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ARTARI an Intro for the Atari Falcon 060
Code: aRt
Gfx: C-Rem, Maali, Steve
Music: mel'o'dee
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It is 2005 and the world is waiting for ass-kicking CT60
productions. Well, it is not hard to see, that intros and demos
are coming slowly, although this doesn't only refer to 060
productions but the Atari scene in general. However, we are
growing older, and who actually needs too much adrenaline in his
veins, caused by a production-flooded scene. So let's live with
the gentle and comfortably slow stream of releases instead. One
of those is ARTARI, done by aRt and others. The intro is aimed
for 060-accelerated Falcons, which makes it sort of special. But
it also works on standard Falcons.
Honestly, the coder - aRt - kind of surprised me with this
intro, as it finally proved, that aRt actually is a coder. After
IRC-talks in the recent years about numerous project ideas (303
emulator, doom engine ...) and rather no output at all, I
started to believe I would never see anything from him on Atari.
But obviously I was wrong. The intro starts off with some
smoothed title picture done by the all-beloved C-Rem accompanied
with a nice chipmusic playing. The music is done by "mel'o'dee"
and sounds the way, a good chipmod should sound like. Coming up
next is the "main part" of the intro. A really colourful
background picture showing some ornaments, which remind me a lot
of middle-90s style of Falcon demos (yeah, this computer has
true colour, let's show it!:).
Effectwise this intro offers two things. The main effect
consists of various 3d-objects flying around. The way they move
is nice, but the 3d is not really impressive at all. I am not a
coder, so it's not really my task to judge the technical
details, but I guess it's sort of environment mapping, when the
objects are rather simple in shape and it's a kind of flat
vector stuff when the objects get more complex (with shaded
colours though?). Anyway, remembering classic Falcon 030 intros
like "Entracte" by EXA, released back in 1996, the 3d in this
intro is nothing you could call ass-kicking.
Hmm, this would be a kind of boring slideshow to me, if there
wasn't another effect moving smoothly on the screen during the
whole intro. The left part of the screen is filled with a kind
of distorted 3d-column effect, rotating nicely and smooth.
Personally, I always liked this kind of effect a lot and so I
also like it in here.
After a couple of objects, the screen flips to the credits part,
showing the complete credits. Here also hyperactive Atari artist
C-Rem is credited on the graphics along with "Steve", who is
still unknown to me. The 3d-objects were obviously designed by
"Maali", a name that is probably well known in the general
demoscene.
Well, so what to conclude? To me, the intro is nice, nothing
less, nothing more. However, the expectations on a 060-
production are probably higher than the effects shown in this
intro. When I tried the intro on my standard Falcon I was a bit
disappointed about the low speed of the effects. So for a 030-
intro, it would be close to the border of lameness, if you ask
me. For a 060-intro, I actually like it. It is a first step into
the exploration of this new hardware and also runs smoothly on
it. I cannot say the intro is boring at all. It's going for
about 30 seconds, so it would be hard to get bored anyway.
What I liked a lot about the intro is the design-bit, which is
put on it. It is not much, but for such a short intro, nothing
more is required. The title picture is closed by an easy but
nice transition effect. The main part includes two effects at
once, which I really like. So apart, from not containing any
mind blowing effect (although I admire the creation of a 3d-
engine), it is a rounded up and clean production. For me it is
nice to see stuff being released, especially from someone whom I
believed being inactive. I would like to see more stuff from aRt
in the future, of course. And I have got the feeling, I will.
In case anyone cares about my totally unreasonable and
unexplainable statistic waste: In the intro category I would
give it 6 or 7 out of 10 points.
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Fiveofive/cpt^pdx for Alive, 2005-10-03
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