Demoscene art

Post by **Menegrothx** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 8:58 pm

Im not sure whether to post this in general gaming or off topic as this isnt directly gaming related. I personally feel that this is subject that might intrest many people who are into retro gaming and the art side of video games so its not completely off topic

So is any one here into demoscene? How many people here are aware of its existance? From what I have gathered, it isnt nearly as popular in the US as it is in Europe, and even in Europe its an underground phenomenon. Note that I am not a programmer so its quite hard for me to grasp the level of math and what not that goes into making demos, so I am not the best possible person to explain to an outsider what demoscene is.
Whether demos are true art or not is a debated issue, but lets not get into that one in this thread.
Anyways
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer. The main goal of a demo is to show off programming, artistic, and musical skills.

Demo writers went to great lengths to get every last bit of performance out of their target machine. Where games and application writers were concerned with the stability and functionality of their software, the demo writer was typically interested in how many CPU cycles a routine would consume and, more generally, how best to squeeze great activity onto the screen. Writers went so far as to exploit known hardware errors to produce effects that the manufacturer of the computer had not intended. The perception that the demo scene was going to extremes and charting new territory added to its draw.

With many of the past's challenges removed, the focus in making demos has moved from squeezing as much out of the computer as possible to making stylish, beautiful, well-designed real time artwork – a directional shift that many "old school demosceners" seem to disapprove of. This can be explained by the break introduced by the PC world, where the platform varies and most of the programming work that used to be hand-programmed is now done by the graphics card. This gives demo-groups a lot more artistic freedom, but can frustrate some of the old-schoolers for lack of a programming challenge. The old tradition still lives on, though. Demo parties have competitions with varying limitations in program size or platform (different series are called compos). On a modern computer the executable size may be limited to 64 kB or 4 kB. Programs of limited size are usually called intros. In other compos the choice of platform is restricted; only old computers, like the 8-bit Atari 800 or Commodore 64, or the 16-bit Amiga, or Atari ST, or mobile devices like handheld phones or PDAs are allowed. Such restrictions provide a challenge for coders, musicians and graphics artists and bring back the old motive of making a device do more than was intended in its original design.

Although demos are still a more or less obscure form of art even in the traditionally active demoscene countries, the scene has had an impact on areas such as computer games industry and new media art.
A great deal of European game programmers, artists and musicians have come from the demoscene, often cultivating the learned techniques, practices and philosophies in their work.

So, basically programmers make videos that push the boundaries of the platforms that they are intended for. It requires mad coding skills naturally, and a lot of outside the box thinking. Like some one said it in youtube, ”its like having to paint Mona Lisa with just 2 colors”.

So what does that mean? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger for example
The game looks like this.
The noteworthy thing is that it only takes 96 kb of space, while it doesnt look that much different from actual commercial FPS games that were released the same year, like Doom 3.

So here are some other impressive demos which should give a nice picture of what demoscene is about to those of you that are unfamiliar with it. Theres a lot of text and videos linked in this thread so its understandable that people wont bother with it all, but atleast watch ”Conspiracy”and ”Robotic Liberation”

Modern demos
Chaos Theory - Conspiracy -
Note that the file size is 64 kb!
Farbrausch - Debris -

A few words more: Yes, everything you're seeing comes out of an executable of only 177 kilobytes size.

The secret behind all this is procedural content generation. in a nutshell, instead of storing a movie as-is we're storing a certain number of mathematical formulas for image and audio manipulation as well as the "recipe" how to apply those small bits of code in a way that what you see comes out. And while it's running your computer's graphics card cares for the actual displaying ot the world, just like in modern 3D games. Formulas+recipe are of course way smaller than the end result, and with a few additional sprinkles of magic compression fairy dust we get down to under 200 kilobytes, which is way less than one single high quality image of this show would take.

Making this gem took us all more than two years of hobby part time work _after_ we had five years of experience with this kind of technology.

Like I said, my knowledge of computer programming is very limited, but I find it unbelievable that programmers can make actual videos out of just code with out any one actually using some kind of software to animate and create all the visual objects you see on those demos.

