				         Intro to The Demoscene
					     By CrossFire

Odds on, Quite alot of the Up Readers will have encountered the demoscene sometime in their underground career. If you haven't, Let me explain. A Demo is a program which displays graphics, music, and coding effects in one big light show, and the scene around it is called..... Wait for it........ The Demoscene! 

Unless You have been asleep for the past 2 or so Years, you will undoubtedly have heard of the Tomb Raider Series of games, made by Eidos Interactive. Some of the staff at this great software company were former members of the Scene Group, The Black Lotus. For Example, Danny Guertsen (danny.geurtsen@eidos.co.uk), IMHO Danny is the Greatest Graphician to ever walk this earth. Unfortunatley Danny is no longer a scener, and only pixels for Eidos These Days.

Important Groups to Look for:

Future Crew: These guys made some amazing demos, and really revolutionized
             the demo-scene, in the early 90's, and did a lot to mold it
             into what it is today. Recently they released their
             (final?) demo, Final Reality.
             Of course this wasn't officially a demo, neither was it
             officially by Future Crew. It is a 'benchmarking utility'
             developed by their games-company Remedy Entertainment.
             It runs under Windows'95, and needs a hell of a machine
             to run at a decent frame-rate. It runs quite slow on my
             P133 with 3Dfx.. If you have a state-of-the-art machine,
             with a 3D-card, I'd recommend it, otherwise steer clear..
             What these guys *have* proven however is that the demoscene
             can indeed be a road to success. They are currently
             developing 'Max Payne', the replacement of the
             'Duke Nukem'-series, for 3D Realms.
             They've gone totally commercial though, as I've predicted....
             Some of the greets from Final Reality: Siemens Nixdorf, Intel,
             IBM, MICROSOFT!!! That's right: MICROSOFT!! Jeez...
             Their past glory can be witnessed in:
             Unreal, Panic, Second Reality, Yo!, and lots of other demos.
             Have to be seen to be believed. If you want to see what their
             doing now, buy Max Payne, or that car-game they did,
             or get hold of Final Reality..
             Used to be thought of by many as the ultimate demo-group.
             I never have shared that view, and lately my feelngs to that
             direction have been enhanced. Pioneers of making newbies
             feel like lamers..
             From Finland.

EMF: The Electromotive Force, to give them their full name is one of the
     best groups ever, in my opinion.
     They were in the same league as the Future Crew,
     and today they go beyond what I believe the Future Crew could today,
     in the terms of demo-design.
     They are still going strong(?), and have had a lot of success at
     demo-parties. You should get hold of Verses, Eclipse, Caero, and Porno.
     Four very good productions from EMF. (Caero was by EMF & Plant.)
     A lot of the EMF-people are also members of Plant.
     They've been a bit to silent lately for my liking,
     and I don't think I'm the only person who noticed the disappearance
     of emf@mea.utu.fi.... I really hope they're not quitting.
     Perhaps they've dropped EMF, and merged with Plant? Anyone know?
     From Finland.

Triton: They've also been around as long as the others, and they made
        the tracker that a lot of demo-scene musicians use today:
        FastTracker II. Triton are remembered today by many as:
        "The ones who finally beat Future Crew", as the release of
        Crystal Dreams II pushed FC of the no.1 spot in the charts.
        They released two good demos: Crystal Dreams, and Crystal Dreams II.
        Today they are involved in the gaming business, and have run into a
        little legal trouble with GT interactive, according to the rumours.
        From Sweden.

Komplex: They've been around for a while, and are among the best groups today.
         Dope is pretty impressive, but if you want the full experience
         you will need a GUS for sound. A lot of people would call Dope
         one of the best demos ever released, but I kind of think it lacks
         something. Can't quite put my finger on it..
         They are obviously eager to grasp new technology,
         as they were the first demosceners to make good demos for both
         3Dfx and Java. Their Java-demo will truly blow your mind.
         It has proven to me that it is possible to make demos in Java.
         They're a brilliant group, and they make brilliant demos.
         Yet another example of finnish talent.
         For some strange reason they are now Komplex, not Complex...
         From Finland.

Valhalla: Great group with huge success. They go a long way back,
          and are still today among the best groups.
          As opposed to a lot of great groups they are not arrogant,
          and they don't mind speaking to newbies it seems. Nice guys. :)
          Check out Visions Of Light, Solstice, and their OS/2 promo-demo.
          You'll be in for a treat.
          Have these guys also left the demoscene??
          From England.

Hornet: Really good group. Not very many productions, but they are the
        foundation of the demoscene on the Internet. Without them I do not
        think the scene would be as international as it is today.
        The Hornet Archive is really as close you'll get to the DemoScene's
        www-headquarters. Explicit is a cool demo by Hornet.
        From USA.

Orange: I have to admit that I don't know to much about this group.
        I have a few demos & intros by them, though.
        They're a totally different group from all the others.
        Originality is definetely their main trait. They are very skillfull.
        Their productions are both weird, and cool. One of the most popular
        groups around lately. Masses of stuff too look for;
        I especially like 'Compost', a '70s-style demo!
        Another popular demo by them, is 'The Secret Life of Mr. Black'..
        Weird..
        From Finland (?).

