OPERA.new!TXT

"HALLUCINATIONS IN OPERA"
or
"OPERA IN HALLUCINATIONS"
or
"HALLUCINATORY OPERA"

SYNOPSIA

COPYRIGHT BY RUSH ISPA
& AMAZING SOFT MAKING!
WRITTEN BY AVALON TEAM
SUMMER OF 1997 YEAR
CHERNIGOV/UKRAINE
LAST EDITION: 5 DECEMBER'97
TEXT MIGHTY'Z EDITION: 03/11/98

(for russian-languages readers)

Dear friends, demomaniacs and just SPECCY fans! We (AVALON group) are pleased
to present you our first (and, we hope,
not the last) synopsis. Immediately, anticipating your surprise, we will try to explain to you the meaning of this word: it is formed from the muses. the term SYNOPSIS, which means visual-auditory associations.
In our opinion, it most corresponds
to what we all do and what was called demo for a long time. We like this term better, and if it suits the taste of other groups, we will be only happy. This tricky word was invented by
AFINA of AVALON !
'OPERA' was written specifically for ENLI-
GHT'97, but due to many problems and troubles it did not get there. While we collected money for a trip to St. Petersburg,There were no more tickets. Our attempts to send the synopsis over the network were categorically rejected by the organizers. To be honest, we were offended at them for this, because so much work was invested in these kilobytes of code, music and graphics, and they didn’t even want to talk to us normally...
But the stage cannot live only once a year, during the competition. That's why we decided to give you all this New Year's gift! You can perceive it as a kind of presentation of our group.
We hope that soon we will take a worthy place among such scene leaders as
DREAM MAKERS, PROGRESS, DIGITAL REALITY,
EXTREME, CODEBUSTERS!

FROM THE HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF 'OPERY'...

We started work back in January/February 1997, combining coding/muzaking and drawing with studies, some at school and some at college. Moreover, my studies clearly suffered from this!
The bulk of the work was carried out by: ZNA-
HAR, RUFF and me (VIATOR), and all the other Avaloners also helped us. We wanted to write a joint demo from all of RUSH, but in the end result only two of IMP's music were included... We tried to bring something new to the demo-making, and at the same time tried to make it in the tradition of past RUSH works. How far we succeeded in both is for you to judge. Let's sayonly that we
tried not to mess around and worked for our own
pleasure.
Not all of our plans were able to be fully implemented. I myself see a bunch of gaps and shortcomings. But, I repeat, this is our FIRST any
serious work.
It may have seemed to you that there were not enough effects in our synopsis, but we were hoping for help from DMS/LAVES/ETC, but they
slowed down. If we delve into the essence of the effects, then full-screen scrolling is really full-screen, a 3-dimensional person
RUFF is calculated in real time and
each of its points is a separate vector
of which there are as many as 175 (realtime), for example -
'ECHOLOGYya' doesn't even reach fifty.
In the intro to SOS window width is 20 acquaintances,
you can change wave tables (1,2,3) and all of this is overlaid with pictures using a mask
of any size. Well, continue in the same spirit.
Graphs, perhaps even too many. More than ten full-screen images,
plus many small ones. All graphics, including two-bitplane pictures, were drawn before we saw work with E97.
The same applies to everything else. All the work after the competition was not fundamental and was of the nature of 'picking up garbage'. The fact that similar ideas to ours were also in
demonstrations of other groups of ussomewhat
upset, but all our ideas were born before E97.
This is, apparently, the first synopsis/eu-
rodemo in which there are as many as 6 melodies, which is caused by a large number of auxiliary
parts. In my opinion, the Witch Doctor is an incredibly valuable musician, because... can write music that is not left-wing, but exactly what is required in each specific case. Whether it's RAVE,
DOOM or TECHNO. It's true that he has problems with pop music :-) ! IMP's music requires no comment. True, he gave us the tune from the intruk
to 'SOS' about a year and a half ago, and we
took the big melody from the article itself from him almost without his knowledge, having learned that he didn't want to write anything else,
we decided that we couldn't let such a
work go to waste.
As for the plot, I think everything
is clear. All this was born when
the roof went to the right, and the legs went to the left,
When COOL changed with LAME, when everyone was forced to think about study and work, and we did the opposite... ALL IN THIS LIFE IS
LIFE! Even now my head is a complete mess, which gives a chance for a new
synopsia to appear. :-)

