
PIC:barclip.ilbm

CL8:                          Limited Possibilities 
PIC:barclip.ilbm

CL8:                   Written by Lahve of Scoopex & Reason

CL6:      (feedback for Adonis' article "Get real - we cannot do better")

CL1:When  I  quickly struggled through the
articles   in   Eurochart,  because  I
intend  to  spend  my  vacation mostly
doing  nothing,  than  doing  creative
work  (eventhough  I  cannot  evade it
anyway),   I   came   across   Adonis'
article,  where the author tried, with
good  intentions,  to  change  the old
origins  of the scene and make sceners
change the styles of demos, musicdisks










and  diskmags.   He  even proposed new
possible    functions   for   sceners.
Unfortunately,   he  didn't  give  any
concrete  examples,  which  proves  my
assumption    that   Adonis   himself,
although    he's   creative,   demands
something  he  cannot achieve for all.
It's  really  easy to demand something
of  everyone,  it is more difficult to
be   an   example   yourself   as  the
situation demands.

Let's  be  concrete.   In his article,
Adonis  mentioned  a couple of things,
but  I intend to disprove the majority
of  article, because the change Adonis
asks for is utterly impossible in most
cases.

Adonis starts out discussing demos.  I
do  agree  that todays demos are about
anything  else  than  they were in the
past, nevertheless I disagree with the
fact  they  are better or worse.  They
are    simply   different.    In   the
beginning coders played with the stuff
they had available regarding the speed
of  the  computer:   vectors.   We can
call   rotating  cubes  or  many-sided
objects  classic,  later  shadows  and
surfaces   etc.    have   been  added.
Meanwhile,   scrolltexts   got   born,
bigger and smoother meant better.  All
the while 90% of the demos included at
least     one    "potatoid"    (pretty
expression  being  spoken by one of my
friends, it means rotating object with
undefined   shapes   ;-)),  longwinded
scrolltexts   (later  hopping  letters
with   favourite   note   "Monkey   is
jumping").   The  ppredefined style of
these  old  demos has been broken only
by a handful of really quality groups.
Today  we have computers that are able
to do more than just move a few vector
objects,  nevertheless  the  amount of
amazing  changes of style and code has
fallen  down  exponentially.  Stopping
talking  about the scene only, also in
regards  to the development of many of
the worlds inventions, we see the same
thing.   To  put  it  short:  there is
almost nothing to be invented, all has
already   been   discovered.   In  the
demoscene,  there were (and there will
be)  a few examples of changes, but we
cannot  expect  any  revolution.   The
recent  demoscene  is practically only
playing  with design and the code fell
down   to   the   level  of  dutifully
sticking  all  together  in one piece.
Optimizations  has  gone.   Notice how
few groups came with something new, in
the  sphere of design at least.  Among
the  demoscene  design pioneers belong
maybe   only   Ephidrena  (Loaderror's
typographic   style)   and  Madwizards
(Azzaro's  original collages and color
combinations),  at  least  since  1998
when  I  entered  the scene.  Isn't it
too little in the last ten years?  But
as  I wrote before, I think there will
there  will  be  a  lack of demo style
changes, that we can notice.
        PIC:7.iff








Also, Adonis mentioned the same, basic
structures of diskmags and his wish to
change  it.   They still have the same
interface,  the  same  look..   To  be
honest,  we in Reason already tried to
come  up  with  something  new  in the
diskmag  sphere,  but  we had too many
ideas,  and  we  still  don't have any
coder  to  make  this  come  true.  In
addition, our design reminds us rather
of   the  AmigaOS  style  itself  ;-).
Although  we  should upgrade the style
of  diskmag  designs,  not  many of us
have  a  reason to make these changes.
Also because the original interface of
mags  is so easy and it is unnecessary
to complicate the interface in regards
to  the  reader.   These  changes  are
mainly senseless, we could maybe think
up  a  couple  of  features,  such  as
animated buttons, hidden parts, sounds
etc.   But  the diskmag creators avoid
these   things.   That's  because  the
foundations  of mags are articles, not
the engine (I don't exactly agree with
that).   All  you  ever  do  should be
improving,  not radical changes of the
interface.   It  cannot be easier than
clicking  the buttons or article names
and  nobody  could  think up something
better.

There  is  only  one thing I can agree
with   concerning  Adonis'  article  -
musicdisks   and   slideshows   should
improve.   The principle of musicdisks
or  slides  is  only  to play music or
display  pictures.   But  the style of
the interface should be more advanced.
It  could  be based on diskmags, demos
or    another    presentation   style.
Authors have many more options in this
branch  of  the scene.  Unfortunately,
we  haven't  many of these prods these
days.   There  is a lack of developers
there  and  they  mainly specialize in
the  small  sphere  of  demoscening so
they have something to put in the demo
compo at various parties.

As  the last, and I'll probably end up
on there; there are ideas of new scene
functions  mentioned  in  the article.
Naturally,  it  made me laugh, really.
The  scene  has  its  own  rules, so I
doubt   there  would  be  some  hidden
opportunity   of   some   new   useful
function  for the newcomers.  However,
it's   a   good   idea   for   general
discussion.

This  article  has  been  purposefully
standing, although a bit radically, on
the  opposite side to Adonis' article.
I  just wanted to express how silly it
is  to  request  changes  which  could
never   have   been   done,   and  how
inscrutable  the  relationship  to old
demos  is,  when  their  influence  on
comparison  with  new demos influences
the   objective   author's  judgement.
This  article  doesn't express general
disagreement  with Adonis' articles in
the  Eurochart,  on  the  contrary  it
should lead to interesting discussions
without any flames and sharp words.  I
respect  Henrik's  opinions,  at least
they  force  me to write this feedback
proving  an  interest  in the original
article   and   the   giving   me  the
possibility  to be absorbed in thought
on   the   nature   of   the  author's
opinions.   Thank  you,  after  a long
time I've finally found an interesting
article to write about.
