00:00:01:08 00:00:04:02 Hello, I am Dierk Ohlerich, chaos from farbrausch
00:00:04:08 00:00:06:15 and I am fiver2 from farbrausch
00:00:07:03 00:00:12:03 and we are commenting The Popular Demo - fr-025.
00:00:15:12 00:00:21:01 I think it began in 2002 - I can't remember which year it was - or 2003
00:00:21:28 00:00:25:20 Most farbrausch demos started in something we call the elitehouse
00:00:25:26 00:00:28:19 where we all meet and make cool demos
00:00:28:25 00:00:32:27 and I remember this elitehouse to be the coldest we ever had
00:00:33:06 00:00:42:09 Everything was extraordinarily cold.  If you went outside to buy something, the streets were frozen over, and it was almost dangerous.
00:00:42:15 00:00:47:14 It was the only elitehouse ever in Germany. All others are in Denmark.
00:00:49:24 00:01:00:14 One of us came later, and he brought on his computer the demo, A Deepness In The Sky
00:01:00:20 00:01:07:05 And everyone was fascinated with the cool glow effect which makes everything look a lot better
00:01:07:11 00:01:12:22 fiver said, this changes everything, everything will be super cool now
00:01:12:28 00:01:18:30 And I didn't get it, because it was so easy to do, and so I did my own version of this glow effect.
00:01:19:06 00:01:23:12 And of course, it was a lot better than what mfx came up with
00:01:25:15 00:01:33:03 And since fiver was working on a minor project, which would be something like a disco demo, it all fit together pretty well.
00:01:33:09 00:01:36:13 Now we had a disco demo with the right look.
00:01:36:19 00:01:50:22 That moment were working on .kkrieger already.  As the engine took longer than we thought, we took on some side projects.
00:01:50:28 00:01:57:07 The one with the old engine was The Popular Demo, and the other was kentra which already used the new engine.
00:01:57:13 00:02:06:06 And the Popular Demo was the small project at the moment, and we had no glare and no special effects for it.
00:02:06:12 00:02:11:21 but the concept of the disco theme was finished already.
00:02:11:27 00:02:20:24 And we wanted to do a very short demo, like MTV style, 3 minutes and 30 seconds or less
00:02:21:01 00:02:29:08 And we were searching for a fitting soundtrack.  That was pretty difficult, because for the first time, we needed a singer.
00:02:29:14 00:02:40:16 We had never worked with a singer's voice in our demos.  It was very difficult to find anyone who could sing, in a convincing way.
00:02:40:22 00:02:47:29 And we tried some sound sketches in the direction of disco
00:02:48:05 00:02:53:12 But it all didn't work out until Wayfinder came up with this soundtrack we used in the end
00:02:53:18 00:02:56:14 which turned the whole demo from disco to pop
00:02:56:20 00:03:00:24 and hence the name "Popular Demo".
00:03:01:00 00:03:14:01 We used four different people to sing, and I'm especially sorry the singer who was in the credits for the first version isn't in the credits for the second version
00:03:14:07 00:03:24:07 I have to apologize for him, for, um, that, removed the soundtrack.  He was my choir leader, and sorry for that.
- "Choir."
00:03:44:19 00:03:50:10 Hi, this is Jim Leonard, also known as Trixter in the scene, and I am the producer of MindCandy 3.
00:03:50:16 00:03:55:10 And I'm here to tell you there is in fact no commentary for Stargazer
00:03:55:16 00:04:01:07 Half the group members said it would be okay for me to do it, and the other half preferred nobody do it
00:04:01:14 00:04:06:20 So I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about where I first saw Stargazer
00:04:06:26 00:04:11:01 I saw Stargazer as it was first presented at NVScene 2008.
00:04:11:07 00:04:18:03 And that was - a lot of people have commented in the scene that NVScene was some form of abomination
00:04:18:10 00:04:23:13 that was a huge multimillion dollar corporation trying to buy the demoscene
00:04:23:19 00:04:27:11 and that was not true at all, I think I'd like to set the record straight
00:04:27:17 00:04:36:13 that Gargaj and Gloom and everyone else and Temis, everyone who helped get that together,
00:04:36:19 00:04:44:18 were doing so simply because they loved the scene, and I think it's very disingenuous to say it was this big commercial thing, I don't think that's very fair.
00:04:45:10 00:04:54:14 The party place as it were was one giant room in the San Jose convention center
00:04:54:20 00:05:02:23 And when you think of a very large television you think of 60 inches, when you think of a very large projector you think of using a 120 inch screen
00:05:02:29 00:05:08:28 The screen that everything was being presented on was an 18 by 32 foot screen
00:05:09:05 00:05:17:22 And I'm sure that's the exact same thing they have at Breakpoint, but it was the first time a North American scener saw a proper party place like that
00:05:17:29 00:05:24:09 That's the equivalent of a 440 inch screen - and it looked beautiful, it was in full 1920 by 1080.
00:05:24:15 00:05:31:26 Of course the sound system was fantastic as well, and one of the things I felt-
00:05:32:02 00:05:45:26 They called this an imported demoscene because they flew chaos and Navis and IQ and all these other wonderful sceners in.
