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Foreword
--------
It was the start of November 2000. The whole Atari scene (to be more precise,
the whole 16/32 bit Atari scene) was waiting hopefully for a new release from
the former UCM team. (I still remember myself running from my house to a
neighbour's (a very good friend btw), with a disk at hand to receive Exocet's
graphics and Milhouse's music (because I have no Internet connection, no,
scratch that, no phone connection at all!) to be included in the intro.)
After a week's delay the mircle finally happened. It was called Alive. (I don't
want to bore you much more with pompous sentences and long stories, so I'll cut
to the cheese right away)
I read with interest CiH's article about 8-bit demos and, having downloaded a
large quantity of 8-bit stuff the last couple of months, I ran them the first
moment I had the chance. I remember having seen "Drunken chessboard" before,
and it is indeed excellent, but for the other ones I'll have to say that they
aren't the best I've seen on the 8-bit. Which is a bit sad, because I thought
Chris would have researched the matter a bit more before writing that article.
So I decided to write this article which contains (in my humble opinion) the
four best full-disk demos. I must stress out that neither I have a 8-bit Atari
any more, nor I have a fast Atari to run Atari800, so the emulator I used was
Atari800Win v2.6c (on a PC if you didn't figure it out so far). So, the point
is that I have no clue what they will look like on the Atari version of
Atari800, and no indication on what speed will they run on. (just find a mate
with a pointlessly fast PC, get a copy of Atari800(Win), and run these demos in
that machine :)
The demos are sorted from #4 down to #1, if you're interested about ratings.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Bitter Reality"by Slight
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General notes:Runs on a simple 800XL. Press Shift to skip any part (since
Space won't work no matter how much you press it :)
Loader:A nice "Loading" graph appears on top of the screen, then the title of
the screen in a 8x8 font, then some large digits of the sectors remaining.
While unpacking is being done, a candle is being shown and its flame is
disturbed as if it is left on the open air (quite a nice effect, really).
Introduction:A 3D starfiled of about 35 dots is being shown and at the center
of the screen a one-line text using a 16x16 font displays the credits and so
on. While reading this text (and viewing the demo) that it was written in 1994,
which goes to show that serious demo groups existed on this machine some time
ago! A nice Pokey music is being played, and I must say that it's pleasing that
it's original (as well as all the musics in this demo - to my knowledge at
least), because I've seen too many demos featuring ripped music from games
(kinda reminds our scene a few years ago, right? :-).
Flexible Square:Ah, here we are, the first eye-dropping effect of this demo!
What we have here, after a small sample is played(!), is a rhombus being
drawn, but its sides are actually splines that move around in 50 fps! And if
you thought that was cool, imagine that with a filled rhombus! Yes, I know you
must've seen that effect before on the ST (a couple of examples that come to
mind are the Vodka demo by Equinox, as well as the Dreamzone demo by Wild
Boys), and on 3D, but this is being done in a machine whose processor runs at
1.77 MHz, and NO hardware tricks are involved (because they have no mirroring
on the x axis)! And as if that wasn't enough, they included some music bars, as
well as some stars fading in and out (but that is acomplished by splitting
PMGS - if you know what I mean here, elsewise just forget it!)
Greetings Part:A raytraced animation is being shown at the top half of the
screen (some balls coming from and going to a Madelbrot set - if you've ever
seen "Enigma" by Phenomena on the Amiga, you must know exactly what I mean,
prehaps they've ripped that same animation and then converted to XL graphics
format). The rest of the screen is being taken over by a largish scroller that
after a minute starts bouncing all over the place, but this effect is SO easy
to do on the XL's hardware. But as this is just a simple screen for the
greetings, it's ok.
Sinus Worm:A "Wrigley's Spearmint" grab is displayed on screen, then half of
the screen is blanked for some other fx to take place (The graphic then is
being scrolled up and down). The other fx are: A bit-bending scroller with
mirroring (and that IS a hardware trick :), some worms (!) crawl along the top
& bottom of the screen, and again some music bars (btw the music sounds
like SID :). Not a bad screen, but nothing special either.
Rzog Plazma:Unless I'm missing something here (and I really don't think so),
this is a simple plasma screen. Now, if you think that's something fairly easy
to do on an ST, you wouldn't believe how easy it is to do in XL! For those who
don't know let me just tell you this: Hardware palette splits (just like the
Am**a) & per line hardware screen setting (just like...)! But the curves are
nice, so it's worth watching it (for a while).
