As Coco announced in the teamspeak chat I'll give you the links to the Breakpoint Demoscene Patry 2008:
Main page: http://breakpoint.untergrund.net/
Livestream TV: http://bptv.untergrund.net/showstream.php?strm=0
Timetable: http://breakpoint.untergrund.net/timetable.php
Greetings, Carhith
Breakpoint Demoscene Link
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Carhith
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Breakpoint Demoscene Link
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Hi!
Thanks, Carhith, for posting this!
Here's the background: On Sunday on Teamspeak, I told the others about this big event called Breakpoint of the so called demoscene. I know most of you don't have a clue what the demoscene is, so let me explain it to you (in case you're not interested in any explanations, you can as well skip to the buttom and just try some of the amazing demoscene productions - none of them requires an installtion!).
The art of demo making arised from making intros for cracked games. In the early days on the 8 bit computers, whenever someone cracked a game (i.e. removed the copy protection and/or other limitations), he left his pseudonym in the software. Some of these people did many cracks and their names became quite popular. Competition was big between these guys, so they started presenting their names in a more fancy way - as a big logo, for example, and probably enhanced by graphical effects (like a scrolltext, etc.). All this was usually put in front of the original program and thus called an intro.
Very soon, the crackers were organised in groups, usually consisting of a guy supplying the original games (this often was someone working in a games-store), the cracker himself, probably an extra coder for the intros and finally the so called swapper who was trading disks with other groups (via snail mail!) and who could spread the own "productions" this way. In the middle of the 1980s, the quasi-standard for an intro was to have a group logo, a scrolltext and some music (usually ripped from another game due to the lack of software for music composition).
Because the intros were more or less the same everywhere, coders began to think about creating new effects to write unique and memorable intros so they were considered to be be superior to other groups. This was when ideas and design became the important criteria for an intro. And very soon, people began releasing their intros without any game attached. This was when demos were born. Demos are programs with stunning graphical effects, graphics and music - all combined to demonstrate what a group is capable to do and usually completely self-made. They have no other purpose than to look awesome and to entertain the people watching them - and bring fame to the creators, of course. And most important: they are completely free, because they're not being sold anywhere.
At this time, the creative guys separated from the crackers and thus got rid of their criminal background. These days, a demo group typically consists of coders, graphic designers and musicians. For many years already, there are big parties where members of the scene meet other sceners along with their computers (this also is the origin of todays LAN parties!). In the early days, there were mainly copy parties, but nowadays the demo sceners come together to exchange ideas and knowhow and especially to have their competitions. The Breakpoint 2008 is such an event that took place last weekend and they also had a video stream to watch the competitions live on the internet.
Talking about competitions... There are usually different categories in which the sceners can bring in their work. Typically, there are demo, graphics and music competitions. Because there is a long tradition and especially because the computers of the several generations have different capabilities (so they can't be compared to each other), these categories are usually divided into C64, Amiga and PC competitions. So you would have C64 demo, Amiga demo, PC demo, C64 graphics, Amiga graphics, PC graphics, C64 music, Amiga music, PC music. However, not all of these are usually taking place. Additionally, there are even more seperations these days, according to the different possibilities.
One thing that should also be said is that besides demo competitions, there are also intro competitions. Intros are typically reduced in size, because they had to fit into the free space of a game disk back in the times of floppy-disks. So a demo usually isn't limited in any way while an intro must not exceed a maximum size. Besides this, there's no difference between both today. An intro coder will just try to do the best he can within this limitation, which requires some extra skills, of course.
According to all this, the recent demo parties usually have the following competition categories:
4k Intro - An intro which must not exceed a complete filesize of 4 KB (including code, graphics and music!).
64k Intro - Same as above, just with a limit of 64 KB.
Demo - Demos, unlimited in size.
Limited size game (usually 96k) - Small games with a limit of a few kilobytes - no additional data files allowed!
Executable graphics 4k - A program, limited to a size of 4 KB, that creates one picture for the contest with computer methods like rendering, tracing, fractal calculation and other geometric algorithms (note: any 3D models must be included within the 4 KB program size!).
Rendered graphics - Pictures created with 3D software such as Lightwave.
Drawn graphics - Pictures drawn with painting programs such as Photoshop - no scans allowed! To prove this, the image is usually being provided in different steps of the creation process.
ASCII/ANSI graphics - Pictures made out of text characters matching the ASCII or ANSI standard.
Animation - Movies created with 3D software or anything else you like.
Oldschool music - Music in the old demoscene style, typically created with a tracker program (playing single samples at defined notes and with a limited number of parallel soundchannels) such as Protracker on Amiga or FastTracker on PC.
