Stellar Contour vs LifeForms: A Demoparty Analysis

hi

Hugi^POS

intro / why

Eternity Industry (EI) with their "Dogma" hardly succeeded over "Tryptomine Dream" by BrainWave (BW) on Chaos Constructions'000.

After a year BW, at its turn, have succeeded over Placebo (PCB, ex-EI); it seems that they made it without titanic efforts, if to look on the final points. I suppose that a lot of ones have question "why?", and also I am constantly listening to opinion that PCB's "LifeForms" (LF) are better than Stellar Contour (SC) by BW.

It's hard to say what exactly happens on a party. It's one thing — to watch a demo on a big screen, with powerful sound, amongst inflammable crowd, and to watch it at your home, in the dark, from the optimal distance, sitting in armchair with beer and cigarette — it's completely another thing.

I think that it's undoubtedly that in such a situation, when there is no distinct leader, everything depends on little things, that is — when successful joke, weird bug, long depacking, or something else with conjunction with mood and wishes of a public play a crucial role for the results. It's pointless to argue with it, I think that only vast amount of voters and a perfect organisation of a demoparty could make voting more objective. I don't want to say, though, that voting on CC001 wasn't objective. It's aimlessly to argue with the results, this is demoparty and visitors made their decision by themselves. But party results aren't complete truth, it's only one of the methods, which measure public opinion, but — unfortunately — we too often accept it as absolute truth.

____,------,----,____,----,__  _____,--------------------,
    /   /    /    /    ,   \/    /    ,_,    ,    ,    /
 ___\___  `---/    /    /       __/----/ /    /    /----/
 \/    \/    /    /    '   \/\/    //
 /___/`--------'---------;____//    /`--------'
`-----' K-0s`-----'`---'

LF will be higher than SC in Zx-Chart #3, and — most probably — "Refresh" will keep it's first place, ie we will see picture opposite to party results. Why? I think that everyone should answer to this question by himself. And everyone will stay on his point. I only want to show, what is important to me in such occasions.

mainpart / what

Parameters like time and size should be dropped out, because both SC and LF have equal size and duration, the difference is ratty — 5 seconds and one sector. This leads me to thoughts about optimality, but this is already another article's subject.

Code. On a partyplace, I suppose, no one has the question, what he sees: realtime or precalculated effect, or — even worse — animation. Sitting at home, if you aren't coder, you also can't judge the code objectively, maybe only by comparisons of analogous effects from other demos. In general, for me, as soon as I'm not a coder, it's very hard to say, what is harder to implement — effects from SC or LF. Probably, effects from LF are more sophisticated (Sair00s, calm down), because it's a 3D, while in SC one could see only 2D and pseudo-3D (Vivid, don't call names).

But another problem flows from this: Engine — chunks vs multicolor. Both are lowres. Chunks require high speed, ie turbo, multicolor needs Pentagon compatibility. Well, we have both this and that, but what then? It's an interesting question, I think that it has single-valued and logical answer, but I want to everyone to answer to it by himself. Sair00s took the following epigraph (subtitle) for his article in Kosme #0 — "Let's break the rules!", while guys from BW call their SC as "neoclassical avanguard". I think that this all lefts a lot of things to think about. It was sufficient for me to see the epigraph and carefully watch "Smokebomb" by Ozone on Amiga, in order to form my opinion. I plan to left this for the next article :)

I think that complexity of code isn't that important as a coder's phantasy is. If to drop engines subject and to look on the contents of effects, then I think that effects of SC will look as a complete shit in chunks, while effects from LF in multicolor will make anybody crazy. What, not? This says that Sair00S has phantasy — he thinks as Amiga coder, not noticing the drab of chunks. And what about Vivid? Spinning crystal in SC becomes boring after several spots over it. Multicolor is beautiful, but poor at the same time, because, as far as I can see from SC, it sets more limits for coder.

Music. What is better, funk, fake breakbeat, rock&pop or breakbeat, electric, drum'n'bass :)? The answer is similar and could be analogous to answer about engines. The style isn't important, but it's connection with video is. I think that here there is nothing to compare between SC and LF, because both tracks are good and well-suited to the atmosphere of both demos.

