Slashdot Mirror

• The Gathering - 2002 winners
• The Party - 2001 winners
• Assembly - 2002 winners

• Pouet - Has a big list of demos, intros, and lots of comments.
• 256b.com - If the 2-10 meg demos on pouet are too bloated for you, check these out.
• CFXweb - A community web site with forums and a magazine.

Wait I'm confused, isn't this a bad thing?

Yes it's bad.

Interresting about software art, because I tent to look at demos as art. The word is defined here, and it is a mixture between different algorithms, graphics and music. They put it into a program witch renders pictures in real-time.
For more demos you can look at scene.org or pouet.net.

True, but the wealth of information available out there is astounding. A simple google search yeilds amazing results.

Then there are demo specific sites:
OJuice
Scene
CFWweb

General game programming sites help aswell:
Flipcode
GameDev
GameTutorials

The information about karman filters isnt what you should learn first. That type of information will come later, once you develop specific skills, different techniques will come to light.

Sorry, forgot a couple.

Did they get permission to sell these movies of demos?

Yes, they did. That's why a couple are not on there. Some people didn't give permission. Most groups were very excited to be a part of this project, obviously.

Movies of demos suck, I want the originals.

Besides having copies on the Mind Candy site of all the demos, all of the demos exist in one way or another at scene.org. But be warned, a lot of the older ones won't work on your 2.5Ghz Windows XP box; that's why it was so difficult to get their hands on JUST the right hardware to get these demos in the first place. As time goes on, it will be more and more difficult, but now we have something to refer to. And man, is it tasty.

The DemoScene database site: http://www.pouet.net

The DemoScene DVD is out: http://www.mindcandydvd.com

DemoScene community sites: http://www.ojuice.org and http://www.scene.org

About the dump truck... this so reminds me of a certain picture: Second place in asm2k2 raytrace compo

the COOLEST lego epic film ever.

Nah, that'd be LeGorso and LeGorSIKA (also trailer)... The other movies just don't have equally wacky subtitles and equally complicated plot. =)

the COOLEST lego epic film ever.

Nah, that'd be LeGorso and LeGorSIKA (also trailer)... The other movies just don't have equally wacky subtitles and equally complicated plot. =)

the COOLEST lego epic film ever.

Nah, that'd be LeGorso and LeGorSIKA (also trailer)... The other movies just don't have equally wacky subtitles and equally complicated plot. =)

I can only welcome the idea, it seems the demoscene is once again on the edge of a major change in the public they are reaching.

There was a time when scene-ing was a BBS-only thing, and parties were small obscure events happening in garages and local youth centers. Since the internet, demo parties have, together with LAN parties (and usually it's the same event anyway), grown to visitor numbers beyond the domestic range. For organisers it's getting more and more difficult to support such a load without sacrificing some of the I-know-you atmosphere that used to be present on these cosy events. Since a few years, demos (and lan parties) have been striving to entertain the general public, not just the underground scene. I think this is a good thing, but I also miss the sense of obscurity that stemmed from the hack and crack era, of which it was initially a subculture.

For more news and references on these parties and the content they put out, see Scene.org

ciao,
a0a

The demoscene is actually a pretty fascinating thing, and this is not really the way to present it to the slashdot crowd. I'd suggest you people go over to Scene.org and see for yourself what real demos are like. I go to Assembly every year and I have to say some of the stuff is quite impressive. See for yourselves. Text-mode demos are really a small part of the scene.

The demoscene is very much alive -- it has changed, yes (some would say to the worse, some claim it has changed so much it's dead), but it's alive.

Try the viewing tips on scene.org for a taste of what it has to offer nowadays. If you're more interested in Amiga stuff, there are DivX captures of a lot of new and old Amiga stuff on Amidemos (most of it probably won't run on your A600 :-) ). There's a Unix-specific demoscene archive out there, for those who want native Linux/*nix demos -- in any case, pouet has a wide range of demos for almost every platform you can think of. :-) (The "top10" list is slightly debatable, though ;-) )

/* Steinar */

Alright I was both interested and bored so I decided to download a couple of these demos and see what they are like.

I have a couple questions.

1) What kind of drugs are best when coming up with the ideas for these things. Specifically what were your influences when coming up with the idea to make a scene about a psychotic looking little girl who chases around a bunny rabbit with a meat cleaver and removes it's testicles?
2) Where can I acquire said drugs.

Thanks.

Alright I was both interested and bored so I decided to download a couple of these demos and see what they are like.

I have a couple questions.

1) What kind of drugs are best when coming up with the ideas for these things. Specifically what were your influences when coming up with the idea to make a scene about a psychotic looking little girl who chases around a bunny rabbit with a meat cleaver and removes it's testicles?
2) Where can I acquire said drugs.

Thanks.

