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Compo Rules

---- Compo rules for The Gathering 2003 ----

Failure to comply with the rules listed below will most likely lead to
disqualification. And we don't want that, do we? Also, the democrew
reserves the right to disqualify any contribution for other, unlisted
reasons. Don't try to cheat. We will find out.. and we'll tell your
mother.

Common rules:
+ Your entry/entries should be handed in via Zepo, or personally at
the democrew room. (If you hand in your contribution personally,
it must still be registered by you in Zepo.)
+ No copyrighted material (that you don't have the copyrights to
yourself) can be used.
+ We will specifically not disallow any entries from the TG crew, as
there are a lot of creative and skilled people there. All voting
(except for UU) is done by the audience anyhow :-)
+ All entries handed in (and not disqualified) will be considered
released. Everything handed in, not disqualified and shown must
be put into public domain.
+ You may not contribute with entries you (or others) have released earlier. This includes "clones", "remixes" etc. If you feel your contribution is sufficiently different from your earlier work, contact us. We may work something out.
+ All sizes refer to the unpacked files, not the archive!

Demo:
Common rules:
+ Maximum size in unarchived state is 10MB (10485760 bytes).
+ Maximum showing time is 8 minutes, but your demo should be
extremely interesting to justify being that long ;-)
+ Any libraries not listed in the rules must be supplied in
the demo archive, and will count towards your demo size.
+ In general, we'll do our best to play and record your demo,
but if you do something excessively weird, be prepared that
we might contact you to get your help :-)
+ Please try to remember the golden rules of making demos
for parties: Try not to make it too boring, try not to
make it too dark (since it will not look good on the big
screen).

PC compo machine:
+ CPU: about 2000MHz (x86-compatible, of course)
+ RAM: 256 or 512MB
+ 3D card: GF4Ti4600 or ATI Radeon 9700
+ We _will_ also verify that your demo runs on slower
machines (typically about 600-700MHz with a GeForce2).
Please aim to make demos that people actually can
watch on their PCs :-)

Mac compo machine:
+ CPU: Dual G4 > 1000MHz
+ RAM: At least 512MB
+ 3D card: Most likely ATI Radeon 9700, but this may change.

High-end Demo:
+ Allowed platforms are Win32, Linux, Mac and consoles (see
below). The same machine will be used for Linux and
Windows platforms, with the same recording equipment. If you
release a cross-platform demo, please make a crew.txt file
stating which platform you want us to record the demo to run
under. See the sections below for platform specific
information.
+ The user has to be able to exit at any time by pressing
ESC (on non-console demos).
+ For hardware accelerated contributions, you are allowed to
use either Direct3D or OpenGL (or both, if you're really
weird).
+ Try not to restrict your demo to hardware from a specific
vendor (that is, instruction sets that aren't widely
available on people's CPUs today, weird OpenGL extensions,
etc.). Note that you may still _utilize_ things like custom
OpenGL extensions if you detect them at runtime, but your
demo should not _depend_ on them to run.

High-end Demo, Windows:
+ Hand in your contribution as a single .zip archive
+ Vanilla WinXP, with the latest DirectX and video/sound card
drivers installed. Your demo should work in Win98SE as well.

High-end Demo, Linux:
+ The machine will run Debian testing (latest version as of
sometime in the party), but it shouldn't in any way be
distro-specific (ie. hand in your entry as a .tar.gz,
.tar.bz2 or .zip file via Zepo -- no RPMs etc., please),
with the latest Linux 2.4.x kernel.
+ In case of a GF4 card: We'll use the latest OpenGL and
display drivers from nVidia. In case of an ATI Radeon: We'll
use the latest standard drivers for ATI. In other words,
don't rely on proprietary OpenGL extensions to make your
demo run, stick to ARB and EXT ones :-) Dynamic linking to
libGL.so is recommended, since at least nVidia doesn't use
DRI.
+ In general, we'll do our best to play and record your demo,
but if you do something excessively weird, be prepared that
we might contact you to get your help :-)
+ You may freely link dynamically to the following libraries
in addition to system libraries (that is, libc/libm,
libpthread, and in general everything that's included with a
base Debian install): Xlib (with DGA2), SDL, OpenPTC, OpenGL
(including libGLU), GLUT, libvorbis (including libvorbisfile
and libogg), libpng, libjpeg, zlib, bz2lib. None of these
will be counted towards your size, which could be rather
important in the intro compos (4kB/64kB). We recommend that
you link in everything else statically, or at least include
the library with your entry. (If you really really need
svgalib, contact us and we'll see what we can do -- ATM it
doesn't appear very likely that anybody would want to do
such a thing, though ;-) )
+ Special exception for the intro (4kB/64kB) compos: You are
not allowed to use the module player/sound decompression
facilities of SDL. Link statically to minifmod or write a
proper softsynth. ;-)
+ No direct sound access. Use of OSS, ALSA or ESD is allowed.
+ Source is welcome, but of course not a requirement. Bring
your sources with you, though, in case you need to recompile
or fix something.

