Scene.org Demoscene News Service

[ Demozoo ] How to extract PS2 cracktros

Our friend and resident Playstation expert ps1ch has made a very handy guide right here on Demozoo on how to extract and preserve ps2 cracktros. Hopefully it'll help more people grow skills in these areas, and we can have more classic cracktro history preserved.

Thank you, ps1ch!

https://demozoo.org/pages/preserving-ps2/

[ Demozoo ] Entry submission now open for Assembly 2025

The following competitions are NOW open for you to remotely submit your entry:

• Realtime: 1k Intro, 4k intro, Beginner Demo, Fantasy console, Oldskool Demo, Demo
• Music: Tracked music
• Wild: Short film, Real Wild

Check out also https://scene.assembly.org for voting (with entry ticket) and entry submission.

[ demoparty.net ] Evoke 2025: Remote compos

🛋️ Reminder for our friends far away that we accept remote entries in the One Screen ANSI/ASCII and 3D Scene competitions (but would rather see you in person)!

To submit your entry simply use the form linked here:

https://2025.evoke.eu/competitions/graphics/#competition-one-screen-ansiascii

https://2025.evoke.eu/competitions/graphics/#competition-3d-scene

Deadline is August 13th.

[ OpenMPT - Open ModPlug Tracker ] OpenMPT 1.32.03.00 released

This small update to OpenMPT 1.32 addresses a few playback and accessibility issues.

Here's a list of the most notable changes in this version:

• To improve accessibility, keyboard focus is now only returned to the lower editor views if the last input method before an interaction in the upper view was done through the mouse. If the last interaction was through the keyboard instead, the keyboard focus remains there.
• Wine Integration is no longer offered on Wine 10.11 due to a Wine bug breaking it.
• Since OpenMPT 1.32.01.00, swapping between samples on the rear channels could introduce a click on the front channels.
• IT volume column slides no longer propagate their effect memory to the regular effect column volume slides.
• Some malformed Future Composer modules are no longer rejected.

For a complete list of changes, have a look at the full version history. If you are upgrading from OpenMPT 1.31 or older, read the release notes to get a glimpse of the biggest changes.

libopenmpt has also been updated with the same bugfixes.

[ demoparty.net ] Nordlicht 2025: Live act schedule!

We’re excited to announce that our live act schedule for 2025 is complete. Your feet will be swept away by powerful beats from DREES, your ear’s timbre functions tested during HENNE’s Commodore 64 chiptune act, all your former taste of music trialed with DAS HEINRICH MANÖVER, a five-headed, Hamburg based group specializing in rap infused with psychedelic soundscapes coated in experimental wonky beats, and to round things off, a seriously kicking DJ set performed by PLASMA.

When it comes to Offstage activities, we’ll have the usual vintage retro gaming consoles and VR headsets for your virtual button mashing needs. See if you can beat your opponents in a 4-player Micro Machines II tournament etc.

And for all Amiga and programming enthusiasts, mop will present his Shader Showdown / Bonzomatic inspired tool “COPPER SHOWDOWN EDITOR”.

We couldn’t stuff more into this year’s timetable if we wanted to. It’s going to be a blast! All in an exciting new party environment for all of us to make our new home ;)

Will you be coming, too?

disclaimer: timetable times are still NOT final times and may change even shortly before the party.

[ OpenMPT - Open ModPlug Tracker ] OpenMPT 1.32.02.00 released

This first update to OpenMPT 1.32 addresses a few new and old bugs and improves a number of features.

