[Plouffe]

Very interesting article that Danny Geurtsen wrote about the DEMO SCENE got the link offwww.3dpalette.org. Oh and if you dont know Danny is an artist for Eidos.
http://www.kameli.net/nocopy/disint.htm

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"An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one."
-Charles Horton Cooley

[This message has been edited by Plouffe (edited December 27, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Plouffe (edited December 27, 2000).]

[FrostBite]

checked it out and found it to be interesting to. He does have a few good points. Hopefully the others here will read it too

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[Frost Bite]

[EviLToYLeT]

Just read the article. I find that pretty sad and desperate that most artists are just manipulating other peoples work. Copying it eye to eye would be ok to learn techniques as stated in Danny's article... but I'm looking through this no-copy scene and can't even tell if it was the left side or the right side that copied one another. Pretty sad if you ask me... but anyway, IMHO.. it's best to just ignore these lamers as they frankly are not learning anything. Pouring their time and money into a region which they will not be very succesful at. Cheers.

[Flinthawk]

I'd have to say that I pretty much agree with everything that Danny said in that article. I'm not against that kind of art but against the people that have cheapened it by using the technology to cover up any lack of real skill or training they've had. I'll stop there since Danny has pretty much said everything that needs to be said.

-Flinthawk

[Ben Barker]

I understand the guy is sick of it, but for someone who really loves doing art I don't think this issue would be enough to make you stop contributing completely. There must be something else too.

[Sumaleth]

Don't be too harsh on demo sceners that copy images, it's an old tradition that stretches back a good 8+ years.

Back then the skill was literally to copy an image as well as you could, artistic aspects came a clear second. It was all about technique, and then later in shading styles. (This was way before the use of wacom tablets)

And copying images does give you a short cut to developing technique. I certainly copied the odd image in my early years, and even Danny has a huge portfolio of copied pics.

Although I suspect that article by Danny (which I read about five years ago it seems), probably talks more about the people who take a scanned image and then paint over the top. When the scene started veering towards 24bit and wacom tablets that sort of thing unfortunately become very prevalent.

I think that pretty much killed the graphics side of the demo scene. The quality of art coming out of demo parties in the last few years has been -less- than a pale shadow of what it once was.

Row.

[Chapel]

Interesting article, but using photoreference and straight copying are too different things.

[Joachim]

I think what danny talks about here is more about scanning and make it look painted - cheating as in "trenodizing". The discussion about using photo reference in general is a different one...what I mean is "how you use references", that there's a huge difference in opinions about.
But, that's not what Danny talks about here, and the subject you are taking up is something that has been discussed rather heavily here before,... and I don't think it's good to bring it up for quite a while...atleast not when things have been so bad here lately

the demoscene, I agree with what he said. Though, personally I think the scene always has been idiotic and not very challenging when it comes to what actually happens in the real world. Just that you don't see it when you're a naive kid and thinks you're on the top of the world, but eventually everyone involved will open their eyes and smell the coffee. I hope.

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Joachim's Place

[-- Transcendent --]

No, I agree with the common herd - photograph isn't art. The discrimination of photographers is therefore justified, as all did not draw the picture - they stole (or ripped it off) it from their surroundings.

[yoshi]

i'd say the decision to copy a lot or not is based on what you want to do. If you want to invent you don't practice copying, you practice inventing.

[toast!]

Maybe i'm wrong but many copies on that page are closer to tributes (maybe you can call it Fan art) to the original artists more than evil copies .

Made's pics of vallejo for example are definitively tributes to the artist original work . As long as the artist does not make only work from reference I think there s nothing to blame there , I'm sure many people here have also copied from their prefered artist .
In a early stage , people often copy without understanding anything on the pic, just copying , it s a kind of reflex / bad habit, then getting more maturity on art you can understand that copying like a blind will not get you anywhere...

Scanning photos and then pretending to have drawn them is another story ..

I don't think today the demoscene is such perverted , scans can be easily detected and people cheating are quite rare ; also, the main aim of the demoscene is to make Demos; of course it won't never be as it has been coz of the technology (people can use now many tricks to make things 'easier') , but there is still people to keep the original spirit that made the great hours of the amiga and st (come to the french Ltp , you will see )

Toast

[Joachim]

yes toast!, but there's a difference in thinking that "copying" pics is fan art or that the one copying is actually creating something...and, as far as I've seen from the scene, people get cocky by entering some demo-scene chart, when what they've done from early stage is copying pics to the bone. And, also, many scene dudes, copy pics and also do their own, but still they get popular by what they've copyed and then actually thinks that they have achieved something.

urhm, enough scene talk, don't want to get involved to that again. It's atleast 4-5 years since I left.

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Joachim's Place

[This message has been edited by Joachim (edited December 27, 2000).]

[Plouffe]

Joachim ,

Hmm could you explain to me WHAT exaclty is the demo scene? ive read up on it but i dont quite get it. I mean how does one go about saying he is in the "demo scene"? im kinda confused. What is the advantage or what is the point of it? pls explain.

[bloodsugar]

The article disturbs me a lot -- art and the definition of art gets looser as it goes along. Someone mentioned that photogtaphy isn't art. Then what about videography? are films considered as artworks....How about graphics work involving the collaging and manipulation of pictures?

Is art confined to skills? On the other hand is it just concept?




[This message has been edited by bloodsugar (edited December 27, 2000).]

