"Demos are like movies or animations, but the effects are calculated in real time!"
category: general [glöplog]
When I see comments like "15 MB for this? *thumb down*" I go into a rage-spiral.
gloom: that's an unfixable problem. you need to chill out more ;)
but i like him best when he's in a rage-spiral!
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my problem with the size-obsession is that the general perception seems to be "smaller = better", which just isn't true.
that's something I certainly can agree with.
actually, I find most of the <1k intros quite boring (but I still appreciate the technical awesomeness in some cases).
also what knl said regarding code-pr0n.
Gasman +1.
Now i'm going to work on this f***ing (literally speaking) naked woman model!...
gloom: if hopefully we meet one day, remember me to offer you a cold beer to cool you down. :)
Now i'm going to work on this f***ing (literally speaking) naked woman model!...
gloom: if hopefully we meet one day, remember me to offer you a cold beer to cool you down. :)
I'm actually quite calm. :) It's just that I find such comments to be a real insult to the people who poured sweat, tears and late nights into making something. They certainly don't deserve completely invalid comments from idiots, but then again -- whatchagonnado. :)
I think it's the developer/groups decision if they want to draw attention to the file size of their demo, and I think small demos should be presented alongside demos of unrestricted size.
Content is more valuable than the technical achievement of crinkling it to a small size. That doesn't mean the technical achievement is worth nothing; a smart audience will still recognise it. It simply means that small demos are not given a special sandbox to play in as though it's somehow unfair to play them along side 60mb fat demos.
Mind you, I'd be pretty happy to abolish oldschool platform compos too. I don't see why just because a platform is old it should be should separated from more modern platforms. After all, the demos are new.
These are probably controversial views :/
Content is more valuable than the technical achievement of crinkling it to a small size. That doesn't mean the technical achievement is worth nothing; a smart audience will still recognise it. It simply means that small demos are not given a special sandbox to play in as though it's somehow unfair to play them along side 60mb fat demos.
Mind you, I'd be pretty happy to abolish oldschool platform compos too. I don't see why just because a platform is old it should be should separated from more modern platforms. After all, the demos are new.
These are probably controversial views :/
the thing is - if you're creating something for a compo, and want to be successful, you probably want to do it on the best platform that the rules allow and try to make the best use out of the space that the rules allow.
if you don't, and if your production isn't good enough to compete with the ones that do, and if you don't emphasize your limited use of available resources well enough in your demo, tough shit. adapt.
if a compo with limitations suitable for your platform or your typical use of resources doesn't exist, tough shit. adapt.
if they've willingly entered it into the wrong compo, tough shit :) their options are a) make it so good that it stands a chance against 64k's, b) make 4 times the content, c) release it somewhere else, d) organize a party with a 16k compo.
if you don't, and if your production isn't good enough to compete with the ones that do, and if you don't emphasize your limited use of available resources well enough in your demo, tough shit. adapt.
if a compo with limitations suitable for your platform or your typical use of resources doesn't exist, tough shit. adapt.
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Like 64K compo starts and some unknown group has made a simple but great new effect in 16K and everyone laughs and boos expecting a crap demo. After, they know they did all that in 16K that the others didn't manage in 64K and are 'converted'. Shit, we were all wrong, these guys are great, who are they? Never heard of them before. I have to talk to those guys.
if they've willingly entered it into the wrong compo, tough shit :) their options are a) make it so good that it stands a chance against 64k's, b) make 4 times the content, c) release it somewhere else, d) organize a party with a 16k compo.
it's not the size of the prod that matters; it's what you penis
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There's basically nothing you can do in 64k that you can't also do in 16k. What fills a 64k is usually music. Either way: your argument just proves my point -- people upvote small prods for no reason. The limit was 64k in the 64k compo and I don't understand why someone who _chose_ to "just use 16k" should get more kudos in the same compo just because of the size.After, they know they did all that in 16K that the others didn't manage in 64K
I don't think I can repeat myself any more times now either btw. :)
but if a prod is for linux its twice as good! no matter ho unimpressive or unoriginal the content may be!