MY PERSONAL THINKING ABOUT DEMOMAKINGE

Huge greetings to everyone for whom the demo is not simple nonsense with flying pictures and jumping letters! Thanks
to everyone who treats this as aart and strives to do something serious, which will be remembered many years later, when SPECCY will be looked at as a machine on which a new type of art was born. Think about famous artists and all the outstanding people. After all, most of them were not known during their lifetime
and their work was realized only after
centuries...
I study at the Academy of Arts of Ukraine,
I have a computer right in the hostel
and, naturally, many of my friends watched demos on it. It was very interesting
to observe their reaction, because these are people with good taste, knowledgeable in design and
graphics, and not simple spectators from the outside.
At the same time, they are not subject to the stereotypes inherent in people closely familiar with computers.
The reaction was different. The greatest interest was caused by 'VIBRATIONS' and some other eurodemo. Nobody liked the old megademo, even such things as
'INSULT' did not evoke any emotions in them.
Many paid attention to what
I consider the most important thing - STYLE. The point is that this is the most important task of a real demomaker - TO UNDERSTAND THE PLOT and COLLECT EVERYTHING INTO AN ORGANIC WHOLE!
Now the level of coding is at the highest level. They're squeezing
everything they can out of the Spectrumand what is not allowed. Music has long become very cool and muzakers are creating more and more masterpieces. The latest ENLIGHT
showed that things have
improved much
with the graphics. Now we need to strive to make a work out of all this that would not be a shame to show to professional artists or, for example, to play on television.
Just think how stupid greetings and many
other “relics of Polish times” will look in this case, which prevent us from perceiving the synopsia as a harmonious whole. It's like titles are inserted
after every 50th frame of a film...
As examples of successful solutions for demonstrations, I can cite two works of the group
SPACE BALLS on AMIGA: '9 FINGERS' and 'STA-
TE OF THE ART', which are made in the form of
original video clips. There may be others, but I haven't seen them because... for now
we only have 10 demos due to the unestablished
channels for exchanging Amiga soft.
In our "HALLUCINATIONS IN OPERA" we
tried not to do anything unnecessary. There
there is not a word that is not related to the plot.
All auxiliary and informational parts have been consolidated into a separate section - 'KO-
MENTARIES' and do not interfere with the main idea.
I am in no way saying that we
were successful in everything, ratheron the contrary, the most important task is still far from being completed. Lots of graphics in different styles, etc. We realized our mistakes as we worked on synopsia and we will try to get rid of them next time.

Now I want to bring everything that has been said into
a single whole and give friendly and professional :-) advice:

Don’t do anything unnecessary. Everything must be subordinated to the main idea and plot. Try to maintain the style of both graphics and music, as well as effects. Never try to fit into the synopsis/demo everything that is ready at hand. Not ready-made effects/graphics/music should dictate the style, but on the contrary - style and idea
first of all, the rest is subordinated to them and
completely depends on them.
First, think everything through, and
then start writing. At the same time, the project should be discussed by all
together, both coders and artists and musicians. Imagine how stupid our 'OPERA' would look if in parts of 'AVA-
LON' and 'MORDOR' the music of the Witch Doctor was not so well thought out, but some kind of pop music was played?
Constantly look for something new. The fact that
You managed to make an effect that works
10% faster than the same one in another demo
is not yet a reason to write a program.
Do not try to make graphics ifyou don’t know how to draw (more precisely, you need to try, but
you shouldn’t use it in serious work). It’s better to contact some people, even from other cities, but who know how to do this efficiently. The same applies to music and coding.

Well then! Good luck ! I hope my advice will help you in your work. Actually, I wrote them for myself in order to determine
the most important points in creating a demo...
You could write a whole book on this topic, or at least an article in an electronic
magazine. Maybe I'll do this...

HAVE THE LAMERS RETURNED,
OR DID SOME ERROR HAPPEN?

