The state of the demoscene: 1991 - 2011
category: general [glöplog]
empathy
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we really need people who could *do* something but in this thread we discuss about inviting people to watch what we do (all this how does 4k / demo / realtime / not realtime / interactive etc. stuff could be interesting to anyone discussion).
It's a different world out there today than it was back when most of us were starting out. Spreading the knowledge that hey, hobbyists can do crap like this for fun is probably the best we can do at the moment =)
Although today, I'm pretty sure a pure hobbyist demomaker is a rare (and possibly a bit sad) individual.
So anyway, the "problem" is that we don't have an influx of new blood to the scene, and the old beards are building families and finding more important things to do. That's how I see it, anyway.
And why don't we have this influx? Back to the first point I made: it's a different world out there. Very few kids seem to be interested in creating stuff, high-level (and relatively easy) things like the web serve the same kind of need for accomplishment as hardware register twiddling did 25 years ago for some of us.
So in the end, I just hope some 'kids' watch some demos and start to wonder how to do that, and maybe we get a few new demogroups in the process. But if they don't even know the scene exists..
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Although today, I'm pretty sure a pure hobbyist demomaker is a rare (and possibly a bit sad) individual.
WTF?
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But if they don't even know the scene exists..
How many seconds does it take to google the group/prod name and for all relevant sites/infos to appear. Not many.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxWN8AhNER0
"I think we've experienced this period of time before sir"
"I think we've experienced this period of time before sir"
Another thing I have been thinking about. I teach interaction design at Aarhus University, and we are pretty big on using "new technologies", such as for instance LEDs, Arduino Boards, (some more esoteric things), projection on amorphous surfaces etc - peripherals interacting with software you could say. It could be cool to maybe try to invite in some of those things to our compos, since a lot of young people in hacker spaces and obviously universities (I see stuff like that at the SiDER conference every year), are rather big on that. So maybe that is part of where the young people are?
In my opinion, and I have to write this before a lot of oldschoolers murder me, the current compo formats are fine for this - settle down again, old men :) What I am thinking is a very concrete way of trying to reach out to these communities and really try to make them feel welcome and invite them INTO the wild compo. That requires more than just telling them that we exist, since currently the wild compo is not in my opinion a very high value compo (for historical reasons as well as being too diverse a compo to be really competitive). Any ideas as to how such a compo structure could work?
I have 50-100 students each semester by the way... I just checked that, and the numbers scare even me.
In my opinion, and I have to write this before a lot of oldschoolers murder me, the current compo formats are fine for this - settle down again, old men :) What I am thinking is a very concrete way of trying to reach out to these communities and really try to make them feel welcome and invite them INTO the wild compo. That requires more than just telling them that we exist, since currently the wild compo is not in my opinion a very high value compo (for historical reasons as well as being too diverse a compo to be really competitive). Any ideas as to how such a compo structure could work?
I have 50-100 students each semester by the way... I just checked that, and the numbers scare even me.
feel free to do whatever you like sir. im not the one going to demoparties to watch flash productions and yell HELL YEAH WHAT A FEAT!
rudi: I'd do it if the flash production kicks serious ass.
NO! The true scene is on a verge, its found its top peak and we are moving backwards to the electrons.
D.Fox: then i'll pow your head with a plastic-bat!
i bet this thread is why we now have links to individual posts on the bbs ;)
i would left align the '#' and not add an extra column, tho.
but yeah, i get that this feature was probably quickly hacked due to demand.
but yeah, i get that this feature was probably quickly hacked due to demand.
there was no demand and you didnt refresh your css.
you need to change the colour values of the # so it stands out more. i didn't even notice it.
egg head.
egg head.
i stand corrected.
ty gargaj :)
ty gargaj :)
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Quote:Although today, I'm pretty sure a pure hobbyist demomaker is a rare (and possibly a bit sad) individual.
WTF?
Most people I know do something similar for a living, code, art, music, etc.
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Quote:But if they don't even know the scene exists..
How many seconds does it take to google the group/prod name and for all relevant sites/infos to appear. Not many.
Way to miss the point. What's a prod? What's a group? What's a demo?
Excactly. I saw my first intro years before knowing anything about the scene, I thought it was cool as hell but didn't really find out what it was about.
sol: you're completely off the mark about people doing demos only for fun being sad. my favourite example is thec^outbreak, who is tile layer by day ("like, work, real work, you know what i mean?") and elite skåndinavian linuksdemocoder by night.
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sol: you're completely off the mark about people doing demos only for fun being sad. my favourite example is thec^outbreak, who is tile layer by day ("like, work, real work, you know what i mean?") and elite skåndinavian linuksdemocoder by night.
Thec wasn't always a tile layer =) And yes, he's cool as heck.
And yes, I know people who are musicians at the scene but code for a living, so these things aren't always 1:1, but for most part, I wouldn't call people who do demos these days "amateurs". (damn you, maturefurk =)
When I did that one time game programming course, we went through a bunch of old school demo effects and the students seemed to have fun playing around with them. Maybe some of them got the spark. Probably not.
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How many seconds does it take to actually know what to Google for? A whole lot. You're completely missing the point.How many seconds does it take to google the group/prod name and for all relevant sites/infos to appear. Not many.
Yep. Before there can be new people, they need to know that it exists and after that - what it is about.
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This is not anymore around! did you see anything like this in state of the art of last few years demos ? How could possibly someone young & pretty but not experienced join the demoscene and participate? By doing demo from a scratch, this is what we want to offer?
I totally agree with this. Just telling somebody 'go make a demo about it' isn't so useful when they don't know where to start because it's something totally new to them. Joining a group on the other hand, they get support and encouragement from somebody who has an idea of what needs to be done.
Thing is, we don't have a place for these 'come join us' messages now - because we don't do many scrollers these days. It's natural to add something like this in a scroller, but a separate screen or something seems a bit weird, and a lot of people don't read the nfo. Maybe an extra line on the credits would be good?
The other option: go ask people directly instead of just advertising. Don't ask them to make a demo, just ask if they'd like to contribute something. No pressure to spend months working on something, just some guys having some fun and making a little demo the way it should be. (I've been doing this, it's gone extremely well :)
psonice: but then again, nobody takes "go make a demo about it" very seriously, since it mostly comes from the mouths of people who either haven't made demos in a decade or even not at all. :)
Yeah, didn't mean that literally :D
Just meant that starting on your own and trying to make a demo is a pretty daunting challenge - it's not like the old days when you could code some raster bars and a scroller and throw a tune in. If you join a group though and concentrate on a few cool effects, it's easy and enjoyable to make that first step.
Just meant that starting on your own and trying to make a demo is a pretty daunting challenge - it's not like the old days when you could code some raster bars and a scroller and throw a tune in. If you join a group though and concentrate on a few cool effects, it's easy and enjoyable to make that first step.
psonice: and exactly there is the "deficit" if you can call it that. There are not enough tutorials, hints, tipps and tricks for people who want to start stuff. Every other community has something like that - but not the demoscene - at least not on a broad scale.