Psychic Link: Pretty new group, compared to the others I've mentioned here,
              but they look like they have a chance of being the next
              revolutionaries. At least Statix, a real wizard.
              Act1, Juice & Headache should be seen.
              I also think Paper is one of the best designed 64K-intros ever.
              From England.

COMA: A good and different demogroup. They've done some really
      impressive stuff, but to understand why I decided to put them here
      you have to see their intro Stikman. NOW! After you've seen that
      you'll need to know they can code other stuff as well.
      Then you can take a look at the demo called Control.
      You could watch another popular demo: Insects,
      or their TG98 demo. It may just be a joke for TG98,
      but in their TG98-demo they call themselves KOMA,
      like Complex called themselves Komplex.
      From Finland.

TBL: The Black Lotus are the undisputed rulers of stuffing most data into 64K.
     Way to go! I would be impressed if their 64 KB intros were 2 MB demos!
     Take a look at Jizz or Stash to see what I mean.
     From Holland & Sweden.

Pulse: I love them for their blend of oldskool-style combined with their
       up-to-date coding. Today's code/gfx/music, yesterday's superior style.
       Brilliant group, currently no.1 on the Hornet Charts.
       Take a look at Square, Tribes, Reve, Broken Pipe, Sink,
       and lots of other stuff.
       From Poland & France.

(Group listing Taken from the Demoscene Starter Kit V3.0)

Where to Meet sceners:

IRC
---

IRC is probably the greatest way to meet sceners from all over the world, so I have included a listing (categorised by server) of some of the best channels to meet demosceners from all around the world. Note: You must have an IRC Client to be able to access IRC - try www.mirc.co.uk for windows 95 or www.bitchx.com for Unix.

IRCNET (irc.stealth.net)
------------------------
Channel 	Description
#coders         Probably the most well known Scene IRC channel, mostly normal coders Hang out here but it is 		often frequented by Sceners
#trax		The IRC Channel for the Music Scene
#pixel		The Graphics Scene Channel, Famous for it's spontaneous 30 min compos
#thescene	A Channel for sceners on PC, C64, Amiga and loads of other platforms, formed by 			Surfing/Ramjam
#scene		The PC Scene HQ

Local scene IRC channels

British ........... #ukscene
Czech ............. #scene.cs
Danish ............ #dk-scene
Dutch ............. #nlcoders
Finnish ........... #suomiscene
French ............ #demofr
German ............ #coders.ger, #kotraum
Hungarian ......... #scene, #coders.hu, #demoscene, #SceneChat
Israeli ........... #ilcoders
Norwegian ......... #daskmig
Polish ............ #polishscene
Slovak ............ #scene.cs
Slovenian ......... #scene.si
Swedish ........... #scene.se, #swedescene


EFnet (irc.chat.org)
--------------------
Channel		Description
#coders		As above
#trax	  	The Friendliest Chat Room on IRC (apart from #upzine of course :). I often come in here so 		look out for me
#pixel	        Not Very many people hang out here, try IRCnet for more ppl
#scene		Ditto
#thescene	Ditto
Local scene IRC channels
British ........... #ukscene
Czech ............. #scene.cs
Danish ............ #dk-scene
Dutch ............. #nlcoders
Finnish ........... #suomiscene
French ............ #demofr
German ............ #coders.ger, #kotraum
Hungarian ......... #scene, #coders.hu, #demoscene, #SceneChat
Israeli ........... #ilcoders
Norwegian ......... #daskmig
Polish ............ #polishscene
Slovak ............ #scene.cs
Slovenian ......... #scene.si
Swedish ........... #scene.se, #swedescene

SceneNet (irc.scene.org)
------------------------
SceneNet was founded as an Alternative to AnotherNet which has become largely commercial and proprietry client orientated, the server is totally for sceners, but a bit quiet at times. For a list of all the channels, log on to this server and type /list .

------------
Demo Parties
------------
Another Brilliant way to meet sceners is to go to a demoparty. What is a demoparty You ask? Demoparties are the Demoscene's answer to things like Defcon. With differences that people take their computer's, enter their demo's into competitions, drink, eat, and have fun. 

The Party 
---------

Undoubtedly the biggest and most commercialised demoparty is TP. Held in Sweden every year, this party is famous for it's bunch of quakers in attendance, last year there was even a report that a group of quakers complained about "Those noisy competitions", still, if you really want to be around Mp3 / Warez / Porno Trading pre pubescant Quakers, then this one is for you.

Website: http://www.theparty.dk

Assembly
--------

Another Big and Commercialised party is Assembly, While this was a well respected party in years past, in the past 2 years or so it has become, well, big and commercialised. Many Sceners fondly remember Parties like Assembly '97, which was probably the last time Assembly was a 100% Scene Party. Recently though, This has changed to the level when Assembly is a clone of it's big brother TP. It still gets worse, Last year a local newspaper got involved and started up Multi Player Gaming Tournaments. Can You say Lamers meeting boys and girls?