Despite the fact that none of us got to ENLIGHT97, one of my
effects got there... I was very surprised when I saw
in the epilogue to 'USUAL SUSPECTS' the Minsk group SMOKERS its own effect (interlacing ribbons of dots), a modified
version of which you can see in the greetings part of our synopsis. How could this happen? Then I remembered that in the spring we went to visit DREAM MAKER and I forgot at IMP my disk with the sources, among which there was one exactly the same as in the above-mentioned demo. I wonder
how did my source code get to
Minsk? I don't doubt IMP's integrity, but the Smokers couldI wouldn't want to act like that, hmm... how can I put it mildly... well, in general - it's ugly.
I can still understand when they rip out other people's procedures and subroutines, but when they just take someone else's effect (I wrote it
about a week) and stupidly insert it into their own program, where it is almost the only one, this is already too much !
I would also understand if they wrote
something like the author is unknown or
they didn’t write a copyright for this part at all,
but no, they wrote ! (of course, there is not a word about
AVALON or about me).
I would not like to start any
enmity between our groups, so I ask you, the guys from the SMOKERS group, to call
or write to me and at least explain how
this lameness could happen... In general
it wouldn’t hurt to apologize in your next program.
By the way, there were other sources on the disk... :-) And God forbid if I see them in your next works! Still, I hope for a peaceful conclusion to this incident -> You apologize and format my
disk, and we begin to send you greetings
in our next works?!

ABOUT OUR PLANS...

In addition to demomaking, we sat down to develop a larger/complicated/interesting game. I
started writing a script (more than 50 pages and
this is just the beginning),drew a lot of
graphics, drawing 10 full-screen pictures a day (CHANGE YOUR PAMPERS :-) !),
RAFF wrote a lot of cool 3D effects,
but then taking a sober look at the volume of work
and comparing them with the ridiculous amounts
that we could be paid, we decided not to bury ourselves in a grave alive. Perhaps
we will continue this game, because it is worth
it, but it will be either if they support our
project, the essence of which is outlined in this synopsis in the section 'Save Our Speccy', or
the project will be carried out in parallel on AMIGA,
if we manage to get into the Western
software market. If anyone can help
in this matter or finance the creation of a toy, please contact us urgently!
Then, a joint project with SILICON
BRAINS - 'WORMS'. We are engaged in music and graphics.
The fate of our graphic editor is unknown. It depends on what the BYTEXs from Moldova will send me. Due to some problems with the mail, their first parcel apparently went to Bill Gates at MicroSoft, so, pisyushniks, wait for the new graphic editor! :-)
The fact is that we wanted to combine our efforts with the above-mentioned BYTEXs,
I hope that this will happen.
In addition, there are other plans.
We have also started hardmaster AMIG,
which will in no way affect our
work with SPECCY! If you decide to buy some car other than SPECCY, my advice to you is buy AMMY! This is the choice
made by the majority of SPECTRUM's bands!
Just under no circumstances sell and don't
forget SPECCY!!! SPECCY+AMMY RULEZ !
Master the world of AMIGA with us and with
your old friends (DIGITAL REALITY,
CODE BUSTERS, OUTLAND, ZER0, ENTIRE, LA-
VES, ZOMBUSTERS, MEGACODE, XL-DESIGN,
X-TRADE and many, many others) !

GREETINGS to those whom we recognized after
E97 and to those to whom we did not convey greetings in
comments:

X-PROJECT
BYTEX
TGM CREW
GLOBAL CORPORATION
MAYHEM (Are you by any chance BITMUNCHERS?)
CREATORS
PROXIUM
POWER OF SOUND
EXTREME
MEGACODE
BEERMANS
UNIQUE
ALMAZ
ALLIANCE \ please, make INT table !!!
ANTARES /

FUN TOP 98 (RULEZZZZ!!!!)

