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I know that a huge part of the demoscene culture is keeping your trade secrets close, but I'd love to see a YouTube playlist where authors or people with signif

I know that a huge part of the demoscene culture is keeping your trade secrets close, but I'd love to see a YouTube playlist where authors or people with significant graphics experience do in-depth teardowns. Those of us like myself who only take a passing interest from afar are still blown away by how amazing results of demos like "elevated" from 2009 [1]. I've heard Iñigo Quílez, but I am curious if there are people interested in doing teardowns of winners moreso than elementary concepts (although of course the latter is much more applciable outside of the demo scene). 1= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YWMGuh15nE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YWMGuh15nE

dwrodri 6y ago
For those who haven't seen his work already: https://iquilezles.org/index.html https://iquilezles.org/index.html
- jonnydubowsky 6y ago
  I enjoy reading his blog as well. One of my favorite posts is: https://www.iquilezles.org/blog/?p=4765 https://www.iquilezles.org/blog/?p=4765 "Though – at some level, all facts that you know are untrue. 1. To a toddler, Mickey Mouse dancing in a film is a character that undoubtedly exist in front them. 2. But that is false, everybody knows a film is just lots of “images”, right? 3. Well, that’s false too, to a nerd images are “a matrix of tiny colored squared pixels” 4. But that is false too, a professional programmer knows pixels are not squares but point-samples trying their best at filtering an analog signal” So, while all are partial truths in a given context, they are also false at the next level of understanding. These conflicts of false truths usually gets resolved easily: most of us rarely enjoy knowing more than one or two levels of truth to any particular topic anyways, and ignorance makes happiness. On the other hand, an experienced communicator can adjust her speech and pick the right truth based on the audience she’s talking to, assuming there’s little variance in the audience’s profiles. But, what happens when something needs to be communicated to a huge audience of varying levels of education or interest in a topic that is important to everybody? Say a nation wide message. When you address a disparate audience of millions that need an explanations, how do you choose the level of reality you going to operate in; which of all the false truths are you going to employ to convey your message?"
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
flohofwoe 6y ago
Here's a great explanation of the history and techniques in the "Logon's Run" [1] demo for Amstrad CPC: http://norecess.cpcscene.net/the-elders-scrollers.html http://norecess.cpcscene.net/the-elders-scrollers.html [1] https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/cpc-ui.html?file=cpc/logons_run_cpc.dsk&input=run%22logon%27s%0A https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/cpc-ui.html?file=cpc/logon...
tiborsaas 6y ago
Ferris does awesome and in-depth breakdowns of demos/tools he built: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mpLlHn0FOekNg05yCnkzQ/playlists https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mpLlHn0FOekNg05yCnkzQ/pla...
sp332 6y ago
Do demosceners keep secrets like that? I only know of the ones who publish super detailed blogs about techniques, because... those are the ones I read. E.g. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-all-your-emulators/ https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-al... And a much more recent one, video here (I recommend watching the chat replay! Should start ~ 7h02m40s) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/589179638?t=7h02m40s https://www.twitch.tv/videos/589179638?t=7h02m40s and blog post http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/Memories http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/Memories
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Yes, the demoscene and gamedev culture is the antithesis of the FOSS one. That was always the best thing about old days demoscene, specially at the parties, having one group proving that something deemed impossible on platform X was actually possible, and then having other discovering how they might have done it, and topping it with something even better. The game dev culture evolved from the demoscene. Nowadays due to the FOSS influence, there are some people sharing, but they are mostly the exception to the rule.
  - Narishma 6y ago
    > The game dev culture evolved from the demoscene. I'm not sure that's the case. The demoscene really started with the Amiga in the mid 80s while game development was already its own thing. Maybe they influenced each-other but I wouldn't say one evolved from the other.
    - exlurker 6y ago
      It actually started on the C64, as a by-product of game cracking. People would first add their "handles" into cracked games, then some small intros before the game. These intros soon became competetive, and were made stand-alone, known as demos. There was some overlap of game and demo-scene, but not much until around 1992 or so, on the Amiga.
    - jimmiejams 6y ago
      I'd say that's correct these days, with one exception: DICE came from The Silents (TSL), who were well known in the Amiga scene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DICE_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DICE_(company) Back in the Amiga days there did seem to be a bit more migration of ex-demo coders becoming game developers. Probably Team17 were the best known.
bri3d 6y ago
https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/ https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/ is another excellent demoscene "in-depth explanations" blog.
rasz 6y ago
You can watch how the sausage is made https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mpLlHn0FOekNg05yCnkzQ/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mpLlHn0FOekNg05yCnkzQ/vid...
boomlinde 6y ago
A lot of sceners in the size competition space work quite openly via e.g. https://www.shadertoy.com/ https://www.shadertoy.com/ Most of the visuals in a Windows 4k demo are going to lie in the shaders these days anyway. For smaller sizes, like 256b to 32b the source isn't going to be significantly more readable than a disassembly.
bane 6y ago
Some of the larger demoparties will often have breakout sessions where sceners provide talks on how they do what they do.

