The Invitation Demo - Behind the scenes
We've had a chat with the guys behind this year's invitation demo. Read more about who they are and how the demo was made.
Like every year since The Gathering's beginning, there has been made an official invitation demo for this year's party as well. It is a tradition that the demogroups that are active organizing the creative part of The Gathering also produce the invitation demo, and this year is no exception. Anders Knive Lassen is not only chief of the Creativia crew, but also one of the programmers behind the invitation. Another well known character who has been active both in the crew and as a participant at The Gathering for a long time is Ola Gundelsby, who have contributed with the music for this year's invitation.
"We started making a space-themed demo before this year's theme was decided", says Anders with a smile. Luckily, when the theme of the year, "Submerged", was announced, they found that many of the effects they had would fit just as well with the new theme. The idea was that the visuals should be experienced as if being under water, and they wanted to make used of the new technology from the latest version of DirectX to achieve the most advanced effects.
Morten Daniel Fornes has together with Anders made a brand new framework for this production, and together with Håvard Schei, who made all the 3d-graphics, they have shaped the visual expression. "It took us several hundred hours to create the demo, but much of the time went into learning DirectX 10 and create the framework", says Morten about the project.
For those who don't know how a demo is made; it is not very different from making a computer game. You need to program a "game engine", which is usually done in the programming language C++. You need graphic artists to create 3D-models and textures, and you need someone to compose an original soundtrack for your production. The tools used are often the same as professionals use: Microsoft Visual Studio, 3DS Max, Maya and Reason are well known tools to many in the demoscene.
The team entered the demo in the demo competition at Kindergarden 2009 and took home the first prize. The result can be seen here. This year, as every year, there will be a demo compo at The Gathering as well. For many, this is the main attraction at The Gathering.
Download the Invitation Demo
By pre-ordering the official TG 2010 mouse pad from QPAD you can win a lift trip inside The Viking Ship, including a photographing, and a QPAD 5K laser mouse.
Our crew will validate your address and other information when you are checking in. If the information is found to be invalid you will be rejected from the check-in queue.
Chillout and KANDU has arranged for the participants to go swimming at Ankerskogen for several years. Suitably enough for this year's theme, 2010 will be no exception!
As you all have heard this year Ventelo is delivering us a whopping 30Gb/s Internet connection. This will demand much more from the network than earlier years. Luckily Cisco has been kind enough to borrow us some kickass equipment.
The nominees for the Scene.org Awards for 2009 were announced this morning. Read on for more information about the awards, the nominees, and how to make sure you don't miss this year's award ceremony.
Are you still wondering how you're gonna stay alive during five days of continuous hacking? We want to remind you once again that The Gathering is offering you a ticket for three breakfasts and three proper dinners.
As of tomorrow (17th of March) at 1200 PTN will only be accepting payments made by either VISA or MasterCard.
First Hotel Victoria offers all attenders a special price during The Gathering 2010. The hotel is located in the city center of Hamar, only 50 meters from the train station and 1 km from Vikingskipet.
At The Gathering, we usually leave it to you, the public, to decide who will be the winner of our creative competitions. In addition to the standard prizes for each competition, the Creativia crew will also hand out a few extra awards. Read on to find out more about The Gathering Awards.
Berit Skog at NTNU has asked to do a survey on the participants of The Gathering. Unfortunately it's only available in Norwegian, sorry all foreign friends!
The compo case for this year's Hardcore Programming compo is now released. Now it's time to start coding your winning entry. Happy coding!
The Gathering has a Facebook fanpage! If you can't get enough of The Gathering at our official website (of course you don't!), we also have a Facebook page. You can join us at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Gathering/263724429193.
This year The Gathering will have a delivered capacity of 30Gbit/sec. This is six as fast as the capacity of last year’s event of 5Gbit/sec.
The gathering is an event with a lot of people and a lot of sound. We've gotten several requests asking if some areas of the ship are more quiet than others, and we'll try to answer this now, as well as letting you know which areas will be colder than others.
If you're still looking for reasons to buy a Creative/demoscene ticket for TG10, look no further! Read about our Creative Lounge, and start planning for an Easter full of exciting seminars, cool people and frantic work to beat the competition deadlines.
The seating will begin the 1st of March, at 6pm CET, for groups of 30 or more. Read on for further details.
At a glance
| » Where? | Vikingskipet, Hamar, Norway |
| » When? | 31st of March to 4th of April, 2010 |
Tickets
| » Regular | 0
Enqueue for tickets |
| » Creative | Buy! - Information |
| » ProGamer | Buy! - Information |
| » Food voucher | Buy! - Information |
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Important news
| This years network... | 17. Mar 14:03 |
| Still wondering what to eat at... | 16. Mar 21:43 |
| Sound at The Gathering... | 28. Feb 19:16 |
| Seating begins 1st of March... | 21. Feb 03:57 |
| Changed floorplan... | 14. Feb 19:00 |
About TG
The Gathering (or "TG" for short) as been arranged since 1992 and has always been a hub for young creative people to battle it out in many types of competitions; demo-coding, music, graphics, animation, gaming and hardware modification, to name a few.
Every year, young and old computer enthusiasts gather to share experiences, meet new friends and have a great time at one of the most unique events of our time - The Gathering.