00:05:46:02 00:05:59:14 But I thought it was great, because during some of the talks you got to see how these guys interact with each other and how they try to question and learn from each other
00:05:59:20 00:06:08:15 If you haven't watched any of the special features on Blu-ray, the special features being of course as many NVScene talks as I could record on HD
00:06:08:21 00:06:14:17 I think you should.  There's some of my favorite NVscene interactions from that time
00:06:14:29 00:06:29:28 where in chaos's talk, Navis was saying, don't you get better demo flow if you code all the stuff yourself, if you do it all in code?
00:06:30:05 00:06:42:15 Then in Navis's talk, chaos was doing the same thing - why don't you use a scripting engine and isn't this terrible - it was funny to see them pick each other apart like that.
00:06:43:04 00:06:53:20 Of course, it was also nice to see Into The Shadows being displayed, again full 1080
00:06:53:26 00:06:59:09 being completely explained by its creator, and it was just..
00:06:59:15 00:07:04:14 I had a great time, I don't care if it was imported, I don't care if there was a lot of money behind it
00:07:04:20 00:07:10:24 It was a party, it was a demoparty - here's another thing too
00:07:10:30 00:07:16:28 They actually went through some special exceptions to make sure people, if they needed to, could sleep at the party place.
00:07:17:04 00:07:21:19 And the party place wasn't some tent out in the middle of a field in Germany or something
00:07:21:25 00:07:26:05 Where it's like, who cares, do whatever you want, this was the San Jose Convention Center
00:07:26:12 00:07:34:25 And generally there are things like fire codes, and municipality laws, and things like that where you're not supposed to sleep under a table
00:07:35:01 00:07:37:14 but if people wanted to do that they could
00:07:37:20 00:07:40:30 Now, I think for the comfort of everybody, everyone had some place to stay
00:07:41:06 00:07:46:08 I actually crashed at RaDMan's house twice, and that was very nice, thank you
00:07:46:15 00:07:51:28 But hey, if you wanted to do the full thing, you could
00:07:52:04 00:07:57:17 So the scene we're watching now (I know I'm not supposed to give commentary but I just have to)
00:07:57:24 00:08:00:16 When this scene came on, I think this is what made the demo win
00:08:00:22 00:08:10:03 Is this massive recursive, what's the word, it's not a sierpinski curve, it's like a hilbert curve
00:08:10:09 00:08:13:07 ..box, okay, see, this is why I'm not giving the commentary
00:08:13:13 00:08:23:29 I coded demos for DOS a very long time ago, but I'm not familiar with the intricacies of Windows so I won't even try.
00:08:24:21 00:08:29:20 So there you have it, the non-commentary for Stargazer.
00:08:35:23 00:08:47:29 Hi, welcome to 1995, this is Curly Brace, and I'm Little Bitchard, and Uncle-X from mfx here, and Pommak from mfx too
00:08:48:05 00:08:59:29 We first started this demo in something like 19-- 2005, after some party
00:09:00:05 00:09:08:28 and we wanted to do a demo that was respect for the old demos, from the year 1995
00:09:09:04 00:09:20:25 stylewise, like really dutch electro, dark, industrial, whatever
00:09:21:01 00:09:30:16 So we worked on this for months and we were planning to release this at Breakpoint 2006
00:09:30:22 00:09:46:08 but for some reason we ran out of inspiration for it - I had some problems with the original soundtrack, it was really kick-ass, dark themed
00:09:46:14 00:10:01:24 I just couldn't get around to making anything full length out of it, so eventually that was ditched and this soundtrack was made instead.
00:10:01:30 00:10:18:09 This was some 3 weeks or 4 weeks before Breakpoint 2006, we decided to put this one on the shelf and we made something else for Breakpoint
00:10:18:15 00:10:34:07 but during that summer we decided to talk with the mfx guys, and we said we had this unfinished demo, would you like to make it ready
00:10:34:13 00:10:43:19 So we said yes.  So Uncle-X and Pommak took over and here you see the end result.
00:10:43:25 00:11:02:06 Basically 2 1/2 to 3 weeks of really hectic coding before Assembly 2006 starting from halfway finished demo, ditching old effects, starting to write new ones
00:11:02:13 00:11:13:06 You didn't ditch half the effects.  Yes we did, there were quite a lot of bad effects that we dumped. But we kept all the cool ones.
00:11:13:12 00:11:24:13 Those cool effects are in this demo, most of them at least.  Most of the effects are a tribute to oldskool demos, like this one.
00:11:24:19 00:11:39:25 For example, the twisting bar, we tried to make the twisting bar look like X14 from Orange
00:11:40:01 00:11:47:19 Except the one from X14 had a dog on it, and ours is chrome.. and it had mirrors, mirrors rock!
00:11:47:25 00:11:57:06 Yeah, we had mirrors in the scene that had more of 216's balls mingling
00:11:57:13 00:12:07:19 The cubes making up some other form is inspired by Aura for Laura demo
00:12:07:25 00:12:16:18 Texture here is ripped by Droid from somewhere (internet), and particles are made by Curly
00:12:16:24 00:12:29:24 Note that half brain - it's some sign for more which was a bitch to make, so that's why the end result isn't as good as it could be.
