To Unity or Not to Unity
category: general [glöplog]
Please don't do that, man.
I never implied that I was too good, most of the time I clearly said that there is a lot of talent here, and even some true geniuses. I never ever denied that there is a lot of value in the scene.
I am, in fact, recognizing that my time passed, I'm now too old, and did not compete when I should, many years ago.
Please let me leave in peace.
Goodbye.
I never implied that I was too good, most of the time I clearly said that there is a lot of talent here, and even some true geniuses. I never ever denied that there is a lot of value in the scene.
I am, in fact, recognizing that my time passed, I'm now too old, and did not compete when I should, many years ago.
Please let me leave in peace.
Goodbye.
No one's stopping you from leaving or making you read this thread, you know.
There is no need to trade insults in order to defend subjective opinions.
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Please let me leave in peace.
Promises, promises...
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although I never competed on the biggest parties (mostly because they also did not allow remote entries until very recently -- and please don't forget or try to hide that detail)
And still people (including myself) have been able to submit remotely to every single major demoparty for the past 30 years. So really, there's hasn't been anything stopping you from entering stuff at larger parties other than yourself.
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I won 50% of the compos I entered. Do not be so quick to put me down.
Which doesn't change the fact that your prods are average at best, and wouldn't have fared well in a decent compo.
I don't like this thread :(
time to close/residue it?
I think that would be making things worse.
I've known most everyone involved in the above slapfight and I'm genuinely disappointed that the only way we can approach this is petty insults about each others' skills. We're supposed to be better than this, and presenting the community as a bunch uncollaborative fuckbends is definitely not helping the argument of using or not using commercial tools, because why would I not use Unity if the community there is helpful and there's a ton of tutorials, while the people touting their own engines already seemed to have called me a twat before I even clicked the icon?
For me that exclusionary attitude based on some arbitrary criteria is a much bigger problem than whether drag-and-dropping stock shader from an asset store or copying them from GPU Gems is more "honorable" or what the fuck ever.
I've known most everyone involved in the above slapfight and I'm genuinely disappointed that the only way we can approach this is petty insults about each others' skills. We're supposed to be better than this, and presenting the community as a bunch uncollaborative fuckbends is definitely not helping the argument of using or not using commercial tools, because why would I not use Unity if the community there is helpful and there's a ton of tutorials, while the people touting their own engines already seemed to have called me a twat before I even clicked the icon?
For me that exclusionary attitude based on some arbitrary criteria is a much bigger problem than whether drag-and-dropping stock shader from an asset store or copying them from GPU Gems is more "honorable" or what the fuck ever.
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We're supposed to be better than this
I agree. It's just so tiresome to see the same old arguments whenever people start doing things in some new way (c64 vs amiga, ocs vs aga, amiga vs pc, dos vs windows, asm vs C and so on). And me being old and grumpy doesn't exactly help :)
I'm sorry, Gargaj is right, and I'm walking away from this thread, as I feel too annoyed to keep a cool head here.
I will say this, though. The first shots are always fired by the down-with-Unity side, and it takes a saint to remain civil in a debate, when the whole premise of the debate is "this is lame and these people are lamers".
I will say this, though. The first shots are always fired by the down-with-Unity side, and it takes a saint to remain civil in a debate, when the whole premise of the debate is "this is lame and these people are lamers".
Please don't stop, its just getting entertaining :D
So this ended up being a much longer reply than I had expected, probably because like some other folks in this thread, this discussion has been exhausting for years and I kinda want to vent about it I guess.
fwiw not my impression at all.
The demoscene still has loads of room for whatever tech anyone wants to make - eg. assembly has had a pretty active oldskool compo and even accepts remote entries, many of which are very nice DOS demos which seems like a great target for you, given the tech you appear to value (as I've understood it from your posts). Just because it's for old computers doesn't mean you're an old fuck or whatever for targeting it and it doesn't mean people will appreciate it less; I fell in love with C64 way past the end of its commercially viable lifetime due to demoscene and to me it doesn't seem old so much as limited (sure a modern machine with similar capabilities would have been architected in a very different style but who cares), and if there's anything the scene consistently shows us, it's that limits breed creativity, however arbitrary they are.