Newschool music - Same as above, just in the new style of demo music (which actually means any style you like, but usually without chiptunes [music without samples, but with computer generated noises like the old SID of the C64 did] and the typical chiptune arpeggios [simulated chords by switching between the needed frequencies rapidly within one soundchannel]).
Streaming music - Music without any technical limitations, typically delivered in MP3- or Ogg-format. Even vocals and live instruments are allowed here.
Wild compo - Anything is allowed here. Most entries are movies, showing whatever idea someone had. For example, some guys once simulated a very popular demo with all-day things like cigarette smoke, water, certain objects, etc. Mostly funny stuff here!
Very interesting is the fact that many entries for a competition are being worked on and finished at the party itself. Therefore, they have so called deadlines which declare to what time all entries for a specific competition must be given to the organisers. Just check out the Breakpoint 2008 timetable to see what this looks like.
By the way, the competitions are decided by votes from the party visitors, who usually are just demoscene members.
Some demoscene facts:
- Todays LAN parties originate from the early copy- and demoparties.
- The idea of todays gaming clans (like ours, for example) originates from the old demo groups. In fact, demoscene members were almost always gamers, too.
- The so called leetspeech was invented by crackers and demo coders and later adopted by the gamers.
- Many ideas used in games originate from demoscene productions.
- The game industry has been recruiting many successful members of the demoscene over the past years. The big demo parties are visited by game creators nowadays and seminars and job exchanges are being held besides the party action. This year (2008), the graphics chip developer NVidia even creates it's own annual demoparty: the NVScene.
- Some demo groups have a long tradition and survived the evolution from the early 8 bit machines to todays 32 and 64 bit computers. There are groups existing for more than 20 years!
Important criteria for demoscene productions:
+ They are always completely selfmade!
+ They are always free for non-commercial purposes!
+ They are naturally free from viruses, worms, backdoors, trojans, etc. - all this belongs to the criminal branch of the cracker/hacker scene!
+ Everything except animations and streamed music is realtime calculated. It's one of the main tasks as a demoscene coder to write fast and efficient code. Because demoscene coders try to take the hardware to the maximum, you usually need a fast machine to run a demo (specs are described in the accompanying text file -> .txt or .nfo).
The four above rules are part of the demo sceners' code of honour. I must especially stress the fact that in more than 20 years that I'm watching demos now, I never found one with any malicious code. So don't be afraid to run a demoscene production! Antivirus software can, however, complain about an unusual runtime packer. This is just a possible criteria for a virus - nothing to be afraid of in this context. Demos (especially small intros) often use selfmade runtime packers to gain some bytes for further use in the production).
That much for the informational part - here are some recommendations for your entertainment!
luxo4k by Rgba & Conspiracy - the famous Pixar cinema trailer made in just 4k! [Use the download link right of the screenshot]
h4vok by Archee - physics calculation in realtime, entirely in 4k (my laptop is too slow for this though
).
Atrium by TBC and Loonies - an Intro with music in just 4k!
ixaleno by Rgba - An image, rendered with a 4k program (included).
The Prophecy - Project Nemesis by Consiracy - still one of my favourite 64k intros - follows a complete storyline!
Digital Garden by Rebels - Invitation intro for the Breakpoint 2008 demoparty.
The Popular Demo by Farbrausch - a fully featured demo with enjoyable music - simply entertaining!
Lifeforce by ASD - another fully featured demo with stunning design and effects.
Disco Destruct by Xander Pills - MP3 music (Disco style).
If you really want to xxxx insert your xxxx by Chromag / Rebels - Ogg music (Jazzfunk style)
Descendants of Darkness by Romeo Knight / Brainstorm - MP3 music (Pop style)
ETA by Junk - 3D animation - very funny clip of 4:26 minutes (72 MB). Use the free VLC media player if you can't play .mkv (Markov) video files!
Ok, much text again, but I really hope you enjoy these recommended productions and have a clue about the demoscene now! At least Cheshire should have lots of stuff to check out.
Coco.
P.S.: In case you don't have a clue how small 4 KB really is, try the following: drag a 4k intro executable into Notepad. You'll see that it's not more than just 1 page of ASCII characters. Or in other words: It will fit 368 times on a single standard DOS floppy disk!
Btw.: The text I typed here is already 11.8 KB (almost three 4k intros)!
Thanks, Carhith, for posting this!
