By Reservoir Gods
http://www.reservoir-gods.com
I guess sometimes I have to be more patient.
There I was, about a week ago, complaining that there should be releases
with original, unreleased code and not simply re-worked intros, and Wham! a new
demo from RG with original code by Griff this time! Boy, do I feel awkward!
Anyway, on with the review.
The demo starts simple, with some pictures fading in and out, only that
in the demo's name pic there is a 3D Gouraud shaded pyramid, which fits nicely
with the rest of the graphics, as well as the music, which is a cover of a well
known Egyptian theme.
Then we have a series of 3 effects that were in every megademo a decade
ago (and then some more - wow, doesn't time fly by!): The dots sphere, the lines
sphere and the light sourced filled sphere. I remember that there were wars over
who would display most dots in a sphere. No comment :)
After the spheres leave us behind we have more 3D Gouraud shaded objects
spinning around. Note that Griff does not use C2P routines here (either C2P was
not well known the time he wrote the code, or he didn't like chunky pixels), so
the objects are not the size we're used to these days, but look (to me) more
pretty and detailed. (also, programmers will note: The objects consist of 7
colours - 3 bit planes!). What makes this slideshow more interesting though are
the graphics which accompany them. Different style cartoon & comic figures -
very pretty!
A conversion of a classic Amiga screen follows, the ray traced animation
featured in Enigma by Phenomena. From what I gather, the animation is in a sort
of Spectrum 512 format.
We then move on to another category of effects that used to be essential
in a demo (I simply hate the terms old-school and new-school): Mathematics
calculations. For starters, we have the Sierpinski triangle (nowhere near as
good as mine! Sorry, but I believe it's true :) and then a fern.
The final major effect in this demo is a 3D world with flat shaded
polygons representing buildings, space ships, cubes flying about, etc. The 3D
routines are a bit inaccurate, but that's the price one has to pay for speedy 3D
worlds.
After that, a EIL 2003 logo, and the credits and greetings (in a
vertical scroller playing the Module of the aforementioned Amiga demo).
It has been a well known fact for years that Griff had converted the
whole Enigma demo. Indeed, the famous cube was given as a guest part in
Leonard's Nostalgic-o demo, and some effects are covered here as well. The
question remains though: did we witness a good demo?
Well, it's a bit difficult to answer. On one hand the effects are old,
and what's more, they've been done a million times before. That wouldn't be so
bad if they were done with originality in mind. For example, count the times
you've seen a 3D dots sphere. Too many. I know that a sphere one of the most
simple objects you can represent in maths, because of its symmetry, but why oh
why do we have to see another one? Are we so dried of ideas?
But I'm getting too negative here. The graphics, for example, are top
notch. Especially the ones beside the 3D objects - they even animate a bit! The
music is synchronized with the parts being shown, that's not an easy thing to do
mind you! Just try it yourself one time! And finally, all the effects run at a
very acceptable frame rate (I don't mind they don't occupy a big part of the
screen either)
What's the verdict then? Well, for me it was a nice trip to the demos
that we used to see very frequently, but also a wasted chance at creating
something truly awe-strucking(with the same code). An average demo then? No, but
not something you'll load too many times.
GGN/KÜA software productions/Alive Team
ggn@atari.org
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