[yoshi]

If you're referring to my post with concept, lemme rephrase - too much copying shuts down creativity. Copied and original work should be at least balanced.

[OPTX]

I read the article and agree on some points, but honestly after checking out that No-copy page I can't respect those who have posted on there for a majority of them. I agree that we all reference things when we create whether it's photographs, models, or memory, but when your outcoming product resembles a painting, sketch, image, or lineart by another artist down to the most minute contour and leaves the viewer to question whether or not this is another's attempt at this piece or the original then it's pretty lame. Example being 90% of the art on that No-copy page. I mean if I wanted to see Valejo's work or Soryama's work I'd look at theirs. In then end these attempts are nothing more than the quality or skill of throwing the original piece into a color copying xerox machine. YUCK! Very distasteful and uninspiring. A true artist creates and recreates, but does not steal, as skill can't be given, taken, or borrowed, it must be earned thru practice and mastery. As for talent you either have it or you don't. Just my point of view, feel free to disagree with me.

Laterz


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My imagination won't leave me alone.

[arniemg]

I understand what the article is saying.
Copying a painting/photo/image for practice on technique is great! it requires talent and time!
However, i feel that the integrity of those copies as individual pieces of art is lacking somewhat.

[Light]

hah. Copying is the best way to learn almost every facet of drawing.

I have a lot of respect for demo artist who copy. Most of the demo scene artist are the ones who end up getting the jobs (in game art and movies) so you can do what you want BUT don't think you will win any awards for doing an original if its not up to quality.

All of the old masters copied and most of the news ones. Also, some artist will copy most of their lives and then suddenly say "I don't copy now so you shouldn't either" but they didn't get there by not copying.

Anyway, I think Danny was refering to demos using scanned artwork and not copying at all. And I dont think he's at Eidos now.

Also, here is an excerpt from Frazetta's official web page. I'll let it speak for itself (and Frazetta did a lot of pictures from his pure imagination -- go figure).
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"Frank, you stuff is great, but you need to learn some anatomy." When I was in school with Falanga the emphasis was on feeling, not nuts and bolts, so I really didn't understand what he meant by 'anatomy.' So Ralph handed me an anatomy book and when I went home that night I had decided to learn anatomy. I started with page one and copied the entire book�everything, in one night, from the skeleton up. I came back the next day like a dumb kid and said, "Thank you very much, I just learned my anatomy."

[Freddio]

I dont really understand...

why is it called the demo scene?

whats the diff between us doing our painting in photoshop to what those guys are doing in the demoscene?

or are we in the demoscene..

or were these guys like painting only using pixels?

I dunno can you fill me in..

thanks

[assa]

Hehe.. my god this article is REALLY REALLY
old, and it has to do with sudden attitudes
in and around the demoscene of 1997/1998.

This article was Danny's fair reaction to the
endless stream of lame and dumb rumors of
him scanning pictures, doing un-orginal art
etc. The top demoscene artists were
considered to be unorginal 'artists' by many
ignorant demosceners because they used
photo reference instead of 100% orginal ideas.

Like stated in danny's text, this critique
on many artists was very hypocrite cuz e.g
coders also use existing code to create
existing demo fx etc. (or atleast similiar
looking stuff).

Be sure to NOT read this article out of
context, cuz it's really old and things
changed (e.g my friend Danny is not working
for Eidos anymore, and the demoscene evolved
from pixeled pics to pure 24bit photoshop
images etc.) But artistic orginality is still
a really subjective 'issue'.

assa
-----
ex demoscene artist for ACME

[n8]

hmm..im kinda in the dark about the demoscene too....but ...i think its a buncha programmers and artist people who go around making cool lookin lil short films with pretty visuals??...or sumthin??..

[Joachim]

the demoscene, here's my very subjective explanation of it....

The demoscene is a bunch of kids (old or young ones) that competes, mostly on copyparties (which is gathering of a immense amount of nerds into to one big place). And, between the different parties, they send eachother things and prepare their work for a new copyparty and make "digital" magasines with internal gossip about the scene. To be part of the scene, you only need to know about it, know that there's parties and like watching the stuff that's being made in it.
The people that work together to make the demos and things are in the same demogroups ( demogroup - are peoeple that has gone together and make things under one group name and usually there's artists, programmers, musicians, and just groupies that wished they could do something more constructive, in that group)
A demo, can be whatever, as long as it's included programming, artwork and music. And, as far as what I've seen, most of the productions from the beginning of the scene and today is fancy effects for no reason, wrapped in some hip design and pictures popping up here and there, which are very often copied faces or girls with some added extra, like wings, flowers or just fancy "pixeling" or the ususal boris or fantasy copies -but I guess that's a bit out of fashion today, since I guess every picture boris has made has been copied about 100 times And, on top there's a fancy techno tune of some sort and text repeating the credits of people involved 100 times or silly poems that don't fit in at all....and everyone in the scene usually thinks they are better than one and another, but atleast that they are all more superior than the rest of the world. And,they all think their productions lies 10 years in front of what others have managed to squeeze out of a machine.

Well, sorry that I sound negative, but this is my true impression of the scene. I've been there before, and don't have much valuable memories from it, except I wasted way too much time on doing crap that I didn't learn shit from. I can't say that it's still like this, but I've been shown one demo here and there and from that I've seen it's pretty much the same, except the pc's have become more powerful and the amiga is out.

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Joachim's Place