AFAIK at least "B800" (a 4kB intro by neon/nocturnal, Spetsnaz/Proxima at the time) did a lot of split-screen, scrolling and font tricks. They're not allowed on TMDC, though. :-)

The intro can be downloaded here, although you'll need DOS (or Windows, of course) to be able to view it.

/* Steinar */

No, I didn't try *that* hard on this project.

Fans of motivated lego may be interested in this link to a winning demo for the Assembly '01 "wild demo" competition. Stop frame photography + lego blocks + talent = cute little movie (38mb mpg).

You might want to look at its page on pouët, the group's other work, other games from the demoscene and some other stuff.

But be nice, don't slashdot the scene.org servers that pouët is hosted on :)

Woops, cocked that up! I blame Submit and Preview being right next to each other slighly more than my own crapness.

Available here on scene.org who have a complete archive of Assembly entries and most other demo compos.

Woops, cocked that up! I blame Submit and Preview being right next to each other slighly more than my own crapness.

Available here on scene.org who have a complete archive of Assembly entries and most other demo compos.

I think I've actually seen this a couple years earlier. There's actually a site, http://www.scene.org that will have contests to see who can make the best demo squeezed into 64k. There's tons of these available in the archives; here's an example.

Well, it has. So I go to this assembly'02 site and find a link to The Scene.org and start looking around. Man there is some slick stuff there. And archives that go back to Future Crew's 2nd Reality. I can remember getting that to work on my 40 with my Gravis Ultra Sound.

Anyway, just brought back old memories. Now my chip is up to 59C.:)

J:)

It's nice to see that people still do demo conventions and stuff. It's so 80's. :)

I was also happy to see that Skaven from Future Crew did a comeback. But I was disappointed from the result.. first of all, he didn't release the "source" of the song, "The Goblin Returns", but just the finished product (an OGG file). That file got first place, but it was much less interesting to hear than it's precedent, "Catch That Goblin" (which also got first place in the same convention, 7 years ago... - that file is an S3M, and it's playable through winamp).

Btw: The latter song (the one I liked more) can be great as the official anthem of the Troll High Council. :)

(Which used to be a good, technical show but now is filled to the brim with unemployed dotcom kiddies)

Dot commies? What nonsense. It's more professional and academia oriented, that's 'coz most of the crowd there is professional graphics programmers.

And SIGGRAPH is supposed to be pretty cool these days, and now they've even started getting shows on DemoScene.

Check out the Demoscene Outreach Group which performed at this year's SIGGRAPH, cool stuff. If you hate SIGGRAPH so much, maybe you should try the GDC. In fact I'd say SIGGRAPH should become even more professional, they do not seem to be handling a lot of cool & new math stuff and techniques which a lot of European schools, like MPI for example, seem to be working on.

(Which used to be a good, technical show but now is filled to the brim with unemployed dotcom kiddies)

Dot commies? What nonsense. It's more professional and academia oriented, that's 'coz most of the crowd there is professional graphics programmers.

And SIGGRAPH is supposed to be pretty cool these days, and now they've even started getting shows on DemoScene.

Check out the Demoscene Outreach Group which performed at this year's SIGGRAPH, cool stuff. If you hate SIGGRAPH so much, maybe you should try the GDC. In fact I'd say SIGGRAPH should become even more professional, they do not seem to be handling a lot of cool & new math stuff and techniques which a lot of European schools, like MPI for example, seem to be working on.

For starters, you are unfortunatly a little late when it comes to the internet radio stations that so often have good electronic music. The RIAA is in the middle of killing the free internet radio stations. Some of my favorite internet streams used to be over at SomaFM where among other music I was introduced to music from Tranquility Bass, Future Sounds of London, Aphex Twins and Orbital. I would prolly not have CD's by all these bands if it wasn't for da internet stream.
Not all streams have disappeared, Digitally Imported Radio is one of the finest that is still there. Offering Trance, hard-trance, Eurodance and hard-house. For more streams check out shoutcast a collection of online music streams.

To be introduced to Electronic music you should try to find which genres within electronic you like best. Some genres are (from mellow to really fast):
- Ambient
- Trance
- Down Tempo
- Trip Hop
- Acid Jazz
- Eurodance
- House
- Garage
Several of these genres are not per-se electronic but will contain lots of modern sound influences.

For the real electronic junkies there is also what is known as scene music. This will not appeal to most people out there, but please try it and check out the rest of the scene.

Here is the All Your Base link:

All Your Base

Hey, if you think that is impressive, check out this link. It is a 64k .exe file that runs under windows. Includes 15 min of music, a Quake quality indoor/outdoor 3D rendering engine, textures, etc. 64KB!

I have no idea how they did it in such a small package, but it is quite amazing.

Plus it is a good reminder of what the old C64/Amiga demo scene used to be about.

