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Graphics Software Programming United States IT Technology

Pilgrimage 2004 American Demoparty Announced 112

RaD Man [ACiD] writes "Pilgrimage 2004, the one and only American demoparty, will be held this September 17-18th in Salt Lake City, Utah; the birthplace of modern computer graphics. Coders, artists, musicians and enthusiasts from around the world will be turning out to learn, socialize and compete for fame and fortune. An audio-visual invitation real-time demo is also available."
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Pilgrimage 2004 American Demoparty Announced

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  • by Commander Trollco ( 791924 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @01:13AM (#9683216)
    No word on candidates yet.
  • One Word: (Score:2, Funny)

    by yuvtob ( 533399 )
    Demo "eXistenZ" - captial x, capital z - new from Pilgrimage.
  • hmm (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by prockcore ( 543967 )
    the question is, radman, will there be another The Product this year?

    --mrkite
    • Re:hmm (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by scrame ( 767779 )
      No, the question is: When are they going to start an emulated amiga demo competition and bring it back to the old school?
      • Re:hmm (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by Knos ( 30446 )
        Why do you need it emulated? There are still amiga compos you know?
        • Why do you need it emulated? There are still amiga compos you know?

          Virtual Overclocking?

          • by Knos ( 30446 )
            What would the point in that? If you want to make a point by showing off a particularly quick demo, you do it on native hardware. If the native hardware is not fast enough, you use another.

            I don't quite see what that would achieve to release an "amiga" demo that wouldn't work on existing "amiga" hardware.
      • Re:hmm (Score:2, Informative)

        by radd0 ( 558899 )
        Pilgrimage 2004 will be hosting a classic computer museum featuring demos running on original C64 and Amiga hardware (amongst several other oldschool machines), so an emulator should not be necessary. :-)
    • Yes, there will be. Your article is officially overdue [acid.org]. :-)
  • by AltaMannen ( 568693 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @01:42AM (#9683325)
    It's a demo party, so why would they have hotel listings.. people sleep or something?
    • They are US'ians, remember?
      In europe people either don't sleep (which is cool as long as your mom drives) or crash whereever they feel like.
      At Assembly people usually sleep in a separate area of the hall.
      At Scene Event [slashdot.org] people sleep in tents.
  • Do I like Demos? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by krahd ( 106540 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @01:55AM (#9683368) Homepage Journal
    Yep, actually I don't know. Does it make sense to like something just because it is very hard to achieve? Is it art? Would it be the same a party or compo about who makes the biggest pile of cards? Or is it a sport? (ain't it what athletics is all about? doing useless stuff better/faster than the others?).

    What bothers me is that offline rendering achieves much better graphics, so, again: what's the point? Is it beauty? Why then don't go offline? Realtime rendering obvius strength relies on interactivity, but demos are not interactive...

    That said, I think I do like demos. I download'em mourning for the day I'll be so rich that I'll travel to every demoparty which looks cool...

    --krahd

    p.s. I love sports too, the list goes that way: sex, surfing, reading, football, eating are top 5 things of the world :)
    p.p.s. football is what most-of-you call soccer. Do you know why? 'cos it's original name was "Footbal Association" (that's where the A of FIFA comes from). So soccer comes from asSOCiation
    • Re:Do I like Demos? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      the how you do something is as important as the result. traditionally, the demoscene has not been about the artistic value of the created works perse, though as the medium has evolved, it's focus has shifted more towards that. but still, a lot of it is about just being *able* to things. like, being *able* to make a functional 3d engine work on a C64, being *able* to fit a fully functioning texture generator, softsynth, 3d engine plus effects and 2d effects into 64KB.

      art is more than about just the way it l
    • Re:Do I like Demos? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Knos ( 30446 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @02:06AM (#9683409) Homepage Journal
      In a more didactic way:

      First, the scene is a community, so it is not so much about demos than about the way they are created and shared.

      One of the main values is efficiency. People can and will distribute demos and intros easily because they are rather small and efficient. Inefficiency (pre-rendered movies) hurts redistribution.

      Secondly, by having to be run realtime, demos emphasize code over any other sort of more static methods to create visuals/music. It is in that sense necessarly a generative discipline, whose medium is the manipulation of information and the emergence of concrete visuals / sounds from an abstract material, the code.

