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PC Demoscene FAQ,
plain text version (v0.80),
latest update: 2004-01-14
written and maintained by Thomas Gruetzmacher (aka Tomaes)
_______________________________________________________________________________
Contents:
1. Meta Section
1.1. What is a FAQ anyway?
1.2. What's the purpose of this FAQ?
1.3. Who's the author of this FAQ?
1.4. Where can I contact the author in order to correct a mistake,
ask a new questions, add an important detail?
1.5. Where can I get the latest version of this FAQ?
1.6. What's the version history and status of this FAQ?
2. General Introduction
2.1. What is a demo?
2.2. What is the demoscene?
2.3. Where does the demoscene come from?
2.4. What is the difference between a demo and an intro?
2.5. What is a dentro?
2.6. On what other hardware/software platforms does a demoscene exist?
2.7. Are demos a form of art?
2.8. For what or why do people spend their time/money in the scene?
2.9. What exactly is the advantage of making demos run in realtime?
2.10. Where can I download (the latest) scene demos?
2.11. Where can I download scene demos in divx/avi format?
2.12. Where can I find demo xyz?
2.13. Any suggestions what demoscene productions are worth downloading?
2.14. Where can I get the music from intro/demo xyz?
2.15. Are there scene demos which I can view online?
2.16. Where can I find demos that bring my latest hardware to full effect?
2.17. What's the difference between hardware accelerated and software rendering
demos?
2.18. Are there commercial demos?
2.19. What is the legal status of demoscene productions?
2.20. What free tools for demo-making are available?
3. Troubleshooting
3.1. Demo xyz won't run, what can I do?
3.2. How can I get old ms-dos demos to run?
3.3. Some old ms-dos demos refuse to run, I only get an "run time error 200".
What's that?
4. Events
4.1. What are demoscene parties?
4.2. What are compos?
4.3. What are the most important demoscene parties?
4.4. Where and when is the next demoscene party?
4.5. Why is it, that compo results tend to get screwed up?
5. Terms
5.1. What is a wild demo?
5.2. What are trackers?
5.3. What are diskmags?
5.4. What is a music disk?
5.5. What are chip tunes?
5.6. What do all those abbreviations (gfx...) mean?
5.7. What is ascii/ansi art?
5.8. What is a cracktro?
5.9. What is a slideshow?
5.10. What is a inv(i)tro?
5.11. What is a fast-intro?
5.12. What is a textmode demo?
6. Do it yourself
6.1. Can I make a demo/intro myself? What is required?
6.2. Can I make a demo in Flash/Shockwave etc.?
6.3. Can I make a demo without any programming skills?
6.4. How do I get started? What do I need to know in order to bring my own
demo to life?
6.5. What is the difference between Open GL and DirectX?
6.6. Any tutorials to help Open GL/DirectX beginners?
6.7. What programming languages do demo coders use?
6.8. How can I make a 4k intro?
6.9. How can I make a 64kb intro?
6.10. How is it possible to stuff a lot of content
(textures, hi-quality sound etc.) into a 64kb intro?
6.11. Where can I get source codes of demos or single effects?
6.12. How can I get music in my intro/demo?
7. Resources and Communication
7.1. What other demoscene introductions/articles do exist?
7.2. What scene CD-ROMs/DVDs do exist?
7.3. Any books about the demoscene?
7.4. Any newsletters I can subscribe to?
7.5. What IRC channels exist?
7.6. What pc demoscene discussion boards and newsgroups are there?
7.7. What are the most important pc demoscene websites/portals?
8. Misc
8.1. How many sceners are there?
8.2. Where do most sceners come from?
8.3. What's the average age of a scener?
8.4. What is this 'scene is dead' thing all about?
8.5. What is 'scene poetry'?
8.6. What's the 'dutch colour scheme' and what are 'coder colours'?
8.7. How can I find hidden parts in scene productions?
8.8. On demoparties I heard people yelling 'foliba' or 'ficken', what does
that mean?
8.9. What was elitegroup all about?
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
1. Meta Section
_______________________________________________________________________________
1.1. What is a FAQ anyway?
A structured list of (F)requently (A)sked (Q)uestions and their respective
answers. They're comprehensive "everything you'd need to know about..." texts.
_______________________________________________________________________________
1.2. What's the purpose of this FAQ?
I started writing this FAQ because it appeared to me, that a lot of newbies ask
the same questions over and over again and that there is no place on the web
one can point them to, in order to get started. All existing scene FAQs were
either obsolete or of very little content. So, I thought, it can't be a bad
idea to write an all new FAQ, a more comprehensive and current one.
A FAQ that is a knowledge base for newbies and fun to read for veterans.
_______________________________________________________________________________
1.3. Who's the author of this FAQ?
Me, Tomaes. However, I'd also like to thank the following sceners for
additional ideas and new questions:
Mados/TAP^PAiN (who has also written the php script for the online version),
T$, The update/copro^smash designs, MadMan/TAP, Zone/Marshals, Krash/ACME/tMA,
Adok/Hugi.
_______________________________________________________________________________
1.4. Where can I contact the author in order to correct a mistake, ask a
new question, add an important detail?