Here's a list of the most notable changes in this version:

• Since OpenMPT 1.32.01.00, the MIDI input focus remained on the tree view after dragging an instrument to a sample or instrument editor, while keyboard input focus was on the editor.
• Added keyboard shortcuts for expanding and shrinking patterns.
• When saving an ITI file, parts of the volume envelope were damaged.
• Switching between instrument envelopes using keyboard shortcuts didn't update accessible announcements.
• Previewing a sample, instrument or pattern note after pausing playback in a module using synth instruments continued playing those synth instruments.
• Inserting / duplicating / moving sequences reset the default tempo and speed for all sequences.
• Small playback fixes for IT files.
• S3M: Old ModPlug Tracker versions allowed to use the 28th character of sample names to be used. Such sample names are now displayed correctly again.
• MED: When triggering a synth note with a Synth Jump command on the same row, the initial speed command was not executed.
• Small improvements to subsong selection in stream / MIDI / OPL export dialogs.
• FLAC encoding is now multithreaded for stream export by default. Multithreading can also optionally be enabled for saving FLAC samples through a hidden setting.
• Icon groups in the main toolbar can now be hidden as well.
• Added help button to Setup dialog title bar.
• A few more icons are now inverted when using dark themes.
• Added a default key binding for Toggle Between Upper / Lower View (Ctrl + Shift + Tab) to improve accessibility.
• Large parts of the GUI were broken in XP / Vista builds when running them on Windows 10 version 1607 or newer.
• On Windows XP / Vista and Wine versions older 3.13, message boxes there were supposed to only show once were always shown instead.

For a complete list of changes, have a look at the full version history. If you are upgrading from OpenMPT 1.31 or older, read the release notes to get a glimpse of the biggest changes.

libopenmpt has also been updated with the same bugfixes.

[ demoparty.net ] Evoke 2025: Website is live

Spread the word, register to tell us that you’re coming and keep your eyes peeled for more super exciting announcements 🎉

[ OpenMPT - Open ModPlug Tracker ] OpenMPT 1.32.01.00 released

It's been two years since the initial release of OpenMPT 1.31 and in the meantime we have provided many updates to make it more stable and add a few new features and improve details.

After far too much time has passed, we are now finally ready to present the first release of OpenMPT 1.32. Looking at the big list of changes, we hope that it was worth the wait!

Here is a short summary of the most notable new features:

General improvements include:

• There is now a quick start "project assistant" view that is shown whenever there is no module loaded.
• OpenMPT is now fully DPI-aware by default, so it will look crisp and clean on all screen configurations. DPI-awareness can be changed in OpenMPT's Display settings to accommodate for older VST plugin editors that are not DPI-aware.
• Stream Export and MIDI Export have been updated to allow all sub songs of a module to be exported to separate files, the same way as it was already possible with VGM export.
• When auto-save is set to save files to a specific folder, this folder is now cleaned regularly and auto-save files older than 30 days are removed by default. Auto-saves are now moved to the recycling bin instead of deleting them permanently by default.
• The main toolbar is now more flexible, allowing you to hide individual readouts, adding a new global volume readout, and it wraps to multiple rows when it becomes wider than the main window. Readouts can now be edited using the keyboard during module playback.
• The keyboard settings have been considerably revamped and cleaned up. Assigning keyboard shortcuts and keeping track of current key assignments and conflicts should be much easier now. Two new built-in default keyboard maps, matching the note entry of Fasttracker 2 and Impulse Tracker more closely, are now available.

The pattern editor has also seen several major improvements:

• OpenMPT now has a metronome that can be enabled from the pattern toolbar or via a keyboard shortcut.
• Merge functionality has been extended to support merging into multiple patterns with a user-specified length. This way, it becomes possible to automatically rearrange e.g. 64-row patterns into 128-row patterns in one go.
• When increasing pattern size, there is now an option to duplicate the existing contents to the newly-added rows.
• Instrument / volume / effect column visibility can now be toggled independently, and column visibility is now remembered per-module if "Remember song window positions" is enabled.
• For live playback, it is now possible to queue the next pattern to not only play when the current pattern is finished, but also when the current measure, beat or row is finished.
• To better distinguish whether record mode is enabled or not, it is now possible to set a separate background color for the active row when recording is enabled.
• It is now possible to solo a group of channels at once. The solo shortcut applies to all channels in the current pattern selection.

