion was an hour for _all_ the creators to go over stuff, there likely wouldn't be enough time for each production. Basically I think it's a really impractical idea.

No no, of course it would be just an hour about bitnaughty's favourite demo from the compo. The others are not relevant!