pouët.net

I don't understand the nerd rage here. First of all, we're a small subset of a small subculture of programming and none of the stuff that we make is relevant in any way to pretty much anyone outside the scene, except maybe in a footnote by a speech. There's a lot of skill and talent in the demo scene but most of that is not relevant in any way in the outside world, nor should it be. Demos aren't great works of science, they're just silly programs to do stuff for fun that would probably easier done by other means anyway.

Secondly, I'm old enough to remember all the "MP3 audio compression/3d acceleration/Windows/Programming languages that are not assembler/PC instead of Amiga is killing the real demoscene spirit"-discussions of late Nineties and early noughts. They seem silly now in retrospect and they were silly then and this is just as silly know. Unity and UE4 and god knows what else are platforms, just like the precious C64 or Amiga or OpenCL or whatever. If you can't compete with rendering quality of some other tech, team up with better artists, study until improve or accept the fact that this kind of stuff is not for most people in the (demo party) audience. Most people don't want to watch ugly coder shit and I am saying this as a coder.

Thirdly, people will not vote for code so if you're aiming for that, you've already lost if you're only judging code. People vote for the emotional impact and the feelings that the production triggers in them. They vote for the demos their friends have made, for the demos that make them laugh and for the demos that have an aspect that's unique and/or interesting. That can be the codework, but often it's not. Take a case study from a random party:

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13048 - super awesome effects, super fucking ugly presentation. Eight place.
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13032 - super great show, awesome effects and flow and design. Second place.
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13033 - average effects, nostalgic pampering, but oh them feels. Winner.

Is this Stockholm syndrome or smth?
You do realize CG industry is estimate for $100 bn and growing.

Which the demoscene isn't part of. Try to put any price tag on the scene and I doubt you'd find a buyer at any price.

Demoscene is to me like academia for future/current CG professionals,but even better,because it doesn't contain all the bs and typical power games. IMHO you guys hugely underestimate the value of what you are doing, and apparently don't even believe in the power of individuals. I am disappointed.

Demoscene in general is lacking far behind the general CG industry, with a few notable exceptions of people who are also active in the proper CG stuff like Bonzaq, iq and Smash and I'm sure there are plenty of others. The demoscene as a whole is a bunch of geeks, nerds and hobbyists making $STUFF with an $ANTIQUATED_PLATFORM or in $ANTIQUATED_CONTEXT and that's exactly what's great and right about it.

Stop making the scene into something it's not. Most of us demo coders don't hold a candle to real professional scientists/CG engineers and I speak this as a person who's making his living as a software engineer doing graphics (among other things). Most of the stuff we do is horrible hacks on antiquated platforms and flashy things with high school math and loads of fudged sin and cos. And again, that's what's great and right about it.

If there's anything special about the demoscene when it comes to professional stuff, it's the fact that doing demos teaches you to optimize things in limited contexts (like crappy hardware or size-limited productions) and how to make things look good from an artistic point of view. Those are skills that have applications in the real world (and they've landed me my current job). The rest is just raster-banging and boozing.

Wait,isn't it exactly what I have said? You have learned skills you are using in your current job aka professional career (the word professional it's really nothing great,just implies making money) while boozing on a demoscene?
Of course university is also important to get basic/fundamental knowledge,but you actually admit demoscene gave you the rest. So where exactly am I wrong? Maybe I exaggerate,but I like to do it to make a better point.

You were talking about the professional Computer Graphics research (Siggraph et al.) scene; making crappy/mediocre games for mobile phones is not the same ballpark.

Not now, now I was just saying "CG professionals" in general. I didn't mention research?! Making crappy mobile games is what contributes to this $100 bn too (I believe), if not greatly.

There are of course people in the scene who do legit CG research (Siggraph et al.), but pretty much exclusively such people I know treat the scene as an outlet for artistic expression for balance.

I'm getting my fair share of the $100bn. The value of my demos is still $0.

I was disassembling demos in the old days to learn something, but now you can just go on ShaderToy when half of the demoscene posting practically ready to use recipes for many real-time CG problems. You may say,they are mostly not that new,but then again,commercial copycats doing crappy mobile games doesn't mind.

(and not everyone is able to reproduce results from the paper, and usually papers doesn't have ready to use, peer reviewed by community, optimized implementation)

If a demo has a nice concept, nice visuals and good music I don't care if hardcoded from scratch or made with some (commercial) tool. (so #3 from the 1st post) IMO real code earns you respect (does a non-coder care about that fact at all?) but it does not make the demo better or worse. And if the demo sucks it sucks, no matter how high the rendering quality is.

I'm really weirded out by all dudes thinking "musicians" and "graphicians" don't care about code *at all* like it's a complete divide and they will use a 3rd party engine without any hesitation if they can.

It's the weirdest minority complex...

*inferiority complex

okkie: I code intros and I don't care about the code of demos - at all :D

But really, why not just separate category for commercial game engines? It will end up in combined demo anyway,but at least it will be clear it is promoting some commercial company. And this is more or less when I draw a line between using 3rd party libraries and using commercial engine - promotional factor. You know that if you eventually make a great demo using UE4/Unity it will be listed on respective websites under "made with..." section and you _are_ increasing their revenue by this (if demo is really cool). Nothing wrong with it, really, just let's put the right label on it and everybody will be happy. Actually that may even stimulate more demos with commercial engines at the end,because you will not risk "booing" as it will be a dedicated compo with clear rules.

because nobody really cares about it tbh.

thread has become more like UE4 engine vs tomkh... don't you have anything more important to do? like, make a demo out of all that nifty academic research from that 100bn CG industry?

okkie, we all know that "musicians" and "graphicians" are working together with the game engine industry behind our backs plotting the ultimate plan to take over the scene and get rid of us, the "pesky coder scum"!! STOP DENYING IT !!!

LOL

lmao

(it's true though)