00:12:30:01 00:12:44:26 Maybe one of the important things here, which really made this an homage to all those really awesome demos from the time when we were starting in the scene
00:12:45:02 00:12:57:17 is the end credit sequence where we have 1in10's remix of the demo soundtrack and clips of the demo in realtime, rerunning the effects
00:12:57:23 00:13:04:09 and showing all the credits, kind of like demos like Second Reality
00:13:04:15 00:13:10:02 1in10 also makes the vocoder sound like "emo fart" instead of "demo art"
00:13:10:08 00:13:23:11 We should note also that zomb made some graphics for this and lum the 3d models for the logos in the beginning
00:13:24:25 00:13:41:02 We tried to imitate and pay homage to all those demos which were popular way back in the day and I think we ended up with a demo which got way too popular instead.
00:13:41:08 00:13:50:15 Yeah, I agree, people love the tune.   Yeah, the soundtrack is awesome, except Little Bitchard can't write lyrics
00:13:50:21 00:13:56:12 Yeah, you sound like a selfish bastard if you did that
00:17:59:11 00:18:07:22 Hello, this is Navis of Andromeda Software Development on the microphone doing commentary for our demo called Iconoclast.
00:18:08:05 00:18:17:16 Iconoclast was written a long time ago, almost five years, back in summer 2005, for the Assembly demo competition.
00:18:17:23 00:18:21:23 Before I continue, let me give you quickly credits for this work
00:18:21:29 00:18:26:27 As usual for a long demo, it was a collaboration between all of us.
00:18:27:03 00:18:34:14 I did the code, Amusic and Leviathan wrote the music, and CH3 and Amoivikos did all the 3D and 2D art bits.
00:18:34:20 00:18:44:11 Iconoclast literally means somebody who breaks images, and is metaphorically used for breaking conventions.
00:18:44:20 00:18:55:09 What we wanted to signify here was that we would make a demo - and I got the title before making the demo, so the title was kind of a guide more like the other way around
00:18:55:15 00:19:00:20 So we would make a demo and try to break the dogma of demos.
00:19:00:26 00:19:11:12 By dogma we meant all the images and effects that you see, or at least you used to, up until the beginning of the decade, or the last decade, in most demos
00:19:11:18 00:19:22:14 This would include big shiny abstract objects, tons of particles, tunnels, and reference to old demos, especially some very popular ones like Second Reality.
00:19:22:21 00:19:30:06 So what we want to do is this - break, destroy all these objects, represent a new way of effects in the second part of the demo
00:19:30:12 00:19:34:23 Destruction of the objects in question is very easy to spot in the first couple of scenes
00:19:34:29 00:19:44:20 The first big object is shown as it would show in any other demo, with lots of volumetric effects, particles, fog, and space themes in the background.
00:19:44:26 00:19:49:12 It's presented as a living thing, kind of pulsating and breathing.
00:19:49:19 00:19:57:16 And then something unexpected happens, out of the holes comes some long tentacles that create the buzzing saws and cut the object into several pieces
00:19:57:23 00:20:04:29 The pieces seem to flash as if they're short circuited, and then fall in the muddy water.
00:20:05:05 00:20:10:27 On with the next scene, and what we tried to do here is the old tunnel and water effect.
00:20:11:03 00:20:15:12 The tunnel is now a beam of razor wires, again pointing to the theme of destruction
00:20:15:18 00:20:23:07 The moon is constructed and deconstructed, all this while everything is reflected and refracted.
00:20:23:14 00:20:30:24 A point I should make at this stage is that the music was written to reflect the visuals that change dramatically over the course of the demo.
00:20:31:01 00:20:40:16 This was very hard to do.  While it's easy to change the camera on the beat, it's much harder to arrange for new tunes and styles almost every 30 seconds.
00:20:40:23 00:20:49:05 We did it by writing the visuals and music all at the same time which took a lot of effort from the musicians Amusic and Leviathan.
00:20:49:11 00:20:58:06 I think they really put their hearts and soul into this, which is what they do with every ASD demo anyway since or before then.
00:20:58:13 00:21:04:13 And I don't get how they lost the trophy for best music award at following years' scene.org awards.
00:21:04:20 00:21:09:02 Still baffles me to this day and I had to say it
00:21:09:08 00:21:20:26 So, volumetric effects.  Volumetric lighting used to be, and I think still is, one of my favorite effects, first seen in early 90s demos and later on.
00:21:21:02 00:21:26:16 I remember watching Live Evil from Mandula and thinking how do they do that?
00:21:26:23 00:21:33:22 So light coming through thick fog creating god rays is a beautiful effect
00:21:33:28 00:21:41:17 The scene was quite hard to make and synchronize with the music, there are quite a few different effects working together on the visuals
00:21:41:23 00:21:53:04 Now you see a refraction effect working through mesh, remember that this was back in 2005, and all that stuff that look tired now were a novelty back then.
00:21:53:10 00:22:05:22 Consider also at this point, that the demo never gives the impression of such separation, even though in reality it's very segmented.
00:22:05:29 00:22:14:18 Timing the transitions as good as we could get them, all while doing the same thing with the audio, was probably the task that took longer than others.
