pouët.net

raymarching is for people who can't raytrace properly

(please, bite)

Or for people who want better primitives with less limitations ;)

see, you did it, you couldn't resist the obvious ;)

the late laura branigan sang a beautiful homage to this phenomenon.

raytracing is for people whose imagination can't go beyond calculating the intersection point of a ray and a sphere.

and now i almost feel sorry for letting this happen ;)

(stop biting!)

navis: agreed, although I think the realtime factor is quite an important part of it. I take it that that's a kind of sarcasm on your side since your group takes "realtime" working on "common pc hardware" quite seriously (in contrary to "works only on highend gamer boxes") (maybe you just have lame hardware..but with a reason?!)

:confused:: I also think that it is an "underground" art and should stay that way..'coz: IMHO, demos are all about showing things on HW that you wouldn't expect to be able to output things like that. "art/design" (and your imagination!) just adds to that.

(yea, and PC demos are hard-to-judge because "PC" is not a fixed platform but just a barebone for all kinds of different hardware add-ons (GPUs..)..maybe that's why many just watch teh vide0z"!)

As for the "new scene generation": I think this will probably be lead by people, who notice that certain "mistakes" or "approaches" they made in their coding/music/gfx lead to *interesting* effects (which cannot be marketed at that time. who cares) and who build upon these effects a demo that showcases their state of mind.
(sounds familiar?)

disclaimer: lots of beer, "rant" mode initiated.. :)

hermes, I think what he has not been saying clearly is that realtime *is* important, however just for *him*, while he is working on his demo.

Realtime feedback and tweaking to your creation is actually quite a bonus of the demomaking approach.

well...

Ok, it is not black&white and I personally like the realtime challenge (every now and then). On the other hand (and this is something that I think was mentioned) I *don't* know how to make a "demo" in blender/3dstudio. Some people do (half bit guys) with excellent results. But my skills are in coding not in animation.

yet its not like a datadriven demo doesnt require good coding :)

i'd say your demos are a good example of solid animation. that you animate through code is just a detail imo..

Either way, it's as if we can disregard the fact that the realtime aspect is an important common denominator for the demoscene. Doing the things we do, realtime, is what makes it the demoscene.

Why not just replace demoscene word with art then :

I personally see ART/DEMOSCENE as a medium to express yourself, a medium that involves visuals and music.
IT'S THE SAME?
Art=Demoscene=Art

Srly Demoscene is more than art, also about techincal challenge... something I can't put into words.

That's retarded, Jumpseri.

Let's discuss this arbitrary term of something we enjoy doing some more! I say the difference between ART and DEMOSCENE is mostly turnips and sausage!

That's obviously supposed to be:

*english-fail*

jumpseri, yeah,because in art there's never any technical challenges?

i didnt know laura branigan died :(

If you want new blood you have to invite them to show off some skills, and point out that this is a great way to get recognised as a coder, pixel artist or 3D artist.

Making demos is less tiresome than making games. If you make a game you have the added burden of playtesting, making a ton of levels, making sure the difficulty curve is right, making sure people actually play it and give you proper credible feedback. I can imagine that's a real pain in the ass, especially if you're only concerned with showing that you're a half decent graphics coder and couldn't give a toss about game design. Demos have none of those problems.

I can't see why making a game is seen as a better way of filling up your portfolio than making a demo these days, especially if you haven't got any ideas for what would make a fun game.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to reach out to computer graphics students out there through universities. Not as a formal "your coursework is to make a demo" but more as an extra-curricular challenge.

Also some demos would probably go down well on those TVs they scatter around uni bars because they already show unusual and inventive stuff when they're not showing extreme sports. If they were to show some of ASD's stuff or MFX's stuff I think there could be some interest there.

Google tries tries to tell me that the demoscene is dying: http://www.google.no/insights/search/#q=demoscene&cmpt=q
Google also tells me that Hungary rules the scene over older playgrounds such as Finland and Norway. :)

Because it shows an entirely different skill set, one that's a lot closer to real life professional programming?

gloom: it's interesting how the russians are on it :).

Insectecutor: I think you are arguing with yourself a bit here:



VS



..because you sure make a good argument for why making a game is way better portfolio food.

decipher: and how the americans so are not. :)

The biggest difference between game a demo programming is that a game is interactive, which means a whole bag of hurt starting from user input validation and making sure that the user doesn't see unintended things in the game world (like go behind certain objects etc) to surprising game flow issues that are found late in the testing. Making the graphics engine and stuff related to it is fun, making the rest is not. And that is why I am still doing demos, even though I'm a game programmer.

The google trends thing is fun, btw. I love how there are spikes in the Finnish searched every time there's Assembly :)

And little spikes in every April when there is Breakpoint :)

Relevant link for dutch sceners:

http://pouet.net/topic.php?which=6708
"Cross posting from scene.org: Dutch electro night w/ demo theme "