pouët.net

How does a team of two (one coder, one graphics, both music) get started with demos and intros? I have found the scene very interesting for a long time now and would like to start making my first demo with a friend. Specifically, for me, the main questions are:
- What skills do you need when coding? I am an experienced programmer, still have to grasp a few principles, but I'm getting there. I've noticed an abundance of shaders in demo code (e.g farbrausch open-source tools), is OpenGL a must too?
- Any recommended literature on generated graphics?
For graphics:
- What exactly is needed; 2D, 3D or both?

Thanks in advance.

"Do what you want, do it until you find love." -Enigma, Principles of Lust (1990)

visit http://tooll.io

Just code a demo/intro for your platform of choice. Yes, it is that simple :)

I don't think you understood my question.

We /are/ going to make something. The question is, how to start? With the code, what should I learn to be able to do this, what literature do you recommend, etc.

Just start making something and you will see what problems you will run into. Then you can look up the literature.

Lots of articles here: http://hugi.scene.org/online/coding/

Here's a nice meta-site, containing many links to useful and up-to-date tutorials and resources of various kinds: http://howto.planet-d.net/wiki/index.php?n=Main.Sources - should help with the "literature" part a bit. :)

opengl isn't a must but there's plenty of nice stuff for it around. e.g. https://github.com/Polytonic/Glitter. also check out the mentioned tutorials in the project description to understand the basics of OGL, the rendering pipeline and purpose of shaders and what not. it's quite helpful for beginners.

but... what that glitter example lacks is a good implementation of sync/timelining,scenegraphs (not really a strong necessity for starters but can be convenient in more complex/resource hungry demos) and audio shizzle, which are a bit of a must when doing demos. so yeah, there's that :)

saga: thanks for the publicity :)

Quantomic: greetz from another beginner! (see my profile ;) ) I started in ShaderToy because it was the lowest barrier to entry. I am presently working on PC demos. I'd say decide whether you want to do 2d or 3d, then you can pick tools. DOS mode 13h is still very much alive in the scene, for example.

Send me a message sometime - howto@planet-d.net . I'd like to pick your brain as you learn re. what helps and what doesn't. Oh- and make sure to pick a cool group name! ;)

https://github.com/psenough/teach_yourself_demoscene_in_14_days

let me know if you have additional questions, or think something could be improved on the "guide".

My not-so-nice, yet honest opinion about such posts is that people who ask such questions are unlikely to succeed, because they lack the one thing that matters: Doing things on your own accord. Doing your own research.

(it would be different if Graphics Programming would somehow be an obscure niche field and thus resources hard to find. But that's simply not the case. You just come off as lazy.)

what ps said.

Watch lots of demos, if you haven't. Pick a style you like and then look into what that takes. E.g., Agenda Circling Forth, or Everyway: both awesome, in radically different styles.

To sensenstahl's point, do choose a platform :) . Then Google like crazy!

- watch demos
- try to clone an effect you like
- fail
- ignore everyones advice
- fail again
- read nehe tutorials
- ignore everyone saying nehe is crap
- fail
- use nikmod
- ignore sagamusix
- fail once more
<repeat and regret>

... until you at some point managed to come up with your first demo thingy. then your next question is "how to not leave the scene when everyone thinks i suck" :)

If you decide to use allready existing tools and/or libraries, learn alot of math, read alot of books. 3d or 2d same shit.
If you like to make everything on your own, then you could learn from old demo-sources, read tutorials and so on. There is no simple answer. Everyone's learning process is different.

Just make something. Have you already tried to make something but failed? If it compiles and shows something, you succeeded in making something. Enter it in a compo.

what groepaz and yzi said.

Self-promotion, but you might actually find it helpful: Introductory Democoding with ShaderToy

Probably this is some kid whose daddy wants him to get into democoding and since he himself is not really interested in doing something, he asks for some books to read in order to pretend that he is occupied with democoding.

So what if it's a kid who has a daddy. In my opinion, "learn all kinds of stuff", let alone "learn a lot of maths" is wrong. The right way is to make something, and then go and find stuff that can make it better. Repeat. The first step is to make something. The first step is not to ask on Pouet. That might be the second step.

Whoever the op is, there's no point coming here before he's made something. If the problem is that he cannot get anything to compile and run, or can't make any sort of change to the default GLSL Sandbox shader without breaking it, then this still isn't the right place. IMO.

Yep, this is exactly the case. Thanks for the helpful comment.

Seriously now, thanks for all your helpful comments and resources. I realize I must have came off as lazy, but you know, I'm the type of person who hates scrubbing twenty pages of Google search results for something he knows nothing about and doesn't know what to even look for. At least now I know this part of programming is called formally called Graphics Programming; thanks tomaes. Again, thank you all for your helpful responses. I hope this thread will be of use to anyone getting into the scene just like me too.

By the way, when I first searched the BBS for threads like this, nothing showed up, but I later realized there were two similar threads. Welp.

I know this is pointless to say because the previous 573836 times this was said you ignored it as well, but fuck off Adok. <3 cheers.

Quantomic: just ignore Adok and you'll be fine.

Adok: I used to pity you for all the abuse you received here(and forgetting that pouet != scene) not so much now.

obTopic: nothing beats actually submitting an entry to a compo. If you submit an entry to a compo, no matter what sort of crap your entry is, it's impossible not to learn. 100 % money back guarantee.

Deus: If people treat you as if you were an asshole, although you aren't, then simply act like an asshole. That's the lesson I learned from pouet.net. Merci beaucoup, demoscene!