00:22:14:24 00:22:25:10 It was very frustrating to work milliseconds of progression per day, and all that happening over the summertime when you'd rather do other things, like go on holidays
00:22:27:29 00:22:36:18 Here, as I've already said in the beginning, we have a sort of tribute to some oldschool legends.
00:22:36:24 00:22:43:28 If I can recognize and remember well we obviously have Second Reality by Future Crew
00:22:44:04 00:22:54:25 The fish is from Cyboman 2 by Complex and the bee earlier on from Stars: Wonders of the World by Nooon
00:22:55:02 00:22:58:27 All of these are very famous and respected demos
00:22:59:03 00:23:03:23 All this is for fun of course, nothing more, nothing less
00:23:03:30 00:23:10:23 I thought it was a good idea back then, but I'm not so keen right now, and that's because we all grew up a bit since 2005.
00:23:10:29 00:23:19:14 The part that is now playing is the part which was supposed to separate the two demos showing the transition from the old times to the modern.
00:23:19:21 00:23:27:04 I say before that, the concept just didn't work, and I realized it wasn't going to work quite early on
00:23:27:10 00:23:39:09 The second part of the demo, which is starting now, was planned to look a lot more like a gritty noisy demo, music also being quite avant-garde like the ones from Satori and mfx.
00:23:39:16 00:23:45:13 The kind of demo that has a lot of merit, but is only appreciated by the seasoned eye and ear.
00:23:45:19 00:23:51:10 And this was never going to work at Assembly... at least not in 2005.
00:23:51:16 00:23:58:21 So yeah, I chickened out in a way, maybe it was because I really wanted us to win this time, so I played it safe.
00:23:58:27 00:24:05:11 And if you wonder why we really wanted to win the compo so hard, well let's say it has been a childhood dream for all of us.
00:24:05:17 00:24:20:10 The last part is my favorite - showing probably what we could do in the future after we ironed out all the details and technical issues - and there are lots of them in this demo.
00:24:20:16 00:24:29:28 The part is a showcase of our efforts in equal measures - there is the beautiful music by Amusic and Leviathan
00:24:30:05 00:24:37:14 setting the beginning sorrowful mood with its descending chromatic scale, then a bit of jazz
00:24:37:21 00:24:45:04 Then there is the artwork from Amoivikos, all these blood splattered backgrounds and textures
00:24:45:10 00:24:51:27 Finally you have the 3D models from CH3, the sharks, the slaves and the animated face
00:24:52:03 00:24:56:18 and my code of course linking everything together
00:24:56:24 00:25:02:08 This part was written last, and I think it shows.
00:25:02:15 00:25:12:07 By that time, we gained a bit of confidence in technical skills, and the ability to tell which combination of music and effects made sense.
00:25:12:13 00:25:20:27 It flows better because we knew more about demo making than we did when this thing started, even though it was only two months before.
00:25:21:03 00:25:30:22 It's a very good finale for a demo, in the sense that all this progression in the beginning leads to a couple minutes of everything working like well-oiled clockwork mechanism
00:25:30:28 00:25:33:14 and ending with promise for more action in the future
00:25:33:21 00:25:43:03 I like other ASD demos more than Iconoclast but I will always remember this and Planet Risk for influencing me in many different ways.
00:25:49:12 00:25:52:01 Hello, I'm paniq from farbrausch
00:25:52:07 00:26:04:02 I did this demo for Nvidia who approached us at farbrausch and asked us if we could do an invitation for their NVScene demo party
00:26:04:08 00:26:08:25 something which they organized in an outer frame of the exhibition
00:26:09:02 00:26:14:17 and the flute you were just hearing is from Faith - hello
00:26:14:23 00:26:20:01 Actually all the real instruments in this demo have been played by actual musicians
00:26:20:07 00:26:26:22 There is a guitar later on that was played by Peter, actually a fan of mine who approached me.
00:26:26:28 00:26:33:06 I got to know him a few months before I made this demo, and he was a big fan, and he said he wanted to do something with me
00:26:33:12 00:26:40:16 and we never worked something out until this moment when I figured we need a guitar, but I'll get to that later
00:26:40:22 00:26:52:24 All the shapes in the demo were done with Inkscape, it's a free open source vector graphics program.
00:26:53:00 00:26:59:08 and imported through a script language and connected to each other
00:26:59:15 00:27:06:18 and the camera was told how to blend between the shapes, and that's basically the whole effect.
00:27:06:25 00:27:20:09 There's some very simple ASL calculations to do all the hue blending.. what else
00:27:20:15 00:27:25:22 The music soundtrack was done first so I could figure out how to do this thing, actually
00:27:25:28 00:27:30:27 and we tried several things, nothing really worked until I had the soundtrack done in one weekend
00:27:31:03 00:27:45:16 and then I wrote a short script describing each one of the scenes, what I felt would work for that, and I wanted to underline the emotion of the music
00:27:45:23 00:28:02:12 This was a scene that actually did not work out so well.  It has a good joke in the middle.  It was an instant crowd pleaser.  It was designed to be that way.
