Author Topic: The demoscene (Read 18402 times)

Stonemonkey · « **on:** May 15, 2006 »

First off, this post is not intended to piss anyone off or have a go at anyone or anyone's work so please keep an open mind while reading. It is an opinion I have and feel free to discuss.

My involvement with the demoscene has never been much, at the time when the amiga was popular I wasn't really into coding (although I did buy Amos and made a couple of simple games with it) and my experience of the scene was limited to watching demos and playing around with demomakers off magazine coverdisks and seeing the occasional cracktro on cracked games. The demos were written by coders who would show off stuff they'd created through inventive and creative coding to push the machine to it's limits and sometimes take advantage of things in the machine that weren't intended and as a result the graphics and effects had a particular look and feel.
The scene has drifted away from the oldschool way of thinking and relies more and more on the design and artwork side of things, the coding side of things is still very important but because of the variety of machines the demos will be running on it's difficult to work to any limits or to take advantage of the properties of a particular piece of hardware.
So in my opinion demos that are designed to have the look and feel of oldschool demos and run on machines many times faster are really of the latter type of demo but
designed with an oldschool feel or flavour and perhaps shouldn't really be called oldschool demos.

Just a thought and attempt to get some discussion going on the demoscene side of things.

zparticle · « **Reply #1 on:** May 15, 2006 »

I would tend to agree, these days it's more about pushing a particular language and showing algorithm skills not pushing the particular hardware setup.

Although I can't say my stuff does either of these things, I just like putting together little progs that have music and movement. I'm not really pushinh the limits of anything.Â

It's just a nice break from the corporate coding I do day to day for a living.

Shockwave · « **Reply #2 on:** May 15, 2006 »

I was a part of the Amiga demo scene myself, I bought an Amiga (or rather I got one for christmas) after seeing Starglider and FA18 Interceptor on a friends Amiga and being stunned by them.

Previous to that, most of my programming (if you want to call it that) was basically typing in listings in magazines for the C64 and later the Spectrum 128. I used to look forward to Your Sinclair, there was a columnist called David Macandles and he used to print assembly listings from users, having read a few dozen of those magazines I wrote a few simple games myself using a combination of Z80 and Spectrum basic.

Getting the Amiga was a revelation, I got my first contacts from a magazine called Zero, you could have called me a lamer and you'd have been right, all I did at first was swap stuff.

Then I got into Deluxe Paint and after a while I got good enough to join in the scene as a GFX artist, all my aspirations of being a coder were left by the wayside.

I remember the first time I saw real groundbreaking stuff like Mental Hangover and Joyride, super cool groups like Scoopex, Trsi, Andromeda, Sanity etc. I knew there was no way I'd ever be able to code as cool as those guys so I stuck to my paint programs.

I only ventured into ASM about a year before I gave up the Amiga, I made some copper effects, I got some sprites going and I did a bit with the blitter, as well as the obligatory faffing around with Amos.

The demos of those days were really cutting edge and they pushed the hardware in a way that no PC demo can. Looking back, they are oldschool but does it matter what hardware something is coded on if it contains the same effects and has the same look as the many wonderful demos that came before it?

The nearest thing you can say there is to developing on a steady platform is console development and that is happening. It will only be a matter of time before Xbox360 is hacked and we start seeing homebrew demos appearing on it.

For me, I liken it to old fashioned clothes, like a kipper tie, shirts with long sloping collars and brillcream.

If you put those clothes on someone today, they would still be old fashioned and be oldschool.

As to whether you say it has oldschool flavour or is oldschool is a matter of opinion.

All I know is that I am glad that I have both the time and the access to modern programming languages that let me fulfill my childhood wishes of knowing how to code those effects and I'm able to do it at last. The fact that there is a community of people who are pretty much into the same thing is a bonus!

Ghost^BHT · « **Reply #3 on:** May 15, 2006 »

To me old school in demos, cracktros etc. mean the look and feel of the particular production. I too grew up around the C64, Amiga hardware where squeezing every ounce of life out of a clock cycle and byte of memory was an art in itself, the art and music parts were still a great part of it. So something that has the look and feel (sound also) of those old days can in my opinion still be called old school just for that feel and I like it 'cause that's what I grew up with.

