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From: d89-dze@dront.nada.kth.se (Dick Zetterberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: AMIGA DEMOS: Europe VS. USA
Keywords: demos
Message-ID: <1991Apr26.003444.22977@nada.kth.se>
Date: 26 Apr 91 00:34:44 GMT
References: <20691@brahms.udel.edu>
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Lines: 81



I'm sorry for not using any real quotes in this text, but please don't
flame me because it's written in a hurry.

Whoever said that coding a demo didn't take more than a week could have 
been right about that, had he said it 2 years ago. However the demos made on
the Amiga today (Demos = Euro-style-demos throughout this text) takes far
more time to code than one week. I am now talking about the real GOOD ones.
Not the simple scroll-starfield demos that everybody does as a first try.
First of all the trend in later demos is to use several parts with different
routines/effects. You often use up a whole disk. One example of this is
the Mental Hangover demo by Scoopex.  Filling 880k (Or more since they
seldom use normal dos-structure) with Music, Graphics and Coding takes
alot more than 1 week to do. A friend of mine released a demo some weeks
ago that he had been working on for 8 months!! This was of course due to
some laziness and too many other things to do, but he really spent ALOT of
time coding that demo before releasing it.  

So, what makes people spend so much time doing things that won't give them any
money?  Most important: It's fun!    

Why not do something useful instead, like a utility or a game? (Useful? :)
I think most demoprogrammers thinks it's much more funnier to program a demo
than a utility. The result is more entertaining etc.

What about a game then?
A game takes much more time to complete, and it's very easy to become bored
after a while and never finish it. Still many democoders start on games and
then maybe they release a demo once in a while just as relaxation from the 
usual game-programming.

Another important thing that makes people code demos is fame. Making a really
good demo will make your name known all over the world (Well almost anyway)
And even if you are considered a nerd by your classmates, you will be a
MASTER in the world of demos.

You can also make money on a demo, although it's not very much. There are
frequent "copy-parties" and "conferences" arranged where they always have
a demo competition with (cash) prices of about $1000 for the best demo.


The programming style used in demos is, as people have noted, 'wild' and
the OS is almost never used during the actual demo.  First of all a demo
NEVER uses multitasking. This wouldn't leave enough raster time for the actual
demo, but I don't want to enter the OS vs NO-OS subject now. There has 
already been such a long discussion about it in amiga.programmer.
Let's just say that demos kick out the OS for the same reasons as many games
do it: Speed and memory.

Since some routines and effects used in demos take up so much rastertime,
long tables are used to get the extra speed and to be able to put that
extra vektor objekt on the screen. This is no problem however since the 
programs don't have to be maintained and revised, or shown to anybody else.
Other examples are where you actually generate the code instead of writing it
in a loop. (you could for example put alots of MOVEM.L a0/a1/a1 .... 
in memory to use as a CLEAR_SCREEN routine and would perhaps make your routine
some rasterlines faster than if you had used a loop instead.)
This does not mean that demoprogrammers can't write nice, structured code, 
it's just that every rasterline counts in some routines, so then you must
use those ugly programming styles.


I personally think that much of the music made in demos is far better than 
many tunes used in games. Overall I think the game-tunes on amigagames is
VERY low. There are of course exceptions like XENON II, Shadow of the Beast
etc. Some of the best musicians from the demoworld has now started making music
for games (Uncle Tom for example).

Ok, this text got a 'little bit' longer than i origrinally intended but I hope
it can explain how many demo programmers reason here in Europe and why they
do what they do.


		/ Dick Zetterberg              d89-dze@nada.kth.se

PS
   The demo my friend had been working on for 8 months got the second
   prize in a demo competition here in Sweden. Anyone who wants it may 
   feel free to contact me. 
				DS