The following improvements have been made with regards to plugins:

• VST shell plugins are now supported. Most importantly, this allows OpenMPT to use polac's vst3shell plugin to enable the use of VST 3 plugins.
• Improved correctness of PPQ position reporting. The reported PPQ is now also correct when the tempo changes, and when breaking to the next pattern, the position is rounded to the next start of measure. It is also sent to MIDI devices when using the MIDI Input / Output Plugin and the "Send timing messages" option is enabled.
• Plugins can now be solo-ed by holding Shift when pressing the Bypass checkbox. Holding Ctrl instead, only Master plugins are affected.
• All mix modes are now available for instrument plugins as well.
• The MIDI Input / Output Plugin was enhanced with the ability to send initial MIDI dumps on playback start, plus a new extended MIDI macro system realized through plugin parameters. This allows to send MIDI macros of any length through the MIDI I/O plugin.
• The output device list of the MIDI Input / Output Plugin now contains a new virtual MIDI output device that allows MIDI messages to be forwarded to the configured output plugin, thus allowing the aforementioned extended MIDI macros system to work with other plugins beyond just MIDI output devices.

In the sample editor, you can look forward to these changes:

• Greatly improved pitch shifting and time stretching with new high-quality algorithms. Using the Signalsmith Stretch library for both operations, pitch and duration can now be changed at the same time in high quality, with an optional "Akai"-like lo-fi mode available.
• When resampling samples in MOD files, there's now an option to automatically adjust pattern data accordingly.
• To reduce confusion, the default / global volume tooltips now also show the effective amplification based on the sample / synth volume specified in the General tab.

The comments tab has received some quality-of-life improvements:

• In addition to copying sample / instrument texts, they can now be pasted as well. Now you can easily replace your instrument names with a poem you have written in an external text editor!
• Sample and instrument names and filenames are now drawn using the same font that is used for Comments text.

The instrument library in the Tree View received some important updates:

• The tree view can now also be placed on the right side of the window (View → Toolbars).
• The Instrument Library now shows size information for samples in modules as well.

You can also look forward to the following playback and file format improvements:

• In the MPTM format, every sequence now has its own default tempo and speed.
• When creating MOD files, you can now choose if you would like to create a MOD file compatible with ProTracker (4 channels, various ProTracker-specific quirks and the Amiga resampler are enabled) or if you want to use the MOD format with PC extensions (8 channels, bigger octave range, various ProTracker-specific quirks and the Amiga resampler are disabled).
• OpenMPT 1.32 adds support for eleven new module formats: PumaTracker (PUMA), Game Music Creator (GMC), ChipTracker (MOD), TCB Tracker (MOD), Images Music System (IMS), Face The Music (FTM), RealTracker (RTM), EasyTrax (ETX), UNIC Tracker (UNIC), Future Composer (FC / FC13 / FC14 / SMOD), and Chuck Biscuits / Black Artist (CBA).
• Support for synthesized and hybrid instruments in MED files was added, together with several other playback fixes for MED files.
• Better support for automatic slide commands (commands that keep sliding on following rows) in various formats was added.
• "Mupp" instruments in His Master's Noise modules are now supported, as well as command 7 "mega-arp".
• Sub-songs in PSM files are now imported as independent sequences instead of being crammed together into the same order list.
• Various playback compatibility fixes for DTM, MOD, XM, S3M and IT modules.

But this is really just the tip of the iceberg. For a complete list of changes, have a look at the release notes and the full version history.

With the advent of OpenMPT 1.32, libopenmpt also reaches the version 0.8 milestone with some new API additions and the same playback improvements as found in this OpenMPT update.

[ demoparty.net ] Decrunch 2025: Decrunch #10 - 2025 is postphoned

We regret to inform you that the DECRUNCH demoparty originally scheduled for May 16th-18th, 2025 must be postponed. This decision was not made lightly, especially as we celebrate our 10th anniversary alongside AMIGA’s 40th birthday - a milestone year for us all.

