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UE4 engine vs. rendering quality of demos
category: general [glöplog]
Introspec surely knows how to "talk to talk". And damn, it's surely funny. The problem is, it's demagogy.
You can say that making size-coded intros is masochism, and it really is artificial challange, but some people love it. The same goes for demos with custom tooling/engine. It is much easier to use existing open source tools and just spend more time on design. But then again, going this direction, just render directly to video (like imerso said). You could create more impressive scenes this way with much less pain.
So yeah, we are back to square one. If you really want to maximize aesthetical satisfaction of the audience, it is better to join CGI industry. Take example of guys like GMunk. He is purely focused on the final effect, whatever technique is necessary to achieve this. His work is highly appreciated, but in demoscene terms it still goes to 'wild' bucket. The same rule should apply to UE4/Unity demos, 'wild' by default and maybe separate category if there are enough entries.
You can say that making size-coded intros is masochism, and it really is artificial challange, but some people love it. The same goes for demos with custom tooling/engine. It is much easier to use existing open source tools and just spend more time on design. But then again, going this direction, just render directly to video (like imerso said). You could create more impressive scenes this way with much less pain.
So yeah, we are back to square one. If you really want to maximize aesthetical satisfaction of the audience, it is better to join CGI industry. Take example of guys like GMunk. He is purely focused on the final effect, whatever technique is necessary to achieve this. His work is highly appreciated, but in demoscene terms it still goes to 'wild' bucket. The same rule should apply to UE4/Unity demos, 'wild' by default and maybe separate category if there are enough entries.
I think putting prods in the wild category because of used tools is not what that category was made for and it feels wrong to have executable realtime windows demos in there.
I think the problem is less that external tools are used but where to draw the line:
If Pixtur does a demo with tooll.io its not an external engine because it was made by him and his group but if i.e. gaspode uses the same engine its external and belongs to wild?
Or does this just go for the big commercial game engines Unity and UE4?
Does the tool need to have demoscene roots to be accepted?
I say dont make a secret about it if you use 3rd party tools and/or engines and let the audience decide.
I think the problem is less that external tools are used but where to draw the line:
If Pixtur does a demo with tooll.io its not an external engine because it was made by him and his group but if i.e. gaspode uses the same engine its external and belongs to wild?
Or does this just go for the big commercial game engines Unity and UE4?
Does the tool need to have demoscene roots to be accepted?
I say dont make a secret about it if you use 3rd party tools and/or engines and let the audience decide.
agreed wysiwtf
I would keep the coolest things in the main demo compo, even if they are rendered by Tim.
but no glory to win a compo with a "commercial" engine..
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The same rule should apply to big demos, 'wild' by default and maybe separate category if there are enough entries.
Fixed that for you. Big PC demos are an "anything goes" contest, if you can use hundreds of megabytes of space. You can fit emulators, movies, anything in there. The stuff can sometimes be interesting, but in a wild compo sort of way only.
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You can say that making size-coded intros is masochism, and it really is artificial challange, but some people love it. The same goes for demos with custom tooling/engine. It is much easier to use existing open source tools and just spend more time on design. But then again, going this direction, just render directly to video (like imerso said). You could create more impressive scenes this way with much less pain.
So basically, programmers are allowed to enjoy creating things within self-imposed limitations, but if an artist wants to explore the specific limitation that a demo compo offers to them (namely: creating something that runs in realtime, using someone else's code), we say "no, you can't join our club, because you're not a programmer... you have to render your work to video instead, and have it judged in a miscellaneous-video-art category"? Fuck that shit.
Take something like Everyway. Could H0ffman have created something more impressive-looking in After Effects? Sure, probably. But the whole point of the demo - both for him as a creator, and us as viewers - is to explore what can be done within the constraints of the Amiga hardware and the Rose engine.
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but if an artist wants to explore the specific limitation that a demo compo offers to them (namely: creating something that runs in realtime, using someone else's code), we say "no, you can't join our club, because you're not a programmer..."
Isn't the obvious answer to try and team up with a coder then?