High-end Demo, Macintosh:
+ Hand in your demo as .tar.gz or .dmg file
+ The compo machine will run the latest version of MacOS X
(version 10.2.x).
+ If your demo relies on libraries or frameworks not included
with MacOS X, you will have to link statically, or at least
include the needed libs.
+ If your demo is not packaged as an .app launchable from the
Finder, please include instructions as to how to run the
demo.

High-end Demo, console:
+ The following consoles are allowed:
- Sony Playstation
- Sony PS2
- Nintendo 64
- Nintend Gamecube
- Microsoft Xbox
- Sega Dreamcast
+ We recommend that you bring your own console. The console
should give an SVHS or composite signal in PAL or NTSC.
+ Max size for the demo is 10 MB, OR, for CD-based consoles,
6MB plus one audio track. So, for CD-based consoles, you may
choose which limit to go for.
+ Platform and demo size will be announced prior to showing
each demo.
+ Democrew reserves the right to rule that a contribution does
not fit into this competition. In that case, we will give
you the option to contribute in the Wild competition
instead.

Amiga Demo:
+ All entries should be handed in as a single .lha or .lzx
file.
+ The user must be able to quit the demo by pressing left
mouse button
+ The demo/intro will be run on one of the following machines:
- A4000 w/ kickstart 3.1, latest 3.5 setpatch
060/50Mhz, PPC604e/200MHz
3Dfx Voodoo3 graphics card in G-Rex PCI adapter
Repulse 16/24 bit soundcard via AHI
128MB FastRAM, 2MB ChipRAM
Cybergfx V4, latest Warp3D
PowerUp and WarpUp installed.
-A1200 w/kickstart 3.1, latest 3.1 setpatch
060/50MHz
32MB FastRAM, 2MB ChipRAM
+ If you prefer one of these machines over the other, please
say so.
+ All contributions must run after setpatch, and may utilize
the APIs installed.

Handheld demo:
+ This compo is for handheld units like Gameboy, GBA, mobile
phones, PDAs or even calculators. If you are in doubt as to
whether your platform fits in this compo, please contact us.
+ Must run on unmodified (original) handheld hardware.
+ Bring your own hardware. We can supply a Gameboy Advance
with TV-output (NTSC), Siemens SL45i and an Ericsson P800,
but it's best not to take any chances.
+ All entries will be recorded by the democrew with a DV
camera unless the device got video output which displays the
same picture as the built-in screen.
+ Maximum size is 8 MB (megabytes).

Combined 64k Intro:
+ You may contribute with either Amiga, Mac, Win32 or
Linux intro. We will of course clearly state the
platform prior to showing each intro.
+ Max size for 64K intro is 65,536 bytes.
+ Apart from the altered size limit, all rules from the normal
(accelerated) demo compo apply.

Combined Fast intro:
+ You may contribute with either Amiga, Mac, Win32 or
Linux intro. We will of course clearly state the
platform prior to showing each intro.
+ We will announce a theme for the intro, and maybe some
other requirements
+ You will have 8 hours to complete your intro. Really. No. We
won't stretch the deadline.
+ Apart from the theme and time limits, all rules from the
normal demo compo apply.

Music:
Common rules:
+ Max length: 4 minutes
+ One entry per competitor in each of the subcompos.
+ No remixes of tunes you did/didn't make yourself. Read: NO
remixes!
+ All genres are welcome, and will be treated equally.

High quality music:
+ Allowed file-formats:
- Ogg Vorbis (preferred), 128-320 kbps (-q 7 equals about
224kbps at VBR, VBR is heavily recommended).
- MP3, 128-320 kbps, but >192kbps and a good encoder (ie. no
BladeEnc or Xing, please) is heavily recommended.
+ The use of non-creative "tools" like eJay will not be
allowed. Don't even try.
+ We will limit the finale to 10-15 entries. The selection
will mostly be based on originality and production quality.

