Are Slideshows Definitely Dead?

Written by Wishbone

The idea for this article has come into my mind after reading the reviews in Hugi #16 and before reading the article "Are Musicdisk interfaces dying out? - Alternatives" (btw, I agree with the author) some ideas of which appear in this article too.

Slideshow?

It is a long time ago that I saw my last Slideshow. First, here's my definition of a Slideshow. (Yeah, it may seem dumb to the old sceners but perhaps some newbies have never heard about Slideshows, and I've already downloaded a bunch of zip files which just contained some pics with a .nfo and pretended to be Slideshows. Maybe this is due to laziness or lack of coders/musicians.)

A Slideshow contains pictures (usually bitmaps) from one or several graphicians (okay, that's clear), but it should also contain an interface allowing to view each picture independently, with music. Sometimes, there are improvements like autoslide (Smoke, Wild) or an intro (5977, Wild).

So, what's that interesting about a Slideshow? Well... I personally would answer: the fun to watch. Yeah, I like watching Slideshows just as I like hearing Musicdisks. I think it's more user-friendly to have an interface instead of using ACDsee/Sea for pictures and OpenCP/Winamp for modules. For a demogroup, it's another way to show their skills.

What kind of Slideshow?

Defining a stereotype for Slideshows would be like restricting the imagination of graphicians. A Slideshow doesn't necessarily have to be a piece of art. Sure, Pulse's Slideshows are great: they begin with an introduction to the pics, the music and the design give an atmosphere, like a demo. Really amazing! But that requires a lot of time and is bigger to download. And you can say: "why not use this time to make a demo instead a Slideshow?" At this point, just look at Smoke, a slideshow made by Zuul Design with pictures by Haplo and Ukko. It's a basic Slideshow: it begins with a main pic followed by a simple 2D effects which after erasing the main pic shows the list of the pictures. Plus, an autoslide function. It's simple but efficient.

Is there a problem?

So, you decide to make a Slideshow, but there are some obstacles:

- I'm lazy / I'm a lamer.

Well... I can't help you, sorry. The only advice I can give you is, "Wake up! Move your ass!"

- I haven't got time to do that!

This is one of the reasons of the sceners' unproductivity. Manage your time (it's not a Slideshow compo so take all the time you need) or pick some of your old pics to make a best-of.

- I'm a newbie.

It's a good way to show your skill, advertise for yourself, like in gfx compos, #pixel compos or submitting pics to diskmags.

- I haven't got lots of pics.

Stop hanging, wasting your time on IRC! Okay, I'm kidding. Plan to make a Slideshow with other graphicians. Talk about the project on IRC, use the adverts section of diskmags, send an announcement to GFXZone.

- I haven't got a group / The coder and the musician of my group aren't interested.

There is no need for a group to do that (lots of articles claim that all sceners must be friends and some groups work together). Look for a coder, a musician. Preferably a dude who's a beginner. It could be a good way to show his talent.

So, you can also plan to make the code and the music by yourself but it would be a big and long task...

Slideshows Revival?

Slideshows have disappeared. However, there is always a lot of possibilities to improve in this domain. Make a 3D introduction (I'm thinking about the mix of 2D/3D of the main menu in Shine#3, very cool), a pictures gallery of 3D/raytracing or 2D/3D. Or another possibility could be to perform a fusion of Musicdisks and Slideshows to make a new kind of release (but big to download).

Closing Words

This is the end of my first article. I've tried give you sceners the desire to release Slideshows again. Ambitious idea, no? Maybe I've failed. Whatever may be, writing this article was fun.

Wishbone