Same with pico8 and other fantasy consoles - frankly it's not my cup and I don't want to make stuff for them (yet?), but there's obviously an appeal for the specific limits chosen for that platform and folks like jobe are embracing it and making really objectively kickass stuff. Unity/unreal/etc is the same thing, and the demoscene audience knows the difference between an off-the-shelf engine and a custom one and a breadbox computer and a made-up computer and can judge accordingly.
I can understand how change, especially one that's perceived as uprooting some kind of "core values" is scary and uncomfortable but I think the key is that 1. that's not actually what's happening and 2. who cares? People adapt and guess what, it's really fun to learn new things! It's exciting and invigorating to try new things and pick up new (not necessarily in a chronological sense!) platforms and tricks.
In my experience, except for a few outliers, people generally can understand if a lot of effort went in to something and they like quality work. If you're doing one or both of those things it doesn't matter which platform it was or what you actually did so much as it was a great piece work and the demoscene will appreciate it.
If the demoscene has any problem, to me it's that we tend to bite the hands that feed with dismissive crap/feedback, and Gargaj's earlier point sums that up perfectly:
Luckily I think this mostly comes down to a vocal minority and in my experience, most sceners are in fact lovely people who just want to see cool shit and chat around a bonfire. But (speaking from experience from before I moved to Europe) it's difficult to see that when you just see prods and the competitive aspect on pouet or via the internet and are generally (physically or otherwise) somewhat disconnected from the social aspect of the scene as a whole. My guess is that this is why your "win ratio" seems so important/significant to you - in the actual scene, most people don't give a shit as long as you're making stuff and having a good time.
I'm going to stress that I'm one of the people that very much like to make my own engines/tech and subsequently using them to make cool shit - but that doesn't mean everyone wants or must do the same or that other productions are less valid because of that one arbitrary metric (who made the tools). And I feel extremely annoyed when these things come up and there's generally two sides to that: 1. if people are genuinely putting forth effort to make cool shit, it's extremely disrespectful to decide it's lame or crap based on some arbitrary metric, so I feel protective of that as these are people we're talking about, and 2. I frankly don't find poly fillers to be very technically impressive/interesting most of the time unless they're on extremely limited platforrms, so I think it's a stupid point to begin with. On a modern PC doing a software filler is typically wankery which, if used to make something cool or with a new technique, I'm all for it! But on its own it's not technically very interesting so using that as a point that all modern stuff made with big engines (which btw, have a lot more interesting tech beyond smoothing some values across a triangle that's both more hardcore and creative use of modern computing hardware). In fact I find it really surprising that some Amiga folks are on that side of the debate when their fillers typically use the copper in some clever way, which to me is exactly analogous to using graphics hardware in some clever way. It's just that some folks don't care enough to actually see the cleverness there. Again, if you're making cool shit and you like poly fillers, by all means, make them!! It's fun ffs!!! But please stop using that as some kind of "argument" for why new stuff isn't valid or why visuals made in an engine aren't impressive because it's that behavior that's destructive to the scene at worst, and just plain misguided at best.
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I am, in fact, recognizing that my time passed, I'm now too old, and did not compete when I should, many years ago.
fwiw not my impression at all.
The demoscene still has loads of room for whatever tech anyone wants to make - eg. assembly has had a pretty active oldskool compo and even accepts remote entries, many of which are very nice DOS demos which seems like a great target for you, given the tech you appear to value (as I've understood it from your posts). Just because it's for old computers doesn't mean you're an old fuck or whatever for targeting it and it doesn't mean people will appreciate it less; I fell in love with C64 way past the end of its commercially viable lifetime due to demoscene and to me it doesn't seem old so much as limited (sure a modern machine with similar capabilities would have been architected in a very different style but who cares), and if there's anything the scene consistently shows us, it's that limits breed creativity, however arbitrary they are.
