______ ______ ______ .::::: .:: .:: :::::.
/ /_____ / /____ / \ .::.. .:: .:: ...:::
___ / // _ \ / / /__<_ -- >.:: .:: .:: .::
/ /_____/< ____>___/_____/ / /______/.::::::.:: .:::::: :::::'
< - / \_/ / /_____/ / ___ ___ ____ /_/___ ______ ____
\_____/ /_______/ /_____/ / _// __>/ / // // __>/ / / /< /
/_/ \___/\__//_/ \___/\____//___>
Escape EIL3 entry or the demo that had no name but "_" (underscore ?)
Foreword of Sts : I had started to write this review when Paranoid sent me
a bunch of reviews, most of then being unfortunately already written by GGn :(
I hope his reviews can be used in Chosneck4 instead ! Here come the first words
I had written as an introduction to this article, followed by full review.
As EIL3 demo compos started I really didn't expect anything from ESCAPE tho
they had already taken us all by surprise in 2001 when they released "HMM..."
which is my best Falcon demo (Sono coming right next !). Sure I had seen early
screens at Paracon4 especially the bee part as Charon was working on it and
already it looked damn promising ! Charon was then a new member of Escape and
to be honest his name didn't sound so familiar to me so that this new demo
showed that we have another *highly* talented coder working on bare Falcon !!
That's sounds like veryyyyy good news to me ! Of course No and 505 joined him
into the adventure that led to this new demo.
The first version of the demo released some days after EIL3 didn't work
fine on RGB so that another version (unpacked ?) was made available some days
later. This one works fine on my Falcon though it's a bit bigger as it weighs
1.5Mb instead of ca 900Kb but that's not a waste of space for such a demo !
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I vividly remember the Error in Line 2001, where I asked Norman of Escape
whether there would be a Falcon-demo from him or not, and he said, that he
would hand in a little, very very beta demo just to show that he was doing
something. The following presentation of Hmmm... kept a lot of people stunned
for quite a while - and catapulted Escape to one of the hottest crews on the
Falcon.
Now it is 2003, a lot of Atari-people gathered again in the heart of Dresden
and the question everybody was asking was "Would Escape contribute again ?" Now
that Line-Out had released their Delta-Demo that featured an awful lot of
stunning DSP-based effects as well, the competition had at least gathered a few
new contendants. Escape did, and here is a resume.
The demo starts with something that could be seen as a real tunnel, it's
obviously made up of environment-mapped polygons and is displayed by the
dot-based motion-blur seen in Hmmm... and several screens by DefJam on the
ST.
When the tunnel fades down, in fades a mixture of wireframe- nd blob-based
3D object that is being displayed "out of focus", hence it is unsharp, but at a
few times, the focus is corrected just like someone was turning a knob on the
lens.
Just to prove that the unsharpen-effect is not fixed to wireframe objects,
in slides a solid, environment-mapped 3D-object, looking a bit like a star,
that rotates gently in the middle of the screen, also being displayed out of
focus.
Time for the commercials. The Escape-logo, the slightly modified "E" that
has an arrow as the middle line of the "E", introduced in Escape's fancy
ditherscreen for the DHS-summer compo, hovers onto the screen as environment
mapped filled 3D-object. Suddenly, the screen starts to vibrate and the sole
"E" turns into 3, rotating around an imaginary vertical axe, as the tempo of
the music, that was very introductory up to this time, picks up speed and as
the soundtrack springs into full action, the arrow of the "E"s bust lose and
move towards the viewer, out of screen. Then, from the center of the screen
comes a box that is made out of boxes, gently shaded and moving and rotating on
screen, also twisting and bending, after a while even separating into smaller
sets made up of these boxes, that twist and bend just the same.
Enough of shaded boxes, you might think, so in flies an Escape-logo made out
of textured boxes. The texture might be animated or it might be a real
environment-map, it's hard to tell, however, the viewer is whirled around this
logo once, then zoomed into it, moving between the lines of boxes, then back
again, until the logo explodes and all boxes whirl around and off screen.
The music stops and turns into something smoother, something with a milder
tempo, slightly resembling the style of the music in Hmmm... when the first
series of screens ended and the 3D-objects with the sudden "whack" at the
screen started. How suiting, because this demo shows a cube, made up of wire-
frame and blobs, slightly unsharp, with a little bouncing blob in it that
always rolls and bounces down, following gravity in the rotating cube.
Suddenly, the little pale blob turns into a rain of blobs, pouring to the
ground in the rotating box, and jumping on the planes of the cube. Again, focus
is changed a few times to sharpen and unsharpen the picture.
As if this effect wasn't "spaced out" already, let's get into space and
watch Atari's favourite insect, the "busy bee", made up of shaded cubes, float
in space. Again, the viewer is moved around the bee a few times before it
starts flapping its wings in a friendly and cute manner - by bending the
cubes in just the way needed for this effect. The viewer follows the bee for a
while, when all of a sudden an arrow appears, knocks the bee over but gladly,
no damage is taken, the bee just continues its journey through the darkness
(how symbolic).
An arrow. Doesn't that ring a bell ? Not right now, because the music picks
up pace again and an environment-mapped ring appears on the screen. It's
presented from a few angles like it was the main attraction of a magicians
show, then it separated into several little slides of the ring that disappear
into the center of the screen. The arrow, that knocked over our dear busy bee
appears and travels through the rings, rotating, and being displayed from
several angles.
From the outside, from the inside of the rings, following the arrow sideways
behind, in front until the arrow finally leaves the set of rings and returns to
an environment-mapped frame to form the Escape-symbol again. The credits
screen popping up afterwards ends the demo.
This demo is fairly easy to judge : It rocks ! First, No and Charon have
managed to keep and expand the - until now - very unique style established with
the Hmmm...-demo. Most 3D objects are held in a steelish blue except for the
"shaded cubes"-effects, in which the colours range from golden to blue. Also,
the music is fairly similar to the one used in Hmmm... and suits the movement
and action on screen just perfectly.
Those who had expected to see the award-winning effects of Hmmm... recycled
have been proven wrong by the cool-looking twisting cubes and the new and so
far unique out-of-focus effects applied to all kinds of 3D-objects. And the
wireframe cube with the bouncing flood of blobs in it just looks great.
Nevertheless, the demo could have benefitted from some more work on the
details. End-screen, credits and some transitions could have been made slightly
better and in contrast to Hmmm..., this demo just doesn't like bus-speeders.
Then again, there's no serious drop in framerate all over this demo, no
hangups, no stuttering, everything is super fluent.
So, the resume would be that to really stun the audience on the Falcon in
2002/2003, you need to use the DSP for slightly more than background music.
Hmmm..., Delta and _ have set new standards on the Falcon by cleverly using
the DSP for their purposes - and they give a hint of what can still be achieved
on the little bird.
_ is an excellent Falcon-demo, both design and effect-wise.
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The Paranoid
Paranoia
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