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Make cool demo shock to Brazilian brain

category: offtopic [glöplog]
Since the Google Translate-version of the demoscene article I contributed to has been making its rounds and doing it's best to become a meme, I thought I'd just share the original question-and-answers-round, just to get that out there as well.

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First, I'll need your name, age and occupation to attribute the answers to.

My name is Bent Stamnes, I'm currently 33 years old and I make my living as a Chief Technology Officer at a mobile technology company here in Oslo, Norway.

I'm also a member of Scene.org, the demo scene archive, and a public speaker on all things demo scene. I've spoken at industry events such as FMX in Germany, FITC in Toronto and Amsterdam, and Assembly in Helsinki. I've also held outreach efforts at places such as Pixar, Industrial Light and Magic and Adobe.

In the demo scene I'm an active musician and demo editor/designer.
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1. Since when are you involved with the demo scene?

I've been watching demos since 1987 (I was 9) and actively participating since 1989 (I was 11). I went to my first demo party in 1992 (The Party, in Denmark).

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How did your interest in it start?

As with most people who got to know the scene in the 80s, it was through an older neighbor who swapped software with other people, and sometimes I got to borrow some of the tapes and discs from him. Some of the games were cracked and had a small scroller or star field or some other very simple effect in the beginning, often with music as well. I started running games just to watch these small "intros" because I thought those were way more interesting then the games themselves.

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2. What is the demoscene, exactly? Can you tell me a bit of its history?

The demo scene can be considered the bastard step-child of the warez scene, because the first people who made demos did in fact make those intros in front of cracked games. As with myself, those people started enjoying making the intros to the cracks more than the cracks themselves, and the demo scene spawned out of that.

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3. What is a demo?

A demo is a non-interactive, real-time executable piece of electronic art.

I know that's a bit abstract so I'll try to clarify it: a demo is a piece of software that you run on your computer (or even your mobile phone), exactly like a normal application. But instead of being interactive or doing something, the application takes over the full screen and displays visualizations synchronized to music. That's what a demo is.

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How can you create one? What kind of skills people learn when creating demos?

Creating a demo is most often a team effort, where you have a dedicated programmer who knows C++, DirectX and such, a graphic artist (or "graphician", as they call themselves in the demoscene) who is responsible for 3D models, textures, fonts, backgrounds and colors, and a musician. In some groups (like mine - Excess), the musician is also responsible for editing the demo so that it fits with the music. In the demo scene, this is referred to as "syncing".

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What software is used?

People use all kinds of software to create the assets, just like you would if making an indie game for example (Photoshop and Maya for graphics, Reaper/Logic/Cubase for music and Visual Studio for programming). The end result is an executable file (an application) that is stand-alone and requires no extra assets to run, which means it can be distributed freely as well. Many demos nowadays carry a Creative Commons license too.

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4. How is the demoscene related to the geek/nerd culture, if at all?

I would say that the demo scene started as a geeky subculture. After all, only people with a die-hard interest in computers in back in the 80s even had the chance to become a demoscener. To be a scener you most likely enjoy both computers and visual stuff like animation, motion graphics, programming and such, though the term "scener" don't hold the same sort of "hard core" meaning as it used to. These days the term is a lot more broad, and incorporates everyone from the silent observer to the people who actually makes demos. In my opinion though, you don't truly become a scener until you actually contribute to a demo scene production, but people have different opinions on this. After all, it's just a label like everything else.

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5. What are demoparties, and how many people attend?

Demoparties are events where demosceners gather to talk, relax, make demos and compete. It's usually held over a weekend, in a space that allows for sleeping, a big screen, a large sound system, and fast computers to show all the latest demos released.

At a demo party it is normal to host a wide variety of competitions, like the normal "demo compo" (no size limit), 4k intros (the executable cannot exceed 4096 bytes), music (both mod and MP3-files are allowed, but usually in separate competitions) and graphics (old school - where you have to work with a limited palette and resolution, and new school - where you can use Photoshop, your Wacom tabled and everything else you might think of).

All the entries to the compos are shown on the big screen, and people present at the event vote on their favorites. At the end of the demo party, there is a prize giving ceremony where the winners are announced, and they usually receive plaques, statues or diplomas. The bigger events usually have cash or hardware prizes as well.

There are primarily two kinds of demo parties: big and small. The small ones can range from 10-20 people up to 140-150, while the big ones (such as The Gathering (Norway), Assembly (Finland), Revision (Germany), Evoke (Germany) etc.) has many thousand guests, even though not all are demosceners.