00:28:02:18 00:28:14:25 The original idea was to do a timeline museum of old computers, but it didn't really work out and looked like it was lecturing the audience, and I didn't like it.
00:28:15:01 00:28:21:12 And there you have the knobs which go to 11, that's one more than 10.
00:28:21:19 00:28:29:20 And we wrote on the knobs all kinds of things which you would aspire to and which you wanted to have.
00:28:29:27 00:28:39:03 except for the last one which was an in-joke by Tournesol, who also did a few of the shapes
00:28:39:09 00:28:46:07 cp also aided me with doing the shapes, actually if they weren't at the party place, I don't know if we would ever have finished it for Breakpoint.
00:28:46:13 00:28:57:21 I wouldn't have really thought that we would finish first at the competition, but actually this year they had a lot of demos
00:28:57:27 00:29:04:00 and all the demos we watched, the numbers went up and up, one demo was shown after another
00:29:04:06 00:29:10:14 and after 20 demos I got the great idea that we might have done something special
00:29:10:21 00:29:20:19 because I got quite bored with all the stuff we were seeing, it was all 3D flybys, and what we had done was kind of simple but outstanding.
00:29:20:25 00:29:30:16 This is another greetings part, I think we have about three greetings parts in the demo.
00:29:30:23 00:29:35:23 Which one was the third? Somebody told me we have three - the final one.
00:29:35:30 00:29:45:18 The middle one is a stock ticker one and the third is the actual greetings part in the end.
00:29:47:28 00:29:57:30 The last demo I did was Die Ewigkeit Schmerzt which you possibly remember was pretty dark, and I wanted to make up for that.
00:29:58:06 00:30:08:16 Somebody said, the first time I was doing something commercial, it would be happy, and that's actually not true, I wanted to make something beautiful.
00:30:08:22 00:30:12:18 And this was something I enjoy very much
00:30:12:25 00:30:25:06 This is very strong contrast, it was done at the partyplace to have some very strong synching to the music, making everything go weird before the next part starts.
00:30:25:12 00:30:36:29 This is a very simple effect, it's actually a red, green, and blue lines, blended additively on each other, and producing this moire effect.
00:30:37:05 00:30:44:13 In full HD on a big screen, it comes across pretty intoxicating
00:30:44:19 00:30:48:03 I wasn't expecting it to be that big of a shock
00:30:48:09 00:31:00:19 Here you have only three symbols, actually, but I'm shifting the colors, and so you get the impression that it's much more than just three.
00:31:00:26 00:31:10:19 For a while I loved doing these patterns, and I also mixed in a logo from one of my albums here, and there it goes.
00:31:10:26 00:31:18:09 And it was very fun to do these.. and there you have some kind of elaborate, clean swipe
00:31:18:15 00:31:22:12 ..with the guitar starting, I love this part of the music
00:31:22:18 00:31:36:18 You had a towel in that kind of shape.  Sir Garbagetruck started wearing a towel in parties, and I also brought my towel
00:31:36:24 00:31:43:27 and this was actually a towel I stole from my mom, and I love it very much and use it very often and I would bring it to the next party as well.
00:31:44:04 00:31:55:04 This is the stock ticker greetings part.  Actually, at that point nobody knew something about the stock crashes that would follow in the months after.
00:31:55:10 00:32:04:04 Actually, if you look at the stock ticker, it appears to go up but the camera turns, so it goes down.
00:32:04:11 00:32:12:11 I see farbrausch is losing, and what?  Tournesol made up the numbers.
00:32:12:17 00:32:20:04 And this was like the crazy horror zoomer, science fiction - this one's great
00:32:20:10 00:32:30:15 We have a little bit of DNA and here exoticorn did a very nice halftone pattern to get Bob into this demo
00:32:30:21 00:32:39:18 and of course the all seeing eye - that thing is the original from the dollar, and I don't know what this is, and the next one..
00:32:39:24 00:32:47:28 More greetings.  I have to say, all the parts are connected.  I think that's very important.  I think the first group that did this was ASD.
00:32:48:04 00:32:53:00 And they impressed me so much with it, I wanted to do something as well, it was just blending.
00:32:53:07 00:32:59:24 There were no rough cuts, and everything had a connection, because it was so much different stuff
00:33:00:01 00:33:06:30 If you had actually cut up everything, you wouldn't feel like the things had a connection to each other
00:33:07:06 00:33:12:11 But sometimes you just need a rush of color and emotion and that's what I wanted to give..
00:33:12:17 00:33:19:19 ... and that's it.  Thanks for watching!
00:33:19:25 00:33:28:03 This one's kind of obsolete by now.  Don't go there!  There's nothing going on in San Jose.
00:33:28:09 00:33:33:06 A lot of people attended it and there were some very good productions.
00:37:59:28 00:38:09:02 The demo starts with an updated version of the classic Angeldawn Fairlight logo done by Destop which migrates into this 3D version.