Graphics. PLS vs PheeL. PheeL, as always, roxx. His graphics the only thing in SC, which has some connection with title. No one, as usually, is cooler. Paracels is more productive and graphics from LF is connected with title even more. There's basically nothing to discuss here, I only want to note that I !for the first time! see real handmade 2bitplanes graphics, and even nocopy — it's about final picture, while other two remaining pictures, unfortunately, aren't fullscreen. LF also features two handmade nocopy screens — title and final ones, and the last is also !revolutionary!, because it contains color animation. Nonoriginality of remaining graphics in LF is compensated by its conceptions. I could explain for a long time why I think, but what for?

So, we see — again — that both competitors are cost each other (only if to drop out sleeping woman's face after intro in SC, basically it's not really PheeL).

And the last thing about graphics — in info file of LF was stated that the demo has 3 original screens — I don't know what this means. Probably, that "thinking man and his eye" is original, but also it could be possible that there's a surprise hidden inside LF. (Paracels, are you laughing?)

So, we've discussed: code, music, graphics. Is that all? Or maybe we should look inside credits of SC & LF? Yes, there is one fatal thing, everyone speaks about it, but no one know what it really is.

This is design. I have an impression, that BW moves its design on the first plane, while PCB acts otherwise. And info files of demos differs slightly by their mood, which also affects on perception and also leads to thoughts, I hope ;).

What role does design play at all? Is he good in SC and LF?

Whether does it play role while voting at a partyplace? To what extent do we appreciate him; we, who are on this side of screen?

What leads us when we fill in votelists` columns? So many questions and so few answers. But we could try to compare the design of SC and LF.

One could say that SC has its unique design. But everybody will have his own impression on it. What pluses and minuses have I found for myself? I will risk to get into my thoughts and show some concrete data:

"Stellar Contour" by BrainWave:

• [+] joke at the start — "cracked by bill gilbert";

• [+] interesting slogan — "chunky suxx";

• [+] successfull citation from Einstein;

• [+] original intro, camera's motion in a 3d labyrinth is cool, but what connection does "blowjob" have? There are a lot of words, that suit more well;

• [+] 2bitplane multicolor, multicolor + hires gfx on 2 bitplanes — very interesting experiment.

• [-] primitivity of frames and background lines, close to childish primitivity, I would say, but it's the base of SC's design;

• [-] hackneyed citation from "California" movie ("when you dream...");

• [-] all effects cover only 2/3 of the screen, and only sometimes we see static graphics into other parts of screen, all other time we feel emptiness.

"LifeForms" by Placebo:

• [+] holistic intro with simple, but pleasant animation;

• [+] conjunction of all three parts, which go one after another;

• [+] perfect views and combination of graphics with effects, especially in the final, where we see spinning torus;

• [-] Credits are too similar with "My Kingdom".

Also I want to note three advantages of LF over SC:

1. LF has single idea, which goes through the title, intro, graphics of three main parts, while in SC there are only 3 pictures which have connection with the title, texts aren't connected with the title, design is quite poor.
2. Effects of LF aren't trivial and don't give any associations with boring usual stuff (I don't speak about engine).
3. LF has music throughout the whole video, while in SC we see a lot of things before the start of music, and final picture fades out in complete silence — not a big disadvantage, but it presents.

Under the word "design" I understand connection between individual parts with newness of ideas and wide sight of all of the authors of demo. I think that design of LF is better than design of SC, while in the work by BW we see big progress (music, code, ideas), if to look on their past works, and they also have used high-class graphics artist. Why do BW worse in design than PCB?

In SC I see division of the whole process on music, graphics, code and design. While in LF — duet of musician-coder and artist, design is made by everyone. I could suppose that PCB's scheme is more successful, either artist or coder should be a designer, and if both of them haven't such abilities then a demo is fated.

But I also remember Digital Reality, which has the absolutely same division as BW, and therefore it becomes clear that Tigrr/BW understands design as only a presence of an additional graphics, what reduces all efforts to zero, but I hope that not everything has been lost yet.

outro / who and where

I tried to keep far from baseless thoughts. However, what else my article is if not a propaganda or a testimony of my selfwill? :) probably something other too.

If you have something to say, to add something, then write me, rivo4@mail.ru.

I want to evolve this topic with the help of your feedback.

there is no gods, if you'll not design them by your imagination.