Thursday, August 28, 2008

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Prizegiving (updated: results!)

Full results from NVScene here:

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             _   ___    _______                         ____  ____
            / | / / |  / / ___/________  ____  ___     / __ \( __ )
           /  |/ /| | / /\__ \/ ___/ _ \/ __ \/ _ \   / / / / __  |
          / /|  / | |/ /___/ / /__/  __/ / / /  __/  / /_/ / /_/ /
         /_/ |_/  |___//____/\___/\___/_/ /_/\___/   \____/\____/

                            a part of NVISION 2008

                          San Jose, California, USA

                             August 25 - 27, 2008
                                        
            http://www.nvision2008.com - http://nvision.scene.org
                     
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4kB intro
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01   202 Texas - Keyboarders
02   165 Receptor - TBC
03   130 Photon Race 2 - Archee & Slyspy
04   114 Astra - AxON
05   112 Statics - Traction
06   107 eco - s_tec, matecha
07   105 Solitude - Unknown Artists
08   102 KYBERNETIC - mad/STILL
    102 kevinspacy - Alcatraz
10    98 Voxel - Fresh!mindworkz
11    94 WhiteOut - BoNZai Bros.
12    88 geburah - muhmac / speckdrumm
13    77 rutebyen  - prostyle corp.
14    60 IsoHack - GL-Fusion
15    59 Das weisse Rauschen - Kraftaktor
16    51 512 byte Domination - Polaris
17    48 Peak-load - HARDREAD
18    42 Evil Helicopters Attack With Bombs - Lord Graga
19    41 Snailmail - T$ / Scoopex & Alcatraz



Demo
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
01   181 Stargazer - Andromeda & Orb
02   177 Into The Pink - Plastic
03   146 Midnight run - Andromeda Software Development
    146 n-0505 - xplsv feat. nine inch nails
05   124 Binary Alchemy - Northern Dragons
06    95 moove - fresh!mindworkz
07    94 Rarefaction - Youth Uprising
08    93 Proton - Science and Blackmaiden
09    90 Ersatz - Limp Ninja
10    86 Echoes - Anadune
     86 Life on Air - System K
12    64 Visage - Nah-Kolor
13    61 Shmakalucha - imbusy & kondencuotas pienas
14    59 See em Why Kay? - Guideline
15    47 Biocore - eXtrait

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generated with Partymeister [hacked to death by NVScene organizers]

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Compos done - WOW!

Okay, I'm close to speechless - that was probably both the best 4k and best demo compo I have attended this year. The prods were great, the crowd went wild - it was just a perfect evening of demoscene spirit! I'm going to bed now so I'm leaving you with this image:

Chaos' seminar

A magical number.

Chaos' excellent user interface sketches for werkzeug.

Chaos blows things up!

Showing off werkzeug.

Mentor's seminar

Mentor/TBC is currently on stage, and the Q&A has just started. He thought he could just jump off stage and hide, but no. :) The audience wanted to know more about how making such 4k intros are possible.

Mentor shows off the animation system used in Micropolis.


Mentor tells us how NOT to make 4k intros.


"ARGH! IT'S THE INSIDE OF THE MATRIX!" (quote from Chaos :)

Mentor shows off what the "source" of Atrium looks like in their tool.

Videos from Demoscene.tv

Demoscene.tv is present at NVScene, making reports and putting them online as soon as they are edited. Here you can follow these reports (Flash player is needed)

Pictures from last night

People chilling out around the "bonfire"! Steeler giving the traditional german salute :)

The american demo posse (from left to right: gd, zsazS, and trixter)

Navis and someone from NVIDIA, Matt from the NVScene crew in the background.

Phoenix/Hornet - demomaking is NOT A CRIME!

Pan/Spinning Kids just before he went into camera-lens analytical mode. :)

Monday, August 25, 2008

IQ's talk (updated - Blogger works again :)

IQ just finished his talk on generating virtual worlds in 4 kilobytes on the GPU, and the room was packed. 140+ people, standing room only. Here are some pictures:



Right now pretty much everyone is heading over to the keynote speech by Jen-Hsun Huang, so the room is finally quiet and relaxed again. :) The crew will be having some lunch now, and in an hour, the seminars will continue. Be sure not to miss the outreach team's talk on the origins of the demoscene (trust me, it's not as boring as it's title :) at 3 PM in the NVScene room.. because you're OF COURSE already here, aren't you? If not: shame on you! :)

120 people - hall almost packed!

Okay, so.. right now there are 120+ people in the hall, listening to IQ's talk about "Rendering worlds in 4 kilobytes on the GPU", and I just had to share this picture with you:


NVScene has started, Preacher on stage

We're on! This morning at 09:00, people started to coming into the hall and finding their seats, and right now it is 10:50, and Preacher is just wrapping up his talk. I don't have much time to add a long rant about how cool it was, just trust me.. this is AWESOME! The hall is already almost completely packed (!) - a quick headcount gives me 80+ people right now.

IQ is just about to start his talk now, so here are some pictures of the opening and such before I have to start photographing again. :)

Temis Nunez of NVIDIA opens NVScene!

People working while Preacher prepares his talk.


Preacher's "Superman VS Batman" demoscene comparison. :)

Preacher talking to a packed audience!

Front row packed as well!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

<--- actual size --->

Test-pattern, featuring Chaos/Farbrausch for size reference. :)

The new projector lens is in place - ACTUAL SIZE! (click to enlarge - it's worth it!)


..and from Norway..