00:38:09:08 00:38:21:27 Then this video is some classic internet meme, some Youtube thing.  The demo starts with this very long zooming out part, like a continuous zoom
00:38:22:03 00:38:30:18 from the logo through these trees, which were all done with a lot of 2D images
00:38:30:24 00:38:34:29 with plants popping up and curls and other shapes
00:38:35:05 00:38:43:19 going through the mouth of this guy, and through this crowd scene, with a lot of little details, like the FLT on the microphone
00:38:43:25 00:38:48:13 going out through all the faces, the hand drawn sketch scanned in faces
00:38:48:20 00:38:57:24 then going through the nose of this image and then going out onto the TV screen
00:38:58:01 00:39:07:21 This demo was made largely over about 3 days in Destop's apartment in Helsinki over Assembly 2006
00:39:07:28 00:39:12:08 so it's like this intense creative experience
00:39:12:14 00:39:18:21 There's also a lot of bugs in it like for example these butterflies that are flying sideways
00:39:18:28 00:39:29:14 So what happened was, basically we didn't plan anything, we just got all the material we had, like this curls effect that I made before the party
00:39:29:20 00:39:37:26 we decided let's just use it, let's get it in, so a lot of material in this demo wasn't planned, it was just like, we'll put it together, we'll make it fit together
00:39:38:02 00:39:49:14 This house was something Destop modeled on his hard disk, and late at night, we called up Kustaa and said could you please fix the lightmap for us in Maya
00:39:49:20 00:39:55:09 so he ran off and baked a lightmap, and then we put this growing effect with it
00:39:55:15 00:40:00:10 The house had been specially modeled to make it all one continuous piece
00:40:00:16 00:40:07:15 so all we had to do was set the seed vertex and the growing effect which just spawned out from there
00:40:07:21 00:40:14:23 so it was all a mixture of code and art, with this fractal effect that Pantaloon had coded growing inside it as well in black
00:40:14:29 00:40:28:26 A lot of pieces, this is another piece, the AT-AT model was something Der Piipo made and animated before the party, had it already ready, just lying around on his hard disk.
00:40:29:03 00:40:37:26 And Destop mocked up this floor bridge thing to go along with it, and then we got it in.
00:40:38:03 00:40:50:29 It's quite an interesting experience, because everyone sat in this flat, just banging out code and graphics, and trying to make it all work.
00:40:51:05 00:41:01:07 And somehow, it all went together.  We were lucky we got this soundtrack from Northbound Orchestra, who's like a friend of someone in the group.
00:41:01:14 00:41:07:08 So we were quite blessed with that.  This is a reuse of the fractal effect from the growing house scene.
00:41:07:15 00:41:13:17 very big growing DLA fractal effect that Pantaloon had made, it works quite nicely in this scene
00:41:13:24 00:41:20:09 We were all quite drunk by the end as well when we were making it
00:41:20:15 00:41:29:19 For example, this scene, something went wrong there, one night, someone moved all the timeline bars around, and we never found out who it was
00:41:29:26 00:41:34:27 and that scene was cut off and this scene was much longer played than it should've been
00:41:35:03 00:41:39:16 but we were just far too tired, and we just didn't get around to fixing it
00:41:39:23 00:41:48:04 These butterflies are flocking in this kind of random pattern and we just filled it with numbers till we got one that looked allright
00:41:48:10 00:41:59:01 By now the deadline had passed probably by a good 6, 12 hours already, and we were pushing just to get anything done
00:41:59:08 00:42:06:16 They record the demos at Assembly to video, and they record them at 6:00, and then the demo compo is at like 10:00 at night
00:42:06:22 00:42:14:08 and it was about 6:00 when we were finishing this off, and we had to rush over to the party in a taxi just to hand it in
00:42:14:14 00:42:19:22 so these last scene there, it's just some photo model stuff with a few particles on top there
00:42:19:28 00:42:25:30 it really was at this point, getting to be just jam anything in there that we possibly had
00:42:26:06 00:42:39:08 somehow I kind of like it actually, I like the graphical style of it, but it's quite clear at this point that there are some unfinished elements to the demo.
00:42:41:20 00:42:49:22 The credits were also made very late, it's using the growing effect again and just sketching the meshes in Lightwave directly
00:42:49:28 00:43:07:24 It was quite a lot of people involved in the demo, actually.  Imagine these 6 or 7 people holed up in this apartment for three days, drinking beer and eating pizza and making demos
00:43:08:01 00:43:13:13 It was a unique experience, one we did actually repeat the next year when we were doing Media Error
00:43:13:20 00:43:21:16 but a great experience, and it was a lot of fun, and we actually managed to get something finished
00:43:21:22 00:43:27:17 which is even more amazing when you see the state of some of the people by the end.  And that's the demo.
00:43:30:00 00:43:33:07 Hello everybody, this is Navis of Andromeda Software Development.
00:43:33:13 00:43:42:22 I'm the programmer of the group, and together with Amusic and Leviathan, group musicians, Amoivikos, CH3 and IM, group artists
00:43:42:28 00:43:48:03 we worked together in 2007 to produce the demo you are watching at the moment called Lifeforce.
00:43:48:09 00:43:59:11 Work of Lifeforce started in January 2007, planned as a demo to take to Assembly demo competition in August, giving us plenty of time to work on the details.
00:43:59:17 00:44:06:03 Eight months are more than enough, I thought.  In reality, we just about managed to make it, working overtime over the summer.