Partyland:This demo seems to be quite large, but when it depacks it just shows
some music bars on the bottom of the screen with a starfield at the background,
some mirroring below, and the main area is taken over by 5 bars that flash
according to the music changes. Strange. Could it be an emulation error? (BTW
it tried running this demo to every other emulator I got, but they failed even
running the demo :)
Filet Lazma:Another jaw-dropping screen. It uses the above mentioned filler,
but this time it draws some pretty neat sine curves. At first it seems to be a
DLI effect, but then the 2 curves change formations, which is quite amazing (up
to a point even for ST standards :) Rzog (the programmer of this screen) tells
that this routine can fill the entire screen (I think 320x192) under 1 VBL,
which is quite amazing! (although I think he's cheating, but that's not the
point here)
Dragonbobs:Contains a vertical h-disting scroller (which may be done using
hardware sprites), some nice raster bars, and the old infinite sprites trick.
What more can I say?
Farewell:A small screen containing the full credits.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Igor"by Mad Team
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General notes:Side A needs a 130XE to run, but to be able to access Side B
you need a 320XE.
Since this is a dentro, I will split the review in 2 parts: Side Aand Side B.
Side A: Upon loading, a mouse cursor appears. Then something they call "Atari
Workbench" appears (geesh! They love this desktop SO much? Couldn't the
include GEM?). The mouse moves by itself (wait, where the f**k are you going?
;-) to D1: and double clicks that icon. A "window" is then displayed with a
huge icon, which has the filename IGOR.COM. Then the mouse moves there and
"double clicks" it. Then the whole screen is blackened, and a "MadTeam" logo is
being shown, interlaced (I found out that turning Atari800 to full speed while
in full screen eliminates most of the flickering of the interlace. Of course,if
you have a fast machine, the demo flys past you very quickly!), while we wait
for the main part to load & depack). Then, a moody bass line is played, and a
fire effect is being shown (Graphics 3, mirrored by hardware on the x axis :).
In the middle of the screen the group's member list is being displayed using
the same interlaced font. The music, being nicely synchronised with the
graphics shown, fades out and fades in as a sphere writing "presents" appears,
which is then morphed to an "Igor" logo (with a nice Pokey sound effect). After
the fade out, there is a sudden (and violent?) outbreak in the music (a
techno-like track) and the screen is filled with grey squares at random. Then
a manga girl pic is shown (Darn! These manga pics look very nice at every
resolution & colour depth!). Then the whole screen is turned grey, which we
find out that it's actually a grey polygon, which rotates around the z axis and
zooms out at the same time, giving toom to the black background. Then by a
sipmple "curtain" effect, the background is turned green, in which the first
serious effect is being shown. It's something they call a "Rot Cross" which is
a 3D object consisting of 2 crosses, which rotate around all axes with motion
blur! (Don't forget: on a 1.77Mhz machine :-). Then we have a "Blur cube",
using the same effect on 2 squares at the same formation as the crosses,
using the same effect on a brown background. After that an interlaced rendered
picture appears, which is a sphere on a fractal floor (Wow! Don't all these
rendered pics look the same? :). This gives way to a dot tunnel consisting of
quite a number of dots (although I didn't like it aesthetically). Using the
same curtain effect as before, the background is truned black, and a guy
resembling Keith from the Prodigy in the "Firestarter" video is bring shown (at
a later point,you'll find out it probably isn't him).Next effect:A fractal-like
background is displayed, a naked woman comes out of the left border and stays
there (which is done using hardware sprites, as the graphic mode that they're
using doesn't allow more colours), and finally a 3D "asterisk" comes out of the
right border, spinning around all axes with blur motion. Then, with the help of
some hardware scrolling, we are presented with another volcano-like background
(interlaced), and a 3D pyramid object is being drawn with alpha blending & blur
motion (boy, I never thought I would see these effects on a simple Atari 8-bit!
). Afterwards, we are presented with "A new Atari graphics format", which is
called "RIP" (don't ask me, I'm just writing down this stuff ;-), and a smaple
picture is being shown to display the capabilities of this format (interlaced,
as always). Then we have the last effect ("Thank God!" some might say :) for
this side ("Aaaargh!" the same people would add ;-), which is bump mapping with
a very large "spotlight". The music then "loses" its BPM and the effect fades
out, to give space to the prompt for.....
Side B:After a spot of loading, the screen turns blue using a pleasing
horizontal wave effect. Then we are presented with a quite fast zoom rotator
(with a couple of members' photos as graphics). Then some stretch is added to
this effect with yet another Mad Team member. Then we are presented with a
"Jet" rotator, which looks like (no, is) texture mapped polygons at a pretty
amazing speed. Then the zoom rotator is being shown with some "proper" graphics
(a drawn 3d cube which spins around the z axis :). Another photo of "Keith" is
being shown (Down right I saw a logo writing "Rocky". Perhaps it's him?). Then
a tunnel effect appears slowly running at an accepatable speed (full screen),
which gives gradually way to another "Igor" logo, to be covered with another
tunnel effect, but the textures (which are, needless to say, the group's
photos :) are twisted around. The previous logo is shown again, and then the
same tunnel effect with (at last!) some proper graphics! Then, yadayadayada,
logo, yadayadayada, the tunnel with proper graphics twisted. (I know, it's a
nice routine which runs at a very fast speed, but it's getting boring for you
to read ;). Then... change in palette (brown-yellow)... tunnel... proper
graphics (oh, what fun are we having :). Then the whole screen is turned white,
which is broken like glass, and the pieces disappear into nothingness, to give
way to our old pal "Keith" again (and by the looks of him, he has gained a
couple of pounds ;-). Thecredits are then shown and the music stops very
synchronously (and pleasing). Some noise is being shown over the text (which is,
of course, hardware sprites). The end.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Asskicker" by Shadows
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General notes:The main menu & outro run on a simple 800XL, but the main
demo needs a 130XE (and you are missing a whole lotta stuff if you don't have
one - or can't emulate one :) Also note that the main menu is joystick
contolled only (as far as I know).