Tracked music:
+ Max filesize 2MB (2097152 bytes). By this we mean the
module itself, not the compressed archive.
+ Allowed file-formats:
- MT2
- IT
- XM
- S3M
- MOD
- DBM
+ No DSP effects may be used in .dbm (Digibooster Pro)
modules. Yes, we will play them in Digibooster. And yes, we
will see it if you use DSP.

Fast music:
+ The samples will be given out in a .mod file.
+ Maximum 32 channels allowed.
+ All formats allowed in the multichannel compos are accepted.
+ No samples may be added to the module.
+ No samples may be removed from the module.
+ No samples may be moved within the module.
+ Samples may be modified with tracker-extensions/commands
such as looping, sustain and volume, but not changed in any
way. (The DigiBooster-rule from the multichannel compo still
applies.)
+ From release of the samples, you will have approx. 2-4 hours
to make your masterpieces (the exact details will be given
at the party).
+ No cutting, no pasting, no messing with the sampledata.

Webdesign:
+ No server-side scripting is allowed. This is a web-DESIGN compo,
not a programming-compo.

+ Contributions will be judged according to looks, functionality,
compatibility. In other words, it is not good enough that the
HTML-pages look good in one particular browser and looks like shit
in all the others. Pages WILL be tested in Lynx/Links, Opera,
Netscape and Internet Explorer.

+ The webdesign-compo winner is decided by a jury, not by a public
vote.

+ Specific guidelines:
- Make a webpage for a Norwegian humanitary organization of your choice.
- The organization must be a real one, not something you make up.
- The page must be viewable with text-mode browsers, so don't
use an image with vital information.
- The page will be validated with http://validator.w3.org/
Failed=Disqualified!
- Make the page viewable in any resolution. "Best viewed in
1600x1200" or so is NOT acceptable.
- Don't use Microsoft Word as Html editor :)

The winner will be presented to the selected organization, and they will be
offered two years of free webhosting with this design.

Still image:
Common rules:
+ Only one entry per artist in each of the compos.
+ All pictures will be scaled to 1024x768. By doing it
yourself, you will ensure the best scaling possible for your
picture. Pictures with statements (e.g. "Democrew sucks",
"partyticket.net stinks", or any other form of religious or
political messages) will be disqualified.
+ No text in the pictures, unless it is part of a texture, or
is a part of the pictures in a logical way, and can be
argumented for to be as such.
+ All entries should be handed in as a .zip or .rar file,
containing the following:
- Two versions of the picture, one compo version, with no
signature, and one with a signature that will be released
after the voting is over.
- At least three in-progress pictures, showing the workflow,
in the case of rendered, screenshots of the software and
mesh is accepted. (These don't have to be as big as
1024x768.)

Pixeled image:
+ Only pixelled pictures will be accepted (no Illustrator or
vector-art). You are allowed to use a scanned sketch as base
for your picture. Apart from that, scanned or rendered
elements are not allowed.
+ The motive should be an original one (e.g. we don't want to
see a new version of "Skrik", or the selfportrait of Odd
Nerdrum)

Raytraced image:
+ No scanned or pixeled elements, except for textures.
+ Meshes/scene should be available at request (for the
DemoCrew).
+ Only objects made by the artist may be used.
+ NO, absolutely NO lens-flare effect.

Wild/Anim:
+ You may contribute with mostly anything here... As long as
it's playable on the big screen.
+ Max running time 8 minutes. (keep it short, 8 minutes is
_long_).
+ If we get to many contributions, we reserve the right to
make a selection. We will most likely pick a cool movie full
of impressive CGI before a video of some idiots running
around in the woods. You may of course contribute with
"plain" movies, but please don't make them too boring or
stupid. You're only hurting yourselves!
+ Speaking of hurting yourselves; NO JACKASS IMITATIONS. If you
like being injured, fine. Just don't make us watch it.
+ Allowed file formats are MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX(3.11, 4.12,
5.0x) & XviD. And btw, we even support subtitles: SUB & SRT.
VHS and S-VHS are not allowed. If you really can't get your
contribution over in digital form, bring your contribution
with you, along with equipment that outputs S-Video, and
we'll see what we can do.
+ CDs and DVDs will be kept for our own, personal enjoyment.
So there!

Useless utility:
+ Make something totally useless; you know the drill. Surprise
us.
+ Yes, we're talking about a program, not a 3 day old banana
or things like that.
+ Destructive programs aren't useless; they are annoying.
+ If your program isn't made for Linux, Win32, Mac or Amiga,
you will have to bring your computer and show us the program
in action (or not, as it may be).

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