9 ms·

Interview with Japanese demoscener 0x4015 (2017)

150 points by codetrotter 8y ago

incomplete 8y ago
so happy the demo scene is still happening... my first taste of this was the future crew's unreal demo from 1992 (yes, i just aged myself a bit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxGtPAhkEQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxGtPAhkEQU
- NikolaNovak 8y ago
  Future crew seems to have reached a lot of folks... I watched it for hours as a teenager in Croatia,looped on computer store's monitors. I still check it out every now and then - though watching it on YouTube just doesn't seem as satisfying!
glitchc 8y ago
I'm just amazed this is still a thing. Are these demos always written in low-level GPU primitives?
- daeken 8y ago
  Not at all. Many demos these days are either built on in-house engines which abstract things away (a group of tool devs builds those, while the actual demo devs/designers just work with the tools), or they're built on a premade engine. There are plenty of folks somewhere in-between, too, doing WebGL and the like.
  - twic 8y ago
    Some are still done the hard way: https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/ https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      Awesome. A meaningful program in 256 bytes is like a jewel.
    - emptyfile 8y ago
      That's pretty insane.
    - jnbiche 8y ago
      Wow. That soundtrack almost instantly has become a favorite.
- fla 8y ago
  '2nd stage' is raymarched in a single shader. You can see the (adapted) source here https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MsGGDK https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MsGGDK
nokonoko 8y ago
Thank you for sharing the link! And here's from the latest posts (shameless plug). “Who is Demoscener?” - What I've learned from interviewing them https://6octaves.blogspot.com/2018/11/who-is-demoscener-what-ive-learned-from.html https://6octaves.blogspot.com/2018/11/who-is-demoscener-what...
- marcusjt 8y ago
  An enlightening post indeed, but the title reads oddly - "Who is Demoscener?" suggests that there is a single person called "Demoscener" that your article is about, whereas as it's actually about multiple people in the demoscene I suggest you should rename it to "Who are demosceners?"
  - nokonoko 8y ago
    Grammatically speaking, you're absolutely right! But I had some personal reasons to name it that way :) Thanks for pointing it out! And thanks for reading!
test1235 8y ago
Coding on a Zaurus?! Proper hacker mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Zaurus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Zaurus Seems like this little device might have a bit of a following: >Arch Linux ARM has been ported in 2015 on the C3x00 models.
- aw3c2 8y ago
  Imagine such device but with a colored e-ink screen. It would be pure bliss!
  - devereaux 8y ago
    Shut up and take my money!! The closest thing now seems to be the GPD devices.
pferdone 8y ago
I have this firm belief that demo writers are literal gods amongst programmers. Nothing comes close to their knowledge and craftsmanship and the resulting art they create. To me it is the purest form of programming bar none. I'm in constant awe and have the utmost respect for these guys. Just had to get it off my chest. Thanks for reading!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- fb03 8y ago
  Same here, bro. I sincerely cannot even start to fathom how could 0x4015 create that amount of interaction, data, audio, shaders, engine, etc and just pack it into 4 measly kB. Damn! I know they employ algorithmic composition for basically everything, still... 4kb wouldn't hold a single frame of anything to today's standards. It surely is impressive.
- skrebbel 8y ago
  Programming skill isn't a 1 dimensional space. I used to feel like you. Having done some mediocre demos myself, I looked up to some of the best democoders a lot. Until I met them (hey, demoscene is tiny - just show up at a demoparty and meet your heros in person). I noticed that the top democoders were invariably: - extremely nice - better than me at graphics programming - worse than me at X For example, at some point long ago I wrote a tool to synchronize effects to music. A famous democoder wanted to try it, I said "here you go", he said "shit, the API is in C++. I don't know C++". Turns out all these amazing demos were written in C and this guy had never bothered to learn classes, templates, etc etc. Of course there's nothing wrong with that, but, well, it's just different skills. I mean every programmer I knew at that time knew C++. It's like working in web dev and not knowing any JavaScript at all. It was very surprising to me :-) tl;dr I'm sure I make better scalable realtime backends than some top democoders would.
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    > tl;dr I'm sure I make better scalable realtime backends than some top democoders would. Exactly; some make magic happen in 4K, others can spin up 4000 high performance GPU servers in a matter of minutes, out-performing the supercomputers of just a few years ago while costing a fraction of it. It's amazing how much power some can squeeze out with the tightest of constraints AND how much power others can summon with the biggest of credit cards. These two overlap, too.
Aardwolf 8y ago
Some website designs are timeless! http://www.pouet.net/index.php http://www.pouet.net/index.php
bane 8y ago
For those on the East Coast who are interested, there's a small, but long running demoscene competition and hands-on retrocomputing museum every year at CMU called Demosplash. It's great fun and one of the engineering professors (who's originally from Japan) participates in both. He and the retrocomputing club bring tons of old computers, including Japanese and European only machines and even write demos on them. Some hi-lights: May be the world's only Fujitsu FM-Towns Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlCZTEUJlOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlCZTEUJlOo A demo for the Fujitsu FM-7, a machine with two 8-bit CPUs: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=78816 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=78816 The first demo ever for the Looking Glass displays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US7hzM0a21E&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US7hzM0a21E&feature=youtu.be The first demo ever for the Fujitsu FM-7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VGK80il4Rs&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VGK80il4Rs&feature=youtu.be A 32Byte DOS Demo (with sound!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSz7xlUkQFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSz7xlUkQFI And some live demos on an Apple Lisa and a Vectrex. It's totally worth checking out. edit also worth checking out, a demo inspired by... A 1k homage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pyIpoqpYt4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pyIpoqpYt4
- codetrotter 8y ago
  > May be the world's only Fujitsu FM-Towns Demo Adorable! :)
userbinator 8y ago
The demoscene is largely European, so to see Japanese entries is interesting. There was a discussion on Pouet 15(!) years ago about this: http://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=915&page=1 http://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=915&page=1
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
I so miss the 80s C65 and Amiga demo scene in Europe, so much traveling, so much coding, so much fun. I love the 'modern' demo 'Colonies' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40H4OD6ZTvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40H4OD6ZTvA
- jamiek88 8y ago
  I was just a kid coding his first space invaders game on a bbc micro when I saw my first demo on the Amiga. It was like seeing in color for the first time, blew my tiny little mind and nothing was ever the same again. Kind of like when I went online the first time.* *via compuserve dialing a London number (as it turned out, 12 year old me didn’t quite get that) for hundreds of hours and no free calls in UK, even local calls, calls to London were expensive. I got my arse tanned for that I tell you hwat!