Maybe I'm wearing my rose-colored nostalgia glasses to often, but I think the whole spirit of the demoscene was to get together with other creative people and solve all the music, graphics and coding.
gasman wins thread
people just need to make rad shit and chill. If it's realtime, great! Did it with your own tools? Fantastic! Everything else is just non-inclusive purism for purism's sake.
If it's an .exe and it runs realtime, it goes in democompo, whatever tools were used. If you think that's unfair, and writing your own tools makes it impossible for you to fight with things using a 3rd party engine, it may just be that you suck at writing your own tools and should use 3rd party ones too.
It's really interesting to see the weight attached to code in today's demoscene. Even in the mid-90s, when coding was simply necessary to get anything with moving visuals down to a distributable size, people were realising the importance of design and solid presentation. Is the scene coming full circle back to the "BRAWGH IS THE CODE ANY GOOD OR IM NOT INTERESTED" mentality of the early 90s with coder colours galore? The mention of "art" earlier in the thread is hillarious in this context.
We are indeed going in circles. Video decoding is also a real-time effect (it was said multiple times here).
I think some dose of purism is necessary.
PulkoM: I disagree. There is also a learning factor to it. If someone cannot write better tools than UE4/Unity team, he should still try and release demos using his own tools. Otherwise, he will never have a chance to learn and improve.
I see where you are going guys and I agree things are not black and white. There is a place for everyone in the club. I just say things must be called what they are.
I think some dose of purism is necessary.
PulkoM: I disagree. There is also a learning factor to it. If someone cannot write better tools than UE4/Unity team, he should still try and release demos using his own tools. Otherwise, he will never have a chance to learn and improve.
I see where you are going guys and I agree things are not black and white. There is a place for everyone in the club. I just say things must be called what they are.
As far as I remember, I never suggested that huge, professionally developed (commercial) engines should be prohibited to compete against self-developed engines. That is unavoidable because that is just the result of progress.
I just told -- ok, in a too excited, aggressive, drunk and annoying way -- that I personally see that as a shift from what I believe was the initial spirit of the demoscene, which in my view was more a coding competition than anything else. Actually I don't appreciate recent big demos anymore, but I do still appreciate 64k and smaller ones, because they still keep the old spirit imho.
In that sense, I fail to see the difference if one can use Unreal/Unity, why the other can't then just use a video player showing a Maya rendered animation with a professional band mp3 music for 2-3 minutes. They are not very different to me, as the demo compos are not coding competitions anyway.
Anyway, I was still probably wrong, and I sincerely apologize for that. Wish I could just wipe all that blahblah I wrote and never mention my personal opinion again.
Of course people are free and should continue free to use whatever tools they like to make their demos.
I just told -- ok, in a too excited, aggressive, drunk and annoying way -- that I personally see that as a shift from what I believe was the initial spirit of the demoscene, which in my view was more a coding competition than anything else. Actually I don't appreciate recent big demos anymore, but I do still appreciate 64k and smaller ones, because they still keep the old spirit imho.
In that sense, I fail to see the difference if one can use Unreal/Unity, why the other can't then just use a video player showing a Maya rendered animation with a professional band mp3 music for 2-3 minutes. They are not very different to me, as the demo compos are not coding competitions anyway.
Anyway, I was still probably wrong, and I sincerely apologize for that. Wish I could just wipe all that blahblah I wrote and never mention my personal opinion again.
Of course people are free and should continue free to use whatever tools they like to make their demos.
And I again failed to clarify what I was trying to say. I give up on trying.
I swear I won't enter any of these philosophical threads again, nor express my personal opinion about this subject again, because I end up sounding like I don't love modeled graphics and music as much as code.
Enough to me, thanks for reading.
I swear I won't enter any of these philosophical threads again, nor express my personal opinion about this subject again, because I end up sounding like I don't love modeled graphics and music as much as code.
Enough to me, thanks for reading.
next time i'll use ue4 with flex and vxgi :) without mentioning it in tne nfo/credit :)
I did not read that the scene is dead ...it s deeply missing
we need to think about how to keep software real again...
if we are climbing this pyramid of tools-on-tools where we are moving towards 'blueprints' we need to think about what the raw OS code can do that these heavily windowed tools can't...
if we are climbing this pyramid of tools-on-tools where we are moving towards 'blueprints' we need to think about what the raw OS code can do that these heavily windowed tools can't...
