A minor annoyance is majorly affecting demos
category: general [glöplog]
@Gargaj lemme give you the basic gestalt
>fucking cheaters
>hiding lame code behind 180px playfield height gaining cycles 'n sheeit
>getting """awarded""" by Charlie and his ebil cabbal by 16:9 cropping and full bigscreen display
>super1337 coders present their fullframe awesomeness in 320x256
>and Y am I looking at black bars on muh 32" home setup
>imblyign contemporary demos only care about the party and not about the viewers at home
>random spurdoposting
t.angrySwedeYellingAtClouds
>fucking cheaters
>hiding lame code behind 180px playfield height gaining cycles 'n sheeit
>getting """awarded""" by Charlie and his ebil cabbal by 16:9 cropping and full bigscreen display
>super1337 coders present their fullframe awesomeness in 320x256
>and Y am I looking at black bars on muh 32" home setup
>imblyign contemporary demos only care about the party and not about the viewers at home
>random spurdoposting
t.angrySwedeYellingAtClouds
> imblyign contemporary demos only care about the party and not about the viewers at home
How about caring for both?
The number of pixels on a retro machine is already small.
I'd suggest beam teams think about better compromises than this.
If in doubt, leave it alone.
> t.angrySwedeYellingAtClouds
I'm not Swedish, but count me in
How about caring for both?
The number of pixels on a retro machine is already small.
I'd suggest beam teams think about better compromises than this.
If in doubt, leave it alone.
> t.angrySwedeYellingAtClouds
I'm not Swedish, but count me in
As a compo watcher I very much want widescreen letterbox demos to be zoomed to the full projection screen. Particularly if the author says it should be zoomed. I also want the audio in OCS demos to be mixed down to almost mono, even if the party audio system has more than one speaker. Unless the author has specifically intended the audio channels to be completely separated to left and right sides (because there's some kind of fancy stereo field effect).
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Quote:why not ensure it also works on the 1200?
Because its super annoying from the development site. There are so many different Amiga configurations out there, that cause different problems. Starting with the different Chipsets, Accelerator boards, A4000 has its own set of problems, Gfx-boards and flicker fixers, software issues like VBR in fastmem, timing issues on faster cpus, potential new problems on vampire and other FPGA fake amigas, ...
I'm just talking about vanilla A1200 here. It's one of the most common Amigas in use today. I realize not every single CPU can be accounted for, but most turbo boards can easily be deactivated (or unplugged). But I hear ya. I'll rather have pure 68000-only prods than no prods at all.
@Axis, please do the xtra effort to make your OCS stuffz work on any Amiga. I found different code paths only for 68000/68010/68020++, and one for HAM7. My workflow is to code effects against A600, with occasional testing of the prod on A3000/60 and rarely on A1200/20 and /30. Final test is on A500 rev5 512k+512k. Remember extra treatment for 68010 if you do your own multitasking. You can send me your stuff for testing. :-)
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potential new problems on vampire and other FPGA fake amigas, ...
Why even care about these, as you rightly say, fake Amigas at all? I for one couldn't care less if there are problems on Vampire cards, they should fix their cards to be 100% compatible instead of deciding that certain instructions are "never used hence we don't need to support them at all".
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I also want the audio in OCS demos to be mixed down to almost mono, even if the party audio system has more than one speaker.
Ugh... Ive said enough about this subject I reckon.
I still don't get it - if the platform aspect ratio is fixed, a demo running in any other aspect must have been clearly cropped...? So it's not like it's clandestine cheating, the whole thing is right in front of you.
I think part of the supposed problem was speculation that offering a zoom option encourages making letterboxed demos, and therefore, nobody will make non-letterboxed demos anymore.
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I think part of the supposed problem was speculation that offering a zoom option encourages making letterboxed demos, and therefore, nobody will make non-letterboxed demos anymore.
I guess the results of the Amiga Demo compo proves this argument pretty much invalid.
Stereo separation: We use minimal separation already. Compo audience is king.
As a special treatment for the whiners about Amiga not being a
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Okay so now that Revision is over and I had time to read this I'm still a bit lost at what the issue is here...?
Are we talking about cropping out black areas when the demo has a wider aspect ratio? Cos in that case, wouldn't it be obvious if it's cropped, since there'd be no black boxes on the side, and you could still judge whatever correlation you found between render target sizes and coding skill?
OCS demos already use screens of varying sizes where speed is traded for impact, often mediated with secondary effects and graphic designs. Orgas specifying a standard screen for OCS competition removes the trade-off temporarily while encouraging fixed scene sizes throughout the demo, removing this mediation. It feels artificial and I think it will influence OCS in this direction. On AGA, a standard screen size is more established.
I think most OCS sceners want entries in the same compo displayed alike. Had there been an AGA humdinger, there could have been a separate OCS compo and arbitrary crop+zoom acceptance would have been put to the test. OCS sceners are active, but mostly outside Pouet, it seems. If there are opinions they might not be voiced here.
