pouët.net

Shader compo at MAGFest 2018

category: code [glöplog]
 
A bit of a background: last year, Riverwash demoparty orgas (namely me and Argasek/Abberation Creations) were invited by the Polish Cultural Institute to give a presentation about demoscene at a music and gaming festival in Washington, D.C. In the past, I had given several such presentations at various events in Poland and, in my experience, random people watching demos and explanations rarely produced any positive outcome like newcomers at parties. I thought that a gaming event, such as MAGFest, wouldn't be any different. Argasek and I were very surprised to see that almost three fourth of about 150 people who came to our both events had already known what demoscene is. We also met several US sceners there, including the orgas of Demosplash and @party. They told us that there's a big potential in the US but parties are scarce and too distant for most people to come. The authorities who sponsored our trip there were satisfied with the outcome, so there we go again. This time it won't be just a presentation.

MAGFest is between the 4th and 7th of January. For three days, Maq/Floppy and I are going to conduct a workshop on shader coding (I'm just doing the logistics). We'll start with a general introduction to demoscene (for newbs), then moving to basics of shaders. Maq is going to use Shadertoy as a tool. He has been exchanging emails with IQ, who was so kind to provide us with some basic tutorials to aid the workshop. We really hope Internet won't be a problem. MAGFest is a 30k+ people event and the networking infrastructure there is shaky. Anyway, we have no slightest idea how many actual coders are going to come and participate. That's why we decided to ask fellow sceners for help.

If you're a coder and want to take part, code something with Shadertoy and send it to us. Remote submissions will be a separate category because we want those newcomers at MAGFest to have a fair compo. Thus, there will be two winners: live and remote. The Embassy has some money to fund prizes (software licences most likely). Apart from the workshop and the introduction, Argasek wants to gather some 8-bit machines and Amigas to show demos on them. There's a computer museum with an exhibition at MAGFest, we hope to borrow some of their hardware for that purpose. We'd love to have a live stream but I'm afraid that'd be too much for the MAGFest network. Last year they recorded Argasek's presentation, I think it's on YouTube. If you are, by any chance, visiting MAGFest or are nearby D.C., please come and visit us, take part, maybe help us evaluate the entries, or just socialize. We hope to extend this venture even more next year. We'll keep you posted.

To sum up: a Shadertoy entry, deadline is 4th of January. Please send submissions to contact@riverwash.org
added on the 2017-11-15 08:25:54 by Fei Fei
Aaaand the official announcement is here!

http://super.magfest.org/guest2018/demoscene-at-magfest-2018/
added on the 2017-12-14 20:13:39 by argasek argasek
heard good things about magfest last year. didn't it coincide with with first days of synchrony aswell btw?
added on the 2017-12-14 21:45:13 by psenough psenough
\o/ awesome!
added on the 2017-12-15 01:15:32 by cxw cxw
@psenough Synchrony is two weeks later, which is unfortunate as I'd love to stay and be there. A party on a train sounds like a cool idea.

@cxw: thanks for adding!
added on the 2017-12-16 09:16:54 by Fei Fei
Fei: no problem! Also, nice montage! I don't know if I'll be able to enter, but just in case ---

- Which browser(s) will you be using? My last shadertoy compo entry (ncl01) ran on FF but not Chrome, but I never figured out why. FF Quantum is _much_ faster for ncl01 than old FF or Chrome, at least on my test machine.
- Any specs on the compo machine yet?
- Do you care what the shader access level is? Should we set it to unlisted and send you the URL? Do you want copies of the frag file(s) as well?
added on the 2017-12-16 19:11:28 by cxw cxw
Also, https://bitbucket.org/inclinescene/demosplash-2016 in case it helps - introductory democoding with ShaderToy. I note iGlobalTime has changed to iTime along with the webgl version bump.

I recommend for the tutorials: precision high on everything, and only refer to iTime once, in main (float t=iTime; and then pass t as a function parameter to anything that needs it). The former is because new coders won't be thinking about precision, and the latter is because it permits you to change your time, e.g., for debugging, on one line rather than throughout the file. Since ShaderToy doesn't have any time changer except reset to zero (unless I'm missing something), flexibility is important.

FWIW, I did get the old version of ShaderToy running offline (with iq's ok), but it didn't have sound. As I recall, the biggest change was to drop in the literal json in place of the ajax request the online version makes.