Feel free to send your mail to [email]tom@DELETETHISSPAMBOTPROTECTIONtap-home.de[/email].
_______________________________________________________________________________
1.5. Where can I get the latest version of this FAQ?
Take a look in the article section of my website: http://tomaes.32x.de.
_______________________________________________________________________________
1.6. What's the version history and status of this FAQ?
- 2004-01-14 - 0.80
[8.9.], [3.3.] and [5.12.] added. A lot of fixes, additions and minor
changes. Also, I started to include some screenshots and pictures (online
version only, of course). More/better pics to come.
- 2003-11-17 - 0.75
several additions, including new questions [8.3.] and [2.20.].
- 2003-08-03 - 0.74a: [2.19.], [2.18.] & [5.11.] added,
merged [8.5.] with the content of 8.6., fixes and minor additions,
new logo by Krash/ACME/tMA.
- 2003-07-13 - 0.7a
several fixes, added [5.8.], [5.9.], [2.17.], [8.7.].
- 2003-07-09 - 0.06a
(first public release. hooray for releasing alpha/beta versions. :))
- 2003-06-25 - 0.01a
(aka "let's just start typing and see how it turns out")
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
2. General Introduction
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.1. What is a demo?
Ultimately, a demo(nstration) in a demoscene sense, is a piece of free software
that shows realtime rendered graphics, while playing music. Often, the music is
tightly connected/synced to the visuals. Modern pc demos run linear from start
to finish and are non-interactive. There is no whatsoever rule what a
demo must/can show. The creator is free to decide whether he wants to show
stylish and/or impressive effects, an epic story, funny/bizarre/satirical
audiovisual artwork or a distorted mindfuck.
A scene demo is not a try-out version of a commercial application or game.
Exampel screenshots of a few demos (ripped from ths (see [7.7.]))
(from top/left to bottom/right: fr-025, a deepness in the sky, halla, variform):
http://tomaes.32x.de/text/dsfaq_democollage.jpg
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.2. What is the demoscene?
Short answer: A subculture in the computer underground culture universe,
dealing with the creative and constructive side of technology, proving that a
computer can be used for much more than writing a letter in MS-Word and hence
emphasize on computer technology as just another medium that can transport
ideas and styles, show off skills and express opinions etc.
Another theory says, that it's just a bunch of boozing computer nerds,
programming weird, useless multimedia stuff. Errm.;)
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.3. Where does the demoscene come from?
Short answer: It basically started with cracking games on home computers in the
early 1980s. Crackers started to remove the copy protection of games for fun
and competition with other crackers. Instead of just spreading the cracked
games, they soon thought about 'labeling' their releases. Modified versions of
title screens (saying "cracked by xyz") were soon followed by a more advanced
version of showing the cracking/programming skill of a cracker: The crack-intro.
Visual effects, music and long text scrollers filled with greetings and scene
babbling. Later, cheat modes ("trainers") followed. Of course those kind of
activities were (and still are) barely legal, so the crackers used pseudonyms
instead of their real names.
In the late 1980s the legal part of the cracking and warez scene slowly
drifted away from the illegal part. Intros became more advanced, (mega-)demos
(several advanced intros in a row) appeared. The demoscene was born... sort of.
Long answer: See [7.3.].
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.4. What is the difference between a demo and an intro?
Today, an intro is usually limited to one executable 64kb (65536 bytes) file,
while there is no such restriction for demos. Of course demoparty organisers DO
set a filesize limit for them as well, currently between 10 and 20mb. Final
versions or windows ports of older ms-dos intros might be bigger than 64kb.
The term 'intro' is historically determined by the early crack-intro(duction)s
(see [2.3.] for a bit more about them...) and does not imply a _specific_
filesize limit. Other common intro categories are 4kb (4096 bytes) and
256byte.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.5. What is a dentro?
A dentro is a mixture of the characteristics of a '(DE)mo' and an 'i(NTRO)'.
In other words, a big intro, often 256kb big. Just like intros, usually
everything is packed in one executable file. Dentros are not very common these
days anymore. Also, in the past, dentros were often previews of upcoming demo.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.6. On what other hardware/software platforms does a demoscene exist?
Demosceners have programmed demos and intros on a large variety of hardware
platforms and operating systems ranging from 8 bit machinery like c64, to game
consoles like gameboy and dreamcast, to the latest pentium 4 class pc.
Platforms with demoscene activities are/were:
- arcon archimedes
- amiga (various incl. ocs, ecs, aga, ppc...)
- amstrad cpc
- atari (various incl. xl/xe, st, falcon, lynx...)
- c64 (and other commodore machines incl. c128, c16, plus 4...)
- dreamcast
- gameboy (various incl. gbc, gba)
- gp32
- pc (ms-dos/windows/linux/beos...)
- playstation (1 and 2)
- macintosh
- mega drive (aka genesis)
- nes, snes (aka famicon / super famicon)
- vc20 (aka vic 20)
- zx spectrum (various...)
