pouët.net

Hi guys!

I'm a massive fan of all the old Amiga demos (especially the ones found on game "backups") and have finally decided to have a go at my own.

I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on a few questions!?

1 > Is there a live Linux demo scene and if so how can I go about contributing to it?

2 > Any advice for a new starter in demo coding would be much appreciated : best software to use, tutorial links, source code I could look at and learn from (but not steal!) and so forth!

Thanks in advance all

Chris

I can't advise you much, however, linuxdemos.org might be worth a look.

i'd recommend you start using your favourite editor along with GCC and try some SDL and OpenGL tutorials available on the net (there are quite good ones).

slightly off-topic: but these are all the linux releases right here on pouet:

http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?platform%5B%5D=Linux&order=&x=28&y=9&page=1&order=

1) In my opinion, there's only "demoscene", not "linux demoscene" or "mac demoscene" or "windows demoscene". If anything, it's the PC scene, as the operating system doesn't really make a difference in the same way as the hardware. As far as contributing goes, just make a demo and release it. It's as easy as that. For best visibility, release your demo at a party, but releasing outside parties is a viable choice as well.

2) Do your own thing, whatever that might be. Taking tips and ideas from others is quite okay, but try to put something of yourself into it. Just making some kind of amiga-lookalike scroller, for example, isn't going to win a lot of praise, unless it's innovative in some way or just exceptionally well done.
There's not much demo source code going around, but at least my intros have their linux ports open sourced (check them out here). I would suggest building your demo on top of SDL and open sourcing it so that it can be ported to Windows (as relatively few sceners run Linux, compared to geeks in general).

3) Go to a demoparty. Seriously. From your nickname I conclude that you're from Wales, so the closest party to you is most likely Sundown, but it's not uncommon for sceners to travel a long way to visit parties. The best party around is most likely Breakpoint during the Easter weekend.

Welcome!

TuxCymraeg: sceners contribution to Linux as a platform are quite thin. There's an inactive site linuxdemos.org so you might want to help to make it active by contributing just about anything!

Someone can go and prove me dead wrong but honestly I think that the only somewhat active sceners on the platform can be counted with one hand fingers and two fingers can be easily cut off. :)

Using SDL is a good idea to start programming demos under linux. I's only 2d, but many interresting things can be created in 2d. And with that, you can make your prod easily portable.

Huh? You can make OpenGL stuff with SDL.

untel: SDL can be used with OpenGL for hardware accelerated 3D.

Mind the fact that SDL as a library is not a standard part of Ubuntu Linux distribution. Anyway I'll recommend SDL too despite the previous fact.

0) They're called cracktros;

2) Windows.

Oh yeah, demoscene rule #1: Don't take pouet.net seriously, ignore trolls, and just do your thing and have fun.

hmm... a welsh scener?

some may say that the useless wobbling 3D desktop in recent linux distros is a demo by itself :D

You could also use Python and the Pyglet module for coding demos.

That makes two! xwize/ukscene is a Welsh scener too. They should get together and code a sheeptro!

..or a welsh demo-name generator.

WELSH SCENE LIVES ON!
CMON GUYS, RISE UP! TAKE CONTROL!

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WO.....

ok never mind :)

/me goes back to sleep

Linux lovers. scroll down to the review section:

http://www.hugi.scene.org/online/hugi34


"Scene and Linux"
"Artist meets open source"

enjoy!

How could Linux demo differ from demos running on the same hardware but on different OS? The only difference I see is a smaller audience able to run them.

dixan : because GPU drivers usually suck on linux, even though it's slowly improving

and they also suck on Vista btw :)

dixan: yes, assuming you hold onto the source or don't bother porting to Windows.

I code linux demos but we cross compile everything easily using opengl for rendering. If you can stick to open gl, that means you can make your demos easily portable between windows, linux, macos and whatnot...

A sound library that works cross compiled is easy to find, we currently use audiere but maybe fmod is up to the challange now (they had some bugs previously).

The rest is easy piecy... when we converted our codebase from 32-bit to 64-bit about a week ago we had _1_ line of code that needed to be changed.

It's not hard to support different platforms if you do it from the start.

keops: the nvidia drivers on linux is as good as windows versions... at least in my experience.

and btw, we use glfw (glfw.sourceforge.net) for gl setup, tons better than sdl if you don't NEED sdl audio.