Non-scener's confusion about the scene
category: general [glöplog]
Agreed, one of the main reasons it's awkward to tell people to go and visit parties is mostly because of this.
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E.g., shouting “Amiga!” isn't fun anymore, just old. And definitely not very creative…
Please, this is like telling Fred Flintstone to stop shouting yabba-dabba-doo.
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It's like lynn said. When you're immersed, the inside jokes don't feel like inside jokes, and the motivation to work within (or to the limits of) the unspoken conventions is completely pure. None of it feels forced or conscious when you're doing it, which is why it's then always so amusing to stop for a moment and reflect from a layperson's perspective on what the hell you're doing.
Suspect at least some of this, for me anyway, relates to being socialised into this young, as a voracious demo "consumer" in my childhood.
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This is because during the early years of the demoscene it was a difficult programming task to make a home computer draw animated objects in realtime so demosceners naturally sought to out-do each other at it. As a result, such animated objects became part of the aesthetic of demos in the "demo-ish" style, and there remains the instinct to have the objects on-screen be all moving every frame lest the demo appear to be "non-realtime".
Most honest responses. No offense perceived, no points missed, no cryptic smugness.
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relates to being socialised into this young
No, it's not just a thing you magically got trained/used to, it's some super secret thing that only the chosen ones can comprehend! And damn the rest!
Sorry.. kinda.
I already knew all of this stuff btw. :3
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it's some super secret thing that only the chosen ones can comprehend!
Most of crafts and arts are actually just like this. Only a small percentage of people really care about them and why they do is not known to us.
hence "scene". s/demoscene/metal scene and you can pretty much ask the same type of questions
- why are you grunting when you can also sing?
- why are your guitars tuned down?
- why do all men have long hair?
- why do they do \m/ a lot?
etc :)
- why are you grunting when you can also sing?
- why are your guitars tuned down?
- why do all men have long hair?
- why do they do \m/ a lot?
etc :)
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Especially with all of the shapes and textures and camera pans and shit.
Other than that, I can't see how the art goes much deeper, most of the time.
I understand that a programmer probably looks at that and knows what it took to make, and is impressed, but still...
The way that is done seems weirdly homogenous.
There's two things that contribute to this homogeneity:
1) Even today, when we are past the "what are the limits of the hardware" kind of phase, certain effects/geometries/textures are easier to program than others, and thus what starts as a "this is the first thing I got on screen", somehow mysteriously quickly becomes "looks got to me, ship it." It's down to mathematics, really. Cube is the simplest geometry to define if you're working with triangles; sphere in raymarching. Therefore, the prevalence of rotating cubes in demos is not surprising.
2) With computers, it's easy to copy code and assets, and thus when someone discovers a technique/releases a new tool/publishes a tutorial, there's flood of releases (over)using the same technique. I think this is quite specific to demoscene making it a bit different from other art fields. Seeing a painting, even if I know exactly how it was done, doesn't help me too much reproducing the results.
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Like there's some unspoken conventions, or atleast a *ton* of inside jokes in this whole subculture.
I agree about the inside jokes. About the unspoken conventions, I think it's less conventions, but more about what's easy to make.
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Europeans are entertained by vaguely "cool" things, like dancing geometry and acid synth.
If that's not your cup of tea, please make a demo about the things you like. Meanwhile, UNZ UNZ UNZ UNZ
got -> good
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Europeans are entertained by vaguely "cool" things
That's rich.
'old world antics'
For me it needs that sort of homogeneity and typical style to make it a subculture, so you're description is correct. But at the same time there are those exceptions to it, those little gems that make it art.
Scene is somehow like ... commin´home for me. It was there since my early youth, its now a part of my life since the late 80´s.
...Looking back with my ol´eyes, its passion and the place i like to be.
...Looking back with my ol´eyes, its passion and the place i like to be.
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Quote:Europeans are entertained by vaguely "cool" things
That's rich.
Wdym, what's cooler than a dancing torus.
So where are you from nekolin47 and what are those cooler things that entertain you more?
I want to expand my horizons a bit.
On PC DOS: Precalced tunnels where a thing. Rotating yellow gouraud shaded ducks (duck.3ds) were a thing. Fake motion blur were a thing.
On C64: Logos and scrollers where a thing.
On Amiga: Glenz vectors were a thing.
On C64: Logos and scrollers where a thing.
On Amiga: Glenz vectors were a thing.
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Wdym
That's rich that from his perspective we're smug but that comment is actually quite smug.