Demos are like movies, except I can finish a movie...
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Mind you, I'd be pretty happy to abolish oldschool platform compos too. I don't see why just because a platform is old it should be should separated from more modern platforms. After all, the demos are new.
Smaller parties do that, but at the size of, say, Revision, it makes sense to keep them separate because it's a reasonable aspect of separation and there are enough entries for both. Same goes for sizelimited stuff.
6 pages for this? *thumb down*
movies are like demos, but without cubes
I never cared about file size when viewing the youtube video of a demo... I haven't run a demo other than my own on my computer for years. Why risk even the slightest bug when a video is so much more convenient?
If a demoscene version of mortal kombat existed, gloom would certainly have rage-spiral as fatality :)
to quote one of the guys who made one of the demos frequently referred to in this thread: "wer die size braucht hats nicht kapiert".
thats it basically. i still like the restricted compos best, megabytes of textures and a mp3 soundtrack don't impress me at all. i also find that "No maximum filesize" completely defeats the point of having a democompo alltogether.
then again, who cares? =P
thats it basically. i still like the restricted compos best, megabytes of textures and a mp3 soundtrack don't impress me at all. i also find that "No maximum filesize" completely defeats the point of having a democompo alltogether.
then again, who cares? =P
Sorry for no quick response, got the flu (still sick). Also, I had to catch up on a bunch of responses now... :) I've read you all even if this post of mine has changed direction a bit so I don't address responses to the original one, see below.
As some have mentioned smaller means WYG (What You Get) is always less impressive. Therefore, there is no fear to address for adversaries of showing the size, and showing the size only creates some understanding for why WYS (What You See) is less impressive. Unless of course you only show it for the smaller demos, in which case you indeed DO make them special and DO risk giving them advantages by showing the size. Bad idea.
Dunno about you, but on parties I heavily enjoy listing directories, typing nfos etc on the bigscreen before showing the demo! :) This creates anticipation and makes it "what it's all about" for me, very fitting for a demo-show in my book. This is much better and more enjoyable to me than some slick cover screen and orgas spending ages recording video when they don't have a bigscreen that supports PAL output.
Limits came in sort of after my first being part of the demoscene and they now feel a bit strange for me. At least, limits for demos (not intros) is weird. Even if it's outside limits and even too heavy for the orga crew computers, a group should be allowed to show it? I guess it's there so the orgas don't have to make sure that it's not largely a movie or uses secret hardware. Surely this would be discovered after the party and prizes recalled.
Does this convince you, groepaz? Demo limits are already very high anyway so if it's a nice real-time demo using .wav instead of .mp3 and some tricky effect using a 10000x10000 pixel, 48-bit color picture, why would it be disqualified?
By the same token I no longer endorse a precalc time limit. It can be 9 minutes precalc and 1 minute "demo" as long as its shown.
As for the intro limits they've found a place in the demoscene, however I think it would open up for more releases being released on-party if any size demo could be submitted to any compo (where it's not outside limits, ofc).
So after reflection, the original topic and flaming of "bah, it was precalc, animation player etc" has been left behind by me, to instead be about changing "releases for parties" to "more demo releases on parties". With the idea that the ones who don't quite fit the compo-categories will still release, instead of waiting to add more or rework the demo to fit it in, when in fact it's just fine, a finished demo, just not quite fitting the categories.
If a release is postponed, there's always the risk that it won't ever be released, for reasons like: the musician has a family now and can't optimize the tune, or: the graphics artist landed a job at a game company and can't add any more graphics until summer holidays in 9 months (and maybe he's overworked by then and don't want to look at a computer for weeks). Or that the coder 9 months later considers the code to be too bad and refuses to sign his name on that shit he made when he'd learned the Professor 8-bit platform or made a clumsy port to PS Vita or whatever. :)
Simply, I want to remove all the reasons for releases not getting released, and shift the focus to celebrating demos. Orgas decide how supportive of the platform landscape they want to be, but for me and ideal world would be where any platform is supported and we celebrated native demos for any 8-bit, any 16-bit, and any newer platform as compos together (why the $$ isn't Linux and Mac demos shown in the PC compo??), with individual parties supporting all these with no limits at all, but keeping the hardcore focus their famed for on focused compos such as PC 64k, Amiga OCS, or C64 disk demos to make them "the" party for those specific compos.
