The state of the demoscene: 1991 - 2011
category: general [glöplog]
Gargaj: someone who is right. you just have to accept it :)
unless.. you want go join scene version 2.0
It's probably best to wait until scene v2.1. By that time they'll have fixed some of the initial bugs.
Dear Gloom,
I am very sure of that, there's no problem, some of our common friend told me that your are a nice guy.
For my case, I can sound like an embittered old-fart but I think I am not a so bad boy, I think I am like my intros are :D
Well, I said you "sound arrogant", and NOT "you are arrogant", that make some difference :)
When you wrote sentence like "Since I don't like repeating myself to people who clearly have no interest in actually accepting the state of things" don't you think you sound a bit rude? :)
Thank you a lot for your reply, I just wanted to troll to get at last an answer from you, and to see if you can take in consideration in your analysis of demoscene the way of thinking of people like me, 4mat or Keops who share the same (old I know) vision of demo.
That doesn't mean we only want to display the same thing on the screen for the next 30 years, but the demoscene survived until today without any help from "outside" or without getting any public fame, just with the hard work of his members, so I think we can continue like that during a long time :)
But perhaps I am wrong.
I don't know the truth, the only one thing I know is a will still release prods in the next decades :D
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...and despite what you might think, I'm a good and nice person -- come to Solskogen this summer and we'll have a beer or nineteen :)
I am very sure of that, there's no problem, some of our common friend told me that your are a nice guy.
For my case, I can sound like an embittered old-fart but I think I am not a so bad boy, I think I am like my intros are :D
Well, I said you "sound arrogant", and NOT "you are arrogant", that make some difference :)
When you wrote sentence like "Since I don't like repeating myself to people who clearly have no interest in actually accepting the state of things" don't you think you sound a bit rude? :)
Thank you a lot for your reply, I just wanted to troll to get at last an answer from you, and to see if you can take in consideration in your analysis of demoscene the way of thinking of people like me, 4mat or Keops who share the same (old I know) vision of demo.
That doesn't mean we only want to display the same thing on the screen for the next 30 years, but the demoscene survived until today without any help from "outside" or without getting any public fame, just with the hard work of his members, so I think we can continue like that during a long time :)
But perhaps I am wrong.
I don't know the truth, the only one thing I know is a will still release prods in the next decades :D
what an odd turn this conversation is taking :) i'll just ignore the "boohoo mainstream sucks" posts.
i don't think there are a "large portion" of that kind of demos. i think it's a relatively small percentage.
that is an odd point to make, but in all honesty some of the best designers in the demoscene today do it for a living as well. not necessarily multimillion, but they are professional.
no, flash productions are thumbed down because most of them are rubbish. we should be able to judge them by the same criteria of aesthetics even if the platform is crippled in a way.
the thing is, and i'm biased, the tool should rather be a builder where you can combine the designers' proficiency with the usual graphics tools (3dsmax/lightwave/maya/whatever) and the coders' proficiency with innovative realtime effects, and put it all together. gnu rocket is hardly the pinnacle of demo tools.
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forward looking examples which demonstrate the best virtues of the scene and contain not only technically impressive solutions to very creative "design problems" but also hold their own as far as design is concerned
i don't think there are a "large portion" of that kind of demos. i think it's a relatively small percentage.
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the type of "design" appretiated by mainstream AfterEffect designers working on multimillion dollar budget film and game titles
that is an odd point to make, but in all honesty some of the best designers in the demoscene today do it for a living as well. not necessarily multimillion, but they are professional.
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Flash productions on Pouet are thumbed down and not considered "proper" demos for good reason. This is not an "old" outdated view from the scene because it preserves the triangle which is the essence of a complete demo: 1. Custom code/framework, 2. visual graphics and 3. audio.
no, flash productions are thumbed down because most of them are rubbish. we should be able to judge them by the same criteria of aesthetics even if the platform is crippled in a way.
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There is only one solution as far as I see, demo coders must begin creating more tools for designers, yet the designers have to at least appretiate that the tools may not offer all the convinences of the 3rd party commercial tools they're familiar with from their modern "digital media creation" courses (Flash, Adobe, whatever).
the thing is, and i'm biased, the tool should rather be a builder where you can combine the designers' proficiency with the usual graphics tools (3dsmax/lightwave/maya/whatever) and the coders' proficiency with innovative realtime effects, and put it all together. gnu rocket is hardly the pinnacle of demo tools.
crybabies, who cares how many people are enjoying demoscene as long as you feel good creating stuff.
The day i don't feel the fun in creating a demo i will simply not do it anymore, it doesn't matter to me if average Joe watches my demos or not.
The day i don't feel the fun in creating a demo i will simply not do it anymore, it doesn't matter to me if average Joe watches my demos or not.