Don't forget http://www.scene.org as well :).

I know that certain demoscene types have knocked off a demo or two for Linux over the last few years. Good ones, too. Since console demos have been so popular for so long (there's tons for the Dreamcast and Playstation -- people were even hacking up intros for the SNES), this could lead to a very cool cross-over.

Or try scene.org for archive from all the demo parties the last 6-7 years.

FAQSYS is a great resource for basic demo coding stuff, and how most was done in the old das.

By 1988 you would pretty much get laughed at if you were still running a C-64 machine.

And people in demoscene still make really cool demos for C64! Recently I watched through some of the demos from Assembly parties of recent years... I have one word: wow. =)

Yeah, by early 1990s the games couldn't quite beat the games that appeared on, say, Amiga - but I still use C64 for the games that were produced before those times. Those are classics, dammit.

And sometimes the PC folks can't make better games, even when they have vastly faster graphics and processor and more memory. Shame on them... =)

And they still haven't made a cooler sound synth chip than the good ol' SID...

And linux will gain some cool games too if professional companies write games using this and decide to port it to linux as well (heck, it's only a recompile away)

Another contender are the scener groups that make demos. Imagine watching demo's on your PS/2, wouldn't that be cool?

ABC Demo Windows only... check it out, it is quite funny =) (1st prize demo at Coma 3 last weekend)

Since this is really not a 'LAN party' but a 'demo party' and this is Slashdot, something about the demo scene and linux is in order....

Check out Lnxscene for some Linux demos. Linux and demoscene haven't really mixed (yet?) so most of the stuff there isn't that good but I recommend checking out at least the linux-only (!) Dose 2 demo by mfx that placed 5th at Assembly, a very respectable achievement. Slashdot had a story about asm, too.

Some others work checking out are Astral Blur by TBL (they have a really cool system called Ixalance which lets them distribute the same files for all platforms it supports - all you need is the Ixalance launcher (only few hundred kilobytes) and you can run any of their .ixa demos), State of Mind by Bomb and Alpha 2 by Astral. Finally, if you've got Java installed , you can enjoy the show right inside your browser window: Cyboman 1999 by the Komplex folks. This one's actually a java remake of an old 64k intro.

Surprisingly many Windows demos even work under WINE.

I greatly respect Sam Lantinga/Loki for giving us SDL, looking at the non-SDL demos/games on the Linux platform I'd say that only SDL has really made Linux a viable alternative for the demoscene to develop on.

It is really fascinating what you call small. I remember the VC20/C64 and those things required true small applications. Applications that had more features than most of the "tiny" ones there.
You guys might also want to check out the 4KB and 64KB demonstration pieces from parties around the world at Scene. This will show you what can be done in applications as small as 4KB (rendered demos with sound and stuff like that). Enjoy!

I nevertheless appreciate a movement towards essential, small applications ...

If you want the ultimate Lego movie, check out Legorsika. It won the Asm'01 Wild Demo contest. (Note that scene.org has a 275 user maximum. Anyone have a mirror?)

Well, that's a start, but is there anywhere that I can buy videogame or demo music in Redbook format?

those would be: Juice by Psychic link and
303 by Acme

those would be: Juice by Psychic link and
303 by Acme

They have It's called 3DMark.

The group who wrote the classics "Unreal" and "Second Reality" known as the Future Crew, started a little company back in '95 called Remedy. You may have heard of their game, "Max Payne". Well anyway when they first released a benchmarking tool called Final Reality (sounds like Second Reality, eh) it was such a success that Remedy spawned off the Mad Onion. Think of it as commercial demos.

The demoscene will never die. It just keeps changing. To an Amiga cracker/intro/demo coder the scene has been truly dead since the early 90's. Try telling that to the sceners of today.

They have It's called 3DMark.

The group who wrote the classics "Unreal" and "Second Reality" known as the Future Crew, started a little company back in '95 called Remedy. You may have heard of their game, "Max Payne". Well anyway when they first released a benchmarking tool called Final Reality (sounds like Second Reality, eh) it was such a success that Remedy spawned off the Mad Onion. Think of it as commercial demos.

The demoscene will never die. It just keeps changing. To an Amiga cracker/intro/demo coder the scene has been truly dead since the early 90's. Try telling that to the sceners of today.

Second Reality was the demo that for the first time allowed PC sceners to feel merely inferior to the Amiga sceners, rather than completely pathetic. I mean, if you want to talk about 1993, you should be talking about "Arte" by Sanity. Go on, you can even find a DivX of it at Amidemos. Arte on a 7Mhz Amiga 500 kicked the arse of Second Reality on your 486..

Still, opinions are funny.. some Amiga sceners liked "Jesus on E"..