Website: http://www.assembly.org

Movement
--------

The Last party I will mention , and probably the best party IMHO is Movement. This party has broken down so many barriers by Hooking up with www.scene-central.com and starting up cyber visiting. Movement is Held in Israel every year now, Movement used to be lucky if it got 80 visitors, now with the widespreadness of the internet, By Registering on the Movement Website, You get a login and password, and oppurtunities to enter and vote on the competitions, watch the party via a webcam, and chat with the sceners actually there via IRC or a java client. For a first time party goer, I would definetly recommend Movement.

Website: http://www.movement.org

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Scene Resources
----------------

DemoScene archives
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
The Best Place to find all the latest Scene Productions are the many archives cluttered about the net, so just for you, here is a list of the best archives around:

The Hornet Archive - http://www.hornet.org
Definetly the most famous Archive in the scene, Hornet is now closed for uploads, but still hosts all the best Demoscene related stuff from 1992 - 1998 .

Trebel - http://www.trebel.org
Trebel was started shortly after Hornet closed as a replacement for Hornet. It is not fully started yet, but the main pages are in place and it has promise to take over where The Hornet archive left off.

Scene.org - ftp://ftp.scene.org
Scene.org is the official replacement to hornet, and although it has been up and running for a while, It now hosts one of the largest archives of demoscene related material on the net.

The Skynet Archive - ftp://skynet.stack.nl/pub/demos
Skynet is the dutch scene's main archive, hosting selected groups and diskmags (Scene related Ezines), this archive is the best place to get anything Scene Related from Holland.

Overflow - ftp://overflow.scene.org
Overflow used to be the Main archive for the Dutch Scene, but has recently been cleaned out and only contains a few productions.

Amber - ftp://amber.bti.pl
Amber  is  the main server for the  Polish  scene. There is really much stuff.
However, while it is fast in Poland, it is very slow in the rest of the world.

TEN - ftp://ftp.beit-eli.gov.il/Incoming/ten
The Home of the Emag Network, this site hosts all of the diskmags that are part of The Emag Network, and some that arent.

Aminet - http://www.aminet.org
The Amiga Network. Enough Said. This server carries some of the best amiga stuff around, I can feel the nostalgia just thinking about it :-)
 
Diskmags
0-0-0-0-0

Diskmags are the Scene's Equivelant of The Underground's Ezines, but with the difference that they are all bundled into one .exe file, with a great interface and often some music to listen to. 

HUGI Magazine - http://home.pages.de/~hugidownload

*the* best scene mag around. Period. Hugi is edited by Adok, and features articles for the PC, Amiga and C64 scenes alike. Great interface, Great Graphics and Brilliant music.
Rating: 10/10

Shine - http://shine.scene.org

From What I have seen of this mag, this could well be the pretender to HUGI's Throne. Although not full of content, the latest issues have been really good, and combined with great humor and a great interface, this one is seriously good <g>

Amnesia - http://amnesia-dist.future.easyspace.com

At Last! A UK Based Scene Mag, Amnesia is a pretty much one man operation (Well issue 1 is, I dunno if issue 2's out yet, that might be different.), and Includes articles on Hacking, Phreaking, The Warez Scene, and the demoscene! This mag has great potential, and If it keeps going I predict it will reach the top.

(These are all the diskmags I think are worth including, a) because there isnt many good diskmags around, and b) I can't remember the Imphobia URL for the life of me :P )

Demo's / Intros Worth Seeing
----------------------------
Demo / Intro Name       Group		Comments
-----------------       -----		--------
Second Reality	    	Future Crew     Although this is old, this is the demo that got alot of people into 					the scene. Not Really Stunning compared to newer demos, but good all 					the same.
Clone Meets Clone	Acme		A stunning Intro from Acme, This is a must see for anyone interested 					in the demoscene.		
Stash			TBL             Another Absolutely Stunning Intro, this time from the legendary group 					The Black Lotus. The Sequel to Jizz.
Jizz			TBL		The one before Stash, Absolutely Breathtaking.
Sunflower		Pulse		A Real Landscape in demo's. Coded by the ledgendary Unreal. Leech 					this *now*. 
303			Acme		Another Big step in democoding, This is Acme's Best known production. 					A Must See for anyone.
Square			Pulse		This demo is pretty recent, and won first place at the party it was 					released at. Even So, I cannot remember which party it was :~)
Tribes			Pulse		Boy Pulse Get around :) This demo is rather unique in the fact it 					tells a story. A must see.
Toys			Gods		I haven't seen this one, but it is supposed to be great. Get it 					anyway.

All of these Demos / intro's can be got from ftp://ftp.scene.org .

The End.
Please send your comments on this article to:
crossfire@hackers-uk.freeserve.co.uk , If this article has good feedback, i may write a series of demoscene related articles.
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