I think the acceptance isn't there and that choice of screen size should be up to the demo developers for the specific effect or scene they want to create, without influence.
If it's for the audience and competitors accept it, it could be offered for all PAL platforms, but wasn't. If it's to improve the picture quality, a modern capture card or VGA upscaler as used by console gamers could be used if not used already, and capture FPS could be worth a look.
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If there are opinions they might not be voiced here.
In general, it's better to listen to those actually participating in said compo.
I shouldn't reply at all, but I'm bored at work. Here we go. :)
There is no other platform which A., gets recorded, and B., with a significant percentage of the entries were already within (or close to) these defined 16:9 limits anyway (most letterboxed 060/AGA stuff). Theoretically we could offer it to any platform, there just wasn't the need to improve the compo experience this way for anything else. I could have done this anyway (as some parties already did, without asking), but I decided to lay down some clear rules, so everyone knew the terms and conditions beforehand. Also, the Amiga sustains its own competitions, so it was very easy to define clear screen-boundaries, without involving a billion potential problems with various platforms, like in Oldschool. For example see some C64 modes, where a certain part of the screen must be empty - or else, etc.
We use Folsom ImagePro-IIs for scaling and HDMI encoding, then we do the recording using Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle SSD recorders. The majority of the chain is professional-grade video equipment, definitely not used by your average YouTube gamer. We also have a stack of other converters, two older Sony DSC-1024G, and an OSSC, among others.
<rant>
Also, I know I'm naive, but I still tend to think, there's only one scene, the Amiga scene, there's no "OCS scene". Most *GOOD* 68k coders I know on the Amiga, can write code which works on any machine just fine (unless it really uses 1-2 of those "ECS only" features, but that's extremely rare), and did both OCS and AGA/060 prods during their scene-career. Then there is a small minority of elitist, who break shit on newer machines, because they think their 68000 only code is so cool, so they can replace half the OS to spare some Blitter waits, and use a trackloader which breaks on half the machines without a Gotek drive these days, because OCS only is 1337... Plus the additional mandatory whining everywhere that other Amiga than their A500 actually exist. Color me unimpressed. (And then we end up with a wild Stingray having to fix their code in 2 days, so there will be a WHDLoad version which - surprise - works everywhere.)
</rant>
Additionally, if someone doesn't like to compete with demos using the 16:9 option, there's plenty of parties to enter your prod. Interestingly, there wasn't a single complaint from people *actually* entering the compo.
TL;DR: we still know what the fuck we're doing. And we're going to do keep the 16:9 option for next year again. Deal with it.
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If it's for the audience and competitors accept it, it could be offered for all PAL platforms, but wasn't.
There is no other platform which A., gets recorded, and B., with a significant percentage of the entries were already within (or close to) these defined 16:9 limits anyway (most letterboxed 060/AGA stuff). Theoretically we could offer it to any platform, there just wasn't the need to improve the compo experience this way for anything else. I could have done this anyway (as some parties already did, without asking), but I decided to lay down some clear rules, so everyone knew the terms and conditions beforehand. Also, the Amiga sustains its own competitions, so it was very easy to define clear screen-boundaries, without involving a billion potential problems with various platforms, like in Oldschool. For example see some C64 modes, where a certain part of the screen must be empty - or else, etc.
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If it's to improve the picture quality, a modern capture card or VGA upscaler as used by console gamers could be used if not used already.
We use Folsom ImagePro-IIs for scaling and HDMI encoding, then we do the recording using Blackmagic Hyperdeck Shuttle SSD recorders. The majority of the chain is professional-grade video equipment, definitely not used by your average YouTube gamer. We also have a stack of other converters, two older Sony DSC-1024G, and an OSSC, among others.
<rant>
Also, I know I'm naive, but I still tend to think, there's only one scene, the Amiga scene, there's no "OCS scene". Most *GOOD* 68k coders I know on the Amiga, can write code which works on any machine just fine (unless it really uses 1-2 of those "ECS only" features, but that's extremely rare), and did both OCS and AGA/060 prods during their scene-career. Then there is a small minority of elitist, who break shit on newer machines, because they think their 68000 only code is so cool, so they can replace half the OS to spare some Blitter waits, and use a trackloader which breaks on half the machines without a Gotek drive these days, because OCS only is 1337... Plus the additional mandatory whining everywhere that other Amiga than their A500 actually exist. Color me unimpressed. (And then we end up with a wild Stingray having to fix their code in 2 days, so there will be a WHDLoad version which - surprise - works everywhere.)
</rant>
Additionally, if someone doesn't like to compete with demos using the 16:9 option, there's plenty of parties to enter your prod. Interestingly, there wasn't a single complaint from people *actually* entering the compo.
TL;DR: we still know what the fuck we're doing. And we're going to do keep the 16:9 option for next year again. Deal with it.
If OCS productions are ever to reach a level of hardware comprehension and penetration like on the C64, then the party has just begun. We have seen nothing yet.