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Sure, it's a bit rude :) Or, "impatient" I guess is more correct. I just have no patience for people who need hand-holding in just simply reading up on what's already been said in a thread and stampede in with some bizarre take on what they haven't actually read. Now _that_, is arrogance. :) Also, I don't believe I said those things in response to you.When you wrote sentence like "Since I don't like repeating myself to people who clearly have no interest in actually accepting the state of things" don't you think you sound a bit rude? :)
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I agree, which is why all of my stats are offered with context. Don't try to convince me that you looked at the graphs and went "WHAT? I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS! SOMEONE IS PLAYING THE NUMBERS TO TRICK ME", because I don't buy that. :)content (especially statistics) without context is misleading at best and down-right decitful most of the time.
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I don't recall calling it neither in the article, but feel free to correct me. In fact, I should correct myself because "stagnated" is the perfect description for the lack of growth.the problem is, you are pointing your judgmental finger at the scene. you call it "old" and "stagnated",
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Yes, a few demos from those three groups you mentioned do in fact do that. What is your point?yet you know only too well that a large portion of demos (from groups like MFX, Fairlight and ASD) are forward looking examples which demonstrate the best virtues of the scene and contain not only technically impressive solutions to very creative "design problems" but also hold their own as far as design is concerned.
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Feel free to speak for yourself, but don't claim to represent others. It's not only a cheap and lame argumentation technique, but according to what people tell me it's most likely not true either (see what I did there? :)i think many of us are confussed,
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No, I'm not. It would be nice if you could try to have a sensible discussion without straw man arguments and trying to attribute opinions to me that I haven't expressed. It's more mature that way you know.because we know that the scene has changed and evolved in a positive direction over the past 20 years - yet you are telling us that it hasn't and that it is failing
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Again, you're putting words in my mouth. All I'm saying (well-documented, I might add), is that the numbers of active sceners and of demos are going down. That's all. Those are the facts. The bit about _why_ is exactly why I did the research and shared the results with everyone AND started this thread to discuss it.simply because numbers are low and people today are no longer attracted to the fundamental demo development process.
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Thanks for finally offering your actual opinion on the matter -- this is what this thread is about. Now -- I'll respond with what _my_ opinion is about what you just said: the first two paragraphs have already been said, by multiple people. It's nice of you to repeat it, but it's strictly not necessary. In terms of the last paragraph: I disagree. There is clearly no lack of tools for people to makes demos (or intros) with. They are out there, for anyone to use. Getting people to _actually_ use them is more of a problem, which you touch on at the beginning of your rant. Why should people want to do things in real-time when things look so much better coming out of VRAY? It's a valid question, and one that I hoped that we could try to nail down with this thread. So far, Smash, IQ and others have offered good opinions on the matter, and I hope more people will.well, here's the context that your article so badly needed: today's trendy CG designers no longer need the hassle and hardwork involved in programming realtime graphics engines in order to realize their "design ideas". during the early 80s, and 90s this wasn't the case. It was necessary to program in realtime. not today. So today, those who are more focused on design and could (potentially) contribute to raising the bar (as far as trendy attractive mainstream designs are concerned) are all using Flash, AfterEffect, Premier and Maya to realize their designs. They are not interested in using custom "low level" toolsets consisting of C++/OpenGL and some "difficult" tool such as GNU Rocket to syncronize the narrative of their designs.
but here's the catch-22: an essential factor of demos is the art of real-time code (along with the audio and graphic design). you do not have a demo if it is not realtime. and in addition, producing a "demo" with 3rd party commercial tools is the demo framework equivelant of scanning someone elses art and using it in your production. Flash productions on Pouet are thumbed down and not considered "proper" demos for good reason. This is not an "old" outdated view from the scene because it preserves the triangle which is the essence of a complete demo: 1. Custom code/framework, 2. visual graphics and 3. audio.
There is only one solution as far as I see, demo coders must begin creating more tools for designers, yet the designers have to at least appretiate that the tools may not offer all the convinences of the 3rd party commercial tools they're familiar with from their modern "digital media creation" courses (Flash, Adobe, whatever). Demoscene designers always need technical proficiency as well as design skills. that's just one of the unavoidable because even the best demo design tools require jumping through some technical hurdles which the designer must appretiate.
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Well, that comes down to what you're looking for. If you want to arrange your scenes and sync them, there is no better tool for it. Or, more correctly: no _faster_ tool, and speed is sort of the point here. In order not to grow tired of something, it helps to finish quickly, and GNU Rocket enables people to do that. Now, to set up scenes, texture them, overlay effects or anything to do with creating worlds from scratch, obviously that's not going to happen in GNU Rocket. :) But: different tools for different tasks is sort of how I like to work at least. gnu rocket is hardly the pinnacle of demo tools.
