Adventurer #14 30 июня 2003

Демо

Scene - Democoders Questionnarie: best zx demo.

Democoders Questionnarie
elph / CPU

Many of us have their own favourite speccy demos: Forever, Shit
For Brains, Dogma, Refresh ... - I
can proceed with the names but everybody knows the first places 
of charts. Each of us finds something

special in every particular demo,
trying to perceive the atmosphere
created by authors of the work.
These impressions become deeper if
you have your own experience of being a creator. Today I've 
decided to ask some questions to the people, devoted themselves 
to demomaking. Honestly, this idea was taken by me from C64 
zine Attitude, where Cactus / Oxyron made a survey amongst the 
C64 democoders. I wanted to know the anwers on the

same questions from speccy coders. So, this is a list of coders
I could seize:

Flying / Digital Reality
Poisoned Cyberjack / Triebkraft
Vivid / Brainwave
sq / skrju
Fyrex / Mayhem
Rom'Fux / Progress
D-Art/Fenomen
Mad_rain / Fenomen
Gasman / H-PRG

And here are the questions:

1. What effect and in what demo
impressed you most of all?

2. What fx is the best of yours?

3. What is your favourite speccy
demo?

And now read the answers, I think
it is interesting not only for me.

1. What effect and in what demo
impressed you most of all?

Flying> Shock megademo from
Ethanol Software Inc. (ESI), the
part with the moving chessboard.
It is the most impressive effect
I've ever seen for sure (considering only single effects). I 
remember that shock I had when I saw it for the first time. I 
stared at that chessboard for a long time.

This shock became greater when I
discovered the control keys ... :)

CJ> It's hard to say at once ... Many of demos impressed me 
much during different periods of time Vibrations, Illusion, 
Trashe, Condommed, Power Up, Shit For Brains, Rage, Spirius, 
Refresh, Insane, Jam, Napalm, Dogma,

Tryptomine Dreams, The Loop - here are the most outstanding 
ones. The strongest emotions caused Refresh, there was no 3D on

Spectrum before this demo ... The
most impressive effect, I think,
texturemapping with phong from Napalm. I couldn't believe that 
it is possible on Spectrum. Besides,

my Profi worked at 170% of speed
in turbo mode, so it looked fine
:) The techniques used in modern
demos are more powerful now,
but ... it doesn't amaze me much: (
So let's talk about the last centuries' effects.

Vivid> To be honest, usually effect impress me up to the moment
when I understand how it was done
and make it better. So I have to
see the code level higher than
I've reached. For example, i had
saw the mirror rotator in GOA and
Refresh, then in Tryptomine Dream
I made it in multicolour at
fullscreen. Then voxels from Insane - I made the same in 
multicolour in 3 ints. Phong from Napalm I made the analogue in 
Tryptomine Dream. And then 3D I realized in

multicolour in Stellar Contour.

Mandelbrot Fractal Zooming in the
old pc demo Crystal Dreams-2.
I made the same in multicolour on
Spectrum. Show me the effect made
on Spectrum and I will make it
better. The thing that i want to
make but I don't know how to realize it to work fast is 3D bump
(Remember the cube from Refresh).
It could be possible to make it
with isometric surface if Z80 had
a higher productivity. I think it
would be too slow even with Flat
shading, not only TMap.

sq> Aha. As I understand, impressive in code? Hm, honestly, i 
never thought of it, so I can't say

anything about any single effect.
I think the whole demo must
impress, not the single effects,
and if you like one effect and
don't like another from the same
demo - it is not right, perhaps.
What I can remember just now, is
tmap + phong from Napalm-the effect with eye 'pulled' on a 
candy. Visually, I like toruses very

much, that's why I like gouraud
mapped torus from Refresh, phong
mapped torus from Voodoo and a torus from Life Forms. Also I 
like zoomer from Melange - looks lovely. Recently released 
effects - a flower on a blank white screen

from Inbetween. If talking about
non_chunks effects, I like multicolour by Vivid, very 
beautiful. His Doom from Stellar Contour is something 
outstanding! But with all my love to chunks, I think that

it's time to make non-chunks
demos. However, don't listen to
me, do what you like! Else, everybody will use white background 
and over a year it will bother everybody as it was with chunks:)


Fyrex> I like many things equally,
so it's hard to choose one, ...
perhaps, the most technically
impressive are the multicolour effects from the latest Brainwave
demo, Stellar Contour, as I remember. I'm not a multicolour fan,
but it looks funny there.