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So where are you from nekolin47
I'd love you to develop, what are you implying?
kaneeel: I quoted your answer, but it was to nekolin47.
It's interesting to know where nekolin is from, considering he was attempting to assess the "taste" of Europeans and Norwegians, or according to him, sounded like implied "bad taste".
It's interesting to know where nekolin is from, considering he was attempting to assess the "taste" of Europeans and Norwegians, or according to him, sounded like implied "bad taste".
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Oh and their sense of humor is... *norwegian*.. like "haha an apartment building is warping!".
You've got that wrong. It's more like "Sleng my pung, that apartment building is warping!"
We're all slaves to the beam.
I can only speak for myself, but I really enjoy geometric patterns generated by simple rules, especially when the final result still obeys the "classical" standards of composition on the aesthetic side.
When exploring this kind of stuff, I don't really care if what I'm doing conforms to a certain "look" or not, though it will tend to. The underlying mathematical landscape is not featureless, it pushes us preferentially in certain directions over others. There's nothing to apologize for here.
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I would recommend you (OP) to think about what the purpose of art is. What we do is as much or more "real" art than those of famous, full time artists who spend their time playing bullshit social games and chasing the latest fads.
I'm not blind to the amateurish and unpolished standards that demos often have. That my *own* demos have. It's ok if not every single thing we make on evenings and weekends stands the test of time. If you're "just" having fun with friends, or "just" making a compofiller for a party you like, that's ok too.
Demos range from a few hours to a few years of effort, and it's all jumbled together in a heap. We don't gatekeep others' work based on shibboleths. This openness and rejection of social control is one of the beautiful things of the scene. It can be hard for an outsider to sift through it all and make sense of it. Yes, there's a bunch of dumb jokes and ad nauseam repetition of crowd pleasing, nostalgic effects. The magical thing is that this lowbrow, almost lewd form of entertainment seamlessly intermingles with profoundly beautiful, deep art. It's hard to put into words, but IME the former type of thing really helps to lower your inhibition, to open your mind and your spirit and just pour out part of yourself, especially for people who are not "artistic" in more conventional ways. The result is a really weird pile of stuff that ends grouped under one label, "demoscene". But I don't think it could be any other way. You really have to go to a few parties, work on something and release it, to get a sense of all this.
When exploring this kind of stuff, I don't really care if what I'm doing conforms to a certain "look" or not, though it will tend to. The underlying mathematical landscape is not featureless, it pushes us preferentially in certain directions over others. There's nothing to apologize for here.
-------------------
I would recommend you (OP) to think about what the purpose of art is. What we do is as much or more "real" art than those of famous, full time artists who spend their time playing bullshit social games and chasing the latest fads.
I'm not blind to the amateurish and unpolished standards that demos often have. That my *own* demos have. It's ok if not every single thing we make on evenings and weekends stands the test of time. If you're "just" having fun with friends, or "just" making a compofiller for a party you like, that's ok too.
Demos range from a few hours to a few years of effort, and it's all jumbled together in a heap. We don't gatekeep others' work based on shibboleths. This openness and rejection of social control is one of the beautiful things of the scene. It can be hard for an outsider to sift through it all and make sense of it. Yes, there's a bunch of dumb jokes and ad nauseam repetition of crowd pleasing, nostalgic effects. The magical thing is that this lowbrow, almost lewd form of entertainment seamlessly intermingles with profoundly beautiful, deep art. It's hard to put into words, but IME the former type of thing really helps to lower your inhibition, to open your mind and your spirit and just pour out part of yourself, especially for people who are not "artistic" in more conventional ways. The result is a really weird pile of stuff that ends grouped under one label, "demoscene". But I don't think it could be any other way. You really have to go to a few parties, work on something and release it, to get a sense of all this.
"please explain why this shit that sucks is good" sure sounds like a request made in good faith to me
Unlike your summary, which was made in the best possible faith. :D
It's not art, it's fun.
I love this thread! Thank you for opening the discussion, nekolin47. Next I have some unsolicited demo recommendations and uneven commentary, just for you.
A Mind Is Born
lft is well known for his C64 magic and popular videos but this super small intro is a great entrance to his works. It's both aesthetic yet intensely technical, it takes extremely high level of skill to pull this off.
