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The Coders' Guide To The Demoscene by Acid Team [web] & Jakub Husak
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screenshot added by grey on 2024-08-26 00:49:38
platform :
type :
release date : august 2024
release party : Silly Venture Summer Edition 2024
compo : atari demo
ranked : 1st
  • 33
  • 20
  • 5
popularity : 64%
 64%
  • 0.48
alltime top: #3963
added on the 2024-08-26 00:49:38 by grey grey

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AI graphics are really a turn off for me, sorry :(

Also, 4MB RAM needed + entire demo taking 30 MB on the HD with everything being streamed on screen is not really my thing either.
added on the 2024-08-26 02:44:07 by keops keops
Nice demo, great music! Keep them coming!
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 08:26:01 by spkr spkr
Looks & sounds nice!
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 08:59:39 by Olympian Olympian
A lot of care and attention has clearly been put into this demo. It came across very well on the big screen at the party as a classic audience pleaser prod.

It probably is the ultimate expression on ST level hardware of huge data files and the ability to use hard disk streaming. Which I understand may not float some people's boats.

In my opinion, this is as valid an approach as the "Holy two disk limit". Others may agree or disagree but I enjoy both kinds of prods.
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 10:13:56 by CiH CiH
Very majestic fullscreens with many many dots, very well designed objects.

I don't see the controversy, 4 MB RAM is not uncommon, the effects aren't videos streamed from disk (can't be done in fullscreen). Like CiH I'm in luck as I enjoy demos, not just one type of demo :) Even if there is 18 MB of datas (I assume a lot of offline generated code) and 12 MB of music.
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 10:44:39 by evil evil
This prod was clearly in the wrong category. Nice entry for a wild compo, but with absolutely everything being precalc I can't really consider it an actual demo in a compo setting.

(3D in fullscreen is easy when there's no actual 3D - and while I applaud any trick fooling coders into not understanding how something's done - just streaming megabytes of precalc from HD isn't that)
added on the 2024-08-26 14:24:52 by troed troed
this demo is like chugging boatloads of doping for the olympics and then ending up in 4th place, few people care either way now and noone will in a few months
added on the 2024-08-26 15:00:34 by havoc havoc
Damn, I wanted to like it, I was seeing the presentation, the idea, the funny conclusion at the end and I was like wow what a demo. Meanwhile I wondered, how is this rotozoomer so smooth or the occluded dots, is it some kick ass code or animations? Then I read the comments and I am like "ohhh..". Shame as it's a great presentation and was going to be one of my favorite STE demos, but now it feels quite different if you know it's all precalcs.
added on the 2024-08-26 15:19:20 by Optimus Optimus
-Ok, I think we are done, but something is missing. Like it isn't true Atari demo, if it doesn't last over 5 minutes and bore audience to death
-Well... I do have this cringe plot I wrote when I was 14 and could just feed it to some AI image generator
-Perfect!
added on the 2024-08-26 15:28:13 by sauli sauli
Thank you for all the work you put into this demo! Kuba Husak's music still sounds in my head to this day, it fits the demo perfectly.
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 15:48:48 by grey grey
AI thumb
sucks added on the 2024-08-26 16:10:57 by break break
AI thumb. Also what Sauli said.
sucks added on the 2024-08-26 16:27:30 by Preacher Preacher
Ai thumb.
sucks added on the 2024-08-26 16:29:44 by uncle-x uncle-x
I love this! Keep up the spirit!

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rulez added on the 2024-08-26 17:05:29 by ham ham
Nice effort to celebrate the Atari STE birthday (party topic) and cool to see Acid team and Jakub Husak back!

I am not a fan of the approach (too much in love with original pixel art) but as far as I can see this prod respected the compo rules and voters voted.

Maybe discussions should rather be directed towards compo organisers about revising rules or categories instead of thumbing down creative output by people using tools available.

Thumb up for doing what you like, guys!
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 17:11:45 by fiveofive fiveofive
Awesome music. And fitting gfx.
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 17:20:31 by gaspode gaspode
Always great to see any new ST/e release and there is some great stuff here (love the plasma and your datasets are gorgeous), even though there are elements that are not to my taste (i.e. what Keops said).