There is no right or wrong, only opinions, of which I raise a totally insignificant one, and there are great parties.
I only care if there is video equipment at a party that suits my taste, and which I can occupy for a few minutes in a way I can appreciate. For example, pre-recording is out of question for me entirely. After 30 years on the Amiga I have just recently bought my first AGA machine for testing. I strongly encourage everybody to make OCS productions to run on all Amigas, because it's not that difficult, and you are rewarded with thousands of machines that can run your code. The problem is mostly lack of real equipment for testing and proper startup code, trackloader, framework, etc. With some experience and research, trackloading, saving cycles for blitter waits, all that is possible and no problem. Ask me for support, I'm there.
Of course, I'd expect Vampires and other zombie hardware to adapt to the software, not the other way round. I'm not including them in my test cycle.
There is no right or wrong, only opinions, of which I raise a totally insignificant one, and there are great parties.
I only care if there is video equipment at a party that suits my taste, and which I can occupy for a few minutes in a way I can appreciate. For example, pre-recording is out of question for me entirely. After 30 years on the Amiga I have just recently bought my first AGA machine for testing. I strongly encourage everybody to make OCS productions to run on all Amigas, because it's not that difficult, and you are rewarded with thousands of machines that can run your code. The problem is mostly lack of real equipment for testing and proper startup code, trackloader, framework, etc. With some experience and research, trackloading, saving cycles for blitter waits, all that is possible and no problem. Ask me for support, I'm there.
Of course, I'd expect Vampires and other zombie hardware to adapt to the software, not the other way round. I'm not including them in my test cycle.
No complaints from Lemon. or the Deadliners regarding this issue.
We set out to produce the best demo we could for OCS/A500.. and we didn't care or give one thought about competing against demos that might be letterboxed and upscaled to the full compo screen size.
At the end of the day, our demo still looked great on the big screen, and that's what counts right??
We set out to produce the best demo we could for OCS/A500.. and we didn't care or give one thought about competing against demos that might be letterboxed and upscaled to the full compo screen size.
At the end of the day, our demo still looked great on the big screen, and that's what counts right??
The purist in me says: Don't crop, show the display as it's intended to look, black parts included. Otherwise, why not just start cropping C64 demos that don't have anything in the border area? :-)
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show the display as it's intended to look
I would argue that most of the intent in a demo production goes in the parts that are not black borders.
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I strongly encourage everybody to make OCS productions to run on all Amigas, because it's not that difficult
This!
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OCS demos already use screens of varying sizes where speed is traded for impact, often mediated with secondary effects and graphic designs. Orgas specifying a standard screen for OCS competition removes the trade-off temporarily while encouraging fixed scene sizes throughout the demo, removing this mediation.
Err, I thought it was the other way around? I.e. "use the whole screen, if you want to, and if you dont we can crop it and fill the bigscreen better"? I mean clearly they will only crop the whole demo uniformly, not per-part, so you can still judge how much it was cropped by the remaining black borders.
I still don't get what the issue is.
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separate OCS compo
Don't you start opening this can of worms ... again!
It took years and endless kvetching, bitching and whinery to arrive THE Amiga Demo competition dealing with all Amigas based on the 680x0 architecture, regardless of chipset.
It's good the way it is and the compo organizers are busting their butts to provide these competitions.
Just put the 16:9 crop/zoom information clearly readable on the screen and be done with it. I for one will choose for my OCS prods the aspect ratio according to style.
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I would argue that most of the intent in a demo production goes in the parts that are not black borders.
If I choose not to make something full screen that's my choice and should be reflected in the compo. Likewise if I choose not to extend an effect into the sideborder or whatever. Just show the screen as it is, because that's how it's intended (expressed "intent" being a function of the instructions and the hardware executing them) to look.
Yeah but that's not even the argument - the cropping was optional, wasn't it...?
Yap ... all the reee'ing about an optional feature
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I think most OCS sceners want entries in the same compo displayed alike. Had there been an AGA humdinger, there could have been a separate OCS compo and arbitrary crop+zoom acceptance would have been put to the test. OCS sceners are active, but mostly outside Pouet, it seems. If there are opinions they might not be voiced here.
I count more than ten OCS sceners who have voiced their opinions in this thread, and most of them do not agree with you. Anyone in particular whose opinion you are missing?
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choice of screen size should be up to the demo developers for the specific effect or scene they want to create, without influence.
This is exactly what the 16:9 option achieves. It allows the demo developers to choose between classic 5:4 and widescreen 16:9 and have each option shown in the optimal way on the bigscreen.
So in the end it's just about the question if optionally allowing demos to be shown bigger than others is fair or not. There's some research that strongly suggests certain "bigger==better" mechanisms in our brains (mostly related to loudness and brightness tho), but as Charlie said - look at the results of the Amiga compos. If there are some unconscious biases at play, they're very minor, and most OCS ppl seem to realize this is not a dick size contest and if the presentation of productions can be enhanced, then why the hell not.