Rom'Fux> Env from Refresh.

D-Art> Sometimes ago I was wondered by voxel Mars from Over The
Top, I've never seen the most realistic effect on Speccy.

Mad_rain> The tunnel from
YES1997. I've never seen something like that before. Very 
interesting algorithm. 

Gasman> Probably the voxel
landscape from 3SC's Insane
(And later in Higher State). Usually, demo effects don't just 
get invented - they borrow ideas from

earlier demos, expanding on them,
slowly evolving and pushing the boundaries a bit further. (For
example, the famous multicolour
part in Shock was just a development from a similar effect in 
NMI 3.) But this time, Baze and Astex brought us a completely 
new effect, with all the possible tricks and tweaks already in 
place. It zooms, it spins, it has suspension

bridges ... and yet, as far as I
can remember, this was the first
time I'd ever seen real, fast, solid 3D on the Speccy.

It's been copied several times by
different coders (myself
included ...) but never so well as
the original. It's especially
impressive when you remember that
1995-96 was a lull in the
Spectrum's life, with Exodus being
perhaps the only real innovators,
and 3SC were still a new, relatively unknown group.

2. What fx is the best of yours?

Flying> It's hard to say ... I
ought to separate programming from
the exterior beauty to answer the
question. Moreover, the last thing
is the desert of our (me and Arty)
cooperation, cos the look of the
effects from our demos was mainly
Arty's contribution.

However, I need to say, that usually i'm not pleased with the 
quality of my programming over the month since it has been done 
already (maybe somebody has the same feelings). And the code i 
reckon as the best code of myself usually

is not in effects, but in the inner programm organization. So, I
like Jam in a way it's organized
on the level of sources, and so
the Scenergy. If talking about the
difficuilty of effects' code, I
should mention my 512 bytes intro
released at CAFe'2002 with the
most perfect code that I ever
made. I can say it for sure, that
it's the almost only work that is
optimized in it's size:) Visually
(Without noticing the code) I like
very much: jumping crystall in 7th
Reality; polygonal heart illuminated by the lamp and morphings 
in the end of Binary Love; final animation in Forever (though I 
don't like to discuss Forever as the set

of effects, it was planned and realized as a whole and so it 
must be taken as complete product);

another crystall in CC'999 invitation dentro; animation with 
dancing Arty and 'dotty medusa' in Jam, and of course, I think, 
our best intro from Doom pre-release

(With dots, originally by Quardax).

CJ> The most powerful thing among
_released_ effects is my
3D-engine (Harm, Pneuma). I
don't like to boast, however, it
is faster for about 30% than that,
made by Sair00s, in the same conditions, but it's capabilities 
are much lesser. For example, it has

Gourad-shading for 15 tacts against standart in 26. I can't pick
out any single effect, because the
modern techniques (chunks, 3D) are
commonly based on an engine. The
most powerful _unreleased_ stuff -
the engine of the game called Bomberman, which was being made by
me and GD/4D. Maybe someday it
will be finished (???).

Vivid> The first part of Stellar
Contour - multicolour 'Wolf-kind'
engine. The main feature is multicolour and 16 fps. But Alone 
Coder gave an idea how to improve it up

to 25 fps - to trace not every column of rays, but every second 
column and then to interpolate it. 

sq> Oops, I've made nothing by myself, i'm always stealing the 
effects:)) As people say:)) He-he. Really, the best effect of 
mine is, of course, 3D from Summermilk.

By the way, i'll tell you a
secret: actually, it's not slow,
but fast enough. The reason why it
is slowed down is the background -
they are beind drawn too clumsy.
Mmm ... does anybody understand
what I mean?

Fyrex> I have nothing of this kind
:)

Rom'Fux> 3d engine (not released
yet).

D-Art> It's hard to say. I try do
not make lame effects at all. When
i'll finish Oxygen - you'll see.

Mad_rain> In Livingstone 2
intro (as I remember the name of
the game) with something dropping
on a text. It's not too difficuilt, but looks funny.

