Did you know that demoscene is a secretive criminal society?

[Louigi Verona]

Yeah, although I still love 2D demos with scrolling text )))

[psishock]

they were ok and fun, but it didn't "moved" anything in me. When we're talking about actual demos, now that's something really creative and admirable for me.

[g]

I <3 sinus scroller with starfield

[uncloned]

Its just evolution Psi. Cows and tigers come the same mammal-ish ancestor.

[Louigi Verona]

psi: I am talking about demos too. They do still produce 2D and Future Crew did it and lots of groups do it. 2D is charming and will never be forgotten.

[psishock]

uncloned: i see...

LV: oh, but i absolutely adore the 2D, technical demos too, i thought you were only talking about those scrolling cracktros, they are insignificant to me.

[uncloned]

May I offer a different point of view?

One of the aspects that demos, either cractros, 2d or (originally) 3d demos could be appreciated for is the assembler code involved.

Even the the crack scrollers involved intimate knowledge of the hardware and assembly language - that was part of the whole point of making them ... it said - "I cracked the game and now I'm dancing on top of it to boot".

To be honest modern demos which involved specialized high end graphic cards, multi cpus and C++ programing impress me much less than 2nd reality running on a 386 or 286.  

That is for me what was so impressive about 2nd reality - a convergence of visual, audio, and *programming* art. The demos today are just movies - they don't move me in the same way at all.

[Saga Musix]

2nd reality on a 286, you're kidding me. it's already slow on a 386.

cracktros were also much more than just showing that you cracked a game and can program a sine scroller. especially on platforms like the c64, this was used to show off new techniques, to show that you can have more sprites on the screen than your friend, etc... That's it - it might not be as "appealing", it was often rather "coder porn".

[uncloned]

Not kidding - a 286 but not any 286 - info should be in the zip.

[uncloned]

Heh! Coder p0rn!

Steve Gibson may be the last assembler hack who isn't writing device drivers.

I bought a bunch of books on assembler, grahics cards, and soundblaster cards. I studies and wrote some mediocre utilities. Nonetheless I think asm is cool.

[psishock]

2nd reality, it was one of the first PC-demos that I've watched. It's somewhat a standard to me, on the PC demo scene. It did run slow on my first PC, 368 DX (with turbo), which was quite fast, considering my previous one, Commodore 64.

That is for me what was so impressive about 2nd reality - a convergence of visual, audio, and *programming* art. The demos today are just movies - they don't move me in the same way at all.

well i don't care what tool/resource do you use, but what do you have/make in the end. So the programing and optimizing aspect worth less to me, and the artistic and creative aspect very much more. If you have a very artistic and outstanding product and less optimized, well, well done, i value it very much. If you have a specially optimized and poorly designed product, it wont inspire that much (or at all). Why should i care about the code, if i'm not a programmer? If the product works, and runs well, i will be pleased and amazed. Functionality.

[Louigi Verona]

i thought you were only talking about those scrolling cracktros, they are insignificant to me.

tbh, I am not sure I ever saw a cracktro.

[uncloned]

well i don't care what tool/resource do you use, but what do you have/make in the end. So the programing and optimizing aspect worth less to me, and the artistic and creative aspect very much more. If you have a very artistic and outstanding product and less optimized, well, well done, i value it very much. If you have a specially optimized and poorly designed product, it wont inspire that much (or at all). Why should i care about the code, if i'm not a programmer? If the product works, and runs well, i will be pleased and amazed. Functionality.

No offense intended - my observation is:

Then.... why bother with demos at all? The whole idea about demos is to make a computer do something spectacular - something that pushes the machine to its limits. If you can't appreciate that then it truly is just a movie for you and you might as well be looking at a Disney/Pixar release.

[psishock]

Then.... why bother with demos at all?

I'm not bothering with them at all , lately i'm just checking the good ones on youtube HD and moving on. They are audio-visual experience for me, nothing more. I'm checking Maya and 3D Studio Max animation-likes too, as you've mentioned, but the demo-s are more cleverly, and artistically  designed, like the creators are totally letting their mind loose, that is what i love on them the most. Unfortunately, as far as i've checked, any other material, that is not scene related, focuses on "every day", "human" stuff, thus are mostly good for a laugh, but uninteresting/uninspiring to me. If "normal" movies could give me the exact same experience, i might neglect these demos, but lately, with word wide streaming services available, they're not any harder to "run".

The whole idea about demos is to make a computer do something spectacular - something that pushes the machine to its limits.

Well, i think lately it's more focused to amusement, because ppl don't really care about the technical parts, but always amazed if experiencing something spectacular. A highly technical but boring demo worth much less, than a good amusing one, in people's eyes.

No offense intended

aw, we don't need to mention this from time to time, to each other, i know you mean no harm by any chance Uncloned, we definitely don't need to have 100% exact viewpoint from everything, that is why we share them, to learn from each other.

[Saga Musix]

There's always been the two parties: coder porn vs. eye candy. lately, there is much more eye candy fly-by stuff than 10 or 20 years ago. Both kinds of demos have their right to exists, and both can be exciting.