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[ Demozoo ] Meteoriks award winners announced

The final results of the 2025 Meteoriks have been presented on stage at Revision.

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for NEW TALENT goes to ciosai_tw for bruh i ain't naming things with an Honorable Mention of steffest for Ordo

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for OUTSTANDING CONCEPT goes to A Statement On The Platform Wars by Moonbase Allstars

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for BEST EXECUTABLE GRAPHICS goes to Chromatic North by epoqe

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for BEST OLDSCHOOL PRODUCTION goes to 13:37 by Fairlight

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for BEST MIDSCHOOL PRODUCTION goes to The Mind by Haujobb & SWEET16

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for BEST SOUNDTRACK goes to Asura by mfx with an Honorable Mention of Crystal Dynamics by NOGAPNOBACT3RIA

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for OUTSTANDING TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT goes to Gosia by SIMurai with an Honorable Mention of Mariana by Jin X

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for BEST VISUALS goes to Empires by Conspiracy with an Honorable Mention of Fishbomb by Extend

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for BEST HIGH-END INTRO goes to Starseed by LJ & Puryx with an Honorable Mention of Empires by Conspiracy

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for BEST DIRECTION goes to Asura by mfx with an Honorable Mention of XO by Nuance

The Meteoriks Award 2025 for BEST HIGH-END DEMO goes to Stranded by Madwizards with an Honorable Mention of Asura by mfx

Check out the full list of nominees, and the 2025 watchlist of notable releases hand-picked by the juries.

[ demoparty.net ] Nordlicht 2025: Nordlicht 2025 is Postponed

Hello, people! We (almost) got news for you. So here’s a summary of current developments .. Nordlicht will NOT take place from 3rd - 6th July! BUT we are almost certain that it will happen a couple weeks later. We are in the process of getting a deal with a new location, first viewing and discussion were very positive but there is no signable contract just yet. So bear with us while we sort things out. Please do cancel your hotel bookings for 3rd - 6th, if any, because that date is deffo out of the question due to how the new location operates. We’ll get you updated as quickly as possible, pinky promise!

Once we finalized the date, I’ll start a new thread right here on pouet et al.

[ OpenMPT - Open ModPlug Tracker ] OpenMPT 1.31.15.00 released

This small update for OpenMPT 1.31 fixes a couple of bugs and bring a few other improvements. This is most likely going to be the last OpenMPT 1.31 release, and we are looking forward to releasing OpenMPT 1.32 very soon.

Here's a list of the most notable changes in this version:

• Relaxed BRR file rejection heuristics a bit.
• Sample loop and cue point information is now also copied for sample selections.
• Fixed possible crash when replacing a sample with a shorter one while outside of the sample editor, and then returning to the same sample slot.
• Drawing sample data from right to left caused the drawn lines to not be interpolated properly.
• Fixed a crash when trying to remove the only point of an instrument envelope.
• If multiple keyboard layouts were installed, note key mapping could be based on the wrong layout, causing e.g. B-4 and Note-Off keys to be swapped on the default key map with an active US keyboard layout but also a German layout being present.

For a complete list of changes, have a look at the full version history. If you are upgrading from OpenMPT 1.30 or older, read the release notes to get a glimpse of the biggest changes.

[ Demozoo ] MountainBytes 2025: Results and releases!

MountainBytes 2025 is over! The Swiss demo event of the year took place on February 14th to 16th and leaves us with many productions worth watching from four main competitions and the specials OHP demo competition and the innovative 3D graphics competition (with models included in the digital performance as part of the Saturday evening live act).

MountainBytes 2025 on Demozoo / scene.org

Video captures of the whole event including all compos and specials are to appear on YouTube sooner or later.