150 points by codetrotter 8y ago

so happy the demo scene is still happening... my first taste of this was the future crew's unreal demo from 1992 (yes, i just aged myself a bit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxGtPAhkEQU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxGtPAhkEQU

NikolaNovak 8y ago
Future crew seems to have reached a lot of folks... I watched it for hours as a teenager in Croatia,looped on computer store's monitors. I still check it out every now and then - though watching it on YouTube just doesn't seem as satisfying!

glitchc 8y ago

I'm just amazed this is still a thing. Are these demos always written in low-level GPU primitives?

daeken 8y ago
Not at all. Many demos these days are either built on in-house engines which abstract things away (a group of tool devs builds those, while the actual demo devs/designers just work with the tools), or they're built on a premade engine. There are plenty of folks somewhere in-between, too, doing WebGL and the like.
- twic 8y ago
  Some are still done the hard way: https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/ https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    Awesome. A meaningful program in 256 bytes is like a jewel.
  - emptyfile 8y ago
    That's pretty insane.
  - jnbiche 8y ago
    Wow. That soundtrack almost instantly has become a favorite.
fla 8y ago
'2nd stage' is raymarched in a single shader. You can see the (adapted) source here https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MsGGDK https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MsGGDK

nokonoko 8y ago

Thank you for sharing the link! And here's from the latest posts (shameless plug). “Who is Demoscener?” - What I've learned from interviewing them https://6octaves.blogspot.com/2018/11/who-is-demoscener-what-ive-learned-from.html https://6octaves.blogspot.com/2018/11/who-is-demoscener-what...

marcusjt 8y ago
An enlightening post indeed, but the title reads oddly - "Who is Demoscener?" suggests that there is a single person called "Demoscener" that your article is about, whereas as it's actually about multiple people in the demoscene I suggest you should rename it to "Who are demosceners?"
- nokonoko 8y ago
  Grammatically speaking, you're absolutely right! But I had some personal reasons to name it that way :) Thanks for pointing it out! And thanks for reading!

test1235 8y ago

Coding on a Zaurus?! Proper hacker mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Zaurus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Zaurus Seems like this little device might have a bit of a following: >Arch Linux ARM has been ported in 2015 on the C3x00 models.

aw3c2 8y ago
Imagine such device but with a colored e-ink screen. It would be pure bliss!
- devereaux 8y ago
  Shut up and take my money!! The closest thing now seems to be the GPD devices.

pferdone 8y ago

I have this firm belief that demo writers are literal gods amongst programmers. Nothing comes close to their knowledge and craftsmanship and the resulting art they create. To me it is the purest form of programming bar none. I'm in constant awe and have the utmost respect for these guys. Just had to get it off my chest. Thanks for reading!