00:44:06:09 00:44:13:28 It's easy to see why, as Lifeforce is over eight minutes long.  Music and visuals are constantly changing style and mood.
00:44:14:04 00:44:23:07 Lifeforce starts where our previous Assembly demo, called Iconoclast, ends, with a head-god being dragged by slaves.
00:44:23:13 00:44:30:05 No slaves this time though, their movement was too crude and slow.  I wanted the camera to move fast
00:44:30:11 00:44:36:06 and put that scene behind without wasting too much time on showing off effects or 3D models.
00:44:37:07 00:44:44:05 In a way Iconoclast was the world of the past, and Lifeforce was with its new effects welcomed in the world of new.
00:44:44:12 00:44:52:28 This time around I wanted to develop further the concept of ever-changing world, and I had some new toys to play with.
00:44:53:05 00:45:01:02 First one was ambient occlusion, which emulates the darkening in cracks in 3D models
00:45:01:08 00:45:10:00 The head-god model had the ambient occlusion, it looked more realistic than the equivalent in Iconoclast.
00:45:10:07 00:45:25:15 The other was video vectorizer, where a video of me or somebody else would be rendered as vector rather than bitmap to improve detail and definition
00:45:25:22 00:45:30:13 and the effect we are currently watching, which is the Chinese shadows.
00:45:30:19 00:45:39:21 Further to that, I also developed the concept of physical modeling of liquids in an effect you are going to see quite soon.
00:45:39:27 00:45:51:07 This part is called Rainbow Chase, and at this point, that was in April, two events happened in my life.
00:45:51:13 00:45:58:28 The first one was the birth of my daughter, which meant that I was going to have less and less time working on demos from that point on.
00:45:59:04 00:46:10:20 And the other was Debris, a famous demo by farbrausch, that was shown at Breakpoint 2007, and it was a paradigm shift.
00:46:10:27 00:46:22:12 I remember emailing everybody in ASD and saying, look guys, we really have to try hard this time to make a demo that stands next to Debris
00:46:22:18 00:46:32:02 and decided to enroll Archmage of the famous Amiga group Andromeda to help us a bit with textures
00:46:32:08 00:46:36:08 You're going to see some of Archmage's work later on.
00:46:36:14 00:46:47:19 This part just finishing was using the physical modeling of liquids I was talking about and the Chinese shadow.
00:46:47:25 00:47:01:19 I liked that there is one part that is followed by one part that uses two dimensional textures and very easy visuals is followed by another with a lot more content.
00:47:01:25 00:47:12:19 This one for example, following the part with the tree, has a lot more 3D model work by CH3.
00:47:12:25 00:47:26:08 The beating heart is actually a real anatomically correct MRI scanned heart which I got permission to use from a hospital.
00:47:26:14 00:47:31:24 All the credits are there, the hellos to our fellow groups.
00:47:32:00 00:47:37:19 Now this statue has an interesting story.  It's rendered with parallax by mapping.
00:47:37:26 00:47:49:00 A local company was developing hardware technology used in capturing depth maps on surfaces, to be used in games.
00:47:49:06 00:47:58:07 When I met them by accident, I thought it would be a great idea to work with them to capture and render a real life statue that exists in one of the colleges in Oxford, the place where I live.
00:47:58:16 00:48:05:24 And so we did, more for the what-if than let's-try-it factor, and I think it worked really well.
00:48:06:00 00:48:19:26 It's almost halfway through the demo, and it's a very memorable scene, together with this cut scene to the next scene, which again plays with the Chinese shadow.
00:48:20:03 00:48:31:02 This was a very easy part, and I remember making it in one day, and I was inspired by the mosque that exists that I can see outside my back window here in Oxford.
00:48:31:08 00:48:35:27 It was very a nice scene, very easy to make, and very memorable.
00:48:36:03 00:48:47:06 The final parts where the music is building and building to a crescendo has this CH3 model, again with ambient occlusion to make it look much better than
00:48:47:12 00:48:53:03 previous models I was using, and the bath that I modeled myself in Wings3D.
00:48:53:10 00:49:05:04 That didn't take that much time to build, what took a lot of time was finding the right texture and the right balance of contrast and texture
00:49:05:10 00:49:14:06 the bath model used to have a shiny floor with reflections, but I decided to go for a more gritty, more diffused look.
00:49:14:12 00:49:25:29 Then, it's me again.. that took a long time to record because I was on my own trying to record myself
00:49:26:05 00:49:43:03 and I had to use my baby's push chair as a dolly, I put the camera on top, or I had to record myself and my hands doing all these weird movements time and time again
00:49:43:09 00:49:54:20 It was very very hard working with this, and you do realize that all these camera movements are also entered by hand in code
00:49:54:26 00:49:59:28 So, putting everything together, one after the other, was a major task.
00:50:00:05 00:50:12:11 This part, with the elephants, and the fish, and nice vectorized graphics was designed by IM, it was the first time he was working with ASD.
00:50:12:17 00:50:23:23 And what followed was the amazing drawings by Archmage.  The whole thing takes 20, maybe 30 seconds to finish that sequence.
00:50:23:30 00:50:34:12 But it took me maybe two, three weeks just trying different things and making sure the textures fit one over the other perfectly.
