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Is it worth learning how to make a demo?

Many sceners have been making demos for quite a long time. Not surprisingly, the quality of prods have also steady risen over the pass decades. The time it takes to make a decent prod as wells as has also risen. The high bar is great for experienced sceners but arguably discourages total newbies (like me) from making demos. A rotating cube is neither impressive nor pioneering in today's context. This problem is only made difficult by the increasing lack of resources targeted towards amateurs. I do acknowledge that learning how to make a good demo is hard, but no one wants to make crap ones either.


I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this subject.

Apart from having the mindset for it, its also down to the individual makeup of the person. Nothing comes on a plate, The person needs to also have a severe persevering/obsessive nature in order to stand above the rest eventually

similar thread(s) already exist like this one or this one

A rotating cube would impressive be if it ran on an older computer like say an altair 8088 or made out of LASERS. Start simply, do what you know, use your talents, practice.

!!!

oops. Looks like i didn't search hard enough.
Guess I'm still a noob. :P
I guess I'll wait a few years before I release something.

Years, months, weeks... release something when you've had a good time making it and you think it will bring a smile to someone's face.

Once stuff you create is atleast better than ProChip, then consider releasing it in a compo. Before that get feedback from friends and such. By releasing something and improving on that you'll learn to become better. Listen to criticism you get but do not get totally beaten by it. You may not get most things right with your first productions but you'll work on it and slowly you get the hang of it. But real effort into your productions, even if the end result is not that good.
Consider releasing your first prods under an secret alias if you don't want to release some productions under your real name or 'real' handle.

*But=Put

Oh, I kind of like making demos that are not ment to win first place at Revision.
Ofcourse making crap isn't gratifying but as soon as you're able to release something that is up to your own standards, who cares what the rest of the world has to say about the stuff you make?

Is it worth learning to play a guitar?

Many people have been playing guitars for quite a long time. Not surprisingly, the standard of guitar playing have also steady risen over the past decades. The time it takes to start playing decently has also risen. The high bar is great for experienced guitarists but arguably discourages total newbies (like me) from learning to play a guitar. A "Smoke on the Water" riff is neither impressive nor pioneering in today's context. This problem is only made difficult by the increasing lack of resources targeted towards amateurs. I do acknowledge that learning how to play a guitar well is hard, but no one wants to play badly either.

I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this subject.

There's always the chance in digital art that whatever your new and unique approach to building art pieces like demos happens to be, you're bound to make at least some combinations somewhere that nobody has ever happened upon.

Now, extend that metaphorical "uniqueness" that you as a fledgling artist have after you've already spent years and years of making steady progress at exploring the possibilities of digital art and still applying that viewpoint as it has evolved into your design choices.

A community that provides a platform for digital art releases and both welcomes and unwelcomes very experimental new approaches into realtime digital content is sure to act a sieve that uncovers masterpieces. As long as there is enough interest to keep bringing new people in, there's bound to be some new emergent talent, even if you start right now. We're branching into all directions outside the demoscene already, popping up in media and the more classical realm of digital art.

Have a go bro! Even if you don't reach the scene pantheon, you will learn enormous good stuff, have fun, feel part of the community, accomplish something.

It can very well be if it's unique somehow. If you come up with a great concept for your rotating cube and execute that concept well, it can very well be interesting, impressive and pioneering. There's more to doing demos and art than just the technical aspect.

Meh, having a rotating cube properly synced with music will be impressive even today..

Don't let the high bar of quality of existing demos/intros discourage you - especially when you don't have startet yet :D And it is not easy to tell what's a "good" demo. There are many variables. And not every demo that is not good is a crappy one :)


As long as you enjoy what you are doing: yes it is!

And what Optimus said.

I'm working on a Doom clone demo called Death Mask for the Amiga...

No, making demos is the path to the dark side.

This. Can't people just have a bit of fun figuring out something and be happy about that?

Making anything really impressive like State of the Art or Dope would be practically impossible today, because the multi-billion games industry has much bigger resources. I'm sorry, but anything that's in the "demo" category just cannot be impressive. Some tiny intros are impressive even today, but they're few and far in between. So I just do stuff that sounds and sometimes even looks nice and shiny. Think of demos as executable music videos.

By impressive I mean, technically impressive. What's left to do is just the artistic part. Be creative and do something you like. (Just not poems, please, crap poetry has spoiled too many demos already)

And make sure you music is groovy and has a strong melody. The nonmelodic EDM pollution should stop already.

"please make demos that I like".

Aside from looking at others, that's also a demotivational thing. Just ignore that and do what you like :)

And make sure you do what you like to do. As other do the demos that they want (or can) do.

Yes, making demos is path to grey side/area :)

and alcoholism!

Do you enjoy learning to make a demo? Do you enjoy making a demo? Do you enjoy having made the demo? Do you grow and express yourself because you made or are trying to make a demo?

Then do it.