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The demoscene has moved away from effect based demos (let alone records) for several years now. This was an ongoing process and was seriously sped up by the introduction of 3d accelerators. Coding a demo today does not mean anymore that you need mad optimization skills to keep up with your peers, a lot of that work has been moved to libraries. The last resort of pure code show-off is size optimizing.

In the old days, demos meant impressive code. It has been widely accepted that this is not the case anymore.

With the release of .werkkzeug and other tools, it becomes more and more feasable to create stunning demos without writing a single line of code. Even the holy bastion of size optimizing is threatened by moving a lot of effort to the designer.

What is your opinion on that issue? Is the demoscene ready to embrace pure tool based demos, created only by a team of graficians and musicians? Will a separate tool-developer scene evolve as a supporting sub-movement to the demoscene? Does the tool based approach pose the danger of the commercialization of the demoscene? (The tool creators may realize a commercial potential in their creations)

In my opinion the whole tool issue is a natural progression of the demo scene. However, I believe the tools should be openened so that people can add their own extensions and help improving them.

P.s.: Yes, this is an attempt to start a serious discussion.

Good luck.

Possibilities are broadening, that's all. Coding is and will remain the one and single most important task and has to be continued in order to retain at least a slight bit of progression.

And snap out of it, size-optimizing is not the last resort when it comes to showing off good programming skills. I advise you to at least know what you're talking about before you draw any conclusions on topics like these.

Stuff just changes. Scopes, that's what it's about.

Stelthz: The process of extermination of demoscene coders have already started, since they have become obsolete.

The next group of people to be exterminated is the 3d artists. Every 3d object that can be made have been made.

And the list goes on.......

3D cards are not a replacement for coders (poor coders will lead to poor demos even with those 10Terapolygons per second accelerators) and now we have a programmable pipeline. Somebody have to code those tools.

Demoscene is getting a more cleaver structure. Now coders focus on coding effects and tools and gfx men use those effects with the tools in a creative way (no more coder-colors :D)

But coder's demos are becoming obselete...

I guess that last line is kinda true.. Too bad though, I don't like wasting too much time on dull tools 'n stuff while coding an effect or 4 is always good clean fun.

the only things becoming obsolete are these #@$ing "is x killing the demoscene?" pouet bbs threads.

Those dumb coders have handed over their tools now, we no longer need 'em! Let's kick the f**kers out!

LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!

More seriously... without the coders, the tools are going to get dated real fast. And I've yet to see a 4k tool let alone a 256b tool. Maybe a long time in the future when hardware stops progressing, and the tools have reached perfection... I'm guessing thats a long long way off though. Perhaps groups will start doing stuff without the coders... perhaps they'll even realise they can do better stuff with comercial tools, and get better quality by pre-rendering...

In the future AI will make everyone obsolete. fear.

Coders and demo-scene 'roadies' who put together stuff in demotools,are like engineers and technicians.

If the engineers eclipse, the technicians will wonder around aimlessly...

I sincerely hope bad code becomes obsolete real soon !

and I trust that new effects and new code-tricks will keep on coming, like the second part of plek's comment, it's more fun to compute

Bad code becomes less obsolete these days. That's the whole point..

Let's say coders code tools, then sit back.
Graphicians and musicians tinker around happily...
Until they miss something from the tool, or they find something which shouldn't be there.
Then it's back to the coder to fix/add it.
There's no such thing as an ultimate tool.

Plek: Yeah, coding effects is more fun than coding tools. But then again, putting the demo together is much more fun and it's even MORE fun if you just have to click around instead of "if (sync<32500) ..."

I'm just still looking for a different approach that doesn't require grunt-timeline-hardcoding nor dull tool development :)

I get a fair share of dull coding most days anyway :)

gargaj: i prefer the "if (sync<32500) ..." approach myself ;-)

alternatively you can try text-scripting but that's as static as possible and the alter-save-watch loop is still too long, unless of course you can keep the stuff loaded and refresh the script with a button :)

my own thing is that, as work take more and more of my available time, coding demos should be as productive+fast+efficient as possible. I'm also very inspired by the model of "on the fly programming" as described in http://soundlab.cs.princeton.edu/publications/on-the-fly_nime2004.pdf

To answer this thread's subject....in a word: no

yes, we are. so fuck off and quit nagging us!

It is still usually quite an impressive amount of code to start with... On the one hand, one is not writing much in assembly any longer. On the other hand, a good polyfiller and a few effects (half of which rip half of the code from the same polyfiller) is definately not enough, as it was back then.

Is the demoscene ready to embrace pure tool based demos, created only by a team of graficians and musicians? Will a separate tool-developer scene evolve as a supporting sub-movement to the demoscene?

In fact, it may. But it would not worsen the quality of demos compared to the status quo. Things might get better.

Does the tool based approach pose the danger of the commercialization of the demoscene? (The tool creators may realize a commercial potential in their creations)

Commercialization? Haha! You forgot the rules! Many demoscene graphicians use Photoshop or Painter. Do you know many which actually own the tool? Similar with musicians, and even coders. It's not about money, noone will gain much of it. We have been penetrated by one commercial tool on pouet already. Anyone bough it? I bet no! Things like strategic tool alliances are already there and will evolve further. And well, it's not like scene was full of unfriendly beasts - own tools are usually done to be better than other tools!

In my opinion the whole tool issue is a natural progression of the demo scene. However, I believe the tools should be openened so that people can add their own extensions and help improving them.

Not every tool wants to be opened. Demopaja is open enough when it comes to Windows and OpenGL. Demosceners are usually reluctant to open their source because it's not looking nice. :) I think new tools will evolve which would be open from the beginning on.

It all goes in rounds. I bet pure coderdemos will come back out large someday.

When will we finally get rid of this "programming in assembly is hard and elite" referential point? It's absolutely untrue. Ripping stuff is still common and difficult challenges don't have anything to do with details like the language used. Knowing your compiler's code generation merits is much more rewarding in general anyway. Since 2000 I myself have hardly written any assembly code as compared to C/C++ stuff, and if there's one thing I can say, then it is that I have become a way better programmer since then. Such things just don't matter, so please stop using it is some kind of holy grail.

50% of nowadays metaballs are based on Paul Bourke's *code* too.. Not that such is wrong, but tweaking it to suit your needs and performance goals is the next step. Just to name one thing..

Besides all this technical babble I really believe in artistical strength. It makes or breaks productions.

BUT ARNEWEISSE YOU DONT GET THE POINT IVE SEEN FLASHDEMOOOSS WITH METABALLS BUT THEY WERENT 3111337 LOL!!!1

i prefer single routine demos designed by coders.