[ Demozoo ] MountainBytes 2025: Remote entry submission open

The MountainBytes 2025 partysystem is live and available for remote entry uploads! Get an access key by contacting MountainBytes organizing by Email or Discord and register & upload at party.mountainbytes.ch.

This is an upload facility for non-visitors only! For everyone going to the party in Cham/Switzerland on the next weekend, please do not apply for a key yet as you'll get a unique, lovingly handcrafted access key at the MountainBytes welcome desk.

[ OpenMPT - Open ModPlug Tracker ] OpenMPT 1.31.14.00 released

This first update of the year of OpenMPT 1.31 brings a number of bugfixes and improvements backported from OpenMPT 1.32 development.

Here's a list of the most notable changes in this version:

• Fine tempo adjustment shortcuts now also work with formats that don't support fractional tempo.
• Pressing Ctrl while moving sample loop points or clicking loop start / end spin buttons now moves the loop, keeping the loop length constant.
• Sample Cue preview shortcuts now set the cue point if it's currently unused and the sample is being previewed. The cue point is inserted at the currently playing sample position.
• Time stretching didn't update sample cue points.
• Default velocity for instrument plugins was broken in OpenMPT 1.31.13.00.
• Fixed potential crash when trying to move the cursor past the start or end of a pattern when the order list is empty.
• Avoid NNA channel starvation due to sample-based instruments that have a MIDI channel assigned and NNA set to "Continue".
• XM: Warn when saving an instrument that references more than 16 (compatibility export) or 32 samples. "Find MPT Hacks" now also warns when an XM instrument uses more than 16 samples.
• ITP: Instruments paths were always read as relative paths since OpenMPT 1.31.01.00, usually causing them to fail to load. Since OpenMPT 1.28.01.00, instrument and envelope flags were no longer read correctly as well.
• Passing a relative path to a module file as a command-line parameter for OpenMPT did not work as intended since OpenMPT 1.29.10.00.
• Real BPM approximation reported infinity when rows per beat was set to 0. A default of 4 rows per beat is now assumed in this situation.

For a complete list of changes, have a look at the full version history. If you are upgrading from OpenMPT 1.30 or older, read the release notes to get a glimpse of the biggest changes.

libopenmpt has also been updated with the same bugfixes.

[ Demozoo ] Meteoriks Awards recommendations open

The categories for this year's Meteoriks Awards are live!

And with that, you are also able to submit suggestions to our jury here on Demozoo and Pouet for your favourite demoscene productions of 2024 - just head over to any eligible production and follow the "Recommend this production for The Meteoriks 2025" link.

This is also your last chance to join us as a juror - we'd love to have you!

[ Demozoo ] Inércia 2024 results and releases!

Inércia 2024 is over! The Portuguese event that took place on 6-8 December 2024 featured talks, music acts, a new world record on simultaneous live shader coding and many quality entries in their 4 showcases and 2 competitions.

Inércia 2024 on Demozoo / scene.org / YouTube.

[ OpenMPT - Open ModPlug Tracker ] OpenMPT 1.31.13.00 released

This update to OpenMPT 1.31 brings a number of bugfixes and improvements backported from OpenMPT 1.32 development.

Probably one of the most important changes concerns default key bindings: On many ISO keyboard layouts, special note keys (Note Cut, etc.) were not available by default. They finally have key bindings that should be available on all keyboards. If there is no conflict, the new key bindings will be added on existing OpenMPT installations as well.

