PSP Demoscene

[Harrison]

The PSP Demoscene took quite some time to take off the ground and see the first releases, but it is now starting to gather momentum. In fact it has gained such momentum that a PSP production actually won at Breakpoint 2007! And many of you will instantly recognise the famous group behind it.

Suicide Barbie, by The Black Lotus. (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=30284) Released April 2007, Ranked 1st at Breakpoint 2007.

I've not watched any PSP productions yet so am currently downloading some of the best ones to take a look. I will let you know what I think. There are some videos of the best ones available on Pouet.

And to see a selection of PSP productions have a look on Pouet here (http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?platf%5B%5D=Playstation+Portable&order=&x=25&y=10&page=1&order=).

[Submeg]

who else would have won? ;)

[Demon Cleaner]

The screenshot of Barbie looks nice, didn't think they're using the PSP as demo platform. But it's always good to see. Of course you can also watch some Amiga demos on PSPUAE.

[Puni/Void]

People make demos for all platforms now, and the PSP is not an exception. Haven't watched any prods on that one yet, but will probably do in the future. My fav platforms for demos are the Amiga (number 1!), the ZX Spectrum, and the C64. I tend to like the older platforms more than the newer ones for demos. ;)

[Harrison]

Me too. It is fascinating seeing what groups can achieve on older hardware, and given the choice I would always choose to watch something on the Amiga over other platforms. Although I do also like to see what is currently being created on the PC and other more recent systems.

And it is true, demos are created on all platforms you can think of. The PS2 has quite a large demoscene, although I've not explored it much yet.

I finally watched some PSP demos last night and I must say that if you are interested you have to watch them on a real PSP, rather than watching videos of the productions, as they don't do the real demos justice. The reason is the PSP screen as it has a unique aspect ratio and quite a high resolution for the size of screen.

The Black Lotus production, Suicide Barbie, was a very interesting and quite long production. It was completely in 3D using the abilities of the PSP and contained some interesting music. Although I actually preferred the music used for the end credits more than the actual main production music.

Technically it was a very nice demo and instead of being a showcase of the coder and graphic artists abilities on the PSP it was instead a proper production with a central theme. The theme was itself very odd, depicting three Barbie doll figures who were all out to get each other, showing each trying to kill the others through the use of different kitchen appliances, and finally being shattered with a gun. The gun sequence was definitely one of my favourite sections of the demo with some nice 3D modelling and some cartoon bullets with faces on them in slow-mo shots.

The texture and model work was also nicely done in this demo. The screenshot of the girl on the bed used on Pouet is from near the start and the textures and modelling is very nice here. Some of the other sections don't look so rich, but this is due to the models depicting the toy figure so the level of detail wouldn't be higher on the figures anyway.

If there is one criticism of the demo it is the length. It is maybe too long on some scenes and you start to get bored.

The Gun production, DeadPixel Controversy was also nice, but for completely different reasons. It was completely old school, using effects more at home on the Amiga with scrolling sine wave font scrollers and other familiar effects. Definitely not on the same scale as the Black Lotus production, but just as nice to watch.

The TRSI demo, Bloody Memories, refused to run on my PSP, which was ashame as it looked interesting, especially as the splash screen for it used the Amiga 2.0 loading screen. :)

And finally the MarszczMelon production, Przestrzenni Mapadacze. This is a port/remake of a PC demo and it has been done nicely. Not the longest of most original production but nice music and the Space Invaders subject matter is interesting to watch.

I still have a few more still to watch but the hunt is now on to find more PSP releases as Pouet don't have that many listed and I'm sure there must be many more in existence.

Next I start exploring the PS2 scene.

[v85rawdeal]

As mush as I enjoyed the Amiga demo scene, my all-time favourite demo has got to be The Union Demo on the Atari ST. For those who have not scene this beauty I have posted links below to various sections of the demo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ6Pbtpsfhs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqtvSpIIm34

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sOE3Qa1_sQ

I was blown away the first time I saw these sequences, and the fact it was all linked together by the main menu that you controlled, rather than just being shunted from one section to the next. I still have my copy somewhere, I just don't know where... *sigh*

[Rebb/TRSI]

The TRSI demo, Bloody Memories, refused to run on my PSP, which was ashame as it looked interesting, especially as the splash screen for it used the Amiga 2.0 loading screen. :)


What firmware you use? (so I can kick coders ass for fix)
Should work with 1.5 just fine, does lick-it work for you?

[Harrison]

I'm using the custom firmware 3.51 M33-6, and had the demo in the "game150" directory. All other demos I've tried run fine using this custom firmware.

I did try changing the homebrew firmware kernel and it still refused to run with either the 3.51 or the 1.5 kernels selected.