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Please do elaborate. I'm especially interested in knowing what the "defining characteristics of the scene" are, according to you, and also what "change" you're referring to.i'm guessing this is the cause of the decline, along with the explosion of online communities in recent years. and you cannot really change this without compromising many of the defining characteristics of the scene
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you just have to accept it :)
why would i accept anything from someone who doesnt walk the walk
perhaps he wanted to say that back on the days, the only one "creative community" was the demoscene, everybody who want to create gather into it because it's the most valuable place to be to create :)
but with the arise of teh internet and numerous websites/forum/community about more specific art, sometimes subdivided into even more specific tools, there is a place available for every kind of art/software to find people to share with.
that means less people/time for the demoscene I think, since you can multiply the number of hours per day :)
but with the arise of teh internet and numerous websites/forum/community about more specific art, sometimes subdivided into even more specific tools, there is a place available for every kind of art/software to find people to share with.
that means less people/time for the demoscene I think, since you can multiply the number of hours per day :)
I also gave up outreaching. If you find it and like it great, if you don't I don't give a shit. With that said I should post more Inércia Demoparty 2012 stuff somewhere else so people can find it.
TRSAC has an outreach programme, it mostly involves us trying to bother everyone we know to come by, even if they arent demosceners.
Last year we had some local drugdealers, a few warhammerplayers, a stripper and a starfish.
Last year we had some local drugdealers, a few warhammerplayers, a stripper and a starfish.
I just realize that my previous post is really badly written :D
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well, here's the context that your article so badly needed: today's trendy CG designers no longer need the hassle and hardwork involved in programming realtime graphics engines in order to realize their "design ideas". during the early 80s, and 90s this wasn't the case. It was necessary to program in realtime. not today. So today, those who are more focused on design and could (potentially) contribute to raising the bar (as far as trendy attractive mainstream designs are concerned) are all using Flash, AfterEffect, Premier and Maya to realize their designs. They are not interested in using custom "low level" toolsets consisting of C++/OpenGL and some "difficult" tool such as GNU Rocket to syncronize the narrative of their designs.
This is probably true for quite a lot of designers, but by means all of them. A tool like Maya will get you a long way, but it's not capable of doing some things - and then you need to start coding. A lot of designers know that and take it to that next level.
Also, you're assuming that everyone does non-realtime stuff. This is actually *less* true than say 10 years back. Realtime work is getting more popular, because it's getting more practical. There are lots of designers out there doing really cool realtime stuff, and they're often coding a lot of it themselves. It's really common for them to do tons of this stuff as a hobby too, in order to learn their trade better / get some publicity / etc. Just what sceners used to do in the old days when they wanted a job doing games :)
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content (especially statistics) without context is misleading at best and down-right decitful most of the time.
truth to be told, there is nothing wrong with gloom's statistics.
psionice: a great example of real-time meeting the offline-rendering world is this: http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2011/07/first-look-at-new-plug-in-element-3d/ - it's about bringing real-time, "near raytrace-quality" rendering into After Effects, and it's party coded by demosceners.
One more link to Element 3D: http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/?s=element+3d
Because picking points is apparently the latest fad on this thread, I will join the fun :)
Too bad they sold their wares to the organisers of the quiz, who, sky high on methamphetamine, went on to screw the Dutch out of their well deserved quiz victory.
Are they the one who put the beets in those hamburgers?
This was rumoured to be the mother of one of the quiz organisers.
From what I've heard it wasn't the first time he showed up, so doesn't count :)
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Last year we had some local drugdealers,
Too bad they sold their wares to the organisers of the quiz, who, sky high on methamphetamine, went on to screw the Dutch out of their well deserved quiz victory.
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a few warhammerplayers,
Are they the one who put the beets in those hamburgers?
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a stripper
This was rumoured to be the mother of one of the quiz organisers.
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and a starfish.
From what I've heard it wasn't the first time he showed up, so doesn't count :)
That Element 3D seems pretty nice, but the introduction video made me smile a bit :) But of course I'm probably not the target audience, having never even seen the after effects interface before.
Oh, and while having interesting and long threads like this one to read is nice, think about how many demos could have been made with all the time spent writing these posts!
Holy moly what a thread.
My 2c is simply that I think the scene outreach is a great and useful initiative. It's a part of the reason why one can put "demoscene" in a CV and have it mean something.
When I make demos, I like to think it has an audience. The bigger the audience, the better. That's also the reason why I don't generally make demos for obscure platforms with all of 87 users around the world, but hey, that might be fun too.
My 2c is simply that I think the scene outreach is a great and useful initiative. It's a part of the reason why one can put "demoscene" in a CV and have it mean something.
When I make demos, I like to think it has an audience. The bigger the audience, the better. That's also the reason why I don't generally make demos for obscure platforms with all of 87 users around the world, but hey, that might be fun too.
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).
do you remember that some time ago in many demos people were trying to *invite* other to actually do something *together* (all this wanna join as graphician / musician etc. adverts)?
I recognized this kind of invitation in one of Ram-jam demos it was said if I am graphician & musician I could possibly join them and maybe draw something. Indeed, I was encouraged by it, there was an address of this person, etc. It was kind of open & friendly.
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?
do you remember that some time ago in many demos people were trying to *invite* other to actually do something *together* (all this wanna join as graphician / musician etc. adverts)?
I recognized this kind of invitation in one of Ram-jam demos it was said if I am graphician & musician I could possibly join them and maybe draw something. Indeed, I was encouraged by it, there was an address of this person, etc. It was kind of open & friendly.
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?
maq: are you graphician or ?
maq: sure it is