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
fb03 8y ago
Same here, bro. I sincerely cannot even start to fathom how could 0x4015 create that amount of interaction, data, audio, shaders, engine, etc and just pack it into 4 measly kB. Damn! I know they employ algorithmic composition for basically everything, still... 4kb wouldn't hold a single frame of anything to today's standards. It surely is impressive.
skrebbel 8y ago
Programming skill isn't a 1 dimensional space. I used to feel like you. Having done some mediocre demos myself, I looked up to some of the best democoders a lot. Until I met them (hey, demoscene is tiny - just show up at a demoparty and meet your heros in person). I noticed that the top democoders were invariably: - extremely nice - better than me at graphics programming - worse than me at X For example, at some point long ago I wrote a tool to synchronize effects to music. A famous democoder wanted to try it, I said "here you go", he said "shit, the API is in C++. I don't know C++". Turns out all these amazing demos were written in C and this guy had never bothered to learn classes, templates, etc etc. Of course there's nothing wrong with that, but, well, it's just different skills. I mean every programmer I knew at that time knew C++. It's like working in web dev and not knowing any JavaScript at all. It was very surprising to me :-) tl;dr I'm sure I make better scalable realtime backends than some top democoders would.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  > tl;dr I'm sure I make better scalable realtime backends than some top democoders would. Exactly; some make magic happen in 4K, others can spin up 4000 high performance GPU servers in a matter of minutes, out-performing the supercomputers of just a few years ago while costing a fraction of it. It's amazing how much power some can squeeze out with the tightest of constraints AND how much power others can summon with the biggest of credit cards. These two overlap, too.

Aardwolf 8y ago

Some website designs are timeless! http://www.pouet.net/index.php http://www.pouet.net/index.php

bane 8y ago

For those on the East Coast who are interested, there's a small, but long running demoscene competition and hands-on retrocomputing museum every year at CMU called Demosplash. It's great fun and one of the engineering professors (who's originally from Japan) participates in both. He and the retrocomputing club bring tons of old computers, including Japanese and European only machines and even write demos on them. Some hi-lights: May be the world's only Fujitsu FM-Towns Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlCZTEUJlOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlCZTEUJlOo A demo for the Fujitsu FM-7, a machine with two 8-bit CPUs: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=78816 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=78816 The first demo ever for the Looking Glass displays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US7hzM0a21E&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US7hzM0a21E&feature=youtu.be The first demo ever for the Fujitsu FM-7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VGK80il4Rs&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VGK80il4Rs&feature=youtu.be A 32Byte DOS Demo (with sound!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSz7xlUkQFI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSz7xlUkQFI And some live demos on an Apple Lisa and a Vectrex. It's totally worth checking out. edit also worth checking out, a demo inspired by... A 1k homage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pyIpoqpYt4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pyIpoqpYt4

codetrotter 8y ago
> May be the world's only Fujitsu FM-Towns Demo Adorable! :)

userbinator 8y ago

The demoscene is largely European, so to see Japanese entries is interesting. There was a discussion on Pouet 15(!) years ago about this: http://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=915&page=1 http://www.pouet.net/topic.php?which=915&page=1

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

I so miss the 80s C65 and Amiga demo scene in Europe, so much traveling, so much coding, so much fun. I love the 'modern' demo 'Colonies' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40H4OD6ZTvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40H4OD6ZTvA

jamiek88 8y ago
I was just a kid coding his first space invaders game on a bbc micro when I saw my first demo on the Amiga. It was like seeing in color for the first time, blew my tiny little mind and nothing was ever the same again. Kind of like when I went online the first time.* *via compuserve dialing a London number (as it turned out, 12 year old me didn’t quite get that) for hundreds of hours and no free calls in UK, even local calls, calls to London were expensive. I got my arse tanned for that I tell you hwat!