It's weird to see this whole "code is just a way to move things around" mentality, and that once better 3rd party engines are available, it doesn't matter that it gets replaced.
Coding has *always* been a major part of the scene, and a good written engine is still impressive. Look at Cocoons engine and the demos created with it. I would not be at all as impressed by their demos if the same thing was done using a commercial engine.
It seems like the "artists" fail to see this side of demomaking, and only focus on the end result.
I mean, if somehow some major record label suddenly said "all our music is free for use", would the natural course for demomaking then be that, sure of course I use the latest released professionally produced hit music in my demo, since that is much better than what the scene musicians produce?
Coding has *always* been a major part of the scene, and a good written engine is still impressive. Look at Cocoons engine and the demos created with it. I would not be at all as impressed by their demos if the same thing was done using a commercial engine.
It seems like the "artists" fail to see this side of demomaking, and only focus on the end result.
I mean, if somehow some major record label suddenly said "all our music is free for use", would the natural course for demomaking then be that, sure of course I use the latest released professionally produced hit music in my demo, since that is much better than what the scene musicians produce?
I think once again its about realness of software.
if we are talking about coding / producing visual phenomena on the screen, then it is my opinion that we should be less concerned with the code base. Also, when it comes to 'video decoding', I mean file size is a pretty impressive indicator of content / skill level.
but where are the low level experimental interactive demos? i'd love to see third party tools code a virus like object that melts your windows or applies a gl shader to your entire screen.
we need to destroy this box(i.e. window) that we rely so much on
if we are talking about coding / producing visual phenomena on the screen, then it is my opinion that we should be less concerned with the code base. Also, when it comes to 'video decoding', I mean file size is a pretty impressive indicator of content / skill level.
but where are the low level experimental interactive demos? i'd love to see third party tools code a virus like object that melts your windows or applies a gl shader to your entire screen.
we need to destroy this box(i.e. window) that we rely so much on
Everyone is welcome, and I second the "wild" suggestion. Look at competitions in general, people have the same weapons. In free-fighting, you may use the techniques you want, but you can't come with a gun: there are dedicated competitions for gun shooting. I'm pretty sure a karateka that trained his whole life would be upset to be beaten by someone with a rifle.
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Look at Cocoons engine and the demos created with it. I would not be at all as impressed by their demos if the same thing was done using a commercial engine.
What if you didn't know?
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I mean, if somehow some major record label suddenly said "all our music is free for use", would the natural course for demomaking then be that, sure of course I use the latest released professionally produced hit music in my demo, since that is much better than what the scene musicians produce?
You're comparing apples to oranges. Nobody suggests that we should enter the latest Hollywood movie in a demo compo. A realistic comparison is if scene musicians use commercial "engines" like Cubase or Logic or Protools instead of their own coded tools. And as you probably know, scene musicians already do that.
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You're comparing apples to oranges. Nobody suggests that we should enter the latest Hollywood movie in a demo compo. A realistic comparison is if scene musicians use commercial "engines" like Cubase or Logic or Protools instead of their own coded tools. And as you probably know, scene musicians already do that.
Well, I guess that's where we disagree on the apples and oranges.
To me Cubase to the musician is more like Visual Studio to the coder, the tools you use to produce your output.
The musicians output is the mp3 or whatever format you use in your demo, the coders output is the binary with the engine etc.
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To me Cubase to the musician is more like Visual Studio to the coder, the tools you use to produce your output.
The musicians output is the mp3 or whatever format you use in your demo, the coders output is the binary with the engine etc.
If the musician uses Cubase to produce a MIDI file or similar that is rendered in real-time by a synth engine, then I agree with you. But an MP3 or similar format is completely pre-rendered and finished. There is no longer any code involved, and it's no different from rendering the visual part of a demo in Maya and saving it as H264.
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If the musician uses Cubase to produce a MIDI file or similar that is rendered in real-time by a synth engine, then I agree with you. But an MP3 or similar format is completely pre-rendered and finished. There is no longer any code involved, and it's no different from rendering the visual part of a demo in Maya and saving it as H264.
interactivity guys... interactivity