However, with regret this has to be a piggie for me, because I just can't abide by a "serious", major (and hyped) release like this essentially replacing hand drawn gfx/real graphicians (and all the design that comes along with this) with AI. This is not a vision for the future demoscene that I can get on board with, and feels like such a loss for both this prod and the broader Atari scene. There are a bunch of extremely talented graphicians who I'm sure would have jumped at the chance to be involved.

As an aside, it's pretty disturbing that the voting audience either didn't notice or care about the AI in this and other entries at this party. I didn't used to think this, but this is a pretty strong argument for separating AI based entries into other compo categories (perhaps even Wild, as has been suggested), or tightening rules as 505 mentions.

Makers: hope you still make more ST/e stuff though x
added on the 2024-08-26 17:49:19 by Tom Tom
First, I love those occluded dots, the smooth plasma, and the smooth star wars scroller. Really looks great. The music sounds great too ==> Thumb up.

I don't mind about the AI graphics because they are not the impressive components of the demo, and are just here to support some story telling, I'm fine with that. That's a lot of images, maybe too much work for a human ==> Piggie.

When I first saw the demo, I thought "ok, they are showing images in between FX so that they have enough time to fill the RAM with precalc, which is fair given the complexity of what's shown, and even impressive to manage to precalc that on the ST". When I realized it was actually streamed from a huge HDD file, I felt fooled, because to me the ST scene has always been the one with coders that count every cycle, and make it happen for real. Feeling fooled ==> thumb down, but as this was authorized by the compo rules, well, piggie.

To me, this is an awesome wild demo, and I would have thumbed it up as such. Piggie it is.
added on the 2024-08-26 18:13:00 by Soundy Soundy
Nice demo, watched on YouTube which is quite unusual for me.
The name does not apply for most democoders i suspect, would not many of them focus on tiny coding and runtime precalcs? At least I would!
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 18:32:22 by baah baah
Aside from the occluded dot at the beginning, this demo is an uninspired use of a video player. If you record all the frames of an animation, consider doing something more interesting than just a rotozoom.
sucks added on the 2024-08-26 18:43:55 by MajorX MajorX
I really like the music (except the Benny Hill bit) and some of the effects, such as the occluded dots, or the Atari logo on the 3d cube. And I do like the idea of better sound for the fpga/emu version.

But, given the title "a coder's guide to the demoscene", like others I have a problem with the streamed precalc. Coders' spirit in the days of the Atari ST was optimize to the max, and if you have to precalculate, at least do it on the machine itself. Streaming feels like cheating to me. If you had called it "An artist's guide to the demoscene", I would have had a different reaction.

FWIW, I also didn't like the story, or this particular AI generated art, but that's not the key issue.

So I'm really in two minds about this demo. If the scale were Rulez, Good, OK, Meh, Sucks, I'd probably choose Good, but I definitely don't think it rules.
It would have been nice with some awesome pixel graphics, but I have no problem with the photo/AI/whatever editing here. Nobody is trying to pass this off as hand-crafted and since it's all (clearly apparent) photo montages, the main characters all look the same throughout the story. The rest could just as well have been stock photo stuff. Strangely, the story itself feels like an afterthought. Instead of providing a coherent framing of the effects, I think it hampers the overall pacing.

I love the "cheating" used in demos, the clever tricks making the impossible seemingly possible. It's like sleight of hand: we all know it isn't real magic, but it's still damn impressive and confusing. With 19+12 megabytes of data files, I personally feel like we're venturing more into the world of wholesale prop magic and camera trickery.

A lot of time and effort has clearly gone into this production, and I guess the real controversy is whether it should have been placed in the Wild compo - which is ultimately a decision for the organizers. I usually know a demo when I see one, and since I'm unsure about this prod, I'm keeping my thumbs tucked away for the time being.
added on the 2024-08-26 19:49:23 by grip grip
Quote:
Nobody is trying to pass this off as hand-crafted and since it's all (clearly apparent) photo montages, the main characters all look the same throughout the story.

This!
added on the 2024-08-26 20:48:49 by gaspode gaspode
I like it
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 21:18:10 by estrayk estrayk
Some cool ideas, and am looking forward to see the in (more) real time :)
added on the 2024-08-26 21:44:29 by p01 p01
Quite some controversy with this prod :)
Releasing new demos for Atari ST/STE certainly shows effort and dedication, and there's for sure a lot of work in this demo, which must be acknowledged
Music is great and original, +1 for that.
Gfx might be AI generated, but as already told by other it doesn't look that different from general ST GFX ; also if the guys have some coders/musician but no gfx man to do their demo, why blame them for finding a solution, even if it's not "human drawn" ? At least it allowed them to release a demo.