      Thirdly, well, the scene is no more interesting than tractor pulling or poker championships, I guess it does look very similar at times. It plays the computer equivalent to what graffiti plays for the visual arts:
      - a style
      - a pop movement
      - a new medium

    • I've always likened demos vs pre-rendered movies to theatre vs film, seeing how theatre is done real-time, whereas film is not. Yet there are certain aspects of both which appeal to different people, though obviously not to everyone.

      Perhaps there is something about it being created at the time you are watching. Or maybe it's about working with limited resources. Or to some the appeal is in how it was done rather than what you see.
    • When demos were popular (C64, Amiga, Atari ST) you did everything realtime because you couldn't do it offline - not enough storage space neither in ram nor on disk!

      Oh - and a lot of demos were interactive.

      /me - Red Fox of Sync [www.sync.st]

    • Hmmmm.. I think now would be a good time to point out an apparent malfunction in your PC hardware. To be more specific, something seems to be dreadfully wrong with the cable which connects your PC to the internet.. This kind of situation usually needs immediate attention so what you'll probably want to do is, without necessarily shutting down the machine, carefully unplug both ends of the cable. You're probably looking for a RJ45 cable; looks like a telephone plug but a little wider.. You'll know which one
    • "What bothers me is that offline rendering achieves much better graphics,"

      On the contrary, demos produce far better graphics in many, many cases. Download something like The Popular Demo and run it 1280x1024 on a nice new card... the result is vastly beyond anything you're going to get on a DVD.

      60 frames a second, high-resolution graphics have an appeal that beats the Pixar alternative... either 480p blur on a DVD or 24 FPS shuddering in the movie theatre.

      There's a sense of physical reality there that

  • I see Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Trogre ( 513942 )
    ... is a major sponsor.

    I guess there's not much hope of seeing Linux demos this year.

    *sigh*

    • If you head over to The Gathering [gathering.org] wich is one of the top four Demo/Computer-parties in the world, held every easter here in Norway you will see that TG also has Microsoft as a huge sponsor, but that does not mean that there was no Linux-demos at TG04, TG03, TG02.. etc. Actually, the number of Linux/Amiga-based demos keep steadily rising at TG. If you have a peek: here [gathering.org] you'll see that there is 3 Linux-FastIntro-demos and Four Win32-Fast-Intro-demos, hence, nearly equal numbers, and at TG2003, Microsoft was a
      • ...you'll see that there is 3 Linux-FastIntro-demos and Four Win32-Fast-Intro-demos, hence, nearly equal numbers...

        Just took a look at them. I guess they were done in a big hurry. They're not really up to any kind of decent demo standard, Linux or otherwise. Crappier demos have been seen, but not by reliable witnesses.

        With apologies to the Douglas Adams estate.

        • Just took a look at them. I guess they were done in a big hurry. They're not really up to any kind of decent demo standard, Linux or otherwise. Crappier demos have been seen, but not by reliable witnesses.

          Are you aware of the rules for these demo-compos? The FastIntro democompo with its content and goals are released AT the party, hence the main purpose is to show that you are able to meet the deadline and bring the content in line with the rules for the compo. Not to show off smooth graphical design skil
    • ..premature sighing when there hasn't even been a demoparty in the last 10 years, period.

      If you US code monkey's are going to enjoy showing off your talent, then yes why not start commenting on the lack of sponsorship, the lack of linux, the lack of pinguins, the lack of sceners, the lack of productions, the lack of music, the lack of the good old days, the lack of easy miles to cross, the lack of holidays to spent, the lack of girls, the lack of money..

      but hey, don't even think about hitting that keyboa
    • You "guess" completely wrong, but in a manner totally consistent with a dothead that engages in baseless MS bashing.

      Did you even look at the results from last year? There was a FreeBSD demo released all while Microsoft sponsored us.

      There won't be any linux demos as long as noone submits linux demos. The same is true for any other platform. Nowhere do we require that demos be on a specific platform. All you had to do was read our compo rules in order to learn that.

      But hey, that would require actual

      • Okay,

        But just have a little think about why on earth someone like Microsoft would sponsor you.

        To encourage innovation? I hope you're not that naive.

        • <sarcasm>Yes, there must be a conspiracy!</sarcasm>

          Pffffffft.