- xbox
...and a lot more incl. calculators (Texas Instruments models...) and all sorts
of portable systems. Not to mention arcane things like typewriters.
The activity levels on all those platforms vary a lot. In most cases, the
activity is pretty much proportional to the actual spread of the respective
hardware. The time and area of the original release and the access to
development software plays a certain role too. So you can imagine that there
is not quite as much 'scene' on Msx than on Gameboy.
There are plenty of emulators for most technically obsolete and/or
not-so-common systems available. Of course watching demos on the original
hardware should be prefered.
However, most demoscene related releases are pc/windows ones, these days.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.7. Are demos a form of art?
That's one of the most controversial questions in the scene these days. :)
To put it bluntly: It's just like with books and films. Some are art,
most are not.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.8. What is the sense of demos and the motivation for being active in
the demoscene?
Normal people have normal hobbies, strange people have strange hobbies.;)
While some people enjoy to climb up to the top of the highest mountains, others
may enjoy collecting stamps. And some find it interesting to live out their
creative potential: Painting, making music, writing etc. Demosceners blend
those activities with their interest for & usuage of computer technology.
Secondly, people always like to communicate with like-minded people, who
share their interests. Competition is fun and motivating, just like working
together on a project.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.9. What exactly is the advantage of making demos run in realtime?
Challenge, competition, learning.
In addition, those demos and intros are a LOT smaller than a video recording
of the content would be. How about a 64kb intro like fr-08 that runs for about
10 minutes? A divx snapshot that could cope with the realtime original quality
wise would waste more than 100 times the space on your harddisk. Also, you can
include hidden parts, provide additional options or randomize certain aspects
of the demo, which is not possible with a cast-in-stone video.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.10. Where can I download (the latest) scene demos?
Follow the news on http://www.scene.org and http://www.pouet.net.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.11. Where can I download scene demos in divx/avi format?
For most pc demos, there's simply no video recording. However, some known
takes of pc demos are:
- raw confessions/Coccon (requires Gforce 3 to run in realtime)
(http://cocoon.planet-d.net/raw/RawConfessions_Cocoon.avi)
- relais/Kolor (requires Gforce 3 to run in realtime, no ati support)
(can be found on scene.org)
Another opportunity is to purchase the mindcany DVD (see [7.2.])
Btw, Videos of Amiga demos can be found here:
- http://www.amidemos.org / http://www.scene.org/dir.php?dir=/mirrors/amidemos
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.12. Where can I find demo xyz?
In order to find a specific demo, you can try:
- http://www.scene.org/search.php
- http://www.ojuice.org/search.htm?t=a
- http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php (or use the search box on the front page)
If you cannot remember the name of demo or the name of the group who has made
it, you can try asking sceners on the web or usenet (see [7.6.]) for help.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.13. Any suggestions what demoscene productions are worth downloading?
You might...
- read the reviews on http://ths.demoscene.org
- follow the steady stream of information on http://www.pouet.net
(or just click on "random" until you've found something interesting)
- take a look at pouet.net's top-ten lists: http://www.pouet.net/top10.php
- visit http://www.scene.org/tips.php
- visit http://www.monostep.org
- visit http://www.calodox.org/demoo
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.14. Where can I get the music from intro/demo xyz?
If you're lucky, you'll find it in the root or one of the sub directories
("/data" etc.) of the demo exe. In most cases, it's either an mp3/ogg file,
or a module in xm/it format (see [5.2.]). If you cannot find it, you can:
- go to http://www.dc5.org/demodulate, a collection of demo soundtracks,
probably you'll find it there.
- try the archive of nectarine demoscene radio: http://www.scenemusic.net
- ask the author of the tune (look into the readme file for mail adresses)
- use a file ripper to try to find and extract the sound file
- sneak into every file with a hex editor and look out for suspicious
headers. Once you've found a file that, according to the hex data and the
file size could be a mp3/ogg/xm/it file, just rename it and try playing it.
- record the audio stream while the demo's running
- in case you want to grab the music of the farbrausch intros,
go and get their music collection "brullwurfel", it features several
intro tracks including a oportunity to render them to wav files.
Also, take a look at ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/farb-rausch.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.15. Are there scene demos which I can view online?
You might try some alambik, shockwave or java demos. Some examples:
- http://contest.alambik.com (Alambik)
- http://medcg.free.fr/woodsenders (Alambik)
- http://www.i-arts.com/darkzone/dz_awakv1.htm (Shockwave)
- http://www.komplex.org/java.html (Java)
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.16. Where can I find demos that bring my latest hardware to full effect?
Since most demo coders are usually still busy with their education (read:
students) they cannot afford the lastet buzz from the hardware market. Since
the commercial death of the home computer era, the demoscene has always been
a certain bit behind the latest technology; f.e.,the usuage of 3d accelerators
became common years after their establishment among gamers. Secondly, it's not
easy at all, to try to keep up with the ongoing hardware development. And
apparently, it does make more sense to focus on what can be done on
"status quo" equipment.
In order to really get some eye-candy from your brand-new graphics card, you
may look at some 'tech demos'. Usually, the graphics chip developers have
some nice new-feature-show-off demos on their websites.
