Demology - Demoscene at University

It is obvious that without a university, there would be no demoscene. Demos are applications of scientific disciplines such as mathematics, physics, computer science, art and music. The theoretical framework leading to the construction of the first computers was laid at universities; and, what is more directly related to the demoscene: many of the algorithms used to generate the graphic and sound effects, including the basic fundaments such as 3D engines, have been developed in academic circles.

In courses such as "Scientific visualisation", "Computer graphics" and "Modelling and Animation", computer science students get to learn techniques and algorithms that constitute the visual component of modern demos. Lectures on sound programming, of course, exist at some universities as well. Usually these courses are optional. Special studies such as "Media Arts" deal with programs like 3ds max and Lightwave and give the students the knowledge that is vital for every 3D demo, as well as for yet more sophisticated productions such as cinema movies.

But, on the other hand: Has the demoscene not only profited from the world of scholars, but is it also the other way round - has the demoscene given anything back to the academics? This is one of the questions I was asking myself when I began to make the research that led to this article. The other was: Is the demoscene itself a subject of research for universities?

My interest has been amplified by the fact that I personally am about to undergo a great transition in my life, from high school to university. I hope that the facts I found out will also be interesting to you.

- Demos as Demonstrations -

The original motivation behind making demos was to demonstrate the skills of the coders and artists behind them. Demos are demonstrations, that's clear. Not only of their makers' skills! They are also fine examples of how certain algorithms can be used in practice and what impact the thus created audio-visual effects have on the audience. I wondered: Do demos actually serve as material in lectures?

Judging from the response I got from some people, the answer seems to be: Yes - partly, at least. Quoting The Dr C Dominator (from Australia): "Down here, some unis recognise the demo scene, a lot of other unis are sadly backwards however..." How do these unis recognize the demo scene? Are demos shown and explained in the lectures? "They aren't shown but some are talked about as examples of certain algorithms in use." The names of the demos have supposedly also been mentioned.

I've been further reported by toraq that he was contacted by a British professor from the University of Manchester who asked for permission to show a particle effect toraq had coded in Java in one of his courses. (See toraq's personal website for the effect, including the sourcecode.)

On the other hand, several people told me that during their entire time at university, demos have never been mentioned in class, not even in image processing lectures that were part of the curriculum for computer science. So demos are still not widely spread, although they would certainly be suitable as demonstrations in class.

- Teaching students in democoding -

But at one place, the situation is completely different. At the Epita (short for "Ecole Pour l'Informatique et les Techniques Avancées", i.e. "School for Informatics and Advanced Technologies") in a suburb of Paris, France, there are even lectures especially focusing on democoding. They're organized by Epidemic, a registered association of students at the Epita that is composed of sceners such as Sanx (FX Team), FirEdge (Ethereal), and ChoJin (Skytech).

Quoting FirEdge: "Our aim is to promote the scene in the school with events, such as coding parties or demo projections in amphitheaters. We also give courses on topics related to demo programming - the 3d theories, how to code 3ds and Lightwave loaders,..."

According to Sanx (the president of epidemic), the course about general 3D techniques and theory was attended by 100 people: "The prep classes [the first one or two years at a French Grande Ecole you spend in a preparatory class; then you have to do an exam that decides whether you may continue studying /Adok] have to create a game during the first year, so they were really interested in the first course, because it was done at the very beginning of the year."

At the lecture on OpenGL programming under Unix, 50 people were present. The classes on classical demo effects (2D/3D starfields, 2D tunnel ripples) and 3DS file loading & displaying using OpenGL were attended by 30 students.

One of the next courses is going to deal with DirectX 8.0. Epidemic has also made a demo CD-ROM in which the demoscene and demos are explained.

- A paper on the scene -

Some months ago a scientific paper on social aspects of the scene was found on the Internet by accident. Quickly the news was spread all over the scene. In fact the paper already dates back to 1994, but until very recently it was still unique. Its author is George Borzyskowski from the Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia.

The paper (sized 96 kbytes) was first presented at Cybermind, "a meeting of minds for the discussion of the Philosophy and Psychology of Cyberspace". It mostly deals with Amiga demos and diskmags from 1987 to 1993. What's interesting about it, is the connections to the cyberpunk movement the author sees, and his reasoning concerning the purpose of demomaking.

According to Borzyskowski, creativity is an essential part of human nature; without the ability to create something new, a human being feels meaningless and valueless. Results of this can be cynicism, depression etc. The demoscene, that is very creative, is supposed to be a prime example that confirms this view.

But since recently, this no longer is the only scientific writing about the scene. In his BA thesis in Design/Visual Communication, Ashton Simmonds has dealt with the scene from an artist's point of view (read his thesis in this issue).

An interesting fact: He's also from Australia. Somehow I get the impression that this country is a leader in exploring new fields of youth culture!

There has also been a little presentation about the demoscene by warp/bypass/unik and xenon/park at the Dresden University of Technology. It was done as a part of the English course the authors took. As there was a tight time-limit of merely a few minutes, it's just a short introduction to the history of the scene, the nature of demos (with an emphasis that the effects have to be calculated in realtime), and some of the discplines at demoparty.

"As a matter of coincidence our English teacher (a pretty young American) had once seen a couple of demos.. Due to this, he was able to participate in the discussion and basically knew what demos were all about... Also the students were pretty interested (which I actually hadn't expected - since we have a lot of 'theorists'). Afterwards we received a lot of questions... I really felt that we had caught some interest.." warp told me.

You can find an HTML version of this presentation on the web.

- Summary -

It seems like demos and the scene are slowly starting to get some attention from serious institutions. Of course it's not like there's going to be an academic discipline "Demology" soon; but demos are beginning to get both used and dealt with in the world of intellectuals. This is amplified by demosceners who complete their studies and pursue a scientific career.

Adok/Hugi - 20 Jul 2001