PS3 - DemoScene - Linger in Shadows

Mr_Grinch

I was bored the other day and logged on to my "American" PSN account to have a look at your snazzy store. Amongst being annoyed that you have echochrome for download I spotted a rather...unique looking title:

"Linger in Shadows" the description of which mentioned it was the first "demo scene" release on the PS3 and that more may be to follow. As an avid follower (but never active member despite some feeble attempts!) I found this pretty interesting. Watching the video was trippy and very entertaining!

Take a look at this link for some more info:

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10570&Itemid=51

and then download the video and see what you think. It's actually due to be an "interactive" demo-scene product which should, judging by the vide, be very fun.

It' a bizarre way for Sony to go about things, especially being the large part of the demo-scene involved piracy (admittedly it expanded away from that) and I'm not sure how many "sceners" will latch on board, like the guy in the interview says:

“In my personal opinion,” says Bohmann, “the PS3 could very well become a pretty viable demo platform, since it has lots of processing power and interesting hardware. It could very well be the next Amiga if they decide to allow us demosceners to really use it. But until they actually give us access to the GPU, not too much will happen on PS3. If they want the demoscene for real, they should just let us use the full machine, then they don’t even need to pay for demos.”

Anyway, I didn't see a thread on this and found it quite interesting. If there's already one then close this

The Reverend Dr Galactus

"Scene" content coming out through official Sony channels is kind of like street art coming from Doritos.

That said, just as there's no reason Doritos couldn't conceivably fund some actually very talented artists, I'm sure the Sony post-scener scene could easily give rise to some great stuff. It's just that it's, like, so not indie anymore.

By the way, I couldn't find the video link.

Haikira

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDdStxjGELk

Here yah go.

Mr_Grinch

The Reverend Dr Galactus wrote: »

"Scene" content coming out through official Sony channels is kind of like street art coming from Doritos.

That said, just as there's no reason Doritos couldn't conceivably fund some actually very talented artists, I'm sure the Sony post-scener scene could easily give rise to some great stuff. It's just that it's, like, so not indie anymore.

By the way, I couldn't find the video link.

It is pretty bizarre, but I'm guessing (until the PS3 becomes...ahem...a bit more open) this is the best of this type of thing we can expect.

Zilla360

There are people in the Linux community working on getting proper access to the GPU, with some success.
I might still have some of the kernel and X.org patches somewhere. I think it was someone from the Noveau driver scene?

Igort

I'm surprised there wasn't a thread on this sooner. I remember a lot of PS3 fans going nuts over this a few months ago.

I really loved that Demo video they showed, and I'm excited to see both what they do with it, and what this will do for Sony in the long run.

Unco-ordinated

Zilla360 wrote: »

There are people in the Linux community working on getting proper access to the GPU, with some success.
I might still have some of the kernel and X.org patches somewhere. I think it was someone from the Noveau driver scene?

Every time they get close, Sony closes the hole in the next firmware. And if someone did manage to get through, most people would just use it to pirate games.

Anyway, I'm not sure you could say that this is coming from 'official' Sony channels, since it's coming from an external team based in Poland.

Zilla360

Unco-ordinated wrote: »

Zilla360 wrote: »

There are people in the Linux community working on getting proper access to the GPU, with some success.
I might still have some of the kernel and X.org patches somewhere. I think it was someone from the Noveau driver scene?

Every time they get close, Sony closes the hole in the next firmware. And if someone did manage to get through, most people would just use it to pirate games.

Anyway, I'm not sure you could say that this is coming from 'official' Sony channels, since it's coming from an external team based in Poland.

Piracy? But don't the games side of things only run on the XMB OS? I don't know, I've just been following development and saving patches for if I ever get a PS3.

If I wasn't afraid of bricking my 360 it would already be running Linux. Sceners hate managed code and being locked in.

Logicow

I don't think the PS3 is a viable demo platform, because:

1) No easy way for people to release a demo quickly. Everything has to go through Sony.
2) PS3 Demos can't look very different from PC demos since they rely mostly on the GPU, and the PS3's GPU is not particularly special.
3) A PS3 democompo for a demoparty would be very impractical.

On the other hand, PCs have very quick GPUs, demos are very easy to distribute, the tools are widely available, etc...