Show precalc. Show size. Celebrate dreamy code and audiovisuals, but don't delude us, orgas... Shall we make it happen, gentlemen? :)
If you're an orga I'd love to think about any practical problems involved that you might see.
As some have mentioned smaller means WYG (What You Get) is always less impressive. Therefore, there is no fear to address for adversaries of showing the size, and showing the size only creates some understanding for why WYS (What You See) is less impressive. Unless of course you only show it for the smaller demos, in which case you indeed DO make them special and DO risk giving them advantages by showing the size. Bad idea.
Dunno about you, but on parties I heavily enjoy listing directories, typing nfos etc on the bigscreen before showing the demo! :) This creates anticipation and makes it "what it's all about" for me, very fitting for a demo-show in my book. This is much better and more enjoyable to me than some slick cover screen and orgas spending ages recording video when they don't have a bigscreen that supports PAL output.
Limits came in sort of after my first being part of the demoscene and they now feel a bit strange for me. At least, limits for demos (not intros) is weird. Even if it's outside limits and even too heavy for the orga crew computers, a group should be allowed to show it? I guess it's there so the orgas don't have to make sure that it's not largely a movie or uses secret hardware. Surely this would be discovered after the party and prizes recalled.
Does this convince you, groepaz? Demo limits are already very high anyway so if it's a nice real-time demo using .wav instead of .mp3 and some tricky effect using a 10000x10000 pixel, 48-bit color picture, why would it be disqualified?
By the same token I no longer endorse a precalc time limit. It can be 9 minutes precalc and 1 minute "demo" as long as its shown.
As for the intro limits they've found a place in the demoscene, however I think it would open up for more releases being released on-party if any size demo could be submitted to any compo (where it's not outside limits, ofc).
So after reflection, the original topic and flaming of "bah, it was precalc, animation player etc" has been left behind by me, to instead be about changing "releases for parties" to "more demo releases on parties". With the idea that the ones who don't quite fit the compo-categories will still release, instead of waiting to add more or rework the demo to fit it in, when in fact it's just fine, a finished demo, just not quite fitting the categories.
If a release is postponed, there's always the risk that it won't ever be released, for reasons like: the musician has a family now and can't optimize the tune, or: the graphics artist landed a job at a game company and can't add any more graphics until summer holidays in 9 months (and maybe he's overworked by then and don't want to look at a computer for weeks). Or that the coder 9 months later considers the code to be too bad and refuses to sign his name on that shit he made when he'd learned the Professor 8-bit platform or made a clumsy port to PS Vita or whatever. :)
Simply, I want to remove all the reasons for releases not getting released, and shift the focus to celebrating demos. Orgas decide how supportive of the platform landscape they want to be, but for me and ideal world would be where any platform is supported and we celebrated native demos for any 8-bit, any 16-bit, and any newer platform as compos together (why the $$ isn't Linux and Mac demos shown in the PC compo??), with individual parties supporting all these with no limits at all, but keeping the hardcore focus their famed for on focused compos such as PC 64k, Amiga OCS, or C64 disk demos to make them "the" party for those specific compos.
Show precalc. Show size. Celebrate dreamy code and audiovisuals, but don't delude us, orgas... Shall we make it happen, gentlemen? :)
If you're an orga I'd love to think about any practical problems involved that you might see.
And please don't only show precalc, please also show stylized loading bars, eyecancer decrunch flicker in the border, and "TITANICS-Cruncher decrunches while loading". :)
precalculating...demo.
Oh I get it, Bartoshe's poignant reply made you all realize the truth. Or what? :)
Maybe ppl felt more like making demos rather than complaining about how others do it.
If the varying filesize is such a big deal, what about strictly enforcing it? If your .exe isn't 65536 bytes, it won't be shown. If you're a couple hundred bytes short, just fill it up with garbage.