We are all incredibly pleased to hear that it will be held in 1998, in Moscow,
FUN TOP competition! COOL!!! We are with all our hands and feet FOR!!! It is much more convenient for us to get to Moscow than to St. Petersburg.
Apparently, the organization of this competition will be much better than ENLIGHT and
this is even more pleasing. It's just wonderful
that onthere will be no pussycats in the competition!
Long live SPECTRUM and AMIGA!!!
In general, everything is great! Thank you to the organizers
for putting hard work on your shoulders. We hope that you will bring what you started to a victorious end!
And now, in conclusion of the enthusiastic
lines, our, or rather my own wishes to the organizers: Please release as early as possible an information program about the competition, in which you indicate THE EXACT
date and location of the competition, as well as
detailed information on how to get
there and the rules for accepting work.
It would be nice to hold a REALTIME
GRAPHICS COMPO. If there are too many applicants, it will be possible to give preference to those who took the highest places in the regular GFX
COMPO, which will need to be carried out first. I think 2 hours is quite enough
to produce a completely acceptable picture...
You can spend some not-so-crazy
computations, for example, on the best game or system program. This will be an excellent advertisement for this product.
Also, in my opinion, a completely normal condition would be a monetary contribution from each group,
approximately $10 for a demo and $1-3 for each picture and music. All this was proposed by IMP, and, in my opinion, it makes sense
to do it. The money collected will be a kind of prize fund forwinners.
This method will help raise the level of the submitted works, everyone will strive to receive a prize, albeit insignificant,
in addition, there will be less nonsense in GFX and MU-
SIC compo.
In order not to repeat our own
mistakes, we declare in advance that we will take part in FUN TOP 98. It is too early to talk about details, but, I think
about three people from AVALO-
N'a will come. We will definitely participate in GFX and
MUSIC compo both at SPECCY and AMMY.
As for the synopsis, nothing concrete is planned yet, although there are interesting ideas and plans...
We will be very grateful if we are
provided with a place to stay for 2-3
days!
More detailed information about our composition
"delegations" and about our work, we
will try to inform the organizers personally
by the end of spring - beginning of summer 1998.

So, SEE YOU AT "FUN TOP 98" !!!

AMIGA RULEZ, BUT SPECCY ALIVE FOREVER !!!

P.S. If you are interested in anything in this
article, be sure to contact us!!!!!

For feedback, wishes and suggestions
regarding this article, please contact me
(VIATOR).

And also for all questions related to
any developments of the association _AMAZING!_-
please contact MAIN PRODUCER(MIGHTY/SHB)

Addresses for letters:

250005 Ukraine,
Chernigov-05
Kievskaya st.,
6, apt. 34.
Onishchenko Victor
VIATOR of AVALON from
RUSH I.S.P.A. and
AMAZING SOFT MAKING

335040 Ukraine, Crimea,
Sevastopol-40
st. Generala Khryukin,
3, apt. 44.
Kosychenko Anatoly
MIGHTY of SMASH from
AMAZING SOFT MAKING

FIDO Net Mail: 2:4600/103.502 or
2:4600/96.503 (To: Mighty Hacker)

Inet E-Mail: lag...@bios.iuf.net
(The Internet is often jammed!:-(!!!)

Phone numbers: /04622/ 5-36-08 (Victor/VIATOR)
(The easiest way to find me at home is on weekends, holidays, etc.)

/0692/ 57-57-80 (Anatoly/MIGHTY)
(24 hours a day, but it’s better to call late
in the evening, after 11 pm, but in any case, leave a message: your phone number + etc...!)

ATTENTION!!! (GRAPHIC EDITOR, WORMS AND ETC!)
- WHO HAD ANY IDEAS/SUGGESTIONS-
MARRIAGES/WISHES;
- IRON PRODUCERS INTERESTED
IN SOFTWARE SUPPORT (SPRINTER...?!);
(AND ALSO SCORPION & CO: _GMX_!?!?!?)
_AND OF COURSE THE DISTRIBUTORS_!!!,
PLEASE CONTACT US!!!

WRITE, DO NOT CALL!СТЕСHЯЙТЕСЬ!!
МЫ ВСЕГДА ВАМ РАДЫ!!!

(C)'98 With best wishes, VIATOR of AVALON
from RUSH I.S.P.A. and AMAZING SOFT MAKING
and MIGHTY of SMASH HB from AMAZING SM !!!

Bye.