TLDR: The PS3 is a pretty boring demo platform

Mr_Grinch

I dunno, it's got a static set of specifications and a lot of the original demos back on the amiga were made to exploit the hardware as much as possible. This is much more difficult to do with millions of different potential pc configurations.

As for getting proper access to the GPU, RSX access was acheived with an earlier firmware and then blocked in the next update. Nothing overly useful has been found since (which is a real shame).

And yeah, getting RSX/GPU access really wouldn't lead to piracy, it's not letting you run unsigned code it's just letting you fool around a little more in the Linux sandbox. It baffles me why it's so limited after Sony made a fairly big thing out of it.

The Reverend Dr Galactus

Mr_Grinch wrote: »

I dunno, it's got a static set of specifications and a lot of the original demos back on the amiga were made to exploit the hardware as much as possible. This is much more difficult to do with millions of different potential pc configurations.

This. The way the sceners "banged the metal" on the Amiga back in the day, using weird techniques to squeeze amazing stuff out of the system's quirky set of chips would never have been possible without knowing that the Paula chip, the Denise chip, the Agnes chip, et al would respond everywhere just like it did on their dev machine.

Gobbo

Apologies for the necromancy, but this is due out today (er... yesterday?), and all is quiet on the western front regarding this title.

Sadly it actually costs money... $2.99, though I'm still tempted to give it a shot. Has anyone tried it yet?

Edit: It includes trophies too, but not in the traditional 'kill xx enemies' sense that we're used to (source):

Ok, onto Trophies. The reason for including Trophies is that we wanted to reward the player for exploring. The more exploration beyond the basics, the more you get. A lot of these are reflected through “greets.” For those of you who don’t know what greets are, they come from the demoscene. Demo groups put in call outs, or greets, to friends or other groups whose work they really respect. It is kind of like liner notes on a record album. It’s a tradition of the art form that I think is cool, and it exposes you to other demoscene groups that you should check out.

Hmm... it's different, and I've spent $2.99 on alot worse before... will give this a look when I get home.

scootch

it's got trophys... thats all I know.. I have no idea what demoscene is so I'll pass.

Skexis

It really is hard to explain how this thing works. It is like a movie, but it has key manipulation points that change the way it plays out, and affects you emotionally through the visuals and the great audio that they shored up for the manipulation stuff.

An example would be a series of floating cubes that, when you stop the film and use the analog stick to move, can rotate individually or as an undulating wave.

The whole thing is all the more interesting because there's no instruction manual. It's kind of like a puzzle that you can spend as much or as little time on that you want. Once you figure out how to manipulate things and to change the way the movie plays out, it becomes more interesting. For that reason, I'd say if it sounds interesting to you at all, you might get more out of it if you go into it cold, as opposed to watching any "gameplay" videos or anything beforehand.

But like they say, it's not a game by any means. There's no real point to it other than to explore and see what you can discover with it.

Renzo

Bought it. It's a really cool ride. Got all the trophies, too.

Mr_Grinch

Oooh, cheers for the update. Being stuck in the UK though I can't buy this as of yet

dantree

Pretty cool, well worth the 2.99 I think, I just gave it a quick playthrough and had fun, I will probably give it a few more goes.

I wonder if I like it more for the drugs I have taken in my youth or what.

Panda

brynstar

I bought it, definitely worth the 3 bucks. I also like the visual idea of making it look like a moving, 3D-i-fied painting, even if it doesn't always work. The music, sound, and overall direction are gorgeous however, and the rumble and controller integration is fantastic.

I look forward to trying to get all the trophies.

Also, yes, Panda.

Gobbo

Holy mother of jeebus... once you've collected all the trophy things...

The hidden menu!!!!
It was just missing the 'cR4cK3d 8y P4rAD0X' text, and the built-in trainers

For $3, that made it worth it alone :rotate:

Oh and I'm liking the whole screenshot functionality too with this and Wipeout HD... I really hope it becomes a standard feature in future.

Diarmuid

Mr_Grinch wrote: »

Oooh, cheers for the update. Being stuck in the UK though I can't buy this as of yet

It's on my PSN and I'm in Ireland.

Renzo

It's been out in the UK for a while already. U.S. got it after.

greeble

I was waiting to hear if people thought it was worth the $3.... I guess I'll be buying it too