ehwhy, the wiki will eventually cover all that, but in a nutshell:
demoscene: groups of individuals, usually european, scandinavian and the like who revolve around the making of demos (demonstration programs. usually no interaction. Think of them like showcases of the machine, with stylish music and colours and code effects, and usually a scroller message bragging on how the current demoscene group pisses all over the others
) for their machines. Usually Amigas, C64s and Speccy or Atari machines. The PC demoscene was curiously small, maybe because the PC sucks? heh. Oh, there's worse. The Mac had NO demoscene, whatsoever lol
These demos push the limitations of the machine to a ludicrous degree, getting small programs (like 64k small) to do real-time renders of 3d stuff on an Amiga, for getting the PC bleeper to play polyphonic music. These demos are fitted with state-of-the-art (then) art and music and they are presented in demo parties and they generally have a blast rating them. A demo is about kickass ART, awesome MUSIC, and ingenious CODING. It's multimedia in a very underground way, and I guess a very advanced computer-based aesthetic that is now lost...
So, the Amiga was the strongest machine for art, and the programs they used at the time were usually Deluxe Paint and Personal Paint. In fact, Dpaint is largely to blame for the amiga demoscene going the way it went but that's another story... Both of these programs weren't just for pixel-pushing (the process of altering every single pixel by one, with 100% opacity brushes). There were simpler programs that did much the same. D/Ppaintbut had painting
modes like
blend, smear, darken, lighten, tint which work basically just like how they work in photoshop today. Only for indexed (read: 256 colours maximum) pictures. You set up your colour ramps, and then you can use the modes etc. However the modes don't make pics themselves! In fact, mode usage by non-masters can get DOWNRIGHT UGLY. It takes YEARS to learn to use them to make results like the ones abouve. Armed with these programs, talent and peer antagonism, the amiga demoscene spawned some amazing artists (everybody has their favourites. Mine are Cougar, Cyclone (because he pixelpushed more) and you cannot help but love some of lazur's best), who did mind-numbingly detailed and smooth art using 16 - 256 colours with various usages of the drawing
modes. For example, the first cougar pic I posted has extensive usage of brighten, smear, blend. Which prompted ptoing to rightly say that is isn't mostly pixel-pushed. There IS pixel-level detail work, but the one he posted is far more closer to our type of work here than the first. The first is closer to indexed painting ( where AAing colours meticulously doesn't count as much as composition and colour usage like in a real painting) while the second closer to handpixelled sprite art like we usually do.
Now, whereas demoscene people where AMAZING with dpaint and ppaint and apparently very patient with their work, they were also, for the most part, copiers. They had no reali ability with a pencil and paper, usually their anatomy sucked (even lazur
) and for the most part, when they graduated to Photoshop type programs, with 16bit colours, most of their NO COPY pictures were generic BAD photoshops, or at best indifferent. So back in the day, they copied. Google 'No Copy?' and go there and be sad
They took pictures of Boris, Frazetta or just supermodels and they meticulously copied the composition to pixels, from liberal transmogrifications like Made's water gril frazetta rip, to 100% lifting of pics. The copying was a reason for redicule and resentment towards demoscenesters. The scene eventually falls apart for these and other reasons and the art of deluxe paint is quietly forgotten about 10 years ago. There were however, pics that weren't copies that totally rule.
Tsu stars pixelation, Zog has pixelzone... a new internet community revolving around sprite art and game art is created, largely unaware of the demoscene artwork from before. It evolves by studying game art and professional sprites. At this stage, when I reach it some 5 years ago? It's really a world in itself. The people there know of SNES sprites and the gba... but nothing of the amiga or atari st. They're interested in breaking in rpg tilesets, final fantasy sprites and snk fighters, and how to break in the current industry, not how to win in a demoscene party (which they didn't even know existed) with their meticulously made 320x240 pixel art composition. Pixelation started as a SPRITE ART, TILE ART,
GAME ART type of place, and that's the sort of artists it bred. Look at stoven, Kon, Tsu himself. Eventually however, enthusiasts of the demoscene like pHASE1 or ptoing make it to pixelation and post a few pics from gfxzone. A lot of people go nuts, but strangely, it doesn't catch on... maybe because the pc doesn't have a deluxe-paint equivalent besides the buy software of Pro Motion. And maybe because most of us aren't good enough. It's really impossible to do demoscene pics without the tools provided by Dpaint/Ppaint/Pro Motion so if you're interested... shell out the cash for the latter, or emulate the former. There's a Dpaint version for the pc too but it's lacking... Dpaint 2 I think. Besides, with no SCENE to carry the momentum of this type of art, it seems nobody bothers ( besides crazy people like me). Pixelation was this momentum about sprite art. But it wasn't for demoscene type work. Maybe this will change in the future, but I'm afraid that the demoscene is dead, the old masters if they ever stumble on to pixelation browse a few threads and laugh as they leave, and the few enthusiasts of more complicated pixel art better find a new name for the work and leave SCENES alone...