As for the huge data file and most of the effect being the result of streaming precalc data to screen, I agree this is not my idea of a ST/STE demo. As Alien wrote, at least demos in the 90s were precalcing things from the demo, which can be the real trick ; just streaming is really less impressive.

So, good music, good result on screen, but oversized HW requirements that make the demo "macic" not working for me. Would have been OK in a "Wild" demo compo.
Precalc? Who cares, all great demos have precalc. This just makes it better :)
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 22:53:15 by _AdamK_ _AdamK_
I love the music and the effects, even if they're streamed. That shows the max capacity of the STE in fullscreen I guess.

Streaming data or animations from the HDD is nowhere new, remember something called STNICCC? And we all have room on our SD cards ;)

Thumb up for the idea and execution and the overall efforts put in this prod.
However thumb down for AI, so in the end I guess it's a piggy.
I'm annoyed with non creative layers writing about AI or streaming but having no idea what they are talking about. There's no pure AI content. AI was used to prepare initial sketch of some elements. There's no streaming. Learn how to create something good. Something more than another dancing bars, scroll or rotating dott ball. 4MB STe and HDD is now demoscene standard, if you're like it or not.
rulez added on the 2024-08-26 23:47:19 by wieczor wieczor
the demo is great and the effects look very amazing, but you can immediately see that something is wrong - everything looks too perfect, sub-pixel, there is no any glitch and this allows us to assume that it is precalc/steram, which unfortunately kills the true spirit of the demoscene, where most things it should be in realtime and not that I am an enemy of streams (in Rewind2 we use data streams in 3 places), but they did not completely replace realtime effects ..."
Very nice full-screen demo! It works perfectly on my real STE and finally takes full advantage of the machine's digital audio capabilities. Congratulations again!
rulez added on the 2024-08-27 08:29:10 by Krystone Krystone
I enjoyed watching this demo. Different and majestic (as evil said).

I can appreciate well done one screeners as much as full demos.
I can appreciate Atari ST demos as much as Atari Falcon030 demos.
I can appreciate chip-tunes as much as streamed music.
I can appreciate well-presented and executed precalcuated effects as much as real-time effects.
I certainly do appreciate hand drawn graphics but can still very much enjoy a demo without it.

What really makes me happy though, is when people show dedication and spend a great amount of time producing a quality demo, like this one, for our dear Atari STE. Thank you!
rulez added on the 2024-08-27 09:00:58 by Daniel Daniel
the story is nice, an immersion in the life of demo programmers or daily observation can be a source of inspiration for new effects.
Isn't this also a similar approach taken by scientists who observe the world to try to understand how it works?
For newbies this therefore allows them to better understand the demomakers approach.
rulez added on the 2024-08-27 10:16:48 by Frogg Frogg
Neat story-demo with some excellent music. The AI use in this I think is forgiven. Don't see how one could make all those slides without using some sort of already generated media.
rulez added on the 2024-08-27 11:06:55 by tFt tFt
the demo is enjoyable
too much precalc is killing precalc but hey, where is the limit and who has authority to decide what is pure or not?
great prod
rulez added on the 2024-08-27 14:05:03 by roudoudou roudoudou
Decent effects but I can't support AI generated gfx and to a lower extent, such a level of offline precalc.
added on the 2024-08-27 16:22:49 by zerkman zerkman
Quote:
4MB STe and HDD is now demoscene standard, if you're like it or not.

Says who? The committee for demoscene hardware standards? Or just you?
Quote:
Something more than another dancing bars, scroll or rotating dott ball.

Not a very strong point to defend a demo that contains lots of dot effects (including rotating dot objects).

