pouët.net

gloom: from what I witnessed, xenobyte's quote was pretty representative of the overall "outreached" reaction to Linger in Shadows by the Sony gamerlamer community. The only thing that stopped those animals and the game-media slating it completely was the fulhardy claim by Plastic that Sony were perhaps, maybe, when pigs fly considering using it as the basis for a game. oh, how they jumped with joy at that prospect!
but appreciating it as a non-interactive creative spectacle (ie: a scene demo) - forget it. None of 'em were interested and never would be. i don't think you commercially backed outreachers reached anyone with that one. you just reached into Sony's pockets and they got a tech-demo at 1/4 the price and an entire demoparty to screen it at. :) Which, I guess, will be the sole purpose of demos in the future if this continues.

But at least we'll have 20ft Plasma screens to oogle at once a year i guess. ;)

Rephaim: You are of course entitled to think whatever you want, but then again, I'm also entitled to call bullshit. :) Sure, a lot of gamers don't understand non-interactive demos.. and so what? Just because something Sony released (and let's face it; was therefore very likely to be seen as a possible game) didn't get a 100% "Yay!" reacting from the gaming community, that does NOT mean that all outreach is futile and the only point of it is to get cash, because that is indeed just bull.

yeti, i meant that most people don't generally "just" make more demos like linger in shadows. considering the amount of work and skill that went into that one, and stuff.

"stuff" being not having access to the ps3's gpu for example.

As i've already explained approx 1 year ago in the suicide barbie's thread, your main problem wouldn't be to make people enjoy and even being interested by demos, it would be to make them interested by actually CREATING demos, especially after they realize the amount of work needed to release anything.

I'm sure a lot of people are scared away once they understand it'll take them years of work to release demos the caliber of those they've just seen & enjoyed, that's why most prefer to watch and being supporters (as seen here on pouet) rather than contributing with new releases.

Also i don't recall having seen any form of art needing to be explained via seminars.

While this statement is 100% true, it doesn't really matter, because this is how it has always been. In fact, I'll go as far as saying that getting started with demo-making in 1994 when there were no standard libraries or music replayers or any good centralized source for helpful programming hints and such was a tad worse than it is today. So - while it is of course true that many people will go "ooh, that looks difficult", many others will go "ooh, that looks awesome - i want to make such things!", just as they always have, for 20+ years now. :)

i think we got it by now

Except that in early 90's, to create a top-notch demo you didn't need:

- Extended knowledge of cameras work, complex screenplay and more generally cinematography.
- Solid knowledge of colors theory and design.
- Knowledge about human/crowds behaviour/emotions/psychology and how to control that with visuals or generally how to make an audience react the want you want it to.
- The need to create specialized tools the size of what 3d studio was back then.
- To design 3d objects with at least 10 thousands of polygons so they won't look too cheap.
- Enough culture and influences from various horizons to have a global view of what's in/ou (and what has been already done).
- Have to worry too much about your demo working on the next computer.
And more like maths algorithms or drawing/recording techniques which weren't available back then, etc.

You don't necessary need all that today but sooner or later this will be mandatory and it was mostly unknown or not used in the demoscene 20 years ago.

For those who've been in the demoscene since a long time and updated their knowledge as time passed, it's no big deal but for newbies (especially the younger ones), the amount of knowledge can be very hard to swallow.

Since the demoscene is obviously following the the gaming industry like a faithful little dog, and seeing that many smaller dev studios are choosing to develop on portable platforms because it requires less work than developing on PS3 or PC and co, i suggest you to follow that and to promote "alternative" platforms as much (if not more) than PC by showing what can be done on them, it'll look less flashy or impressive than with PC super productions but it'll look like a more attainable goal for those who're just starting (if that's already what you're doing then: jolly good !).

and me thinking cross-development to portable platforms was harder to digest for a newb.. O_o

getting people to do something is hard enough already, telling them what to do is a delirium

but at the same time i guess it can´t be a bad idea to show some diversity...

and the oldschool fagottry associates keep yelling "NO NO NO, now with d3d and opengl it's piece of cake to do a demo!" :D

guardian, to which we'll always reply "then do" and enjoy the silence that ensues.

hitchhikr: I think you have a very unrealistic view of how demos are made. :) I can assure you that in 99.9% of the time, none of the items in your list come into play. :)

That's the 99% of demos you don't promote anyway.

That reminds me an anecdote involving Picasso (Pablo, not the car): a women wanted him to draw a portrait of her son, which he did in about 2 hours and asked her a tidy sum for the job, she didn't want to pay because she considered that it was just too expensive for a 2 hours job, to which Picasso replied that it was not a 2 hours job but it took him 2 hours + 30 years.

Personal experience of a creator may not be directly visible or recognizable but it's a crucial element of any creation and one can't create a demo like eg. debris of mfx stuff without having been floating inside the demoscene and computer graphics vat for 15-20 years or so.

If you don't believe this then what with the demos-being-an-art speech and all ?

Honestly, I have no idea what you're on about.

I can say this again, just to make it perfectly clear: the absolute majority of demos are NOT made with "extended knowledge of cameras work, complex screenplay and more generally cinematography", "solid knowledge of colors theory and design" or "enough culture and influences from various horizons to have a global view of what's in/ou (and what has been already done)". In fact, the things you listed earlier are some of the most bombastic bullshit I've read in a long while. :)

gloom should donate 10 bucks to the red cross each time he's using the world 'bullshit'.

gloom should write a demoscene bible, he seems to know it all :)

parapete/tomaes: Wtf? Are you seriously agreeing that demomakers these days need to know "complex screenplay and more generally cinematography" and "design 3d objects with at least 10 thousands of polygons so they won't look too cheap"?

Demos are primarily made by enthusiastic technically interrested people _FOR FUN_!

i think hitch is trying to say that experience counts, basically, and that comparing oneself with more experienced competition may have a demotivating effect. that this way of thinking is not shared by all the people on the planet is not reason enough to completely disregard the observation, although i'm not sure if the solution hitch suggests is ideal either.

Sure, but then again - how many "Debris" have you seen coming from the demoscene in the last 20 years?

Maali: Is that seriously what you get from reading my posts? If so, I have severe communication issues today. :)

Havoc: Of course experience counts. I'm just trying to say that the argument that people won't become demosceners because they're afraid they won't be able to produce "Debris" or "Lifeforce" and therefore give up before they have even begun is crap. :)

aye, yet not only today, sir

gloom, to compete with the best, certainly they do. Do you think something like Linger in Shadows, for example, was just slapped together randomly? I certainly don't think what hitch says is "bombastic bullshit".

but Guru-Gloom has a point. :P sounds to me like hitchhikr describing an ideal, non-existent, demo. :) i definitely think what he listed should at least be in the back of a demo-producer's mind and i'm pretty sure they are. but as to actually applying it all consciously...well :)

but there's no harm in trying. and demos always get a thumb-up the arse from me if i see any sign of an attempt to apply stuff from hitchhikr's list!