pouët.net

CoFiStudio is a great example for a tool that really doesn't do all that much - it literally just compiles your existing shader and existing music together, nothing you couldn't do in an hour or so - but people still use it because it provides a more pleasant UX to e.g. syncing to the music than just compile-test-change-...

For the most part, that's exactly what stuff like Unity and UE do, they just take a bunch of assets and shove them on screen; it's just that the scene just hasn't created a publically available demotool (since Paja/WZ) that does the same reliably.

The tools that we used in the top three PC 4k exegraphics & intro compos from Revision, only listing what they mention in the NFOs:

4k exegraphics:
1. Hoody (crinkler, shader minifier)
2. The Real Party Is In Your Pocket (crinkler)
3. Waterfall (leviathan 2.0, crinkler, shader minifier)

PC 4k intro:
1. Deck II (does not disclose; I assume: crinkler, 4klang)
2. La vie opportuniste (crinkler, 4klang)
3. Wackelkontakt (crinkler, oidos, shader minifier, leviathan 2.0)

Meanwhile, the PC democompo was won without Unity/Notch/Unreal. So I am inclined to think that crinkler gives more of an edge to 4k developers than Unity gives to PC demos, yet I have not heard anyone complaining about crinkler being used in the 4k compos. Was there _anyone_ competing without crinkler in the 4k compos?

My impression is that if it's not directly related to graphics, nobody will care. Third-party compressors and music players have been standard in the scene for ages. "Music player" can even be an MP3 decoder outside size restricted compos, because music is not graphics and thus isn't required to be real-time.

This actually shows how disingenuous the whole argument of the "original code" crowd is. You can use your own compressors and music players, but no-one ever will complement you for that. Use an animation though, and suddenly everyone becomes an expert in real-time coding.

I believe the only question is about potentially unfair competition during parties. What if I buy from the asset store a great sci-fi city and great shaders, just drag'n drop it in a scene and do some camera path. Is that ok if I win a party by just using my money to purchase code, graphic and music assets?
The engine is just a code asset like a 3d scene is a data asset. To which extent do we want to favor only the public's experience no matter the real skill behind? To me, fells like a DJ mixing other people's music was winning an instrument playing competition. I understand some people here only care about the experience, and I respect that. But in that case, I don't understand why we keep on bothering about real-time. And what's that size limited competition thing if it's not about tech skills?
About "original code", of course you may use somebody else's MP3 player... except if the big innovation of you demo is that player! Re-using other people's work is ok provided it's not the core of what makes your demo stand out. If your demo has the best rendering of the party because you used Unreal, well...

Comparing Crinkler and Unity doesn´t make sense: Crinkler is a simple postprocessing tool which has basically 0 effect on your workflow and doesn´t restrict you in any way (except that it is win32 only which basically isn´t a limitation for most users). Also it is easy to use, efficient and its compatibility is pretty good. So it´s basically a no-brainer to use it.

Unity, however, requires you to work an think in Unity style. So it is an option if it matches your demands well, otherwise it won´t provide much benefit for you.

https://assetstore.unity.com/?q=sci%20fi%20city&orderBy=0 and where exactly do you see that sci-fi city with great shaders? they all look pretty poop to me :D

Aside from the whole "4k" thing, sure.

Soundy, should these "what-if"s be addressed when we come to that? At the moment, people tend to make interesting works with not so much stock content. Banning these from compo is a bit like cutting everyone's heads just to avoid having a headache potentially.

also, it's not like it's a big effort to bang some 3D from turbosquid/sketchup warehouse/INRIA/etc into your own "custom" engine, loading .obj isn't that hard and sceners have been doing that for years :P

introspec, I don't suggest to forbid anything to anyone. The world evolves, that's the way it is. Demomaking is nothing but a hobby for amateur creative people that like to try out stuff with their computers, until the day someone gets an Oscar for a demo. It was born out of cracking groups challenging each other about their tech capabilities, but the experience is what counts now, no matter how it was made. My "what-ifs" will happen, and most sceners won't complain, because the show will be good. So what's my point? Well, I understand that people putting lots of work feel frustrated that others put less work to get better results. But yeah, that's the way the world is evolving. For those who want to avoid Unity, join us on Amiga, but I must warn you: Hardwired lost, so anything is possible...

Is it less work though? The Futuris demo from Revision was UE but (it looked like) it had a shitton of work in it - just not in code.

