The Demoscene Thread

[MidKnight]

Do you love the demoscene?
I know I love the demoscene.

What are your favorite demos?
What about your favorite demogroups?
Oldskool or new school? Shiny 3D effects or strange vague story?



Some questions you may have:

What is the demoscene?
Did you see the links at the start of this post? Click them.

Why should I care?
Are you on a windows computer? Great. Download this. Run it.
Did you like it? Good.
Now look at the file size.
That's right.
Now you know.

Also, we're working on games here, and the demoscene has historically pioneered techology that would late find a place inside popular video games. Demos are, in effect, non-interactive video games, so if what we do here interests you, then the demoscene should be at least a tiny bit relevant. And I haven't even mentioned the sick music yet!

...Plus, it's cool as heck!


Let's close with some pictures

[dansan]

I loved this stuff back in the days of C64 and Amiga500. Since using Linux I haven't had the pleasure
From the websites I got appetite... I think I'll have to reboot into the other-OS tonight...

[Panda]

This looks cool! I have an artist friend, who does computer art for a living that I think would like this. I don't know that much about graphic art, but she seems like a good artist.

MidKnight, I like the pictures that you posted and some of the music that I saw on the Kahvi Collective forum.

[zwzsg]

.theprodukkt will make you happy.

[knorke]

http://www.farb-rausch.de/ is pretty cool and stuff

if you want to download something instead of watching on youtube id say try this: http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger#20

[MidKnight]

.theprodukkt will make you happy.

Farbrausch's stuff is really great. http://www.farb-rausch.de/ Has some of their newer work, as well -- theprodukkt was used more as a marketing name. My favorite Farbrausch works are probably Masagin and fr-043:rove. Candytron's 64kb speech synth is pretty amazing as well.
EDIT: Knorke beat me to it.

This looks cool! I have an artist friend, who does computer art for a living that I think would like this. I don't know that much about graphic art, but she seems like a good artist.

MidKnight, I like the pictures that you posted and some of the music that I saw on the Kahvi Collective forum.

Pictures are nice, but the real beauty of this stuff comes from watching it in motion. They have some amazing special effects and transitions. A good example of that is probably ASD's Lifeforce demo. You could watch it on Youtube, but actually downloading it and running it will give you the full experience. It's quite hypnotic.

[Panda]

They have some amazing special effects and transitions. A good example of that is probably ASD's Lifeforce demo. You could watch it on Youtube, but actually downloading it and running it will give you the full experience. It's quite hypnotic.

I don't like the Lifeforce demo, but thanks for the suggestion anyway.

.theprodukkt will make you happy.

Must do what the computer says, be happy with theprodukkt.

[Zydox]

My favourite is an old classic... which I first saw when it was new

Future crew's Second Reality (1993)
Part I
Part II

The graphics arn't that impressive anymore, but I still love the music

[KaiserJ]

i miss those awesome custom installers for warez from the mid 1990s... some of them were absolutely amazing, with killer music to boot.

[Karl]

.theprodukkt will make you happy.

You know that they are dead, dont you? Well atleast they dint update it for a while, not to mention about kkrieger

[MidKnight]

My favourite is an old classic... which I first saw when it was new

Future crew's Second Reality (1993)
Part I
Part II

The graphics arn't that impressive anymore, but I still love the music

I am not an atomic playboy!

.theprodukkt will make you happy.

You know that they are dead, dont you? Well atleast they dint update it for a while, not to mention about kkrieger

.theprodukkt is Farbrausch's marketing arm. Farbrausch is still very much alive and kicking.

[PicassoCT]

Yeah, impressed much. Know that alot of gamecompanys are actually just demoguys who continued a demoparty. Max Payne makers Remedy, are actually the Future Crew.

I admire there programing work, but the showcases of the most medium demos is quite often boring. And there walks another mech, stomping in a endless loop.
Its a impressiv feet that one or two guys wrote practically a engine, got some shaders running, and a animated polyobj stompin around.. but ive seen it a thousand times by now.
Wasted effort on the last meters much.

Still, there effects are most inspiring, and some of the biggest pushes for advancing come directly out of the demoscene. The procedural content of spore for example.

[t0rb3n]

i remember watching zoom3 at least a dozen times...

[knorke]

Its a impressiv feet that one or two guys wrote practically a engine, got some shaders running, and a animated polyobj stompin around.. but ive seen it a thousand times by now.

well, the real lol is that the screenshots in the first post have higher file size then those programs.
The music as .mp3 would be several hundreds times larger too etc.

[PicassoCT]

i know, thats double time impressive, but still, the technical feet aside, the usual show is not that impressive. Its a mecha stompin around, Alien-movielike floors with lots of pipeps and vents, procedural content and yeah, you can say the 64 kbit is artistically limiting, but wait... doesent the spore concept proof that this isnt true.
So why the invent awesome technology, spearheading the tech developing (i already admitet that, thats moar honey then even the bees get from me) half of the demo show the same content artisticwise.

[aegis]

the spore disk is 3+GB

I think spore is less full procedural and more "we can meld several models together!"

[PicassoCT]

They certainly weeded the procedural garden, before pushing it out. And i guess EA insisted on prefixed frozzen stuff, so generating wouldnt take forever on slower pcs. But the weeding out also happens on procedural demoscene textures and stuff.


Procedural Penismonsters everywhere. The result of million years of evolution.

[MidKnight]

@Picasso: The reason why a lot of demos you see are mecha loops, 3D graphics, pipes, etc is because that's what gets the crowd at parties going. People don't really rate the more progressive, freeform demos as highly, so they don't really get much exposure. Navis of Andromeda Software Development rants a lot about that.

Here are some demos that definitely stray from the norm:

Stuff by Satori (here's an example)
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=56881

ASD's 2D demo series
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=50127
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=51450

2D/3D stuff like
Chameleon by ASD: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=53576
Masagin by Farbrausch/Neuro: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=50131

Stuff by some of the newer demogroups like
Four by Ctrl Alt Test: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=56851

What do you think of these demos?

[PicassoCT]

way more impressive then the standardstuff... goto luv these, i agree on that :D