I've not tried lick-it. I will give that a try tonight and see if it runs, and then let you know.

[Harrison]

does lick-it work for you?

I've now tested lick-it and that demo ran perfectly on my PSP, using the same custom firmware 3.51 M33-6 with the demo in the game150 directory on the memory stick, so not sure what the problem could be with the other demo.

Quite liked the Lick-it demo. Nicely polished graphics. Only thing I noticed is that the lyrics scrolling across the bottom of the screen are not in sync with the audio. They are about one line behind the song. But the hidden Asteroids style game at the end of the demo is a really cool inclusion and that alone makes it one of my favourite PSP productions so far. :thumbs:

[ReJ]

Suicide Barbie, by The Black Lotus. Released April 2007, Ranked 1st at Breakpoint 2007.

The FINAL version of Suicide Barbie is out now.

Some new features you might find interesting:
. much smaller downloadable archive
. packed music
. new visuals
. improved framerate
. wider PSP firmware support - tested on 1.00, 1.50 and 3.x OE
. proper readme.txt
. also photos of TBL finishing the demo in Bergen are included :)

For more information goto Pouet:
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=30284

Final version (24Mb):
ftp://mirror.support.nl/pub/tbl/psp/TBL-SuicideBarbie-Final.zip

[Harrison]

Nice. Thank you for the information. I will give this latest version a try when I get back later tonight.

And welcome to the forum ReJ. :thumbs:

[Demon Cleaner]

Welcome ReJ, I hope you'll check our demo section at our main page.

[Puni/Void]

Hi and welcome to the forum, ReJ! Hope you'll enjoy your stay. :)

Thanks for posting the information concerning Suicide Barbie.

Hope you'll have a look at the Demosection as well.

Are you doing any programming on the Amiga these days btw? If not, are you planning to? ;)

Which groups are you currently a member of?

[ReJ]

Which groups are you currently a member of?

I'm a member of Nesnausk! (http://www.nesnausk.org) group. But I was working with TBL on their last 3 demos: Requiem (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=24504), Starstruck (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=25778) and Suicide Barbie (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=30284).



Are you doing any programming on the Amiga these days btw? If not, are you planning to? ;)

Actually, Requiem was the first time I saw a real Amiga and got a chance to code for it - quite late, huh :)
But I can't really say much about the plans at the moment :)

[Harrison]

What do you think of the Amiga? It is great to see that people are still discovering the Amiga for the first time.

[Submeg]

Its cool that we have people actively involved within the demo scene. Tis quite cool :)

[Rebb/TRSI]

does lick-it work for you?

I've now tested lick-it and that demo ran perfectly on my PSP, using the same custom firmware 3.51 M33-6 with the demo in the game150 directory on the memory stick, so not sure what the problem could be with the other demo.


Okay, thanks for testing. I'll meet the coders in Evoke next weekend and we'll discus this :)

ReJ: You coming to Evoke?

[ReJ]

Back from vacations.


What do you think of the Amiga? It is great to see that people are still discovering the Amiga for the first time.

Well, for me Amiga looked like an interesting challenge with some bits of nostaligia. I completely missed Amiga, when it was really big - back in the days we heard only rumours about it in Lithuania - bulk of people here had ZX Spectrums at that time (actually those were russian clones).

I liked simplicity and straigtforwardness of Amiga (for example comparing Motorola assembly with *ugh* Intel), but that could be very much wrong :) Maybe that was just because of experience, tools and environment provided by TBL guys :)

On the other hand, it looks like main strength of Amiga is 2D. If Amiga would have just twice as fast CPU and memory... that could've been a killer beast in 3D ;)



ReJ: You coming to Evoke?
No :) had no demos to show :) Vacations in Switzerland instead.

[Harrison]

On the other hand, it looks like main strength of Amiga is 2D. If Amiga would have just twice as fast CPU and memory... that could've been a killer beast in 3D ;)

Well, that is more due to when the original Amiga was released. 3D wasn't a big thing back in the mid 80's and the Amiga was designed with 2D direct pixel manipulation in mind, and used a planar display method, rather than the chunky display method more commonly seen on PC.

More about Chunky and planar displays can be found here (http://oldwww.nvg.ntnu.no/amiga/amigafaq/AmigaFAQ_16.html).

And that is actually the biggest stumbling block developers on the Amiga has to overcome when trying to manipulate 3D. Something the demoscene took in their stride and proved could be done.

Obviously with the A1200 the Amiga did gain a faster CPU and more memory, plus later on there was access to much faster CPUs and a lot more ram, including in the end the PowerPC CPUs and 24-bit chunky displays.