Same with pico8 and other fantasy consoles - frankly it's not my cup and I don't want to make stuff for them (yet?), but there's obviously an appeal for the specific limits chosen for that platform and folks like jobe are embracing it and making really objectively kickass stuff. Unity/unreal/etc is the same thing, and the demoscene audience knows the difference between an off-the-shelf engine and a custom one and a breadbox computer and a made-up computer and can judge accordingly.
I can understand how change, especially one that's perceived as uprooting some kind of "core values" is scary and uncomfortable but I think the key is that 1. that's not actually what's happening and 2. who cares? People adapt and guess what, it's really fun to learn new things! It's exciting and invigorating to try new things and pick up new (not necessarily in a chronological sense!) platforms and tricks.
In my experience, except for a few outliers, people generally can understand if a lot of effort went in to something and they like quality work. If you're doing one or both of those things it doesn't matter which platform it was or what you actually did so much as it was a great piece work and the demoscene will appreciate it.
If the demoscene has any problem, to me it's that we tend to bite the hands that feed with dismissive crap/feedback, and Gargaj's earlier point sums that up perfectly:
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while the people touting their own engines already seemed to have called me a twat before I even clicked the icon?
Luckily I think this mostly comes down to a vocal minority and in my experience, most sceners are in fact lovely people who just want to see cool shit and chat around a bonfire. But (speaking from experience from before I moved to Europe) it's difficult to see that when you just see prods and the competitive aspect on pouet or via the internet and are generally (physically or otherwise) somewhat disconnected from the social aspect of the scene as a whole. My guess is that this is why your "win ratio" seems so important/significant to you - in the actual scene, most people don't give a shit as long as you're making stuff and having a good time.
I'm going to stress that I'm one of the people that very much like to make my own engines/tech and subsequently using them to make cool shit - but that doesn't mean everyone wants or must do the same or that other productions are less valid because of that one arbitrary metric (who made the tools). And I feel extremely annoyed when these things come up and there's generally two sides to that: 1. if people are genuinely putting forth effort to make cool shit, it's extremely disrespectful to decide it's lame or crap based on some arbitrary metric, so I feel protective of that as these are people we're talking about, and 2. I frankly don't find poly fillers to be very technically impressive/interesting most of the time unless they're on extremely limited platforrms, so I think it's a stupid point to begin with. On a modern PC doing a software filler is typically wankery which, if used to make something cool or with a new technique, I'm all for it! But on its own it's not technically very interesting so using that as a point that all modern stuff made with big engines (which btw, have a lot more interesting tech beyond smoothing some values across a triangle that's both more hardcore and creative use of modern computing hardware). In fact I find it really surprising that some Amiga folks are on that side of the debate when their fillers typically use the copper in some clever way, which to me is exactly analogous to using graphics hardware in some clever way. It's just that some folks don't care enough to actually see the cleverness there. Again, if you're making cool shit and you like poly fillers, by all means, make them!! It's fun ffs!!! But please stop using that as some kind of "argument" for why new stuff isn't valid or why visuals made in an engine aren't impressive because it's that behavior that's destructive to the scene at worst, and just plain misguided at best.
Yes it's somewhat entertaining, but not really enjoyable if you're a bit empathetic. Every demo scener giving up out of frustration is a loss for all. The PC as a demo platform has a logical inner conflict that not even 4k can fully resolve. Some fixed spec for OS/CPU/RAM/boards (and hence the PC becoming retro) might be a solution, but that's obviously not in its DNA either.
i have nothing to add except that i resent the swipe against monster ultra, which is clearly the best energy drink
So, in theory, if the UE4 (or whatever) engine coders would "legally" do a colaboration with "normal sceners", have a pouet account and be credited with "code/engine", and visit a demoparty at least once ... everything would be fine?
It's mostly just a whole bunch of 'old man yells at cloud' while the rest of us just have fun making shit to show our friends.