Waillee
One of noby's best 4k intros shows how you can achieve cinematic storytelling if you pick your battles carefully. Watch it on the TV.
uncovering static
This is a 64k intro by Fairlight from 2011. To me, it represents some kind of an ur-intro; technically advanced but not perfect, material it's built on shows through (brutalist marching cube artifacts), rendered with rasterized triangles, has synthesized music that yearn to sound like real instruments, released at one of the classic big demo parties, story is extremely minimalistic. It's like Toto's Rosanna (not Africa) of intros.
techno-utopian edict
Second one of jobe's series of major PICO-8 productions, the first one being Rock for Metal. This is made for a "fantasy computer", a platform that is legitimized by being closed source and therefore stable. In comparison, the open source TIC-80 "system" had to be born later than PICO-8 (2015 vs 2017) to also enjoy it's aura of Real Platformness.
Back to the demo. Its literal message is right in your face and needs no explanation. But the subtext the medium implies is more complex; a serious demo can be made on an "unserious" and "fun" platform that is far from state of the art. As long as you have limited system you can program, and an audience who understands those limitations you can have a scene. Even though the platform itself was only four years old when the demo was released it was extremely low tech. If you had made this demo on an Amiga it would've afforded a reactionary reading but now it's saying we have choices in which direction we take our technology.
And the 3D effects are also good.
sp04 - Hello, Kevin - A Dental Journey
I'll let you figure this one out on your own.
All the best,
A Mind Is Born
lft is well known for his C64 magic and popular videos but this super small intro is a great entrance to his works. It's both aesthetic yet intensely technical, it takes extremely high level of skill to pull this off.
Waillee
One of noby's best 4k intros shows how you can achieve cinematic storytelling if you pick your battles carefully. Watch it on the TV.
uncovering static
This is a 64k intro by Fairlight from 2011. To me, it represents some kind of an ur-intro; technically advanced but not perfect, material it's built on shows through (brutalist marching cube artifacts), rendered with rasterized triangles, has synthesized music that yearn to sound like real instruments, released at one of the classic big demo parties, story is extremely minimalistic. It's like Toto's Rosanna (not Africa) of intros.
techno-utopian edict
Second one of jobe's series of major PICO-8 productions, the first one being Rock for Metal. This is made for a "fantasy computer", a platform that is legitimized by being closed source and therefore stable. In comparison, the open source TIC-80 "system" had to be born later than PICO-8 (2015 vs 2017) to also enjoy it's aura of Real Platformness.
Back to the demo. Its literal message is right in your face and needs no explanation. But the subtext the medium implies is more complex; a serious demo can be made on an "unserious" and "fun" platform that is far from state of the art. As long as you have limited system you can program, and an audience who understands those limitations you can have a scene. Even though the platform itself was only four years old when the demo was released it was extremely low tech. If you had made this demo on an Amiga it would've afforded a reactionary reading but now it's saying we have choices in which direction we take our technology.
And the 3D effects are also good.
sp04 - Hello, Kevin - A Dental Journey
I'll let you figure this one out on your own.
All the best,
Best BBS Topic in years.
I love it and i love to hear from my scene family members what scene is to them anf how it evolves.
I could start a ;tldr about what it is for me and about how many technical, social, philosophical and whatnot layers form this outstanding subculture but you, as a selfcalled "non-scener" should get a glimpse of this experience by joining us at a party near to you.
For me, scene is now (it was not always) a basic part of my life.
Without the scene i wouldnt evolve to the person i am today, i would have the businesses i run, my son wouldnt earn money as a coder...
Demos are the glue that stick everything together, but scene has many many more aspects which are worth experiencing.
Feel welcomed and invited.
I love it and i love to hear from my scene family members what scene is to them anf how it evolves.
I could start a ;tldr about what it is for me and about how many technical, social, philosophical and whatnot layers form this outstanding subculture but you, as a selfcalled "non-scener" should get a glimpse of this experience by joining us at a party near to you.
For me, scene is now (it was not always) a basic part of my life.
Without the scene i wouldnt evolve to the person i am today, i would have the businesses i run, my son wouldnt earn money as a coder...
Demos are the glue that stick everything together, but scene has many many more aspects which are worth experiencing.
Feel welcomed and invited.
In Scene everything is a Sceneball metaphor my friend.
Les demosceners européens aiment:
Faire les effets de glenz vecteur
Enlever leur pantalon
Buvez de schnapps au poivre
Idk.. the thread made me think of this :)
https://youtu.be/AVFHSVdsqKU?si=IyEexHqQ1tBhQgmW
Faire les effets de glenz vecteur
Enlever leur pantalon
Buvez de schnapps au poivre
Idk.. the thread made me think of this :)
https://youtu.be/AVFHSVdsqKU?si=IyEexHqQ1tBhQgmW