dwrodri 6y ago

For those who haven't seen his work already: https://iquilezles.org/index.html https://iquilezles.org/index.html

jonnydubowsky 6y ago
I enjoy reading his blog as well. One of my favorite posts is: https://www.iquilezles.org/blog/?p=4765 https://www.iquilezles.org/blog/?p=4765 "Though – at some level, all facts that you know are untrue. 1. To a toddler, Mickey Mouse dancing in a film is a character that undoubtedly exist in front them. 2. But that is false, everybody knows a film is just lots of “images”, right? 3. Well, that’s false too, to a nerd images are “a matrix of tiny colored squared pixels” 4. But that is false too, a professional programmer knows pixels are not squares but point-samples trying their best at filtering an analog signal” So, while all are partial truths in a given context, they are also false at the next level of understanding. These conflicts of false truths usually gets resolved easily: most of us rarely enjoy knowing more than one or two levels of truth to any particular topic anyways, and ignorance makes happiness. On the other hand, an experienced communicator can adjust her speech and pick the right truth based on the audience she’s talking to, assuming there’s little variance in the audience’s profiles. But, what happens when something needs to be communicated to a huge audience of varying levels of education or interest in a topic that is important to everybody? Say a nation wide message. When you address a disparate audience of millions that need an explanations, how do you choose the level of reality you going to operate in; which of all the false truths are you going to employ to convey your message?"

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

flohofwoe 6y ago

Here's a great explanation of the history and techniques in the "Logon's Run" [1] demo for Amstrad CPC: http://norecess.cpcscene.net/the-elders-scrollers.html http://norecess.cpcscene.net/the-elders-scrollers.html [1] https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/cpc-ui.html?file=cpc/logons_run_cpc.dsk&input=run%22logon%27s%0A https://floooh.github.io/tiny8bit/cpc-ui.html?file=cpc/logon...

tiborsaas 6y ago

Ferris does awesome and in-depth breakdowns of demos/tools he built: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mpLlHn0FOekNg05yCnkzQ/playlists https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mpLlHn0FOekNg05yCnkzQ/pla...

sp332 6y ago

Do demosceners keep secrets like that? I only know of the ones who publish super detailed blogs about techniques, because... those are the ones I read. E.g. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-all-your-emulators/ https://trixter.oldskool.org/2015/04/07/8088-mph-we-break-al... And a much more recent one, video here (I recommend watching the chat replay! Should start ~ 7h02m40s) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/589179638?t=7h02m40s https://www.twitch.tv/videos/589179638?t=7h02m40s and blog post http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/Memories http://www.sizecoding.org/wiki/Memories

pjmlp 6y ago
Yes, the demoscene and gamedev culture is the antithesis of the FOSS one. That was always the best thing about old days demoscene, specially at the parties, having one group proving that something deemed impossible on platform X was actually possible, and then having other discovering how they might have done it, and topping it with something even better. The game dev culture evolved from the demoscene. Nowadays due to the FOSS influence, there are some people sharing, but they are mostly the exception to the rule.
- Narishma 6y ago
  > The game dev culture evolved from the demoscene. I'm not sure that's the case. The demoscene really started with the Amiga in the mid 80s while game development was already its own thing. Maybe they influenced each-other but I wouldn't say one evolved from the other.
  - exlurker 6y ago
    It actually started on the C64, as a by-product of game cracking. People would first add their "handles" into cracked games, then some small intros before the game. These intros soon became competetive, and were made stand-alone, known as demos. There was some overlap of game and demo-scene, but not much until around 1992 or so, on the Amiga.
  - jimmiejams 6y ago
    I'd say that's correct these days, with one exception: DICE came from The Silents (TSL), who were well known in the Amiga scene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DICE_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DICE_(company) Back in the Amiga days there did seem to be a bit more migration of ex-demo coders becoming game developers. Probably Team17 were the best known.

bri3d 6y ago

https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/ https://directtovideo.wordpress.com/ is another excellent demoscene "in-depth explanations" blog.

rasz 6y ago

You can watch how the sausage is made https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mpLlHn0FOekNg05yCnkzQ/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4mpLlHn0FOekNg05yCnkzQ/vid...

boomlinde 6y ago

A lot of sceners in the size competition space work quite openly via e.g. https://www.shadertoy.com/ https://www.shadertoy.com/ Most of the visuals in a Windows 4k demo are going to lie in the shaders these days anyway. For smaller sizes, like 256b to 32b the source isn't going to be significantly more readable than a disassembly.

bane 6y ago

Some of the larger demoparties will often have breakout sessions where sceners provide talks on how they do what they do.