Gasman> The reflecting lake in Losing Victoria. It was 
originally inspired by the Java applet that's

used on loads of websites, but the
idea of ​​doing it on the Spectrum
was an instant leap of the imagination that I could only make by
thinking about coding, design and
graphics all at once. The same is
probably true about the act of coding it and putting it in the 
demo everything was done by myself, working from one vision 
(including drawing the picture, which is usually my weak point 
...), so it probably turned out much better than if it had been 
a group effort. Coding it was a big gamble - until the final 
bytes of code were there, I didn't know whether it would look 
realistic, or whether there would be enough processor time for 
it to work. Luckily it did, and my weeks of coding and 
pixelling weren't wasted ... 

However, being fortunate enough to
present this at Assembly is what
makes this truly memorable for me.
The applause it got from a stadium
full of thousands of sceners is something I'll never forget 
(even if the applause was started by Antti,

the other Spectrum fan at the
party ;-))

3. What is your favourite speccy
demo?

Flying> Certainly, Shit 4 Brainz
by Progress. There's nothing more
astonishing that this demo.
Though, there are a lot of good
speccy demos, which are amazing
in different ways: one has really
tough code (demos by RST7,
Exploder, Sair00s, Vivid), one has
outstanding design (4D, E-Mage
and many others), one has the
strongest psychological affection
(As latest, The Loop and Summermilk). I don't forget Shock 
megademo, Echology and some others - the classics. But all this 
demos look weaker than S4B for me, which

contains every element of a good
demo. One can disagree, but it's
my constant opinion since seeing
this demo at Enlight'97.

CJ> Condommed by E-Mage -
that's for sure!!! It was a real
shock for me at that time - wonderful music, exellent design 
and, of course, code. Actually, even then

the effects seemed to be not so
difficuilt - now i'm still convinced in this, although their 
beauty is not the way they were made, but

in originality and a brilliant synchronization with music. 
Technically, I like not the effects, I like the details 
multiloader (the first one working fine), it's fix

for different machines (i hate
'Pentagon only' !!!), and of course digital samples in music!!!
unforgettable and incomparable
thing!!!

Now I know this demo by memory,
though I watch it from time to
time - just to relax and to remember those good old days:)

Vivid> Hard to say. The reason is
that I have several favourite
demos. It's, of course, Placebo's
demos - Dogma, Lifeforms and
Inbetween. Sair00s's code at that
time was the level that everybody
had try to reach.

I like demos by Exploder - Power
Up, Action, Refresh. This demos
have no pauses and almost ideal
code.

sq> Condommed. It is still astonishing. Perhaps, somebody 
doesn't know, that KVA was 15 when he made it with Rum (and, 
btw, in 1914 when he made Trashe:) but it's not the

point. I think there are no such
demos on Spectrum, which had that
fine combination of story, code
and design. And the soundtrack, i
think, is of the best tracks on
Speccy, moreover, I reckon music
the main thing in demo.

Fyrex> Dogma. Good effects,
graphics, the story and so on.
With comparison to Shit For Brains - even then it had poor 
effects, hackneyed theme, that was socially bored already. 
Anamnesis looks fine too, but it's good to

watch it for no more than 3 times.

Rom'Fux> Condommed by E-Mage

D-Art> It's hard to choose only
one demo. I've seen nothing good
for years. From the old ones
Power Up.

Mad_rain> Dies Irae - classic,
very beautiful and nice demo. Something like this I long for 
nowadays. 

Gasman> Shit 4 Brains - probably
the most influential ZX demo ever.
One of the first trackmos on the
Speccy, and certainly the one that
inspired all trackmos after it ...
the Second Reality of the
Spectrum scene? I think so. Even
today, it's hard to find a demo
which combines visuals and music
quite so well as this one - that's
certainly something I always try
to achieve in my demos. Putting together five minutes of 
fast-paced effects to match the soundtrack must have taken an 
immense amount of work.


The ending effects are, to me, one
of the great moments of Speccy history - the drums come to a 
stop, leaving behind an echoing melody

as atmospheric as any Tim Follin
composition, as we plunge into the
whirlpool ... truly breathtaking,
especially on a party bigscreen.

"We think it's enough" ... it certainly is.


elph> So, that's it. I think everybody noticed, that a best 
effect and a best demo are different conceptions, standing far 
away from each other even for those, who made the art out of 
CODE.