          They sponsored us because the organizers asked. Its no more complicated than that. All of the sponsors were asked to help and they did.

          If anyone is "naive" here, it is your automatic assumption that everything done by MS is part of some evil conspiracy to suppress linux or open source or whatever you feel is your One, True, Valiant Cause. Even after your initial fallacious assumptions are pointed out as such and after it was p

  • That Teapot (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 0racle ( 667029 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @02:15AM (#9683434)
    I always wondered why that teapot was a standard privative in 3d Studio Max. Also another siting they don't seem to have in there is the 3d pipes screen saver. If you changed the joint options to 'Mixed' on the 3d pipes screensaver in Windows and watch it for a while, some of the joints will be that teapot.
  • ...but 3D Studio Max killed this little revolution, imho. I'm sure the programming and the effort involved in producing that invitation was immense.

    That being said, it's like watching Picasso draw with crayons.
    • You appear to be missing the point. A video made with 3D Studio Max can be more impressive graphically, yes, but it doesn't show any coding skills whatsoever. Programming something like a 64k demo (such as one with a realtime raytracer [demoscene.hu]) with good graphics and nice audio is a much bigger feat than just rendering something in 3D Studio Max.
      • Know what I'm missing?

        I'm missing that "man, that's way freaking cool" coming out of my mouth when seeing new demos. That demo, while sort of nifty, didn't look appreciably better than the one the Future Crew (or whatever) did back in the day...I think I had a 486/66 to run it, with a VL Local Bus video card.

        How's the saying go? The 30 year old who has never programmed in Assembler has no heart...the 30 year old who still programs in Assembler has no brain...
    • That being said, it's like watching Picasso draw with crayons.

      exactly.
      while you propably think of this comparison in a defamatory way, i think it expresses why i like watching demos quite nicely. it must have been pretty inspiring to watch pablo picasso draw one of his crayon [ok, rather coal, but you get the idea] scetches, since he as an artist just knew how to express something with very little effort. this, in my opinion, is also true for some of the best demos, which feature fx which are almost as ni
  • What is a demo....

    this is [calodox.org]
    • Orion's 'this is" is one of my favourite demos of all time. It has deep artistic stills, an excellent sound track and a beautiful black and white design.

      Watch it. :)
  • As long as it doesn't involve immersive VR games, I'm cool with it. Just don't make me worry about having an infected bioport.
  • Coders, artists, musicians and enthusiasts from around the world will be turning out to learn, socialize... Shouldn't it be Coders, artists, musicians and enthusiasts from around the world will be turning out to learn to socialize... ;-)
  • http://www.fusecon.com/pubs/txtfiles/naid95.txt
    h ttp://www.scene.org/dir.php?dir=/parties/1995/nai d95
  • Na, just joking.

    Good luck on the demoparty. Looking forward to seeing (and hearing) the releases from it.

    David McGuinness

  • All your demos are belong to us!
  • Hope no one wants a late-nite drink!
  • Pilgrimage 2004, the one and only American demoparty

    What about the NAID parties (North American International Demoparty)? These were held in 1995 [pouet.net] and 1996 [pouet.net] and were very well regarded. Also check out the compulsory geek pics [slengpung.com] from the events.

    There were a few more US parties, but I forgot the names. It's a damn shame the US doesn't have more of them. I remember it got very expensive for US demosceners to keep crossing the Atlantic to get to the parties in Finland and Denmark (not to mention forcing them to
    • NAID were in Canada. The only other US parties I know of are the Spring Break parties 1997-1999. Unless you count the #trax 10 year reunion. While demos were shown, it was not a competition but purely a social gathering.

      I think the reason they proclaim the "Only American Party" is that in fact, it is the only one currently being held.

      I went last year, competed, met some cool people, drank a bunch of beer, and had a good time. Evening driving all the way from Chicago, it was worth it. This year will be far
    • NAID, Crash, Spring Break and Coma are all dead and don't happen anymore. There are no web pages for those parties where you can contact the organizers. There are no plans to revive any of these demoparties and continue them.

      Unless you have a TARDIS, the only demoparty you'll be attending in North America is Pilgrimage. Pilgrimage is the only North American demoparty with a plan to be around for more than 2-3 years as a fluke. Pilgrimage is the only North American demoparty that has a functioning web

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