Hey everyone, it's Duckers of Outracks! After Gargaj showed up at Solskogen without letting (hardly) anyone know, the norwegian scene mafia decided to get back at him and to secure the 1st place in the "Show up unannounced at demo parties"-award. :)

Gargaj is surprised by Duckers!

Aaaaw.. :)

Limo-shot

Chaos, Navis and Ekki in the limo (!)

By popular demand, here is a picture from inside of the limo that picked us up at the airport. I apologize for the crappy picture quality, because it was shot with my mobile phone. :)

Also, while travelling, you always take "funny" pictures - this one is from Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport on saturday afternoon:

Chaos! :)

Last night and this morning (sunday, californian time)

If you want to skip to the compo machine specs, jump down to the bottom of this post!

Monday:
Last night we did a tour of the enormous venue, so we got to see both the NVScene room as well as the seminar-room and all the other halls around the venue (the GeForce LAN room, which is a just far enough from the NVScene room that we won't have a problem with noise, but just close enough that we can get some of the people there into our room during the compos - yay!).

This pictures doesn't really give you a sense of scale, but this banner is USA-style H.U.G.E!

After the tour, we went out to eat at a very busy steak (and beer) house, which was very nice. Chaos and Pixtur were just as tired as me, so during the last half hour of the dinner we were close to being asleep. :)



Outside of the side-entrance of the NVISION 08 area - lovely!

Everyone are off to have dinner :)

This is Ekki's ENORMOUS ribs ("I want my baby-back, baby-back, baby-back, I want my baby-back, baby-back, baby-back.." - "When do they say 'ribs'? - "Never. They never say 'ribs')

Sunday: After waking up three times during the night (01:00, 03:00 and 06:00 - like clockwork, freaky!) we all met down in the lobby around 09:00 and wen out for breakfast which was VERY american (eggs, bacon, sausages, pancakes, burritos, bacon, coffe .. oh, and bacon) and hit the stomack like a ton of bricks. :) Still, everyone got fed and we went back to the NVScene room which is now 90% set up - tables, network, bigscreen, PA-system and everything is in place). Keep scrolling down for some pictures.

Right now, Navis, Kinga, Preacher and Ekki are going to head out to go to the beach and then they are going to San Francisco to chill out and do some sightseeing. The rest are either working on productions or their productions, while me and Gargaj are working on the Partymeister and other practical matters.

DTV has arrived, but had to return to the airport to get their equipment through customs because last night the customs office was closed (!) when they landed. :)


The view from my window this morning. Sunshine and palmtrees!

Kinga and Bonzaj heading into the very, very, VERY american breakfast place (RED CHAIRS FTW!)

Breakfast! Notice the massive overload of pancackes and eggs.

HUGE NVScene banner. There are two of these next to the bigscreen.

Gargaj working on setting up Partymeister. We ran into a slight problem: the beam-system doesn't (easily) output high enough resolution images (1080p) so some emails to Germany and some hacking is being done as we speak. :)

(front) Preacher, IQ and Mentor
(back) Chaos and Pixtur
The guys have now set themselves up in the NVScene area and are work on their presentation/prods.



This is the NVScene room - featuring some sceners even before the doors open. :) We haven't recieved the wide lens for the projector yet, but the picture will fill the entire frame. The physical dimensions of the screen is 9.75 x 5.48 meters = ~53.5 square meters - ACTUAL SIZE! :)

Compo machine: Okay, so a lot of people have been asking us about the compo machine, so here are the specs:
  • CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo X6800 (~3 GHz)
  • GFX: NVIDIA GTX 280
  • RAM: 2 GB DDR2 (will most likely be upgraded to 4 GB before the compo)
  • OS: Windows Vista (running in 32-bit mode)

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Arrived in San Jose!

After having been up since 04:00 this morning (which will make this my 24 waking hour today) we have finally arrived in San Jose. I ended up on the same plane as Pixtur, Chaos, Navis and Ekki and when we got to San Franciso we were picked up in a limo which was sort of absurd, but quite fun. :)

We're all in the middle of organizing the party now, so here are just a few quick snapshots:


This is the NVScene lounge - a BBQ and beer (!) area right next to the NVScene partyhall.



(from left to right) Preacher, Navis, Temis, Gargaj, IQ, Pixtur and Steeler are checking out the NVScene area which is being set up right now.



(from left to right) IQ, Temis, Pixtur and Preacher is inspecting the NVScene seminar room.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Packing my bags

I have almost completed all of my packing, and in 5 hours I have to get up to go to Oslo Airport to travel to London, meet up with Ekki, Navis and Chaos and spend another 11 hours on the plane to San Francisco. Gargaj is already in San Francisco now, he landed a few hours ago (lucky bastard), and will probably be adding some posts to the blog while I'm in the air.

NVScene - here I come!

Monday, August 18, 2008

NVScene in one week!

Whoa! In just one week it's time for NVScene in San Jose, California! If you live in the US, you REALLY can't afford to miss this! A three-day marathon of demoscene goodness (though you can come for just one day if you wish), with both demo and 4k intro competitions that are sure to blow your socks off. Also, the following guests will be attending from Europe and hosting talks and seminars throughout the event:

Navis/ASD, Bonzaj/Plastic, Chaos/Farbrausch, IQ/RGBA, Mentor/TBC, Preacher/Traction and Pixtur/Still, Gargaj/Conspiracy, Gloom/Excess^Portal Process & Steeler/Digitale Kultur.

How can you miss out on all this action? You can't! :) Register your attendance now (you want the "Demoscene seat" under "NVScene") and enjoy the really nice signup-bonus of getting both a copy of Softimage XSI Academic Edition and Spore, the highly anticipated game from Maxis.

See you at NVScene!