Posted by tobi — 05:18 PM May 25
I just watched Will Wright’s presentation on his new game Spore. It uses procedural calculations to create content from parameters, a technology which was previously mainly employed by the demo scene (mostly an european thing). Using procedural algorithms it’s not unusual to see some demos calculating gigabyte worth of assets from files smaller then an empty word document.
I have very fond memories of the golden ages of the demo scene when my friends and I where driving all over europe to attend these fantastic gatherings and see what other programmers where up to. Remarkable times and it’s fantastic to see that one of the smartest minds of the gaming industry finally dreamed up a use for this art form.
Watch the video here.
If you are interested in the demo scene in general I recommend watching the farbrausch 64kb demos. My favorite is das produkkt from 2000.
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Robert Hahn 25 May 17:57
For those of us just joining the party, you might want to see what the wikipedia has to say about what a “demo scene” is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demo_scene
I’ve seen demos that have been done on 8 and 16 bit computers, but thought that sort of thing fell by the wayside with the rise of the Internet…
Aaron 25 May 21:38
My jaw is still on the floor, this is simply amazing!
toxi 26 May 03:42
the problem with that scene always has been an extreme form of haxor elitism and arrogance which alianated many outsiders. also, these days the scene is full of traditionalists who still stick to old formats rather than using their often incredible skills to experiment with new things. so yeah, kudos to will wright for moving those skills and the scene more into the public spotlight, but he’s hardly the first one in the games industry to employ primarily sceners.
better info and more links to quality prods are here:
http://demoscene.info/ http://pouet.net/ (archive+community) http://monostep.org/ (mainly win32) http://demoo.calodox.org/ (win32)
Casey Gollan 26 May 13:25
wow, wow, wow, that is amazing, i watched the whole hour of it. wow.!!!! will wright never ceases to amaze me