Here's the background: On Sunday on Teamspeak, I told the others about this big event called Breakpoint of the so called demoscene. I know most of you don't have a clue what the demoscene is, so let me explain it to you (in case you're not interested in any explanations, you can as well skip to the buttom and just try some of the amazing demoscene productions - none of them requires an installtion!).
The art of demo making arised from making intros for cracked games. In the early days on the 8 bit computers, whenever someone cracked a game (i.e. removed the copy protection and/or other limitations), he left his pseudonym in the software. Some of these people did many cracks and their names became quite popular. Competition was big between these guys, so they started presenting their names in a more fancy way - as a big logo, for example, and probably enhanced by graphical effects (like a scrolltext, etc.). All this was usually put in front of the original program and thus called an intro.
Very soon, the crackers were organised in groups, usually consisting of a guy supplying the original games (this often was someone working in a games-store), the cracker himself, probably an extra coder for the intros and finally the so called swapper who was trading disks with other groups (via snail mail!) and who could spread the own "productions" this way. In the middle of the 1980s, the quasi-standard for an intro was to have a group logo, a scrolltext and some music (usually ripped from another game due to the lack of software for music composition).
Because the intros were more or less the same everywhere, coders began to think about creating new effects to write unique and memorable intros so they were considered to be be superior to other groups. This was when ideas and design became the important criteria for an intro. And very soon, people began releasing their intros without any game attached. This was when demos were born. Demos are programs with stunning graphical effects, graphics and music - all combined to demonstrate what a group is capable to do and usually completely self-made. They have no other purpose than to look awesome and to entertain the people watching them - and bring fame to the creators, of course. And most important: they are completely free, because they're not being sold anywhere.
At this time, the creative guys separated from the crackers and thus got rid of their criminal background. These days, a demo group typically consists of coders, graphic designers and musicians. For many years already, there are big parties where members of the scene meet other sceners along with their computers (this also is the origin of todays LAN parties!). In the early days, there were mainly copy parties, but nowadays the demo sceners come together to exchange ideas and knowhow and especially to have their competitions. The Breakpoint 2008 is such an event that took place last weekend and they also had a video stream to watch the competitions live on the internet.
Talking about competitions... There are usually different categories in which the sceners can bring in their work. Typically, there are demo, graphics and music competitions. Because there is a long tradition and especially because the computers of the several generations have different capabilities (so they can't be compared to each other), these categories are usually divided into C64, Amiga and PC competitions. So you would have C64 demo, Amiga demo, PC demo, C64 graphics, Amiga graphics, PC graphics, C64 music, Amiga music, PC music. However, not all of these are usually taking place. Additionally, there are even more seperations these days, according to the different possibilities.
One thing that should also be said is that besides demo competitions, there are also intro competitions. Intros are typically reduced in size, because they had to fit into the free space of a game disk back in the times of floppy-disks. So a demo usually isn't limited in any way while an intro must not exceed a maximum size. Besides this, there's no difference between both today. An intro coder will just try to do the best he can within this limitation, which requires some extra skills, of course.
According to all this, the recent demo parties usually have the following competition categories:
4k Intro - An intro which must not exceed a complete filesize of 4 KB (including code, graphics and music!).
64k Intro - Same as above, just with a limit of 64 KB.
Demo - Demos, unlimited in size.
Limited size game (usually 96k) - Small games with a limit of a few kilobytes - no additional data files allowed!
Executable graphics 4k - A program, limited to a size of 4 KB, that creates one picture for the contest with computer methods like rendering, tracing, fractal calculation and other geometric algorithms (note: any 3D models must be included within the 4 KB program size!).
Rendered graphics - Pictures created with 3D software such as Lightwave.
Drawn graphics - Pictures drawn with painting programs such as Photoshop - no scans allowed! To prove this, the image is usually being provided in different steps of the creation process.
ASCII/ANSI graphics - Pictures made out of text characters matching the ASCII or ANSI standard.
Animation - Movies created with 3D software or anything else you like.
Oldschool music - Music in the old demoscene style, typically created with a tracker program (playing single samples at defined notes and with a limited number of parallel soundchannels) such as Protracker on Amiga or FastTracker on PC.
Newschool music - Same as above, just in the new style of demo music (which actually means any style you like, but usually without chiptunes [music without samples, but with computer generated noises like the old SID of the C64 did] and the typical chiptune arpeggios [simulated chords by switching between the needed frequencies rapidly within one soundchannel]).
Streaming music - Music without any technical limitations, typically delivered in MP3- or Ogg-format. Even vocals and live instruments are allowed here.
