pouët.net

Well, it is nice that some universities allow their students to write exam papers about the demoscene. :)

well i could fail brutally :)

We are confident you will succeed. :)

your totally unsubstantiated and probably unwarranted confidence is duly noted.

Did you code 4k's at that time? Check your shit:
IQ's Frameworks: "(previous version was released 23/01/2008) [first version]" - so that's a no.
I think Sphere tracing became popular after this 4k gfx. 2008 again. So, that's a no, too. Threads like the "Raymarching Beginners thread" and the like are ~2011 ish. Nevertheless there are some nice 4k's using sphere tracing (which is a pretty old technique).
Crinkler is from ~2005 btw. So that's the only thing you are IMHO possibly right about (1 of 3).
But before crinkler, there were other tools (20to4, various other packers), or you had to do it yourself. Maybe it was created out of a demand? :) Ask the authors about it!

farfar: You should also ask in connection to your questions, when people joined the scene. I suspect that you could find out that a lot of people doing 4k's joined the scene in the phase before the (hopefully temporary) peak.

yeah 2008-2009, thats pretty much the peak of that green curve on page one, isnt it?

That's pretty much the point of time where the curve starts declining.

So you can also forcefully interpret it like: Did IQ's frameworks and sphere tracing cause the decline? (I would say no... but the data! THE DATA!).

Just to throw a question in the ring that may/may not help. was there a spike at the point due to a shift in graphics cards GPUs and APIs

The change from DirectX9 to DirectX 10 (Nov2006) / 10.1 (2008) falls directly within the 2007-2009 window, the release of OpenGL 2.1 (mid 2006) then OpenGL 3 (2008) almost fits too.

So it seems to me there is a correclation between API/feature updates and people exploring the newly available features. Both API updates were no doubt spawned by updates in consumer graphics card tech.


So is this 'just' simple cause and effect.

GPUs Updated -> APIs Updated -> People made a demo about it.

Please also consider the existence of in4k - dating back to 2005. People had access to a lot of code & frameworks (2005).

DX10 seems unlikely to me to have an impact, given that especially back then (and still now) most intros could run on WinXP. DX10 is only available on Vista and later, and very few demos from that time were Vista-only.

I think the release of tools and frameworks in general lead to an increase in the number of releasens. Not just one tool.

afaicr the decline of 4k was caused by the upsurge of 1k's with sound.

regardless of any of that, cool initiative :) feels almost ike a modern take on good old diskmag votesheets :p

hard to say without knowing the scale of the blue line , but how heavy in scale is that bump that coincidences with the "best 4kays evar" being released? doesnt look like a hugely different quantity were released.

I just had a look and the quality bump appears to have mentor/TBCs 'fingerprints' are all over the half top 10 4ks, mostly concentrated in the period in question.

Further searching shows mentor/TBC and iq/rgba are each involved in 8 out of the top 40 each. (16) which isn't far off half the top 40 4ks ever produced.

To me that indicates a big contribution/activity increase at that time by them and others as the cause for the spike.

(btw had neglected to actually do the survey - have done it now :-) )

overall it's becoming clear that the so-called golden age of 4k's is a result of many factors :) I'm glad that the term is a bit provoking, though, because hopefully it gets people talking :)

canopy: here's some un-equalized release counts


A few stats about who made some of those top-100 intros:
TBC - 8
RGBA - 9
Quite - 8
Loonies - 13
Archee - 5
Frequency - 4
Calodox - 4
Alcatraz - 4

(drawn from this list http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?type%5B0%5D=4k&page=1&order=thumbup

Mind you the stats include C64 and other platforms where 4k has a whole different meaning.

'the danish peak' :))

Gargaj: that's a good point - maybe I could get you to draw numbers only for DOS / Windows some time?

Interesting graph! OMG the 4K scene is dead, long live the 1K scene.

Yes, *shame face* I did only take Windows prods into account. However all the top 10 on all platforms are Windows, and only 3 of the top 40 are something else (Amiiggaaa!!) so my observations are just about still water tight :)

So when will the Golden Age of 8K begin? :D

If you extrapolate that graph in the last 2020s, this could the start of the age of 1k though! so maybe 512byte is next?

in the great traditions of making work for other people, it would be awesome of pouet or demozoo could produce these kinds of graphs :D




did notice though that both rgba and loonies (at least) collab'd with mentor/tbc.. on some releases which is why i started down the individual person route.

One idea : most of the groups you mentioned on your top 10 stopped being productive around that date....RGBa is inactive, Calodox too, Frequency is no more... this maybe an explanation. 4k don't have a leading force anymore .

but was the cause of the decline or a result of whatever caused it?

So far I can't see evidence that the OP could understand what he's talking about.