Let's not forget that most of these pictures were made by teenagers, doing the best they could (and hoping others didn't know about Boris Vallejo). The demoscene was very young back then. Copying is generally considered pretty lame in the demoscene these days.

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itomato 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Making something appear digitally that only exists in the far-away analog world still gets 'em.

If it's indistinguishable from the real thing but made without any of the traditional tools, it's remarkable, even if you think it's lame in any way at all.

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_the_inflator 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Exactly. 12-16 was predominantly on the producer side.

The hidden deciding factor nevertheless was time. And that affected the whole production cycle: coding, graphics, music, crunching, copying, spreading (postal services!).

We had way more snow back then and we enjoyed working on something for hours till the wee hours.

18 was a deciding factor because after that military service killed quite a few scener careers.

Have a look at all the pr0n stuff pixel graphics that were cherished by the young studs as well as all the scroll texts as well as early disk magazines or pictures of programmers in computer magazines, with lots of profanity and simply stating age competition: 14 years old scolding 13 years old…

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momocowcow 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It was considered "pretty lame" in the 90s, yet the best did it. It was just harder to figure it out.

	▲	vidarh 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		A lazy copy has of course always been lame, but it also depends on when in the 90s, and the platform. There were plenty of images that amazed me back then even though I was perfectly aware of the source material. It depends on the platform, and the amount of effort going into recreating it. Reinterpreting an image for a C64 or Amiga with a restricted palette is a skill in itself. Copying it for a platform, or in a style / resolution / bitmap depth, where you might as well use a scanner, not so much (and so, of course, the accusations became more and more frequent, often warranted). Copying it and trying to pass something off as original is of course also very different from acknowledging the original and letting the conversion stand on its own as what it is.

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Sesse__ 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Copying is generally considered pretty lame in the demoscene these days.

You will still see plenty of e.g. SID covers of existing pop music, without anyone really batting an eyelid.

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skrebbel 2 days ago | parent [-]

Fair. Pretty lame tho.

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Sesse__ 2 days ago | parent [-]

That we can agree on.

	▲	galangalalgol 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		At least they know who to cite, even if they don't. I like to have a diffusion model generate an image of my desired subject in whatever media I choose then look at it as make something close but not quite the same. I'm copying tons of people I don't even know. But I am also just practicing and don't try to pass it off as my own creation.