However, to test your cpu power, you can download some raytracing demos
like the Federation against Nature ones: http://www.realstorm.de/Download.html.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.17. What's the difference between hardware accelerated and software rendering
demos?
Demos that only rely on software rendering do not make any use of special
capabilities of the installed graphics card. Everything shown is computed
by the cpu in contrast to 3d accelerated demos, where most of the actual
computations are done by the graphics card. That's why it (almost) doesn't
matter what kind of graphics card is installed when you run software rendered
demos: It won't run faster after you've installed a newer graphics card.
As a side effect, the compatibility and driver issues are minor.
To compensate for the high cpu load, software rendering demos usually run in a
lower resolution and/or colour depth than their 3d graphics hardware
accelerated counterparts. Note that most demos released before the year 2000
are software rendering ones.
Raytracing demos or demos that show simple 2d effects don't benefit much from
additional graphics hardware power due to their technical nature (pun alert;)).
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.18. Are there commercial demos?
Yes, although this really doesn't happen very often, from time to time, sceners
make money out of their hobby. Known 'incidents' are the Future Crew demo for
Creative Labs (and further works for SSI and The Waite Group Press) and the
Afri Cola Demo by members of Farbrausch.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.19. What is the legal status of demoscene productions?
Generally spoken, demoscene productions are freeware. You can copy and
distribute them, as long as it keeps free of charge (and warranty).
On the other hand, demoscene productions often contain copyrighted material
in one way or the other. Most notably, it's the (rather rare) case of ripped
soundtracks and (more often) graphics. Several classic demos could not be
presented on the Mindcandy DVD (see [7.2.]) or needed to be edited for this
very reason.
_______________________________________________________________________________
2.20. What free tools for demo-making are available?
Please note, that most groups/individuals have their own tools, exclusively
developed for in-house use. Only a small portion of the tools out there are
actually publicly available. Some demo assembling tools are:
- Demopaja by Moppi Productions
(http://moppi.inside.org/demopaja)
- Smode by Virtual Emotion
(http://smode.smousse.net)
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
3. Troubleshooting
_______________________________________________________________________________
3.1. Demo xyz won't run, what can I do?
- have a look at the readme/info files(s) that come along with the demo
- does your hard- and software meet the requirements?
- party versions are usually buggy, see if a fixed/final version has
been released already
_______________________________________________________________________________
3.2. How can I get old ms-dos demos to run?
Crest wrote an informative article about this issue:
- http://crest.untergrund.net/config.html.
In case you have a powerful cpu, you can try a MSDOS-Emulator, such as
dosbox:
- http://dosbox.sourceforge.net
_______________________________________________________________________________
3.3. Some old ms-dos demos refuse to run, I only get an "run time error 200".
What's that?
It's a crt unit init error, likely to happen with demos coded using old borland
(turbo) pascal versions. There are several ways to fix it. Here are a few of
the many web pages that explain the issue and offer help:
- http://www.brain.uni-freiburg.de/~klaus/pascal/runerr200/
- http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/pas-r200.htm
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
4. Events
_______________________________________________________________________________
4.1. What are demoscene parties?
In short: Demoscene meetings/festivals, where sceners meet. Usually, there is a
a big screen, compos you can participate in and lots of weird people from all
over the world you can meet and talk to, exchange ideas and booze with.;)
Oh, and there's a network too (but not for gameing).
This pic (which is a section of a panorama picture, taken by chandra/orange
juice) shows one half of the Mekka&Symposium 2002 party hall:
http://tomaes.32x.de/text/dsfaq_partypic.jpg
_______________________________________________________________________________
4.2. What are 'compos'?
Competitions at demoparties. The most common competitions, that take place on
almost any demoscene party are:
- demo
- 64kb intro (see [2.4.])
- 4kb intro
- wild demo (see [5.1.])
- graphics (at least seperated compos for rendered and pixeled ones)
- music (seperated compos for 'tracked' and mp3/ogg music)
- all kinds of fast/surprise compos
_______________________________________________________________________________
4.3. What are the most important demoscene parties?
Currently, the big ones are:
- Breakpoint, Germany (100% scene, http://breakpoint.untergrund.net)
- Assembly, Finland (gamers and sceners, http://assembly.org)
_______________________________________________________________________________
4.4. Where and when is the next demoscene party?
The following site provides all needed info:
- http://www.ojuice.org/next/parties.htm
_______________________________________________________________________________
4.5. Why is it, that compo results tend to get screwed up?
Often, you might wonder why a certain compo result seems to be fucked up.
Bad stuff ranked high, while a much better production is nowhere near the
place it deserved. This might be due to the following:
- People might not have been sober during voting
- People often DO have a strange taste
- Some stuff looks much better/worse on the big screen/compo machine
than on your home machinery (different colour/gamma intensity/more powerful
hardware in the compo machine etc.).
- People tend to vote for their own productions or for the
production of their group or their friends. (aka self-voting, group-voting,
buddy-voting). You can imagine that a group with 20 members can 'distort'
the results of a 200 people party quite a bit.