The main part:An "Asskicker" logo shows up (which has a shoe print at
the background - is it Timberland? :) very briefly, and then it's ass kicking
time! Starting with a zoom rotator. On the left border 3 stripes (green, white,
red) appear (the polish flag?) while the effect is being shown. It seems to be
a bit faster than the Mad Team effort. Then comes some zoom-rotate-stretch,
like the Igor demo's (again running faster than Igor). After this effect the
whole screen turns white and a thunder sound effect is being played (ahhh, I
remember the days when I had a 800XL! FOR I=255 TO 0 STEP -1: SOUND 0,I,6,8:
NEXT I :))) and from that point onward we gather that the demo is music
synchronised. After the sound effect we are being introduced to "Mr. Gouraudni"
(as they say in a logo that changes positioning at random), which I think you
might know him! A 3D Gouraud shaded cube appears spinning around all 3 axes
(anybody remembers the loader of "Interphase"? ;) Then the Gouraud shade
changes to 3D texture mapping with a very very nice plasma texture (and with a
very nice green palette). Another thunder sfx and some manic sirens and a
graphic saying "Milicja" (sorry, I don't know a single word of Polish! Might
that mean "Warning" or something like that?), and then another writing (in
English this time) "Textures". The music now changes to a very rapid techno-like
something and another 3D texture mapped cube appears, but with 3 different
textures being used. After a while the textures start zooming in and out to add
to the cool effect (for a 8 bit machine). Another explosion sfx, and now a
"Doom" logo (that PC game by Id that made a LOT of people dump their existing
machines for a PC :( ) appears (and I believe that the music changes to the
music of Doom?). Then we are presented to exactly that: A dungeon a-la-Doom
(which is not 3D texture mapping, just in one axis). The field of view is quite
long (but this is due to the fact stated in the previous sentence) and it is
quite amazing to look at, but this screen is displayed for about 2 min, and it
gets a bit boring after a while (So you'd better push the "full speed" button
if you can! Another reason for me to push the "full speed" button is because
the music really pisses me off! Sorry guys :). Another explosion and we are
transfered into the next effect: Motion blur. To be more precise, some (real
time?) morphing with motion blur. Astonishing! (the only problem, in my humble
opinion, is that again we have a digitised face instead of a graphic). After
that's over with, we are bring informed that the demo finally made a decision
that it has displayed enough effects without loading anything, so it's high
time it did! Once the depacking is done, we are presented with a 3D torus
eviromentally mapped with a backdrop. If you've seen DHS's UCM #20 intro you'll
certainly know what I'm writing about. This is a bit slow, I'm a bit suspicious
about this effect, because it's the only effect being shown before the credits.
Could it be that it is a pre-rendered animation that is being depacked in
real-time or is it really a real-time effect? (Mabye Grey, being an ex-Shadows
member, could enlighten us on the subject? Or Konop, the coder of this demo?
Becuase I'm not going to start digging into 6502 code after about 10 years
without having a real XL!) In any case it's a pretty nice effect, precalculated
or not, and that's that.
The outro (which is only selected from the main menu):A vertical scroller with
credits & thanks.
There is also a hidden part to be found which is programmed by Bewesoft (which
is -was?- quite a force in the decade that passed for the XL). Unfortunately I
can't help you finding it, because I've only seen it once in a hacked version
of this demo which loaded the hidden demo from its own menu. What I remember
though is some one-colour effects, such as some circles, 3D-line objects,
stars, which were displayed one at the time and then all together, which made
the poor CPU choke a bit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Overmind"by Slight
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General notes:Needs a 800XL at least to work.
