Any ideas on how to make my scenes look more like demo effects

[Xetick]

I have created a number of scenes and more are on their way in the next version but I find that they dont look like all the neat demo effects do. I have yet to find any information on how a modern demo scene is built up so I wonder what is it I'm missing.

Say we take a classic metaball scene

<a href="http://www.plane9.com/content/flvplayer.swf?file=http://www.plane9.com/ext/Metaballs.flv" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.plane9.com/content/flvplayer.swf?file=http://www.plane9.com/ext/Metaballs.flv</a>

What I would guess I'm missing here is an environment/cube map on the metaballs and maybe a point light to light the surrounding cube. But I still dont see that as making it look like current demo effects.

Do most demos now days apply a fullscreen glow/blur effect to make the scene look softer?

[Clyde]

Im no expert as im kinda stuck in the late 80-90's, but nowadays most people use pixel shaders to achieve various blending and light tricks.
 
And I think you are using colours / textures of a simiar colour range / scheme; just going by the neat metaballs short.
 
Try adding lighting methods, for example some bump mapping or specular light to your balls.

[hellfire]

There's no such thing as the one and only true demo look.
But if you want to show an effect *show* it and don't hide it in camouflage colors and contrast.
You might want to have a look at this book.

[Shockwave]

I don't see anything wrong with the metaballs effect you showed except as Hellfire said, it was difficult to see it against the background.

Demos are all a matter of individual people's styles, who's to say what is the right or wrong way of representing them.

Metaballs is quite an old effect, if you wanted to emphasise them you could use a suitably contrasting colour from the background and do something else to them, like applying glow, maybe having some particle stuff happening, it's really hard to say.. Just try a few things until you get something you are happy with.

[zawran]

How about they were semi-transparent, and you had some glowing particle bounce around on the inside of them? Don't seem to remember seeing that before anywhere.

[ferris]

The effect seems well coded and for sure a great style.

I like your camera angles too! You can do alot with sine waves.

One thing I would for sure push over and over is exactly what hellfire said. The balls don't stand out because there's no contrast in colors or, more importantly, lighting.

Another thing that could make it more "demoish" would be music sync. Great demos always sync SOMETHING with music even if it's simple scene, object, or camera changes, music sync will almost always help.

Now, Shocky was also right in that there's really no right or wrong way to make a demo look like a demo. Style, beauty, and design are all varied from person to person.

Now in this case, you're displaying metaballs, which is a pretty old effect. What I would ultimately suggest then is adding more to possibly fill the scene up. Maybe, even, you could replace the background with a large spherical harmonics effect with fake reflections etc. Demos aren't really as much about mathematical accuracy (you can reflect a room without a room really being there) as they are about art and design these days. Focus more on aesthetics than on technical precision. Now, that's not said to undermine the technical sides of things, as groups like Plastic, Fairlight, and many others will base entire demos on very beefy rendering engines...but mind you that these engines would be nothing without beautiful, varied, contrasted, and creative visuals with which to show them off.

Probably a good idea is to just watch demo after demo. If you want to win a party, look for what's popular these days. Personally I don't feel demos should be made just to win..and if you agree then still, watch demo after demo. What do you like about your favorite ones? Look for common color schemes etc...they're common for a reason Look for creative uses of old effects (such as fluid dynamics replacing normal metaballs in many cases), transitions, particle size/shape/movement, contrast, and many other things.

Demo design comes from learning the art and practice. So, study up and keep at it! It will come.

[Xetick]

Thanks all of you for some very good replies.

Hellfire:
I'll see if I can't get a hold of that book since that should help a lot in design of the scenes/effects.

I'm not sure what I got the idea from that most demos seem to be using glow. I just have it in the back of my head that they all have a soft look to them. But that has probably more to do with the lighting.
For example from rudebox


Ferris, very well written response. I couldn't agree with you more. Demos should be made for the fun of it. One of my personal favorites is WeCell but most dont like if for some reason. Watching demos is the perfect inspiration source. I have a few 100 in video format for that quick fix we all need sometimes 
This is however not for a demo. Its for a screensaver/winamp/wmp music visualizer. In winamp/wmp the metaballs actually change size to the beat of the music.  I also plan to do a XBMC screensaver and a XBMC music visualizer plugin in the near future. Windows only but still.

But my aim will then be to add bumpmaps, environment mapping and lighting. That should hopefully be enough to play around with to make it look better.

[ferris]

Actually, Rudebox (like the VAST majority of raymarching intros procuded this year...our Muon Baryon intro is this way as well) doesn't have any glow. It just feels like it because of the great lighting

And if you want to see a great demoish metaballs example, try to find NVidia's benchmark example. It employs alot of things like refraction, motion blur, and alot more and it looks very very cool.

Even if the project isn't for a demo, learning about demo design can always help in any digital art form, even going as far as photography and the like.

[nzo]

I'm not sure what I got the idea from that most demos seem to be using glow. I just have it in the back of my head that they all have a soft look to them. But that has probably more to do with the lighting.

Yes, good lighting is extremely important. You could use an expensive technique called bloom, but this involves mixing multiple cameras to acheive the effect I think you are looking for.

[Xetick]

I added some specular lightning to the scene and some color correction and it did help the scene a lot.

Movie and screenshot

It's not perfect yet but adding a cube map and some reflections would probably be the last thing it needed.

[relsoft]

If you really would wan't to add bloom, you could:

Render to texture (1/4 size)
blurh and burv that texture 3x
Superimpose that texture over the scene (texture should be scaled up 4x) using additive blending