- People cheat (exploiting voting systems)
- Never underestimate the fun-factor of a party. Technically and artistically
bad productions might get a lot of votes if they're funny or just catch
the mood of the audience.
- The demo crashed the compo machine and most of the good stuff was
yet about to follow. Does not happen very often though.
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
5. Terms
_______________________________________________________________________________
5.1. What is a 'wild' demo?
A wild demo can be pretty much everything. Some possibilities:
- It's any kind of film, usually available as divx/avi file
(music videos, shorts, comedies, trash, prerendered animations...)
- It's a demo that requires very rare/strange hardware to run
(c64 with scpu etc.)
- It's a demo that simply does not fit in any competition (and the
applying rules) of a given demoparty.
(30mb demo, although 15mb is the limit)
- Sometimes, live performances count as 'wild' demos too.;)
However, in most cases, it IS a short film.
_______________________________________________________________________________
5.2. What are trackers?
Either people who use tracking software, or the software itself. Simply put, a
tracker is a music composing software that combines sequencing and sampling.
Patterns are used to arrange notes and effects, while the sources of the actual
sounds/instruments are stored in samples. The so-called modules, files with
extensions like it/xm/mod/s3m, which contain the notes, effects, patterns and
also (unlike midi files) the sample data/instrument definitions can be used as
soundtrack for demos, games, diskmags or 64kb intros (if they're small enough).
The main advantages of modules are hardware independency, small filesize (you
can stuff 10 minutes of music in a 50kb file, if you're using sin-waves and
other simple samples as your instrument sources) and their natural open
source-ness (you can open a file with one of the many mod editors, press play
and see how it's all arranged).
To play these modules, you can use
- xmplay (http://www.un4seen.com/xmplay.html)
- modplug player (http://www.modplug.com)
Much more about them here: http://www.united-trackers.org/resources/handbook
_______________________________________________________________________________
5.3. What are diskmags?
Diskmags could be described as electronic magazines or fanzines, made by
sceners for sceners. They usually contain tutorials, interviews, news and
party reports. Unlike newsletters, or articles on the web, the content
is integrated in an unique interface with (hopefully pleasing) graphics and
background music. Diskmags are a solid platform for scene related
communication and information.
While diskmags have lost quite a bit of their importance on pc
(information and communication is web-based nowadays), they are still a vital
part of the c64/amiga/atari scenes.
related Links:
http://pain.scene.org
http://www.hugi.de
_______________________________________________________________________________
5.4. What is a 'music disk'?
It's a collection of songs (ep, album or compilation) that comes with an unique
interface/player. So called 'chip disks' contain chip tunes (see [5.5.]) only.
_______________________________________________________________________________
5.5. What are 'chip tunes'?
Tunes of the pre-sample era of electronic music, music which sounds are
generated by computers, respectively their sound chips, or songs that imitate
or resemble that characteristic sound.
Some chiptune resources are:
- http://www.chiptune.de
- http://www.chiptune.com
_______________________________________________________________________________
5.6. What do all those abbreviations (gfx...) mean?
Ok, here's a short list of abbreviations that you might run across:
- gfx (graphics...)
- msx (music... unless they really refer to the msx hardware)
- zik (muzik.. er, music or musician)
- oj (orange juice, demoscene news website ...see [7.7.])
- asm (Assembly... either the demoscene party in finland, or
the programming language)
- xm/mod/s3m/it (common trackers and/or their file formats... see [5.2.])
- compo (Competition... see [4.2.])
- csipd (Usenet newsgroup comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos)
- GUS (Gravis Ultrasound, most sceners favourite sound card in the ms-dos era,
can be emulated via gusemu: http://listen.to/gusemu)
_______________________________________________________________________________
5.7. What is ASCII/ANSI art?
ASCII art is text art, graphics that consist of ASCII characters. Most require
a non-proportional font (f.e. "fixedsys") for correct viewing. The logo in
front of this FAQ is supposed to be ascii art too. :)
ANSI includes additional formating/displaying information, the most obvious
difference is that ansi supports colours and the possibility to create
animations.
In the days of bulletin board systems (read: pre-internet era), when bandwidth
and processing power was limited, ascii/ansi art was an efficient and easy way
to display graphical content. In the late 90s, ASCII art made a comeback as
email signature and SMS.
ASCII art is often used to enrich info/readme files that come along with
demoscene productions.
Further information and examples:
- http://www.ascii-art.de
- http://www.thuglife.org
- http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art
- http://www.outworldarts.com/ansi.php
- http://www.acid.org
- http://www.ice.org
- http://asciipr0n.com (for adults only;))
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5.8. What is a cracktro?
See [2.3.].
_______________________________________________________________________________
5.9. What is a slideshow?
A slideshow is a graphics collection/presentation with an unique interface,
often with background music. It's the graphical counterpart of a music disk
(see [5.4.]).
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5.10. What is an inv(i)tro?
Invtro (or invitro) is the abbreviation of 'ivitation intro'. The main purpose
is to inform sceners about an upcoming demoscene party, when and where it will
take place, what compos can be expected, entrance fee etc. Unlike normal
intros (see [2.4.]), an invitation intro is usually not limited to a certain
filesize.
