(c) Peter Sobolev
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d e m o p a r t y r e p o r t
p a r t t w o
StarGuest pешил пpоголосовать и напpавился к REGISTRATION
TERMINAL. Пpоцедуpа голосования заключалась во вводе своего
паpоля и выбоpе тpех понpавившихся pабот из pulldown списка, по
каждому из пpошедших compo. Пpи этом обязательно нужно было
заполнить все тpи позиции, что по идее пpовоциpовало людей
вводить невеpную инфоpмацию в случае, если им запомниласьonly
one or two jobs. StarGuest did not vote on Graphics
compo for exactly this reason. Moreover, as it turned out, in
the voting system could see not only the titles of works,
but also the names of the authors for Music and Graphics compo, although this
It is customary not to show information and limit it only to
the title of the work in order to avoid a subjective approach in
assessment. By the way, on the big screen, the authors of the works were not mentioned.
In general, the power of a unified information system was felt -
for organizers this, I am sure, is extremely convenient.
An important observation I made (StarGuest
agreed) lies in principles different from ours, and
maybe even for the purpose of holding a demo party. I'll try to explain
your point of view with the help of two observations.
First observation:
In the hall, the owner sits at each computer and works on
their own business (someone writes something, someone plays, someone sits in
on the Internet - it doesn’t matter). Practically NEVER observed
situation, so that two or three people discuss some common
topic. Each to his own, fortunately there are about the same number of computers
how many people. Let us now remember our Russian demo parties.
A normal and natural situation is when people
communicates,exchanges information instead of trying something
do. I can't imagine anyone coming with their
computer and sat and wrote something alone for three days in a row.
Why - you can do the same thing at home! Demo party
carried out so that people who previously knew each other
only through communication on the Internet or did not know at all, met in person,
discussed vital and simply trivial issues and problems
associated with demomaking, and not necessarily only with it.
I think that this difference is not accidental, most likely this is the one
the difference between Them and Us.
Second observation:
...Which has something in common with the first one. Before my visit to
Assembly'99 I was surprised every time by the voting results at
foreign demo parties. I didn’t understand how so many people
can vote for works consisting of stupid (I ask
I'm sorry, but that's exactly how it is) sequences of effects -
plasma, tunnel, fire, rotating cube (torus) and others
similar things, not united by any plot, not carrying
no idea. Why were the voting results and are they?
like this? Now I think I can answer this question
using the example of Assembly'99. The voting system is such that
Ordinary spectators are excluded from participating in it. In order toTo vote on the party, you need to have access to a computer.
Who has free access? Those who brought computers with them.
Everyone else only has the opportunity to stand in line at
corridor to vote. It is clear that there is no special desire for this
there is no observation of studying, it is completely different from sitting at
with your computer, get distracted for a minute and press a couple of buttons
switching to another window. Who brings computers with
by yourself? According to my observations, for the most part these are people who
They write demos themselves. Of course, their estimates are based largely
degrees on how difficult it was to implement one or another
effect, not on plot or idea. I would compare this with
incest, oddly enough. What is known to lead to
degeneration.
Naturally, with such voting results,
repeated from year to year, everyone sees that it makes no sense
exhibit interesting works at the party - they are doomed to last forever
second, fifth, tenth. The incentive to invent something disappears
original. At the same time, voting methods as old as time,
by filling out questionnaires (despite all their primitiveness) it is possible to
allow all viewers to participate in decision making. Probably
there must be ways to adjust the existing one
Assembly'99 system.
The opinion expressed reflectsmy views. I fully admit
that the organizers of Assembly'99 are satisfied with the situation in which
the demo scene closes in on itself. In this case, all that remains is
state the difference in approaches.
...Let's go back to the party again.
The doors opened to the Golden Cafe and we headed there
Remedy representatives with the letter "R" on their T-shirt (by the way, their
the previous logo was clearly more successful), and after them there were about 30 people
who wished to take part in the seminar, including us.
Everyone sat in front of a small screen, on a table on the side
housed a computer, video projector (by the way, I note that
There were plenty of video projectors at the party. 6-7 pieces for sure) and
two people from Remedy. In a typically American way, like me
it seemed like they told us first (in English) about the game
publishing, development in general and about Remedy, Futuremark in
in particular. Then they started showing MaxEd - quite nice
level editor for Quake-like game from Remedy. A couple of times
the editor tripped himself, which caused a real storm of delight (here
in what way they are similar to ours :). One of those present (as
then it turned out that he was from the Yodel group) periodically asked different
kind of “inconvenient” questions like: “what about organics? Why
Is the light falling wrong here? and what I received were invariably evasive
answers. Underthe end was a demonstration of something unfinished so far
Benchmark, which was a set of several
effects - very well realized water in the pool with
environment mapping, 3D woman with high quality
hairstyle (in the sense that the hair looked very
realistic), "liquid" sphere. The seminar ended with stretching
questionnaires and a raffle among those present for several branded
T-shirts. One of the happy ones jumped up and down, joyfully
exclaiming - "For free! For free!" ;-)
The seminar ended just 10 minutes before the start of the series
compo: Amiga 4k intro, PC 4k intro, Amiga 64k intro, PC 64k
intro, Java demo, Wild demo, PC non-accelerated demo (what
Previously it was called simply demo compo).
Before the start of each compo, the inscription appeared on the screen
"kill all audio & lights!", dubbed with a voice with a growl :)
This applied, of course, to the computerized population below -
they reluctantly turned off the rumbling speakers and flashing lights, and every time
they delayed for a long time turning off the monitors (which was accompanied by
At first, with the organizers’ angry cries of “Kill the screens! NOW!
:-E" and the stands chanting "Kill the screens! Kill them all!"
The requirements were indeed justified - light from the monitors
it was very difficult to observe what was happeningon the big screen. I remember
I was especially irritated by the flashing light on a long stem next to the advertising sign
with a Toptronics shield - in the end they began to extinguish it using
umbrella :)
When everyone finally calmed down, and below everything plunged into
darkness, broken only by the flickering LEDs on the screen
the name of the compo, number and title of the work were displayed. On the right
in the upper corner of the screensaver there was a symbol of Assembly'99 - a person
with a head in the form of an iron and with some kind of weapon in his hands (he was also
on branded black T-shirts Asm'99). I can't help myself
nothing to do - the contours of this emblem stubbornly resembled a horse (according to
When I arrived in St. Petersburg, it turned out that it was not just me).
Apart from Wild demo, the rest of the compo were simply terrible. Flame,
tunnels, plasma, 3D objects, etc. etc. I remember in the process
demo 64k intro I fell asleep three times for a few seconds :)
There were some funny moments, but more like parts of the intro and demo.
From PC 4k I remember Orinoco, from PC 64k - Viagra by Mewlers.
One of the works presented in Java demo compo (by the way, for
demonstrations used Netscape) and was completely
old Cyboman-2, simply rewritten for Java. However, people
the people around seemed to care little about all this - they heard
applause.
I would quite seriously introduce restrictions into the demo party rules
for the use of certain3D objects: cubes and tori. Without
all sorts of jokes - such a temporary measure would have exclusively
positive influence.
After the next compo an announcement appeared on the screen
"There's a meeting for all Amiga sceners at the info desk at
22:00". On this occasion, StarGuest noted that, fortunately,
the modest number of Amiga sceners will allow them to fit in a narrow
corridor at the Info Desk :)
From time to time there were advertising inserts - mainly from
Sonera. People reacted sharply to them negatively, which is fair
to put it not very clearly - firstly, you need to be at least a little
grateful to those who donate money and resources for this event,
secondly, there was little advertising.
e n d o f p a r t t w o
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