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7. Apparently demoparties started with copyparties, so there was some relationship with the warez scene in its infancy. Is this correct?

Since the people who made those intros for cracks in games were part of the cracking groups in the warez scene, it was only natural for them to tag along to copy parties as well. As with the demo sections of those groups, the demo parties soon separated from copy parties and formed their own events, where the focus was making demos, not pirating software.

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s this why some keygens and other warez software have mod music and sometimes animations in them?

It's become popular these days to include such things in cracks again, like it was in the very beginning. Only this time around it's the warez scene which is imitating the demo scene instead of the other way around.

It's important to recognize that while the demo scene and the warez scene stemmed from the same roots and has crossed paths in the past, they are not connected at all these days, and haven't been for decades. There are even demo groups and warez groups with the same name, but consisting of entirely different people, like Razor 1911 for example.

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6. How is the demoscene related to the mod music scene? Are they the same?

The mod music scene and the demo scene came from the same origins for sure, and every demo group with respect for themselves has a proper mod musician on board. At some point in the 90s, when trackers became very capable (with Fast Tracker II being the most popular), tracker software suddenly became many people's first contact with the demo scene. Because they were more interested in making music that could stand on it's own instead of connected to a demo, a separate scene formed itself quite naturally, and the mod music scene was born.

They live quite separate lives now, especially since the whole Gameboy chip/mod-music scene became very trendy and a hipster favorite, but there are some places on the web where they both gather and chat. Gameboy musicians with demo scene background can also be found playing gigs at demo parties as well as in normal clubs.

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Reading through what you wrote, I was left with a question. You said that a demo is not interactive and that it takes over your computer screen.

Correct. There are very few examples of the opposite so in 99.99% of all demos, they go full screen (or run in windowed mode if so desired).

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Back in Windows 95 and Windows 98, Windows included some nice "screensavers". Now in Windows 7, they are just about gone. Back then, some people even made commercial screensavers, and some pushed the meaning of screensavers (like Johnny Castaway, which was created by a gaming company).

In terms of the screensavers and the demo scene, there is this famous example:

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=232

..which was re-released with different text as the "Gizmozone screensaver"
which was the first "demo" a lot of people saw:

http://www.ultimatesavers.com/index.asp?ID=2837

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It was, to a lot of people who began using computers at the time, the first kinds of real-time computer-generated animation they have seen. Could these be called demos, although very simple ones and lacking music?

No. In order for something to be a demo, it has to be created as such. Something that has the same visual aesthetics but was never meant to be art won't be considered a demo. A single-effect visualization isn't the same as a demo, and demos typically has multiple parts. Also, demos have music as an essential component.

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Or rather, was the development of said screensavers potentially influenced by what was going in the demoscene back then?

Possibly, but I can't confirm that with certainty. I do know that many music visualizers (like the ones shipping with WinAMP and the such) were indeed inspired by the demo scene.

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You said that the tools are similar to those used by indie games. Did some game developers start out as sceners?

Sure - Team17, FunCom, DICE, Remedy and others were all either founded by demosceners or had demosceners as among their first employees.

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One other question: do you know any demogroups who are or were based here in Brazil, or any demos created by Brazilians?

Actually I don't, but I do know there are a few people trying to get a Brazilian demo party off the ground. They have started a thread on Pouet (a popular demo scene hangaround), and this Facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_193436677375846

Perhaps you can find some Brazilian demosceners to talk to there?

In addition to the text, I contributed with links to images from demoparties as well as some links to demos and 4k intros. I asked to read through the piece before it was published but was told that it was not standard practice, plus inconvenient since it would have to be translated but that I should not worry about it. Yes, that's pretty funny. :) Anyway, that was what I was asked and what I replied. Feel free to point out factual errors or areas of disagreement (though my personal opinions are indeed personal, so..)
added on the 2011-12-12 21:53:55 by gloom gloom
As you ask about areas of disagreement...

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They live quite separate lives now, especially since the whole Gameboy chip/mod-music scene became very trendy and a hipster favorite, but there are some places on the web where they both gather and chat. Gameboy musicians with demo scene background can also be found playing gigs at demo parties as well as in normal clubs.

I would say that this "hipster" stuff is not connected to the tracking scene at all. A key element of the tracking scene is the exchange of modules in their original format, which is not really something you'll find with most "modern" "chiptune" artists. But maybe that's just me who doesn't want to identify with that stuff...