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5.11. What is a fast-intro?
On demoparties, one of the most funny competitions are "fast" ones. In case of
fast-intro competitions, the goal is to make a demo (see [2.1.]) within a given
time limit. To increase the level of difficulty, the content has to meet a
given theme or needs to have certain elements in it that are often related to
events (or incidents;)) on the party.
Just like invtros (see [5.10.]), fast-intros are rarely limited to a certain
filesize, "fast-demo" would be probably a more appropriate term. :)
_______________________________________________________________________________
5.12. What is a textmode demo?
It's a demo which makes use of the classic MSDOS text mode for displaying its
content. So, instead of pixels, you see ASCII characters on a 80x25 or 80x50
screen. There's a online competition exclusively dedicated to this kind of
demos: http://taat.fi/tmdc/
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
6. Do it yourself(tm)
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.1. Can I make a demo/intro myself? What is required?
You'll need at least some solid knowledge of one programming language and a
compiler/IDE (see [6.7.]). Plus, a lot of motivation. Imagination will help
too. Note that In most cases, there are several persons working on a demo: At
least one coder (programmer), taking care of all technical aspects, a graphic
artist or designer and a musician composing the soundtrack. So, you might need
someone to help you with one part or an other.
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.2. Can I make a demo in Flash/Shockwave etc.?
Yes and no. A lot of people in the scene have the opinion that such efforts
are no 'real' demos at all, even if you make use of the scripting capabilities,
while others think it's 'ok'. The main problem with flash is, that pixel-based
manipulation is simply ultra-slow due to it's web/vector focus, making it
hardly possible to create something that could catch up with an average java
demo.
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.3. Can I make a demo without any programming skills?
Depends. You can try joining a group that has already a bunch of coders and
demo-tools but lack designers/musicians or you can try some web/video/animation
authoring software.
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.4. How do I get started? What do I need to know in order to bring my own
demo to life?
Ok, let's see:
- learn to code(tm)
No matter what language(s), just pick up the main principles for a start.
In other words: Plain and sucky theory ahead. Buy a book, since online
tutorials really can't cope with a good book. Write your first code, get
angry, because the crap doesn't work as expected, try harder etc. :)
- learn to code(tm) realtime graphics
Get to know 2D graphics programming first (yes, really). Write a plasma
effect, and jump for joy if it finally works.
Get to know Direct3D, get to know Open GL. Chose your religion.
Buy a book again. Get angry again, because the crap does not work. That
sounds familiar?;)
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.5. What is the difference between Open GL and DirectX?
The main differences in brief:
- DirectX
- An api package, that also includes sound, input etc, not just 3d graphics
- Windows only (XBox too)
- Open GL
- Cross platform
- Most say it's a tad easier to learn
- Only for 3d accelerated graphics
A lot boils down to "taste and preferences", so it might be a good idea to
test both of them anyway.
In detail:
- http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1775.asp
- http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/d3d-vs-opengl.html
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.6. Any tutorials to help Open GL/DirectX beginners?
Often, people like to point demo beginners to:
- http://nehe.gamedev.net (Open GL tutorial)
- http://msdn.microsoft.com (DirectX documentation)
Furthermore, diskmags (see [5.3.]) often feature coding related articles.
In the hugi issues 16, 17 and 19 you can find many tutorials for beginners,
get them here: http://www.virtually.at/hugi/main.php?page=hugi
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.7. What programming languages do demo coders use?
Usually it's C or C++, a few use Pascal or Delphi (aka OOP-Pascal), very
few use Java or C#. ASM when it's needed too (f.e., for low filesize or speed
optimisations).
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.8. How can I make a 4k intro?
You should stick to C/C++ and/or assembly language. In order to get more
content in your 4k, you should consider coding everything in assembly language.
All the things said about 64kb intros (see [6.9.]) apply for 4ks as well.
Minus, that it is no crime anymore to use the General midi software wavetable
via DirectX.;)
A helpful tutorial, that also talks about 4k specific exe header compression:
- http://www.ukscene.org/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=8
Useful tools for filesize compression:
- http://apack.cjb.net
- http://20to4.net (not yet...)
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.9. How can I make a 64kb intro?
For a start: Choose C/C++/Asm as your programming language(s). Although I have
seen 64kb intros that are not written in those languages, you'll have a much
easier and more confident way of writing compact code this way. Secondly,
you'll need something for sound. You can use minifmod or mxmplay to play
(and sync) modules in mod/xm format.
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.10. How is it possible to stuff a lot of content (textures, hi-quality
sound etc.) into a 64kb intro?
The main trick is to avoid static data. No bmp/gif/png texture bitmaps, no
mp3/ogg/wav streams. Instead, only 'meta-data' is saved in the final file,
while the content will be created realtime or in a 'loading' sequence before
the intro actually starts.
Instead of saving the actual pixel data of a texture, you just save 'the
contruction plan', the actions you've done in your texture generator in order
to make the texture look like it does. The same principle applies for sound.