Wild compo - Anything is allowed here. Most entries are movies, showing whatever idea someone had. For example, some guys once simulated a very popular demo with all-day things like cigarette smoke, water, certain objects, etc. Mostly funny stuff here!
Very interesting is the fact that many entries for a competition are being worked on and finished at the party itself. Therefore, they have so called deadlines which declare to what time all entries for a specific competition must be given to the organisers. Just check out the Breakpoint 2008 timetable to see what this looks like.
By the way, the competitions are decided by votes from the party visitors, who usually are just demoscene members.
Some demoscene facts:
- Todays LAN parties originate from the early copy- and demoparties.
- The idea of todays gaming clans (like ours, for example) originates from the old demo groups. In fact, demoscene members were almost always gamers, too.
- The so called leetspeech was invented by crackers and demo coders and later adopted by the gamers.
- Many ideas used in games originate from demoscene productions.
- The game industry has been recruiting many successful members of the demoscene over the past years. The big demo parties are visited by game creators nowadays and seminars and job exchanges are being held besides the party action. This year (2008), the graphics chip developer NVidia even creates it's own annual demoparty: the NVScene.
- Some demo groups have a long tradition and survived the evolution from the early 8 bit machines to todays 32 and 64 bit computers. There are groups existing for more than 20 years!
Important criteria for demoscene productions:
+ They are always completely selfmade!
+ They are always free for non-commercial purposes!
+ They are naturally free from viruses, worms, backdoors, trojans, etc. - all this belongs to the criminal branch of the cracker/hacker scene!
+ Everything except animations and streamed music is realtime calculated. It's one of the main tasks as a demoscene coder to write fast and efficient code. Because demoscene coders try to take the hardware to the maximum, you usually need a fast machine to run a demo (specs are described in the accompanying text file -> .txt or .nfo).
The four above rules are part of the demo sceners' code of honour. I must especially stress the fact that in more than 20 years that I'm watching demos now, I never found one with any malicious code. So don't be afraid to run a demoscene production! Antivirus software can, however, complain about an unusual runtime packer. This is just a possible criteria for a virus - nothing to be afraid of in this context. Demos (especially small intros) often use selfmade runtime packers to gain some bytes for further use in the production).
That much for the informational part - here are some recommendations for your entertainment!
luxo4k by Rgba & Conspiracy - the famous Pixar cinema trailer made in just 4k! [Use the download link right of the screenshot]
h4vok by Archee - physics calculation in realtime, entirely in 4k (my laptop is too slow for this though
).Atrium by TBC and Loonies - an Intro with music in just 4k!
ixaleno by Rgba - An image, rendered with a 4k program (included).
The Prophecy - Project Nemesis by Consiracy - still one of my favourite 64k intros - follows a complete storyline!
Digital Garden by Rebels - Invitation intro for the Breakpoint 2008 demoparty.
The Popular Demo by Farbrausch - a fully featured demo with enjoyable music - simply entertaining!
Lifeforce by ASD - another fully featured demo with stunning design and effects.
Disco Destruct by Xander Pills - MP3 music (Disco style).
If you really want to xxxx insert your xxxx by Chromag / Rebels - Ogg music (Jazzfunk style)
Descendants of Darkness by Romeo Knight / Brainstorm - MP3 music (Pop style)
ETA by Junk - 3D animation - very funny clip of 4:26 minutes (72 MB). Use the free VLC media player if you can't play .mkv (Markov) video files!
Ok, much text again, but I really hope you enjoy these recommended productions and have a clue about the demoscene now! At least Cheshire should have lots of stuff to check out.
Coco.
P.S.: In case you don't have a clue how small 4 KB really is, try the following: drag a 4k intro executable into Notepad. You'll see that it's not more than just 1 page of ASCII characters. Or in other words: It will fit 368 times on a single standard DOS floppy disk!
Btw.: The text I typed here is already 11.8 KB (almost three 4k intros)! Hi!
No replies yet? Didn't anyone try one of the cool productions I linked above?
Just Marwin and Christic did it when we were on TS and I guess they liked it...
I know, my post was very long, but if you don't want to read it all, you should at least give The Popular Demo a try. Simply download, unpack to an empty directory and run fr-025-final.exe - no installation required. Then tell me what you think! Pleeease...
Coco.
No replies yet? Didn't anyone try one of the cool productions I linked above?
Just Marwin and Christic did it when we were on TS and I guess they liked it...
I know, my post was very long, but if you don't want to read it all, you should at least give The Popular Demo a try. Simply download, unpack to an empty directory and run fr-025-final.exe - no installation required. Then tell me what you think! Pleeease...
Coco.
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