Anyway, I also have some interview questions here, but they were more about The Mod Archive than the scene in general, so they are probably a bit too specific to be discussed here...
if you dont want to read the entire interview, just read this:
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"A demo is a form of interactive electronic art and not generated in real time," says Stamnes, who we met in 1987 at age 11.
That's a good point and I'll be sure to make that distinction in the future. In the realm of the base question though, I hope the answer was pretty good (the bits you didn't quote).
added on the 2011-12-12 22:08:43 by gloom gloom
Yeah, I'd agree with everything but that one paragraph.
And similar to your answer "when is a demo really a demo", it's the same with tracked music - if something is not released as a module (just think of all those people listening to NES music - do they care about how the music was made, or do they want the original source file? I think all they care about is the retro sound) into the scene, it's not (directly) related to the tracking scene at all.
I thought it would be distorted, but this article really surprised me. :)
added on the 2011-12-13 01:15:51 by Danguafer Danguafer
imho the term demo isn't distinctive enough. think about it's meaning: demonstration, preferably demonstrating capabilities. now, is a processing script for spinning a cube less of a demo? i dont think so, but it's not a demoscene production, either. or is it? similiar problem of distinction with graffiti and streetart, or when graffiti appeared in galleries.
added on the 2011-12-13 06:22:17 by vectory vectory
vectory: the demoscene took the term "demonstration" and applied it to what they were doing -- not the other way around.
added on the 2011-12-13 12:29:19 by gloom gloom
When you say "Damn, you are hot!" to your grandma, she's dying in fever.
When you say "Damn, you are hot!" to your girlfriend, she's sexy. ;)
Context, bro.
added on the 2011-12-13 12:58:54 by Danguafer Danguafer
It's sort of funny, after you have organized a certain number of presentations about the scene, or explained the scene to people, or listened to someone else explain the scene to people a certain number of times, you get a kind of bulletpoint list in your brainstem - cracking scene, noninteractive, 4ks, etc.

I liked this interview because it wasn't quite the same spiel we always do . . .
that said, it seems like the whole translation issue is Google Translate being fail.

Admittedly I only know some languages related to Portuguese and not Portuguese itself, but I translate

"resume Stamnes, que conheceu demos em 1987, aos 11 anos"

as

"said Stamnes, who encountered demos in 1987, at the age of 11"
Which is also incorrect.
added on the 2011-12-13 17:14:44 by okkie okkie
AN ENCOUNTER OF THE FIRST KIND!
wait, that was correct I thought, looking back at what Bent posted. Confused me is confused.

also hee hee Maali.
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I've been watching demos since 1987 (I was 9)
added on the 2011-12-13 18:21:02 by okkie okkie
It's "met" not "encountered". As in "I met him at age 1989 when he was 11."
added on the 2011-12-13 18:22:58 by xernobyl xernobyl
well, I'm assuming "conheceu" is like conocer in Spanish or connaitre in French, so yes, that would be weird. But is are there separate words for know and know in Portuguese like in French and Spanish?
i.e.

conocer vs saber

connaitre vs savoir
I assume this would be a more fitting translation:
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"A demo is a form of interactive electronic art and not generated in real time," says Stamnes, who we met in 1987 at age 11.
I'm the author of the article. The age has been corrected.

The badly translated phrase should be (already re-translating the quote)
"A demo is a form of non-interactive, real-time generated electronic art", briefly explains Stamnes, who learned about demos in 1987 at the age of 9."

Because there's no easy way to translate "piece of electronic art" to Portuguese, I changed the phrase slightly in the translation. If you talk about a "piece" in Portuguese, you're really talking about "a piece" that needs a whole. As in, a demo would be an incomplete electronic art. So there was no way to use the original quote with a literal translation.

Though I had to change the phrase slightly because of this, I have obviously not changed where the negative was. That is entirely Google's doing.

"Met" and "know" can be the same word in Portuguese, but there are different ones as well.

Google would also not arrive at "briefly explains", although that's the meaning of "resume" in this context. It has a positive connotation too.
added on the 2011-12-14 00:30:58 by altieres altieres
no no no... fucking hell, learn a bit of portuguese.. what he said was:
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"A demo is a form of interactive electronic art and not generated in 1987 at age 11," says Stamnes, who we met in real time
see, I said it was Google . . .
"conhecer" & "saber" from the latin "cognoscere" & "sapere".
just so you know.
added on the 2011-12-14 05:46:16 by xernobyl xernobyl
No Maali, you got it all wrong. It's:

[quote]"A demo is a form of interactive electronic art and not generated in 1987," says Stamnes, who we met in real time at age 11.[/qoute]
bbcode is for jazz musicians.
Kühle Demo Schock für Brasilianer Gehirn
added on the 2011-12-14 09:55:32 by 4kum4 4kum4

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