While I mostly agree with Ferris, I think I need to reiterate my point about Unity: People don't use it because of the "cool shaders", people use it because of the UX. That's why people used Werkkzeug, that's why people used Demopaja, that's why people use Notch, because an artist can sit down and make something, ANYTHING, without having to care about janky tools that were clearly made by a coder. It's not that the rendering isn't impressive - it most certainly is - but most demos done in Unity don't go that far with it anyway, they just use it as a convenient user interface for plugging in some known model formats and timeline editing - and why wouldn't they? How many demotools do you know that have a variable compositing chain? How many demotools can load FBX/DAE? I mean fuck, how many demotools ARE there? If you're an artist, what else are you supposed to be doing?
There was a shift late90s-early00s when coders started to give up the right for the final edit, and artists started to put the final demo together with the coders only supervising technically - not coincidentally this is also when demos started becoming more coherent. The big problem is that some coders missed that boat and made themselves obsolete by not focusing on the idea that making demomaking easier for yourself and the people around you will likely get your artist to stay with your tooling, and now Unity/UE picked that ball up.
There was a shift late90s-early00s when coders started to give up the right for the final edit, and artists started to put the final demo together with the coders only supervising technically - not coincidentally this is also when demos started becoming more coherent. The big problem is that some coders missed that boat and made themselves obsolete by not focusing on the idea that making demomaking easier for yourself and the people around you will likely get your artist to stay with your tooling, and now Unity/UE picked that ball up.
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It's mostly just a whole bunch of 'old man yells at cloud' while the rest of us just have fun making shit to show our friends.
Okkie, it's "Old men yelling at pixels" ffs.
Also what Ferris said.
As pointed by many in this thread, this topic has been raised too many times with the exact same results. Just give it a rest, and make a demo about it with whatever tools and tech you find fun to use.
uhuh. ZeroKewlersSomeCables.mp3 ;)
Unity - big shit what turns game to realtime startegy
Did I miss something?
Unity - Just slap a crappy FPS camera controller there and you are done
nah, all fine!
Same for you Imerso! All fine...don´t run again, just because this is Pouet, which is Pouet, so behaves as Pouet, stays Pouet! ;)
You wanted to give good advice to newer coders to get into deeper knowledge, but managed to make it into another anti-Tool-Thread (by thread-title already btw!)...just forget about the answers you got...atleast i got what your point was! ;)
Good to have you back, in a way better condition, as it seems! :) ;)
One Time Scener, forever Scener! ;)
Now that you boasted about your abilities, show em off at some point of time, this year! ;) ("Got no time!" is no excuse, we all have no time for our beloved hobby, but still manage to release stuff! An hour a day makes a release in a few months! ;) )
Same for you Imerso! All fine...don´t run again, just because this is Pouet, which is Pouet, so behaves as Pouet, stays Pouet! ;)
You wanted to give good advice to newer coders to get into deeper knowledge, but managed to make it into another anti-Tool-Thread (by thread-title already btw!)...just forget about the answers you got...atleast i got what your point was! ;)
Good to have you back, in a way better condition, as it seems! :) ;)
One Time Scener, forever Scener! ;)
Now that you boasted about your abilities, show em off at some point of time, this year! ;) ("Got no time!" is no excuse, we all have no time for our beloved hobby, but still manage to release stuff! An hour a day makes a release in a few months! ;) )
@Hardy:
Ha! Especially these are sooo ture:
\o/
Ha! Especially these are sooo ture:
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("Got no time!" is no excuse, we all have no time for our beloved hobby, but still manage to release stuff! An hour a day makes a release in a few months! ;) )
\o/
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Regardless of the amount of published demos, this is obvious that we all are living in an unprecedent age of technological achievements. All the progress we are witnessing was never seen before. There are no previous generations to tell us what is the best for the younger coders that are now just starting.
If all that progress was made with nobody to tell people how to do things, why is it suddenly necessary to start dictating now?