Save just the note and other key data and reproduce the actual audio in
realtime. Of course this requires you to write your own texture generator
(or maybe not, there are quite some generators out there) and your own realtime
software synthesizer. This way you'll save a LOT of data.
To save even more, you can:
- Config your compiler properly in order to avoid any ballast in your exe
- Use an executable packer like UPX
- Throw out compatibility code (erm...)
Related links:
- http://www.hailstorm.net/papers/smallwin32.htm
_______________________________________________________________________________
6.11. Where can I get source codes of demos or single effects?
Full demo source codes are rare items and often they're either obsolete,
just consist of very few interesting things, are a pain to read, undocumented,
won't compile etc. In other words, don't expect too much. :)
However, some links for intro and demo sources:
- http://www.farb-rausch.de/fr010src.zip
(intro 'art' by farbrausch and scoopex)
- http://popsyteam.planet-d.net/u2/Vip2.htm
(vip2 by popsy team, linux port: http://www.sesse.net/vip2-linux)
- http://fs.20to4.net/releases/freestyle_stoerfall_ost-src.zip
(stoerfall ost, 4k intro by freestyle)
...or just try the scene.org source repository:
- http://www.scene.org/dir.php?dir=%2Fresources/
______________________________________________________________________________
6.12. How can I get music in my intro/demo?
Most people use either bass (http://www.un4seen.com)
or fmod (http://www.fmod.org), both provide a rich set of features, including
playback of mp3/ogg vorbis files and various tracker (see [5.2.]) formats.
For intros you can either code a realtime software synthesizer or take the
easy way out and use mini-fmod (http://www.fmod.org/fmoddownload.html#secc).
Midi is not recommended due to its hardware dependency. On Windows, you can
make use of the DirectX software wavetable synth.
______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
7. Resources
_______________________________________________________________________________
7.1. What other demoscene introductions/articles do exist?
You might take a look at these...
- http://www.virtually.at/hugi/main.php?page=intro
- http://www.oldskool.org/demos/explained
and http://www.oldskool.org/demos/pc/pcdemos.faq.shtml (last update: 1998!)
- http://www.ojuice.net/faq.htm
_______________________________________________________________________________
7.2. What scene CD-ROMs/DVDs do exist?
Check this site: http://www.fusecon.com/products/scenecds. Concerning DVDs,
check out mind candy: http://www.mindcandydvd.com.
_______________________________________________________________________________
7.3. Any books about the demoscene?
As far as I know, not yet, although there are books that were written by
demosceners or books that slightly touch that topic, but there is no book
ABOUT the demoscene.
This might be due to the fact, that the demoscene, in contrast to the 'hacker'
and warez scene is unknown to a wider public audience and totally legal (and
hence not 'thrilling' enough), decreasing a publishers' intrest to 'close to
zero'.
But there's a project underway. It is called 'freax', read more about it
on http://www.freax.hu.
_______________________________________________________________________________
7.4. Any newsletters I can subscribe to?
You can subscribe to Static line, which is a more or less regulary published
newsletter/text magazine: http://staticline.scenespot.org
_______________________________________________________________________________
7.5. What IRC channels do exist?
Some public channels are (IRCnet):
- #pouet.net
- #demoscene
- #thescene
- #coders (coding related)
- #pixel (graphics related)
- #trax (music related)
_______________________________________________________________________________
7.6. What pc demoscene discussion boards and newsgroups are there?
Here we go...
Web:
- http://www.scene.org/forums
(note that the provided usenet feed does often not work)
- http://www.pouet.net/bbs.php
(not very scene related most of the time)
- http://www.scenespot.org/modules/newbb
- http://www.ukscene.org/modules.php?name=Forums
Usenet newsgroup:
- comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos
Many more at:
- http://www.ojuice.org/forums/links.htm
_______________________________________________________________________________
7.7. What are the most important pc demoscene websites/portals?
Here's a short list of the (imho) most important international ones:
- http://www.ojuice.org
(news, party list, scener database...)
- http://www.pouet.net
(demoscene productions database and flam..erm, discussions :))
- http://www.scene.org
(News, files, polls, discussion boards...)
- http://www.scenemusic.net
(demoscene radio...)
- http://www.scenespot.org
(news and 'static line' (see [7.4.]))
- http://www.ukscene.org
(news, tutorials, forum)
- http://ths.demoscene.org
(demo reviews...)
- http://monostep.org
(demo suggestions...)
- http://calodox.org/demoo
(demo suggestions...)
- http://www.scenet.de
(news, articles, links...)
- http://www.scenerep.org
(online magazine)
...of course there's a LOT more. National scene portals, music sites dedicated
to mods etc, etc. For more check: http://www.ojuice.org/www/centers/links.htm.
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
8. Misc
_______________________________________________________________________________
8.1. How many sceners are there?
It depends on what you count as 'demoscener'. Everybody who has watched at
least one demo? Everbody who has been on a demoparty? Everybody who's
participated in a demo production?
