Outline Invite 060
An '060 powered Outline 2006 DHS invitro..
It didn't take the combined forces of the Dead Hackers Society too long to
respond to the new wave of Falcon demos. This deceptively blandly titled
'Outline 2006 Invitro' was an unexpected showcase for their talents on the
'060. You know what you generally get with a party invitro, a couple of fair
to middling screens, and a load of dull textual mcguffin at the end about
the party, which you already read earlier in the ascii version. But somehow,
this manages to be much more than just a standard invitro!
It starts off with some swirling loops which appear in a very faded fashion.
These get better defined as the music strengthens. Then they get a lovely
golden texture and look very solid and well defined. The crew member names
appear and fade downscreen, before the 'Outline 2006 Invite' title text
appears.
This blinks out, then we are hit with an awesome 3-D scene. This is a
screenful of pure '060-ness, with them showing a wild collection of heavily
textured rocks and boulders, suspended in mid-air over a cold chessboard
marble floor! The camera spins around all of this, making sure we get a good
eyeful. This really sets the scene, and gives notice that the '060 is a demo
platform to be reckoned with. It hints of what is to come next from the Dead
Hackers, some of which we saw at Outline, and the best of all a bit later
still...
A Virtual Rock-Garden up in the air...
There is something of an oldschool Amiga moment next. A huge sineous wobbly
text flies onto the screen, with blue blobs in the background, This resolves
into something more multi-bitplane solid and golden looking, In fact it
might be the sort of thing that Jester/Sanity would have done next after the
Terminal Fuckup demo, back in 1993! But this is to praise this screen, not
to damn it! The scroll is whip-fast and very smooth, and the blobs go into
hyperdrive as well.
What Sanity did next in 1993?
There is a quick appearance for the official chess-themed Outline '06 logo
painting, sort of a compulsory bit, but not looking at all bad, and fitting
in well with the overall 'finish' of this intro.
For the final effects screen, there is a blue and blurry spinyball. This has
a blunt ended variation on a common theme, and trails itself in an endless
sea. In due course, it gets fed up with the blue mood, and transforms to an
orangey-gold colour.
We're really at the end now, as we can't put it off any longer, and so the
functional 'invitro' bit plays out, where information about the party is
scrolled up the screen in an attractive font. The chess logo is in the
bottom right hand corner of the screen. Even this part manages to look good
and maintains the overall poise and finish of the intro as a whole.
Well this was a treat, an unexpected invitro which managed to raise the
quality bar for invitro's as a whole, and managed to hang together as a
decent production, whilst, I suspect, using up some spare and otherwise
unconnected effects. Somehow DHS make it look effortless! I bet it isn't
though!
Pro's..
Top finishing quality, DHS are the best!
Seemingly random material hung together and worked..
Great Timbral soundtrack!
Hits the heights for an invitro.
Nice warm fuzzy feeling of more and better to come!
Con's..
Ultimately limited or constrained as it is an invitro..
Err, run out of quibbles!
CiH, for Alive Mag, July '06..
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