Here's a list of the most notable changes in this version:

• In the tree view, open modules and instrument library entries can now be located in Windows Explorer through the context menu.
• Special note keys (Note Cut / Off / Fade / PC / PCs) were not available in the default key map on various keyboard layouts.
• When partially pasting a normal pattern event over a PC event, the effect column was not erased properly if it wasn't part of the copied region.
• When moving the last instrument envelope point, avoid it snapping back quickly when moving backwards.
• Various playback compatibility improvements (IT, DBM, IMF, MED, STM).
• Possible crash during module cleanup when searching for unused samples if an instrument refers to a non-existing sample slot.
• Added the possibility to disable enhanced GDI upscaling via hidden setting Display.UseGDIUpcaling. This may fix freezes when opening the editors of some older VST plugins when this mode is enabled.
• Channel Manager: Channel buttons now have tooltips.
• When enabling the hidden Display.HighResUI setting, OpenMPT claimed to support per-monitor awareness. This was not really usable, so OpenMPT now only claims to support one system-wide DPI setting. Better DPI-aware support will come in OpenMPT 1.32.
• MIDI recording: Velocity amplification was rounded down to integer multiples of 100%.
• After loading a module with missing external samples, OpenMPT still prompted to save those empty sample slots to disk when closing the module. Doing that resulted in a crash.
• When changing a keyboard shortcut via a search that had results in multiple contexts, a wrong context could be assigned to the shortcut, causing the shortcut to not work.
• The instrument library browser, cleaning up auto save files, scanning for missing samples or creating the list of templates or example songs in paths longer than 260 characters did not work.
• When saving a copy of a module, its modified status is no longer reset.
• On Windows XP, the advanced settings list was not formatted correctly.

For a complete list of changes, have a look at the release notes and the full version history.

libopenmpt has also been updated with the same improvements and fixes.

[ Demozoo ] Transmission64 2024: results and releases!

Transmission64 2024 is over! The online C64 demo party that took place on November 23rd 2024 featured talks (TeensyROM, 45 years of PETSCII in 21 minutes), music acts (Shogoon and friends 3, Vincenzo and Press Play on Tape) plus many quality entries in 7 competitions.

Transmission on Demozoo / scene.org / CSDb

Video captures of the whole event including all compos and specials are to appear on YouTube.

[ Demozoo ] Transmission64 2024: Entry submission now open

Send an email to keys@transmission64.com to receive your access key and then head on over to https://vote.transmission64.com/ to upload your entries. Categories are Demo, 4k, Graphics, Screen Fader, BASIC oneliner, PETSCII and Music. Transmission64 organizing is very happy about your support! Deadline for your entries is Nov 22nd, 16:00 CET.

The winner of the demo competition wins a fully assembled EVO64 board, sponsored by EVO64!

Rules, timetable and more information can be found at: https://transmission64.com/

[ demoparty.net ] Transmission64 2024: Registration for every submission and voting is open

And we’re ready for your entries <3 You can now email us at keys@transmission64.com to receive your access key and then head on over to https://vote.transmission64.com/ to upload your entries. Thank you for your support! Deadline for your entries is Nov 22nd, 2024 16:00 CET. See you online!

[ demoparty.net ] Benediction Coding Party #4: Results and News

This years result and news just got published today 10th November, after the voting deadline 9th November

[ OpenMPT - Open ModPlug Tracker ] OpenMPT 1.31.12.00 released

There was a catastrophic bug in the previous OpenMPT 1.31 update released earlier today, making keyboard input impossible in several pattern editor columns. This is a hotfix release addressing the bug. There are no other changes in this version. We apologize for the inconvenience this update may have caused.

Have a look at the OpenMPT 1.31.11.00 release notes to see what else has changed in today's updates.

[ demoparty.net ] Transmission64 2024: Win the T64 demo compo, win an assembled EVO64 board.

Win the demo compo, win an assembled EVO64 board. Details below.

Big thanks to Darrel and EVO64 for their support.

https://transmission64.com/2024/10/16/win-the-demo-compo-win-a-evo-64-board/

#c64 #demoparty #demoscene

[ Demoscene Research ] Tracker Paper in English

There are bigger updates underway, but as a quick heads-up: the tracker paper originally published in Finnish in 2019 is now available in English too: http://widerscreen.fi/numerot/ajankohtaista/trackers-the-rise-bloom-and-later-developments-of-a-paradigm/. Also see the errata.