A short history of the demoscene

The eighties - the first home computers fit down-market. In the beginning of this new era, also the demoscene raises - starting with small animations in front of cracked computer games on Commodore C64s or later Amigas. These short intros to games that were spread on schoolyard attracted a lot of enthusiasts. Soon, this newly built scene split up and dissociated itself from the illegal game-copy business. The demoscene has got grown-up and focussed itself on  exploring the technical limitations of hardware.

Nowadays, the technical limits are almost gone. Since the introduction of 3D-acceleration and incredible fast hardware, the demoscene refocussed on aspects like bombastic visuals and sound - multimedial spectacles. For designers, this means more and more possibilities to unfold his creativity and for the programmer it offers everyday new challenges in accessing the new hardware.

Demos, Intros & Demoparties

Demoparties are one of the most important parts of the demoscene. During one of these demoparties, which typically last three days, the best demos are shown on large silver screens. After public votings, the best productions are awared a prize. Unlike at LAN-parties (game-related), demoparties emphasize on programming skills and computer art.

A major part of the event are the contests and competitions. Producers and artists present their latest creations to a jury - in this case the audience and visitors of the demoparty - in a way similar to movie festivals. There is an endless list of categories. Not every party offers the same categories. Some of the most popular categories are classical frame-by-frame animations, so called demos and intros. These differentiate mostly in the technical relation to standard rendering and animation techniques (frame-by-frame, prerendered, trick, ...).

Demos and intros are audiovisual compositions calculated in realtime. When looking at the technical implementation, they are comparable with today's computer games. However, there is a fundamental difference: Demoscene productions don't provide any interactivity. Thus, demos and intros can be seen as a union between computer games (for the technique) and video clips (for the audiovisual appearance). Creating demoscene productions is a technical challenge: Programming on highest skill-levels, experimentation with the element of creativity and last but not least, working in an international team. It takes more than a one-man-show to handle the, in some cases, extraordinary high time and effort put into a demo. Seen with an artists eye, the spectrum of productions ranges from minimalistic experiments to short movies with 3D characters and story plot. Beside the disciplines of demos and intros, the demoscene also appreciates musical categories which are heavily populated by professionals and semi-pros as a platform. The same can be said for the graphical disciplines, where images (hand painted, pixeled, rendered, photos, ..) are judged by the audience.

Fun with the hardware

The demoscene allows every single electronical device as a platform - the capability to output graphics and/or music is the only requirement. You can even count a standard OHP to the range of demo-capable devices. It's a tradition that, even today, demos are not only created for up-to-date PCs, but also older home computers like the C64 and the Amiga. Or, on the other end of the range, modern - and sometimes exotic - devices like Gameboy, Playstation, XBox, Java-Applets or even iPods. This variety is inimitable and sets a mark for the members of the demoscene.

International community

The demoscene community mainly bases in Europe, but there are members and demoscene fans and bystanders from all over the world. Visitors of demoparties are travelling long distances to get there. Estimations talk of around 15'000 members of the demoscene community, an accurate amount is hard to guess because there is no such thing as a member list. Active demosceners belong to a wide variety of professional guilds and thus the demoscene consits of much different and often high level knowledge, ideas and ideals.