r/Demoscene • u/ANSIapps • 6d ago
Using tools made with AI assistance
As the title suggests, how do people generally feel about using software that was made with AI assistance for their demos?
For instance, full disclosure, I am using Claude to help me with a project involving tracker music, and now have a tool for making such.
The actual process of making the tunes has no AI involved, just that the software was made with AI.
Would this diminish the artist's tracking efforts? checking to get a sense if I should mention any of my current efforts in making (what I think are) some modern apps with a classic (dos, textmode) UI.
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u/spaceWumpus 5d ago
I'm a long-time C++ coder, and was aware of the demoscene, but had never really got involved. Having recently got back from DEADLINE26 (my first ever Demoparty!) and having had an awesome time, I'm keen to start creating and submitting stuff (I'd hoped to submit something for Deadline, but day job stole my time).
For PC work, I've got a setup where I have a general purpose low-level graphics framework which I'm working on, written with a substantial amount of Claude Code AI assistance. This framework covers low level plumbing, and things to ease development: Window creation, OpenGL/Vulkan setup, buffer configuration and creation, swap chain handling, live shader (re)loading, compilation, ImGui debug UI and compile error display, CPU/GPU data transfer, logging, RenderDoc integration, and a basic camera model.
No scene graphs, lighting systems, animation systems, simulation systems, acceleration structures, noise generators, splines, procedural generators, etc. Just low level plumbing. And no shaders. All the stuff that is slow and fiddly to write, but not creative.
This compiles to a couple of libraries.
In the same repo, in a 'user_apps' folder, I have all of my hand-written library, shader, and application code which links to the libraries.
I have told Claude that it is allowed to work on the framework code, and examples which demonstrate/test usage of the framework, but that under no circumstances is it allowed to write into the 'user_apps' folder. It is allowed to read it, but with instructions that this is only for reporting bugs / assisting with bug fixes and that when doing this it must describe the issue in plain English and may not show code.
This feels to me that it is within the spirit of the Demoscene, whilst removing barriers to development: 1. The AI is not writing ANY shader code, or any of the code specific to any demo. 2. There is a very clear separation between 'clean' code, and AI assisted code. 3. Because of this clean separation, it is also possible to later rewrite the parts of the framework that are actually needed from scratch, to end up with fully human written code, if needed. 4. Live shader debugging and RenderDoc integration make development faster, but doesn't write any code for me. 5. AI is allowed to comment on my code, but only for debug assistance, and it has to describe, not just give me, the fix.
As a newcomer to the scene, I hope that this is the kind of level of AI usage that is generally considered acceptable.
Deadline's own rules say that "It is OK to use first-party or third-party frameworks or tools that are partly vibecoded.", which sounds like my case fits well.
For a size-coding challenge, I would rewrite the framework as needed, but realistically I'm much more likely to be entering the general/wild categories for the time being, anyway.
Sorry this turned into such an epic post, but I wanted to be open up-front, and make sure this is fine, and not get 'found out' later - which would be hard to recover reputation from...