The intro: The screen fades into black, and after some loading some text with
intelaced palette appears ("A Year has passed"). Then a largish one-colour
"Slight" logo dances around the screen, then some more text ("has
created") and then a "Overmind" logo appears and a thunder is being shown with
a thunder sample played (5-6 times). Then after quite some loading we proceed
to:
The first part:Some text appears saying that we would be presented with a
realtime calculated Sierpinski triangle in one VBL! (Hey! My kind of people ;
-))))). It is actually a Sierpinski triangle which is rotated around all 3
axes, but only about 256 points of it are being shown (selected at random each
frame). Afterwards, a "SLT" logo appears (with the aid of some hardware
scrolling). Then the top of the screen is occupied by a flexiscroller, which
claims an amazing 1792 individual points scroller! In one VBL! Then a couple
more wayforms appear, and then before it starts being boring, we are presented
with another effect, which is a vertical scroller disting and stretching per
line (which might be a hardware sprites trick by the looks of it - 4x8 font?
Suspicious!). The last effect for this part is a plasma screen (which is
actually pretty large, although a bit blocky), which also serves as a loading
screen for the next part!
The second part:A "Slight" logo bounces and finally settles in the bottom of
the screen, while in the rest of the screen we see some real-time line tweens
(consisting of about 32 lines!). Then a wave zooms in, and just when you think
you're about to see some more line tweens, you're shocked by some spline
tweens!Although all tweens are being generated jsut by one spline, it's
nevertheless very effective ones and quite pretty (just like the line tweens).
A huge Pacman sprite then comes and eats up the "Slight" logo! The part is
over, and the next loading screen appears: Some shade dots.
The third part:Aha, time for some 16-bit effects! Beginning with some vertical
raster bars (which btw are SO easy to code on this machine - as well as the
STE :))). After that some greetings arrive with a quite large font, scolling
rapidly. Then we have a 3D cube (consisting of lines), with a trail fading out,
which is after a while morphing into all the usual geometrical shapes. End of
part, and this time the loader is a fire effect (graphics 3 :)
The fourth part:Hmmm..... pecalculations time! The standard Mandelbrot set is
being "zoomed" in front of your eyes, but with a small twist! 5 overlapped
"windows"of that animation are being displayed (of different sizes too!). This
time the loader is... (shock, horror!) just a blank screen which after
depacking, asks you politely to insert side B (while playing a sample). Another
balnk screen for a loader (in the credits, we find out that it was coded by all
Slight members ;-) we are transfered to...
The fifth part:A small loader appears out of nowhere! This time it's a very
simple zoomer lens. Now, a tunnel of depth-cued squares appears. Then the
squares go haywire and decide to start rotating and changing their centres.
After that some lisajou patterns appear, which are clearly mirrored in the x
axis. What would you expect after that? Some more dots? (I did!) Nope, they
decided to show us a roto-stretch-zoomer (small size, but running at 50 fps).
The next effect are some shadebobs, which, as always, are boring as Hell. 7
zooming circles appear next (always at 50 fps!) dancing around the screen.
Then another very pleasing DLI effect appears: 12 circles zooming in and out,
which then start to distort horizontally! After the trickery, some real hard
code appears: A 3D sphere consisting of quite some depth-cued dots. This one
doesn't quite reach the 50 fps mark, but it's quite fast. End of part, and
another plasma loader appears.
The sixth part:The announcement says we're going to witness a voxel landscape,
and it then proceeds showing it to us! Now, I've never been quite a fan of
voxels (I find them a bit blocky in most cases), but they're not bad here (and
also, stunningly fast). Another spinning line cube appears next, which turns
into hidden-line shortly after. Some shapes after, we're taken to a disting
scrollertelling us that this demo won the demo compo in Orneta '95, which is,
suprisignly enough, the loader screen for the next part.
The seventh part:The first effect is basically a 3D texture mapped polygon,
which, they claim, is the first one coded on a 8-bit. Then we have a 3D dice
made out of small ball sprites, and then a zoomer which is a bit slow, but the
graphic being zoomed is quite large, so we'll forgive them :). Time for the
next part, with a loader that just flashes the text "Stickman's world", which
is what the next part's all about.
The eighth part:It kicks off with an effect seen before in this demo: Realtime
circles whizzing about the screen. And now for "Stickman's world": It's a line
animation featuring a guy who turns on the radio, dances some nice tunes (what
is it with The Prodigy anyway?) and then gets a drink from the fridge. It's a
nice tween. Note that I think that it is a direct conversion from a PC 4ktro
whose name I don't remember. After this, it's the final loading screen: a
fountain which springs dots all over the place.
The outtro:Just a vertical scroller which gives the complete credits.
Note that there is a 3rd side of this demo featuring even more effects, but I
haven't been able to locate it so far.
Closing note
------------
Yes, I know that you might have some arguments about my list because "Overmind"
doesn't contain many "new school" effects (God, I hate this categorisation),
but the quantity and quality of the effects in "Overmind", as well as the speed
they run at (mostly 50fps, which is my passion - if you've watched my stuff so
far you'll understand ;-) push it in the top of my list
GGN/KÜA, Jan 2001
(painted with theAKT)
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