Pouet.net holds no less than 5500 accounts (we can savely assume that at least
~1/5 of them are fake/one-post-only/forgot-my-password-dammit ones). The
orange juice scener database holds more than 10000 accounts. Those dimensions
seem rather realistic to me. Most sceners are active on pc, followed by
amiga and c64. Most sceners are NOT coders, but hobby music producers and
designers or graphic artists.
_______________________________________________________________________________
8.2. Where do most sceners come from?
The majority of demosceners come from europe. There's only little (North
America, Israel, Japan, Australia...) or no (known) activity in other parts
of the world.
_______________________________________________________________________________
8.3. What's the average age of a scener?
The majority of sceners is 20 or older.
_______________________________________________________________________________
8.4. What is the 'scene is dead' thing all about?
Although, this 'opinion' is nothing new (documented by tons of 'scene is dead'
articles in diskmags see [5.3.]), recently, it became a running gag on
the orange juice oneliner. Reasons to type these magical words might be:
- "I'm an old fart, I was active and mega-1337 2 decades ago. All you kids
suck, your scene is not what I used to know as scene. Plus, I'm an old
fart."
- "Hehe, look, just 3 words and they're all going mad!"
- "Hey, it's fun, isn't it?!;)"
- "3D accelerators killed it. YOU HEAR ME??!!11"
- "[insert your favourite oldschool hardware] forever! Everything else sucks"
- "Future Crew is dead? Really? Oh, that sucks"
More seriously, many 'oldschoolers' might be concerned about...
- things getting just too easy with webtools, opengl/directx, it's not a
hardcore-geek-only thing anymore
- the scene is not THAT underground anymore (due to public websites, media
coverage... and FAQs)
- many old scene parties turned into commercial lan-parties
_______________________________________________________________________________
8.5. What is 'scene poetry'?
There are different ways to design a demo or an intro. One of the (by now
cliche) ways is to include wise/personal/political/whatever words on top of the
scenes and effects. While some of them succeded in transporting an emotion or a
certain thought this way, many failed. That's why many demosceners have mixed
feelings about them, to say the least.;) Hence, it is not surprising that
the 'Scene poetry' concept has been skitted several times. Some examples of
'scene poetry' can be seen in:
- almost any replay intro
- heaven 7 / exceed (can be disabled in the final version)
- unet sydämen ajatuksia / haujobb (even multi-language :))
- backslide 7 / hellcore and omnicolor
_______________________________________________________________________________
8.6. What's the 'dutch colour scheme' and what are 'coder colours'?
The excessive use of orange/yellow/red in a demo or intro is called 'dutch
colour scheme'. The phrase was used by Macaw on the usenet newsgroup
comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos to make fun of dutch coders and their colour
preferences. Since then, more people started using that phrase and it slowly
but surely became a common scene term.;)
And whenever a certain colour scheme is inconsistent, looks random or plain
ugly, it was the coders' fault... probably. Next time he should consult a
graphic artist or designer.;)
_______________________________________________________________________________
8.7. How can I find hidden parts in scene productions?
A list of hidden parts in diskmags was published in hugi #24:
http://www.virtually.at/hugi/main.php?page=hugi24
The "Quasi-Official List of Demo Hidden Parts, Keys, and Tricks" can be found
here: http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mandula/hidden.shtml. Updates can be found in
newer issues of the diskmag (see [5.3.]) PAiN.
_______________________________________________________________________________
8.8. On demoparties I heard people yelling 'foliba' or 'ficken', what does that
mean?
Firstly, foliba is an abbreviation of (F)ake-(O)ber(li)ppen(ba)rt, which is
German and means "fake-moustache". Visit http://www.foliba.org to see what it's
all about. Oh, and as for "ficken": Go to an online dictionary, that translates
German into English and educate yourself.;)
_______________________________________________________________________________
8.9. What was elitegroup all about?
Recently, it appeared to me, that many people either forgot or never really
knew what the actual point of elitegroup was.
So, to break it down in a very simplified form:
At the end of the 1990s, a bunch of german sceners thought that the scene is
dominated by mediocrity and suffers from a general lack of innovation, will
for improvement and 'state of the art'. It was time for a wake-up call. A new
(fake-)group was founded to kick the slumbering scene in the nuts. To achive
this, they reintroduced the concept of an arrogant badass super 1337 group
and applyed a touch of wild sarcasm to it: Elitegroup.
They started using hilariously arrogant handles ('herr weltherrschaft' =
mr. world domination, 'gott' = god etc) and slogans ('we are very good') and
tried to piss people of as good as possible. Soon, they announced their
plan to gain 'world domination' at the end of 1999: To win the pc demo
and playstation demo competitions at 'the party' in Aars/Denmark, next
to Assembly and Mekka&Symposium the biggest demoscene event back then.
On their road to 'world domination' they released an array of teaser demos,
known as the R-Series. Although their pc demo 'kasparov' indeed won the
competition (while generating heated discussions for years to come), their
effort to win the playstation compo failed. The experiment 'elitegroup' ended
in early 2000. The R-Series as well as 'Kasparov' inspired a lot of parodies.
Several former members, including kb/smash designs and chaos/sanity are now
active in farbrausch, probably the most successful demoscene group today.
_______________________________________________________________________________