Here is a demo that focuses more on the visual/art side of things
ASD - Lifeforce

And here are few examples of demos made on old hardware, I am sure that retro gamers here can appreciate them

Vic-20
PWP - Robotic Liberation
The BYTE POWER pun is really funny

PWP/Viznut has made a lot of demos that actually have a message - its great if besides technical excellence and/or great visuals and music a demo can also actually deliver a message, which makes it more legit as an art piece.
PWP - Impossiblator 3 -

Atari 2600
Trilobit - Doctor
Trilobit - Saigon

Commodore 64
PWP - Progress without Progress
Fairlight - We are new

An intresting thing about demoscene is that programmers actually have to create themselves artificial barriers or use outdated technology in order to challenge themselves because modern computers have so much memory etc. Im sure many proud retro gamers arent very surprised to hear that

Here is an article by that PWP/Viznut guy, I quoted a few intresting paragraphs
http://pelulamu.net/countercomplex/putt ... a-context/

Also an intresting unrelated video from the very same guy
Experimental one-line algorithmic music -

Its kind of hard to actually talk about a subject like this since the assumption is that no one here actually knows how to make demos, but thats not my intention. I hope that atleast a handful of new people now have a vague idea of what demoscene is and can appreciate the amazing work that people in demoscene do. Maybe show to some demos to friends who like video game art and music, retro gaming etc.
I really do feel that those people who make these demos are underappreciated geniuses. Maybe they want to remain relatively unknown, I dont know. /rambling

Post by **CRTGAMER** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 9:05 pm

Remember the Unreal and Second Reality demos by Future Crew? Lately I'm rediscovering some of my very old PC demos from the AT 486 days thru DOSBox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Crew

Yes they can be seen on YouTube but not quite the same impact.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxGtPAhkEQU

Post by **Menegrothx** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 9:13 pm

CRTGAMER wrote:Remember the Unreal and Second Reality demos by Future Crew? Lately I'm rediscovering some of my very old PC demos from the AT 486 days thru DOSBox.
]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Crew

I love the music in Second Reality but I decided not to link old Amiga/PC demos because its harder to grasp nowadays why exactly they are impressive achievements, while its easier for us younger people to understand why Atari 2600, Vic 20 and C64 demo are impressive.
Here are few funky tracks from the 1990s

and heres second reality

Some subtitled old footage from the making of second reality
The song sounds really gorgeous

this thing just reeks of the early 1990s

Post by **Menegrothx** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 3:19 pm

Here is how the voice was done in robotic liberation http://www.pelulamu.net/pwp/vic20/waveforms.txt

The discovery of a totally unknown and undocumented hardware feature in a vintage machine was somewhat surprising, but it clearly demonstrates how a very simple device can keep some of its secrets for decades.

It would be really great to see new homebrew games for 3DO, Jaguar, 32X etc less popular platforms. Even for Genesis, Playstation etc. But less popular/failed devices intrest me more because there is more hidden/untapped potential in the hardware.
Now that programmers have better tools and wider understanding of different platforms we could really have some mindblowing new games for old platforms. Its already been done on Atari 2600, games that seemingly surpass the systems limitations. There are actually some Dreamcast and Jaguar homebrew projects going on. PS1 might be the best retro platform for doing an awesome homebrew like that, as it doesnt use cartridges and thanks to PS2, there are a lot of people who could actually play those games on proper hardware.

HLTB · Post by **Xeogred** » Sat Apr 14, 2012 5:26 pm

I think this stuff is pretty cool to me, just mostly musically though. Have stumbled upon some demo's off and on. Just can't get enough of awesome tracker work.

The Future Crew - Unreal one was really cool!

Post by **sabrage** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 12:28 am

Wow, that "Chaos Theory" video was really quite something.

HLTB · Post by **Xeogred** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 12:41 am

I thought the Space Balls Amiga one was really awesome.

Post by **Menegrothx** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 3:27 pm

Xeogred wrote:I think this stuff is pretty cool to me, just mostly musically though.

Yeah, its hard to understand why exactly a rotating cube is impressive unless you are a programmer yourself I guess. New demos are more accessible to people who arent into this stuff as they can be visually amazing, even mindblowing, if they are done on modern hardware, and as style has progressed, even new demos made on old hardware can be more than just showcases of random effects and programming tricks. Most of PWP demos have a some sort of storyline.

Does any one here know any games like .kkrieger? Its really amazing how much you can do with 96 kb

Post by **Menegrothx** » Sun Apr 15, 2012 9:46 pm

Oh yeah, speaking of tracker music. This is kinda old news, but some of you maybe unfamiliar with the case

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbaland_ ... ontroversy

On February 9, 2007, Timbaland commented on the issue as follows in an MTV interview:
It makes me laugh. The part I don't understand, the dude is trying to act like I went to his house and took it from his computer. I don't know him from a can of paint. I'm 15 years deep. That's how you attack a king? You attack moi? Come on, man. You got to come correct. You the laughing stock. People are like, 'You can't be serious.'"[12]