A billion flies can't be wrong
There have been several tutorials about making demos, but they don't tell enough about design and style. After years of scientific research, I've decided to let you know how to make a winner demo or 64k intro. I'll mostly use the name "demo" for them both and if you are too stupid to notice which one I'm talking about it's not my problem. Remember, this could be your break to ultimate scene l33tdom. Read carefully.
First you need a stupid name for your group. Preferably two words and it doesn't have to mean anything. Though better make it rememberable, something like "Animal Sex" or "Disco Buddhas". You can brag about your group in many places, such as ojuice.net oneliners so that everyone will vote for you. But you also need a good title for your demo. As you will later learn, the keyword is obscurity. Use many words and make sure that there's no connection to the actual prod. Imaginary examples could be "Tuesday Night Diarrhea" and "Karl Marx stole my rubber pants". Some little spelling errors don't matter, it's not like we are perfect.
Now that you've done the hard part let's continue with the easier ones. The demo starts with a loading text or a picture. Even if your prod doesn't actually load or precalculate anything, you must pretend it does. The more they'll be waiting, the more they'll be relieved if your demo doesn't crash. The loading screen must be funny and outstanding. A picture of a chick will do if you're too dull to invent anything else.
Maybe we should think about the music next. It doesn't matter what genre your soundtrack is as long as it's something nuskool breakbeat noise techno. The bass ought to be such that it will make your granny's plastic teeth drop. Concentrate on the bass and forget about discants or (gasp!) a melody. Your demo has to sound like TUMMM TUMMM TUMMM. Of course, the effects have to change at each beat. You probably have to spend years trying to code this, but it's mandatory I'm afraid. Only such music synch will make your demo leet enough. And don't even think about modules if you're making an intro. Tracker music is so out, everyone uses a softsynth nowadays. Softsynths rule because they're so soft and cute.
It's not very important how the actual demo starts as long as it's widescreen. You could present the prod's name in some graffiti-like ugly logo. Then just show the effects one after another and remember the music synch rule. The effects don't have to actually have anything in common. We aren't doing any Kieslowski hippie crap movie, are we? Use as many fx as you can and if it's a demo, put at least five effects on the screen simultaneously, so that people won't realise how ugly they are. You can also call your prod newskool and stop worrying about ugly effects or lack of imagination. Industrial effects are a must. Some factory machines or at least some kewl technical equipment, even a turntable will do. But if people can't figure out what kind of machine it is, they will think you're smarter than them. That's just psychology.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to say that the demo must be using 3d hardware. But that's unnecessary to even mention, isn't it? Everyone uses hardware acceleration except those nerds that got stuck to Amigos and Comrades and whatnot. The coolest thing about 3d cards is that you can make everything glow and shine! And what is cool if that isn't. Even magpies love glistening things and sceners are no exception. All that glitters is gold or at least silver or other precious metal. Also, as you're using three-dimensional acceleration, you have to use 3d objects too. There used to be a common problem about sleep deprivation related to 3d models when sceners spent endless nights trying to figure how many faces there were. No worrying any more, please use wireframes as they can save people's sanity.
The presentation must be long. Five minutes is nowhere enough. A demo is nothing if it's not boring and beg for you to leave your chair and fetch more caffeinated drinks. If the audience complains, you can just tell them they're stupid MTV generation with a too short attention span. If your audio track isn't long enough, just use another! You can have two parts so that when the viewer thinks "it's finally over", you can show hir that "nooo, it's not, we just fooled you you llamah!" They don't have to have anything in common. Oh, I already said that thing about hippie crap.
The texts are optional but recommended. They will make your effect collection seem less awkward and more intellectual. Random generated sentences that sound like poems are a great choice. They will fool the viewer to trying to grasp the meaning of them and (s)he will forget the crappy parts of your prod. Better show every line on the screen many times so that it will seem more meaningful. That's a bit oldskoolish, though. Nowadays you should just create a lame and totally unreadable font and present some obscure crap with it. You can also use texts like "we are something", like "we are not sux0r". That moves the audience emotionally as they feel like being a part of the big scene family.
What about the graphics? Pr0n isn't that trendy any more. You can use it if you can't think of anything else. One possibility is to use graphics to create a theme for your demo. India is a very cool country so you can just throw Krishnas and Vishnus and Warez and other hippie things there. On the other hands, geometric objects are popular as drawing them doesn't require any skills and they add to the obscurity value. But the best thing about graphics is yet to come.
It's so good it's almost unfair. It's very simple: it's called barcode. Just go to your nearest store and copy one of those black and white patterns. But it's very important that it's one with a positive aura. Barcodes subconsciously affect the limbic system of your brain. The limbic system is where all your emotions and other useless stuff are stored with DMA and BBQ and lots of neurological things. So, don't just take the barcode of a banana yoghurt. It has to be something megakewl such as Coca Cola or some other third-world-baby-killing-company product. The audience will have no way but to vote for you.
We only have one part left in this study. You guessed it already, it's the ending. It's very significant as the prod will finally be over. As the viewer's brain is probably somewhat numb by now, you should reshow all the effects in the end so that (s)he doesn't forget them. The closing texts start by you saying "You've been watching a demo called 'Mom what's for dinner' by the Intergalactic Idiots at Birthday Party '01". It's polite to remind the audience about what party they are at and which compo they were watching. If your prod is a 64k intro, you also have to tell that there were 2657 bytes left even though you filled the HD with GB's of crap and wrote a long stupid rant at the end. 64 kilobytes is no challenge! After that come the very important part, greetings. Greet everybody. You don't actually have to know what those groups are but greet them anyway so that people will think you're famous. Greet your dog if you can't remember any groups at all.
For the well-being of the humankind, I've shared just about all the information I gained with my exhausting investigation of the scene. Well, I also know what's bumpmapping and bilinear filtering, but I still don't have no idea why hasn't tAAt got a graphician, what's supposed to be so great about Sonnet or how to please the cookie thing. I'm still trying to forget my gender as girls know nothing about computers. Actually, I shouldn't be advising you but giving birth to babies or cooking. Or playing Nethack. That's what I guess I'll do. Forget everything I said. Though I still think that "Karl Marx stole my rubber pants" would make a good name for a demo...