Why doesn't the US government sponsor demoparties?!!?!!!??????!!!!!??!??!!!!????
added on the 2017-12-17 03:03:13 by cxw cxw
Fei: last questions for today:
- When is the actual compo screening? Sat. 1/6 PM, or Sun. 1/7 AM right before prizegiving?
- May we have a deadline of 1/5 (or 1/6 noon ;) ) for remote entries instead of 1/4?
- If deadline is indeed 1/4, is it 1/4 23:59 US EST (UTC-5) or another time on 1/4? As you may have discerned by now, if we can enter, we will be down to the wire :) .
added on the 2017-12-17 04:45:47 by cxw cxw
@cxw
- We can install several browsers if needed. I think the default is Chrome, but I don't see any problem with changing it.
- Unfortunately, MAG orgas don't have any fast desktops at hand. They wrote it's going to be GTX730. We can't do anything about that.
- Just the URL will be fine. Can be public as well, we're not strict in any way.
- Shaders will be shown on Sunday. When I was writing the initial post, we still didn't know the schedule and that's why I wrote that the deadline would be on 1/4. Now the schedule is set http://magfest.webhook.org/guest2018/demoscene-at-magfest-2018/ so till the end of 1/5 is fine. 1/6 isn't a good idea as we're having the screening at 10:30 and then going to catch our planes the same evening.
added on the 2017-12-17 20:15:04 by Fei Fei
Just a slight reminder: we STILL wait for your remote entries!
added on the 2017-12-30 14:49:03 by argasek argasek
Fei, argasek: Incline's entry is on its way to you! Please let me know if my email didn't reach you. I have an open question on Wanted if you want to PM me :) . Thanks!
added on the 2018-01-05 05:37:06 by cxw cxw
cxw: we got it! Awesome!

All - when submitting entries we recommend to publish it as "Unlisted" on Shadertoy, to not spoil the fun. Thank you!
added on the 2018-01-05 16:59:22 by argasek argasek
If anyone is at MAGFest - you are more than welcome to join.
The schedule:
Demoscene & shaders, 7pm, 5th Jan., Annapolis 1-4
Shaders and ShaderToy, 12pm, 6th Jan., Annapolis 1-4
ShaderToy Workshop, 1:30pm, 6th Jan., Forge
Prizegiving in ShaderToy compo, 10:30am, 7th Jan., Annapolis 1-4
added on the 2018-01-05 23:44:28 by maq maq
maq: thanks for the update! When is the actual compo screening (as opposed to prizegiving)? After the workshop so local folks can enter, right?
added on the 2018-01-06 00:32:07 by cxw cxw
hi, I think you have to be MAGFest participant to join this prizegiving and I don't think anyone here does streaming. Yes, all locals may join, it's open of course.
maq
added on the 2018-01-06 17:37:52 by maq maq
OK, here we go with the entries:

Name / shader / remote
Jennifer https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MlSBDR n
Austin https://www.shadertoy.com/view/llSfWR n
Ken https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MlSfDR n
Quint https://www.shadertoy.com/view/XtBBDz n (thewinner of the MAGFest participant category)
Necroposters https://www.shadertoy.com/view/XtBfWR y
cxw/Incline https://www.shadertoy.com/view/llsfW2 y
John https://www.shadertoy.com/view/ltSfDR y
Patu https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4llfDs y (winner of the remote entry category)
Nathan https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MlBBDR n

Congratulations to all participants. Those people who were MAGFest participants learned from a scratch at our workshop and they spend so much valuabe time (this festival is large with multi events happening simultaneously).
added on the 2018-01-08 09:40:03 by maq maq
maq: thanks for the links! Pouet and DZ updated. I had a lot of fun participating remotely! I hope you are able to do this again next year.
Linkified Nathan: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/MlBBDR
added on the 2018-01-08 16:09:45 by cxw cxw
cxw - thanks a lot!
added on the 2018-01-08 21:36:48 by maq maq
so there's just winners and no 2nd/3rd/etc? then it would make sense to set the ranking for non-winners to "not applicable" before some troll screws it all up ;)
added on the 2018-01-10 09:37:40 by havoc havoc
havoc: done, thanks
added on the 2018-01-10 13:41:12 by maq maq

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