Realizing that there is no real challenge(comparitively) to code such things in todays hardware. So if you code for fun what the hell go for it and call it whatever you want. If you code to impress you had better either push the envelope on the compiler, which will mean nothing to those who no little about the language, make something artistically stunning, or really tiny. Most of the tiny code 1k or smaller is great from a coding talent prospective but usually lacks any kind of artistic value (for me anyhow) one exception was RBRAZ's tentical which I thought was a masterpiece and in a class by itself.

So go ahead and give me more negative KARMA points

Stonemonkey · « **Reply #4 on:** May 15, 2006 »

Phew, didn't really know what the results of posting something like that would be and no, not any negative karma for expressing your own thoughts. I know there's wide varying opinion on how demos (and the other things) are classed and since that's the subject of these forums I thought it's something worth starting off.

Ghost^BHT · « **Reply #5 on:** May 15, 2006 »

Just kidding about the Karma thing

Thought I'd toss that in there

relsoft · « **Reply #6 on:** May 16, 2006 »

And I've never seen an amiga ot a c64 yet. I doubt I'm going to see them anytime soon. :*(

Go ahead laugh.

LOL

Ghost^BHT · « **Reply #7 on:** May 16, 2006 »

@relsoft : I'm laughing at your hair

Rbz · « **Reply #8 on:** May 16, 2006 »

Quote from: relsoft on May 16, 2006

And I've never seen an amiga ot a c64 yet. I doubt I'm going to see them anytime soon. :*(

I've never see a C64 either, at that time we have MSX 1.0/2.0 instead, I have sold my Amiga 500 :'(Â long time ago, but still with an Amiga 1200Â

until today.

Clyde · « **Reply #9 on:** May 16, 2006 »

We'll if you want to see a comodore64 in action, your best bet is to check out ccs64, which is a great emulator. And then you can checkout all the cool demos. Proper 64k action and even less kb's, running at amazing speeds in Hires / Bitmap mode.

I'm more of a fan then, Id say a scener. Which today can mean many different things. I got hooked on the C64 wayback in the best decade there is the 80's, by groups Censor Design, Genesis Project, Smash Design and Black Mail. To name a few. What they can do with rasterizing and a mere 64k or less, is amazing.

What I don't particular like in todays circles, is that when new technology arises we all get lazier. A P4 with Geforce99 shouldnt be required to run at reasonable speeds effect that utilize a 640x480x32 screen mode.

Today it's more about what and how much info can be compressed the most into a release. Which i find astonishing, and utterly mind boggling how they achieve it. real clever dudes. But then, at the end of the day when you run the 64k demo, you have to wait for sometimes what can seem an eternity, for it to uncompress the media and the like. So, kind of defeats the object.

There are some amazingly well thoughout gfx demos, with really smart music and graphics. And nice desing thoughout. My big favs of the PC genre, are Conspiracy, AMD and Farbrausch. And Im not knocking, and genre, group, etc. As to me demo effects are utterly cool and amaziong.

Shockwave · « **Reply #10 on:** May 16, 2006 »

It's a good topic SM, you can see that by the fact that it doesn't have any short replies and it got people thinking.

If anybody is hankering after Amiga demos, the best way is to install Winaue, there are thousands of Amiga demos that have been converted to run on it that will run happily on most PC's

relsoft · « **Reply #11 on:** May 16, 2006 »

Okay. I just invited a friend of mine here who codes demos for lunch. He can code in the amiga, z80, c64, pc, etc. You name it he prolly has coded in it. In fact, he can code in asm, c/c++, pascal, etc. This guy is a demomaking machine and his demos somehow are waaay to cool an way too fast. :*)

http://optimus.demoscene.gr/main.htm

Shockwave · « **Reply #12 on:** May 16, 2006 »

I know Optimus from Pouet

I was checking out some of his stuff recently indeed, I watched a nice demo by him with some radial blurs using GFXLIB2 and an SDL version too, it was cool stuff.

Don't know if this board will be your sort of place Optimus, but you're welcome here.

relsoft · « **Reply #13 on:** May 16, 2006 »

I can see he just registered. :*)

Shockwave · « **Reply #14 on:** May 16, 2006 »

Cool, cheers Relsoft.