If you want to see what Chaos/ex-Sanity and others have been impressing with recently, check out The Product, from The Party 2000.. win32 64k intro, the most impressive 64k of demo I've ever seen!

After you've watched the original you should definitely see the C64 version of Second Reality (I'm not kidding) to help put things back into perspective. 1MHz/64kB should be enough for everyone. You can download it at ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/parties/1997/theparty97/c6 4/smash_secondreality_d64.zip and it should work on any good C64 emulator. At least Vice works just fine.

I don't think many 64k's today are written using much assembler. I won the TG2001 64k compo with this and it is written in 100% C++. Assembler is now usually used for tight innerloops in polyfillers and stuff like that, but with OpenGL/Direct3D you obviously don't need that anymore.

It's a real shame that hornet shutdown 3 years ago. Shure the sites still up, but they don't have any of the new stuff. Any time I ever start reminiscing about Robotnik by Rage, I fire it up and go download it. However, www.scene.org has pretty much taken over.

Lnxscene for Linux demos. I am not sure if any of these demos are from Assembly.

Calodox Demology Exchange for user reviews. You can submit your own reviews. This is for PC demos (Windows and DOS).

Amidemos for Amiga Demos in AVI video format since most of don't have the classic Amiga computers and emulators don'twork well. Check out 05.08.2001: Assembly 2001 winner demo Lapsuus now online ...

scene.org -- I believe these are for all systems beside PC and Amiga.

If you like those eye-candy demos, you can download from this repository at: www.scene.org Browse their archive!

They have all sort of demo collections from various groups and various fests. Cool! Gigs of download. Don't forget to check out the Java demos too. It will make you wonder how can they make such a cool (and very fast) demo like that in Java.

Well, the medium carries it`s own personality really, it`s own soul and history if you like. The artist molds the medium into what he likes it to be, into his message or his expression. The same goes for paper and inc. It`s still very much an analog process to print photos. Airwaves are analog, and are subject to interference, heat, moisture, etc. There is allways an interpretion stage where the viewer has to correct his senses.

This is not to say that 2d screens or soundcards or whatever are not subject to the same principle, a randomness factor, as small as it probably is, is still there. But the raw data behind the art is a pure functional discretized nondeficiant set of 1`s and 0`s, which do not carry meaning, soul, expression or history. Only when interpreted by the right set of software do you get to experience the actual art. In a sense, this extra level of interpretation, this dependancy on digital technology, is what makes digital art different from classical analog art.

Usually, the medium also embodies history. A painting is painted upon with paint in a certain way. Clay is molded and baked redhot in ovens above 2000 degrees, sculptures took years to work on. They represent hisotry, a bondage with the artist. You can hardly say that massmanufactured Sony screens carry the artist`s message, or have any relatinship to the art that is expressed.

Digital art also paradoxically represents art that you will never see the original of. The analog actions the artist uses to mold his medium into his favourite shape, is digitized entirely, only to be reconverted to analog output that will try to reproduce the original analog artwork. What the artist makes is never exactly the same as what the world will see. The soul in art is usually extremely fragile and easily damaged, so maybe digital art does not exist i this sense.

If you disregard the level of digital means that have to interprete the art-data for you, then digital art becomes essentially the same as any art out there. The queation whether something is art or not is the very personal question whether something touches and moves the senses, soul, emotions and feelings of the observer. The television screen becomes the (imperfect) looking glass which you use to observe a digitized version of analog actions, which may very well contain pure art, or pure garbage, aside from any (mis)interpretation. Since digital artificats belong to the medium, it is therefore highly dangerous to say it belongs to the art as wel, as the artifacts are sensitive to changes in the technology behind video screens, which may very well change, whereas the art should not.

So it`s a personal thing mainly. Everybody decides for himself whether something is art or not. Digital art prompts problems for the mainstream art critiques out there because it isn`t clear why something can be art or not. Digital art asks for a very personal form of appreciation. You like it or you don`t. Everybody sees the same thing, and there`s little history to hold on to, which is what critiques usually use to judge artwork.

If you ar interested in knowing what people do or have done with digital art n the past, have a look at scene.org and hornet.org which feature most of the 1987-2001 period of digital art produced in a underground movement called the demoscene. The democene itself has discussed the topic of demoscene material being art multiple times in the past, and the general consensus is that the actual question what art is, remains. The modalities and reasons why people create digital art rather than classical art may be important to understand what digital art is, too. In fact, digital art is open to everybody, requires talent, skill, exercise, just like any other art. It is however much more accessible and easier to put into practice, and tools are much more diverse and in ambundance.

In the end, art is a personal feeling, a whimp of the hart, something that cannot be explained, and that takes everyday life into a metalevel. Those who define fine art probably did without digital art in mind, but the concept that led to the fine-art definition probably remain the same.

ignace