That aside, this thing has its highs and lows. I appreciate a story-driven demo, but the story line is a bit thin and i don't really like that comic ending. The pictures look good (whichever way they have been created) but seem a bit too random to transport the story and the soundtrack - despite a few catchy phases - doesn't save it for me either.
But i do mind the size. 30MB to see still images, text and effects i have seen numerous times before, just this time in fullscreen? I'm probably not the right target audience for that.
But i do appreciate the effort and i do think there's some unused potential, so i am still looking very forward to watching your next release.
added on the 2024-08-27 23:19:46 by Paranoid Paranoid
just great
rulez added on the 2024-08-28 11:03:21 by Blast! Blast!
This was great fun, and also some impressive effects there. I feel kinda whatever about the AI art, obviously some proper artwork would have been better, but IMO this isn't a huge deal.
rulez added on the 2024-08-28 13:25:19 by kusma kusma
So much hype about this one.

I for myself don't care at all what tools and technology were used to create this demo, most likely you got it wrong anyway (I had to laugh at the armchair experts judging my own productions -- so much BS about how/why/based on what I did this or that effect).

The STNICCC 2000 demo by Oxygene has been already mentioned and I can again only laugh when giving "We Were At" as the prime example how to do demos without obvious precalcs -- its bouncing squares effect (50 FPS, fullscreen) is completely done in Box2D and the author didn't make any secret of it. Does it make a less impressive effect/demo? Surely not.

However I can't vote up for this demo either.

I'm with Paranoid, if I were the author and decided to go "full SD card mode", why on earth would I chose redoing the most basic (someone could say most boring) effects from the ST era and accompany it with music which, yeah, sounds like from "We Were At" (and other sample streaming demos) which has drastic size constraints?

Why not do some serious 50 FPS 3D shit with shading and/or textures accompanied by some seriously-sounding music from a studio?

And yes, that photos and story... waste of time and space for me.

But I do hope to see more from you guys, don't let others to tell you what's fun!
added on the 2024-08-28 13:44:23 by MiKRO MiKRO
Quote:
The STNICCC 2000 demo by Oxygene has been already mentioned and I can again only laugh when giving "We Were At" as the prime example how to do demos without obvious precalcs


Being one of the grumpy old sceners who've had opinions I've given this a _lot_ of thought the last few days. gwEm asked me on #atariscne exactly what I would say makes the difference between "ok cheating" and "just playing back a stream of data".

I ended up with "demo must be able to run off floppy". This fits well with the historical limits we had - and it's easy to limit to 1MB or 4MB RAM in compo rules setting even further limits on how much we can precalc.

It also sets a limit on how quickly you can load precalc into RAM, which means you still have to do the classic "hide your precalc/load in other effects" - or suffer the wrath of the voters having to sit and wait for several minutes.

But I don't set any rules, so this is just one of many opinions of course.

I want to clarify something in my original comment though: I really like this production - I've watched it several times. I just didn't think it's fair for it to compete in the same category as more traditionally produced demos where precalc time is hidden etc. Absolutely no shade on the crew - that's a compo organizer decision.
rulez added on the 2024-08-28 16:31:58 by troed troed
fun and creative
rulez added on the 2024-08-28 17:25:34 by tebe tebe
surprised to find this on sabermans retro channel ...

without getting into rules, demoquette and morals id say this looks like a fine demo for the upcoming Atari CD32 console to be released after the 7800+

As lamers we dont know whats meant by precalc b/c we always thought everyone has been using hashtables since 1969 so maybe that means something else but thats for the pros and the experts to debate.

If the effects are actual effects and not streamed frames id say ATARI LOVES DOTS !!!

As for the A.I. ... im usually totally opposed to it but in this case just like Theoderichs Amiga game id say its not abuse. If you cant draw for shit and you have to bring in a guy for the music i think the little punplot excuses itself in this case but most of all

(i tested it on a misterfpga ste 4mb tos 2.06) this looks like something falling from the sky as the perfect thing to test my incoming side cartridge on the 4mb STE Santa brought back after 35 years and 3 years of looking for a decent deal with utter respect to 2024 and the fact that wallet to my money is as scarce as real boxed version of CIV 1 for the st on ebay these days.