Optimus · « **Reply #15 on:** May 16, 2006 »

Nice timing you have. I was reading the forum and then reloaded the page before replying to see your message

Just a bit corrections, I don't code in Amiga (yet), nor in pascal (I made my transition from basic to C directly), the rest are right. Thanks for the good words anyways ^_^

In my past I had an Amstrad CPC 6128, 8bit computer quite popular in UK, France, German and even Greece too. I never learned assembly or democoding when I was 12 (in 1992). That period I read something about demos in a computer magazine (and that guy who wrote the article is our CPC graphist in Dirty Minds group now

I didn't had the connections (Friends, BBS or anything) to learn more about it and watch demos for the first time. I forgot it and only got into it at 1998, after watching some PC demos from a CD, still alone cause the greek scene was dead during that time and I couldn't find anyone. Even if it was a bit late for learning assembly and doing oldschool things in 8bits, it was a dream of mine, so I joined Dirty Minds group and got involved on CPC demo coding. On the PC I started coding demoeffects in quickbasic

. Later I evolved into C coding, using SDL or OpenGL (I still prefer software effects coding), though I passed from C64 and coded one mediocre demo too cause another dream of mine is to code for other architectures and I already adored the C64 demos. I have the real machines, CPC and C64, though usually I watch the new stuff from emulators. I once used to have an Amiga and looked at some demos in the real thing but I sold it. It's preety more impressive to watch the demos in the real thing, but emulators still do it well. And if you've coded in those machines, you have a better understanding of demos or how hard some effects/code really is (And I know a bit now on CPC and C64). Recently I got into GamePark32 (GP32) developing and doing my first software 3d engine now (I was more into 2d effects and some pseudo 3d before), this handheld is like the power of a fast 486 or a Pentium perhaps without FPU at all, I am writting C here but need to optimize here and there, quite challenging and still suitable for modern algorithms

About oldschool or not, I sometimes have to agree with stonemonkey, oldschool looking like demos that need a modern PC and esp. a 3d acceleration (would be more fun and perhaps easier to code such kinds of effects in software) is a bit odd. Oldschool is the spirit for some. However, even me uses the term to define those kinds of demos. I even use the term "midschool" to define those middle era demos which are between the oldschool and the newschool (with modern 3d engines). It's my favoritest era, with bitmap effects and simple 3d object shows, 2d and 3d combined, on not too fast and not too slow hardware, there are still optimizations and much more nice algorithms than the times of scrollers

. Anyways,. sometimes I do like those "oldschool" accelerated demos if they are done smooth enough (E.g. I adored http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=10341 which is a musicdisk that you have to put fullscreen and let it run for a long to see the effects! Preety smooth but later I learned it's accelerated, but it didn't spoiled the fun cause it was preety neatly done!)

What I dislikie is scrolling being jerky in modern PCs. And I think I have this on my demos too

relsoft · « **Reply #16 on:** May 16, 2006 »

Welcome Optimus!!!!!

Got a nce hair cut?

Shockwave · « **Reply #17 on:** May 16, 2006 »

Dubmood is a really nicely coded musicdisk, it's very smooth and it has loads of effects.
I think that these oldschool prods can be every bit as engaging as new stuff if they are done well. Some prods just have that little something that sparks nostalgia and brings back teenage memories.

I am finding that it's tricky to get an effect to run super smooth on todays PC's, even if the code runs very quickly I find it nearly impossible to eliminate the odd glitch, and then when I think I have succeeded then it gets tested on someone elses system and it glitches, worse still, sometimes hangs the machine completely.

Personally I'm just enjoying the process of porting my routines over to FB at the moment. Probaly I'll do a bit of playing around with SDL before long, I don't know whether or not I'll carry on making stuff with an oldschool flavour or not. We'll see. I think I'll find it very difficult to give it up because I live in the past.

It's interesting to see the many different directions being taken by different users in the small coding communities, Stonemonkey for instance has done some really amazing stuff in software but doesn't seem to have any desire to release demos into places like Pouet, Rbraz has done some really neat little 1k's and Relsoft seems to be a jack of all trades, that's just naming three people that I know. There are a lot more people around here that I respect.

I like the mix here.

It's also good to release a prod from time to time over at Pouet just to see how it goes down.

There was definately a big difference between the GFXLIB2 and SDL versions of your Keftedes demos, the SDL version ran a lot smoother and looked nicer.

Stonemonkey · « **Reply #18 on:** May 16, 2006 »

"doesn't seem to have any desire to release demos into places like Pouet". Heh, not entirely true as i do work with that intention (kind of one of the reasons behind starting this thread too) but find I keep getting sidetracked. One of these days I will though.

Clyde · « **Reply #19 on:** May 16, 2006 »

Welcome Optimus dude!
And can't wait Stonemonkey