Right to my previous comment: Provided the tech you did not write is not what makes your prod stand out.
Look: If using UE or Unity allows you to save time and integrate more graphics, sound and code research, make something more creative, oh my god, go for it!!!!!!! TO go in your direction: if I ever try again a webGL demo, I will not write everything from scratch like I did for Nautile, this time I'll use an exiting engine to go straight to my ideas because I want to focus my efforts on what's new.

errrr, i think you are stuck in the wrong decade. most demosceners are not amateur creative people, but do something relatively demoscene related professionally

Bruno Valero, I spent almost 20 years as a professional game developer, and I don't think it's demoscene related, maybe I'm wrong. Demoscene is about art, no-one ever paid me to produce the art I had in my head. No-one ever paid me to make a demo. I'm pretty certain you'll find some examples (Smash), but come on, it that a majority, really?

and? did they replace you for a Unity licenses already? :P

+few

Worse, scratch!

Here's a question then - do artists go for UE/Unity because "it's faster" or because "it's the only option"?

also, Unity is a game engine and not really ideal for demo making. so as an artist you'd have to first learn and use it's shitty timeline (or learn a better 3rd party one), learn its internal (CG) shader language (or learn shadergraph) if you want more effects than build-in shaders (which are meh, basically just PBR, no cool starfields or metablobs or anything!) and then learn its Monobehaviour and API to do some basic scripting because it's not as clickityclick as ODSM in terms of pooping out instant gratification!

I also worked professionally with games for some time.

We are not talking about other things but specifically about the ART of DEMO making.

I won't talk about my professional work here (that is, things where I actually received money to create), but here is one of my personal experiments with Unity:

https://youtu.be/WJgxWjKkErI
(unfortunately I deleted the original video, so this is a re-upload)

The above prototype includes a port of my own C++ Etherea1 tech to Unity3D. Etherea1 was one of the first engines in the world able to render full sized, fully exploitable procedural planets in real-time.

Etherea1 can handle billions of randomly generated planet in real-time. Each one can be different.

You can also find another simple port from me to WebGL here:

https://imersiva.com/demos/eo
(the above is for desktops only)

Oh, by the way, in the above engine prototype there is something that I would like to mention, this is probably one of the first 3D engines in the world which can mix fully procedural signed distance field fractals with traditional mesh based objects. This is something that might become common, but it was not when I did that.

I ditched both and am now working on a new 3D engine, called ETHER, in pure C++ again. I will make use of this one professionally, and maybe, just maybe, to create DEMO ART as well.

My personal website is here:

https://imersiva.com

Most of my old personal work is removed from the site at this moment. I am not sure if I will put them back again because of new plans.

I only posted this here to remember the kids that demoscene is not the only computer or graphics related community in the world.

https://imersiva.com

Before a new wave of attacks starts, I am not talking about the subject anymore, but instead exercising my right of reply to people who said "obsolete", "replaced" and "non professional" referring to me and others.

I am around VR, AR and AI daily, and don't think that I'm obsolete in any way.

And last but not least: Bruno Valero, how disrespectful you are. How you dare referring to Soundy like that. If the demoscene is being nominated as ART today, it's infinitely more thanks to old schoolers like Soundy than you.

Please, please let's stop this fucking thread. I would simply delete it if I could.

Bruno Valero has undisputedly made the highest contribution to the ultimate ART demo that everyone knows to be Varifom 2, here is a video review of the legendary video reviewer rog that clearly proves it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5yB7aOxJYs

You're welcome.

Well, you certainly need to plan the rest of your code around crinkler if you want to get maximum efficiency out of it, and the code can sometimes look quite different because of that.

But my point was the amount of work / difficulty involved: loading assets and implementing scenegraph, if that's what one uses Unity mainly for, is really not that hard. Even without Unity, there's plenty of tutorials and small libraries that you can build on, and still claim "it's not unity". Or books, if you think Google is lame.

Meanwhile, I suspect that a significant portion of crinkler users could not replicate it in a life time (that includes me; I would quickly just find something else to do). And the resources to do so are obscure, ranging from scenezines to research papers. So, which one of these tools makes the product stand out? If crinkler entry drops into non-crinkler compo, it can roughly have something like 4 times the content as its competitors (2.5x compression ratios being quite normal + both need the init code).