Just what i need to check that thing out

and also , i like it ... i can see why most would think this should be "wild" but im gonna stick with i like it ... creative ... even with the use of pitemachine
rulez added on the 2024-08-30 15:34:14 by Janes OnderGrond Janes OnderGrond
Some cool ideas and awesome music. Nice!!!
rulez added on the 2024-08-30 21:41:00 by piter_jnf af piter_jnf af
Great demo with a story.
rulez added on the 2024-08-31 23:01:01 by Sir_Lucas Sir_Lucas
I love the FX and music ...and the obvious answer, 𝑨𝑴𝑰𝑮𝑨. ; )
rulez added on the 2024-09-01 00:14:28 by Motion Motion
I really like the music here. The demo is OK, it drags on far too long though.
added on the 2024-09-01 22:43:18 by StingRay StingRay
I don't care much about things that are precalc'd or "cheating", but using AI generated "art" has to be the clearest definition of what the demoscene should never be about.
We have and had so many talented graphic artists throughout the years, pushing this kinda "content" is insulting to their legacy. They didn't spend their life pushing pixels for having a "demo" with :"creative director" credits. Go back to the advertisement world where you came from.
sucks added on the 2024-09-07 23:18:48 by Akira^G*P Akira^G*P
Fun, great story and flow. I like it despite the controversy.
rulez added on the 2024-09-08 15:55:13 by cruzer cruzer
So, the demo launched from the original Seagate 50MB installed by default in MegaSTE...

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So yes, it still works on STe with 8mhz, with 4MB of RAM and HDD...
added on the 2024-09-10 21:38:36 by grey grey
The pace of the demo is too slow, somehow, perhaps because of the music... And the AI pictures looks... AI.

That being said, and while I don't support the use of AI illustrations, this demo was nice. I appreciated the nods to the "Demoscenes" meme (i.e. the birds/boids doing 3D shapes), the effects, plus the ending twist was kinda funny, hehe. :) And there was an attempt to narrate something. Plus it seems to work on old hardware, so... I think this more than deserves a thumb up.

Next time : faster, with more humour, less AI, and catchier music ! :D
rulez added on the 2024-09-12 00:12:13 by TomS4wy3R TomS4wy3R
Quote:
Next time : faster, with more humour, less AI, and catchier music ! :D

Ditto! Got its charm. Good to see Dr. DF0 and Scorpio back. Would love to see your new demo in this vein, running from a single floppy disk on Amiga 500 :)
rulez added on the 2024-09-12 10:50:33 by jazzcat jazzcat
That's a weird one. Lots of work clearly went into it and the music is great.
I've also found the demo mostly bland. The story feels contrived and mostly goes nowhere and there are no effects here we haven't seen many times already, although this might have been the point.
added on the 2024-09-15 18:37:03 by exocet exocet
I believe that creators can do what they want and in the way they see fit. It's simply creative freedom. However, when releasing productions, they must be ready for criticism, which is the case here. It is worth learning from criticism, but it must be done with a cool head - zero emotion.
For me, this production a cool example of doing things differently.
rulez added on the 2024-09-15 19:25:26 by ajcek ajcek
Amazing demo with great effects / transition and cool music.
I really like all the DotObject/Scene transitions and the great depth looking starwars fx. Just an impressive old school demo that I really enjoyed to watch. ♥
rulez added on the 2024-09-17 00:45:23 by MrVainSCL MrVainSCL
The most elaborate effects I've ever seen in an Atari STE demo, and if they are just frames in an animation, it must be very efficient, as the file size is not that huge. The music is nice, but is spoiled by, as someone else said, the Benny Hill part. Also, are the makers of this prod throwing in the towel and admitting who is superior? ;)
added on the 2024-09-17 09:11:45 by Foebane72 Foebane72
This is nice. Yeah, that Benny Hills ending ruined that song.
added on the 2024-09-22 09:25:53 by AntDude AntDude
AI is a thing. If it´s marked and only used rarely this might be ok. All in all a weak "up" from me.
rulez added on the 2024-09-24 17:41:33 by AMItac_TSA AMItac_TSA
little bit controversial, but hey, why not. I remember STNICCC, this one goes a little further. But 4MB RAM has nearly everybody now and if it fits to rules... And I like Jakub music...
rulez added on the 2024-10-03 00:09:14 by krupkaj krupkaj
ok
added on the 2024-10-04 10:31:47 by Frequent Frequent
Also, thank you for including the soundtracks with and without Benny Hill theme song (Yakety Sax to be specific).
added on the 2024-10-21 02:09:09 by AntDude AntDude
Some of the smoothest dot effects on the block.
rulez added on the 2024-11-01 09:13:11 by noname noname

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