Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The curious case of retro demo scene graphics

datagubbe.se

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 102 posts

Re: The curious case of retro demo scene graphics

#41

Post by kilpikaarna »

pixelpoet wrote: post #5

As it happens I'm just on a train to Airbnb with large group of demoscene and fractal art friends, full week ahead of the Revision[0] demoparty! Hells yeah My top pick for pixel art would be anything by Made of demogroup Bomb, don't have a good link to hand sorry and need to change trains etc. Also check this amazing pixel art book: https://www.themastersofpixelart.com/ [0] https://2026.revision-party.net/

Made is still active in the demoscene and creating art for/with (the restrictions of) old platforms.

Check https://m4de.com/?tag=archives

Re: The curious case of retro demo scene graphics

#42

Post by kilpikaarna »

Man, this really brings one back to discovering https://gfxzone.planet-d.net/ sometime around 1999 (when this was already fading into the past because the scene was dying, PC with 24bit graphics and painting software pushing out DPaint andAmiga palette stuff etc), reading all the old interviews where "No Copy!/?" was a core issue and looking at the galleries.

"Danny leaves the scene" (because it's just a bunch of kids with scanners and he's got a job at Eidos now) never forget!

Re: The curious case of retro demo scene graphics

#43

Post by keyle »

parasti wrote: post #10

Focusing on "copying" seems like missing the forest for the trees. There's the copyright angle, but copyright laws are unnatural obstacles designed to give the original author some control over what happens after publishing. They're not fundamental, we made the laws. What is fundamental is this: every artist starts out by copying the works of others. It's how you learn. And in that framing, once you publish your deri…

Exactly.

They wouldn't copy each other for copyright infringement as much as it was a mark of respect. They carried each other's arts as an evolution and respect towards each other rather than copying; all bringing a small twist on what was before.

Re: The curious case of retro demo scene graphics

#44

Post by roygbiv2 »

JetSetIlly wrote: post #40
roygbiv2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely been success in using generative AI for vintage Computers. Just the other day I got it to produce a bootable floppy for my Amiga 1200. It loads the network driver, uses BOOTP to get an ip address, connects to a server and then downloads code via UDP that it will then execute. I doubt you'll get it doing amazing graphical scenes like you see in the demo scene though.

I really meant in the coding realm, but it's interesting that it created a bootable floppy. That wouldn't be trivial. Questions: 1) Which AI platform did you use? 2) Did it create a binary image of the floppy disk (an ADF perhaps)? If not, what form did it take?

I used cursor with a mix of Gemini 3.1 and opus 4.6.

It referenced the Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manual, appendix C to create a boot block in assembly. It's a raw sector-mapped image, the build process creates a blank adf, which then writes everything at it's fixed offsets and we go back with another tool to patch the bootblock with the right checksum so the kernel accepts it.

I copied that adf to the A1200 so I can then write it to a real floppy.

Re: The curious case of retro demo scene graphics

#47

Post by Sharlin »

Findecanor wrote: post #9

Demo scene graphics competitions these days tend to include work-in-progress images, as evidence of originality. The Revision demo party is soon. From the competition rules for "Oldskool Graphics" [0]: > Include exactly 10 (ten) working stages of your entry. All entries without plausible working stages will be disqualified. Yikes... The rules for "Modern Graphics" [1] and "Paintover" similarly also require work stage…

Was required back in the early 2000s already, but that’s not really what the article is about. It’s talking about derived work created by recreating another artist’s existing work in a different medium. Being able to provide WIP material is only evidence that the technical labor is yours, not that the artistic concept is original.

Re: The curious case of retro demo scene graphics

#48

Post by momocowcow »

skrebbel wrote: post #16

Let's not forget that most of these pictures were made by teenagers, doing the best they could (and hoping others didn't know about Boris Vallejo). The demoscene was very young back then. Copying is generally considered pretty lame in the demoscene these days.

It was considered "pretty lame" in the 90s, yet the best did it. It was just harder to figure it out.

Re: The curious case of retro demo scene graphics

#49

Post by amiga386 »

JetSetIlly wrote: post #40
roygbiv2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's definitely been success in using generative AI for vintage Computers. Just the other day I got it to produce a bootable floppy for my Amiga 1200. It loads the network driver, uses BOOTP to get an ip address, connects to a server and then downloads code via UDP that it will then execute. I doubt you'll get it doing amazing graphical scenes like you see in the demo scene though.

I really meant in the coding realm, but it's interesting that it created a bootable floppy. That wouldn't be trivial. Questions: 1) Which AI platform did you use? 2) Did it create a binary image of the floppy disk (an ADF perhaps)? If not, what form did it take?

> That wouldn't be trivial.

INSTALL DF0:

Just type that and your disk is bootable.

What I find mind-boggling is the handwave over the rest. "Loads the network driver" - ok, which one? There's no standard network driver, only a specification for writing drivers (SANA-II). Was it a driver for SLIP/PPP over the serial port, or a PCMCIA Ethernet adaptor, or something else? Was it a copy of a driver someone's already written?

Also, it would be madness to try doing this in a bootblock, or insinuating that the bootblock did it. Demo bootblocks take over the hardware and start using their loading routines, eschewing the main AmigaOS, and that's the implication of saying something was done in the bootblock (you have under 1KB of space so the first thing you need is your own loader).

What's much more mundane and normal is a standard bootblock which returns control to AmigaDOS and lets it run the startup-sequence, whereupon you can use normal files, libraries, devices, including a full suite of other people's networking software, including BOOTP (AmiTCP comes with a client) and TFTP (see Olaf Barthel's tftpclient: https://github.com/obarthel/amiga-sana-ii-tftpclient). But it stopped being the "bootblock" that did it as soon as it started AmigaDOS.

Post reply on HN