00:50:34:18 00:50:44:20 Again we go back to water, a recurring theme, and the polaroids from the beginning of the demo and Iconoclast
00:50:44:26 00:50:54:16 and my hands, which I had to record again and again, because my vectorizing engine
00:50:54:22 00:50:59:28 couldn't work with holes between my fingers, so I had to do it again and again.
00:51:00:05 00:51:05:12 and the explosion, which was the very first effect I did for this demo
00:51:05:18 00:51:11:11 probably a year before I even started, it was for a completely different demo.
00:51:11:17 00:51:19:24 And that's more or less the end, those with a sharp eye will see there is the farbrausch shopping trolley
00:51:19:30 00:51:31:01 saying in a way hello to our friends in farbrausch, all the fish moving, again with the physical model
00:51:31:07 00:51:40:18 all the credits, lots of people worked on this demo, and we were very happy with the end result.
00:55:43:06 00:55:50:21 Hello, this is Navis of Andromeda Software Development doing commentary on the demo called Size Antimatters.
00:55:51:12 00:56:01:13 Work on Size Antimatters started around May 2008, as the demo was planned to be presented at Euskal 2008 demo competition.
00:56:01:19 00:56:06:09 The demo was slotted in between Metamorphosis and Midnight Run
00:56:06:15 00:56:11:17 both of which are two dimensional so we thought it had to be something in proper 3D
00:56:11:24 00:56:18:02 Before starting work on Size Antimatters we thought we'd have it easy
00:56:18:08 00:56:22:16 after all we only needed to make another decent demo with some token effects
00:56:22:22 00:56:28:07 in order to visit and compete at Euskal which is not a very competitive place these days anyway.
00:56:28:13 00:56:34:22 I was also burned out a bit from trying rather hard on the other two demos
00:56:34:28 00:56:41:05 so I thought now it's a good opportunity to see if a couple good ideas would work without trying all that hard.
00:56:41:11 00:56:49:02 But before talking about all this, let me talk about the story, as quite surprisingly there is one
00:56:49:08 00:56:56:13 The demo starts in a lab, with an electron microscope that's turned on
00:56:56:20 00:56:59:11 and so a journey on a microscopic level starts.
00:56:59:17 00:57:06:07 The flea at the beginning is dead or dying
00:57:06:13 00:57:14:03 and then we follow a mechanism that passes a beam of particles from one level of scale to another
00:57:14:09 00:57:21:22 there are some robots involved in the process, and we see the creation of a mechanical spider
00:57:21:28 00:57:28:10 a laser cannon, and other things that we considered quite cool when we were 12.
00:57:28:16 00:57:37:03 Last beam releases swarm of microbolts that heal the flea
00:57:37:09 00:57:42:23 which then wakes up and is now happy to annoy your pet dog, and that's the end.
00:57:42:30 00:57:51:03 Sounds a bit too cheesy, and it is on purpose, I thought we couldn't really get away with a story like that if we were trying to be too serious.
00:57:51:10 00:58:02:04 Also the music wants to sound like that in parts, so it sounds a bit like a 50s B film.
00:58:02:10 00:58:07:00 The story doesn't matter too much I guess in this demo, my point was to demonstrate some effect.
00:58:07:07 00:58:15:28 I confess I was brought up watching demos in the 90s, and the effect that always mesmerized me was the environmental mapping
00:58:16:04 00:58:29:17 especially the good ones, like the ones you get at Stars: Wonders of the World by Nooon, Inside by CNCD, then Nonstop Ibiza Experience and later on The Popular Demo by farbrausch.
00:58:29:23 00:58:33:24 especially combined with good excessive glow and sparkly effects
00:58:33:30 00:58:43:02 So far none of the ASD demos have had a mesh with any reflective surfaces, just diffuse
00:58:43:08 00:58:47:25 so I thought that's a good opportunity to work on one.
00:58:48:01 00:58:53:16 Technically I wanted to do something more than just this environmental mapper
00:58:53:23 00:59:00:19 It may have sounded cool in the 90s to do so but times have changed a lot and this doesn't cut it anymore.
00:59:00:25 00:59:04:26 So the rendering consists of a few layers as following
00:59:05:02 00:59:13:22 First there's a pass to find all edges of objects using the local normal differences
00:59:13:29 00:59:20:16 Then there is an ambient occlusion texture pass which is pre-baked on the texture
00:59:20:22 00:59:32:17 bump map with a perlin noise texture, and a very fake raycast in deferred shading to the whole thing look like a mirror, that's reflective part
00:59:32:24 00:59:40:25 Finally, there is a hypnoglow pass added at the end.
00:59:41:01 00:59:43:24 Additional effects were added as needed, for example,
00:59:44:00 00:59:49:20 that laser projection was a pixel shader effect, and so are some other particles and fog
00:59:49:26 00:59:55:28 Technically the demo was easy, too easy perhaps I thought, effects are straightforward
00:59:56:04 01:00:00:21 camera cuts and camera paths are very unassuming
01:00:00:27 01:00:05:08 I've been doing things like that for many years, so what could go wrong?
01:00:05:14 01:00:11:17 I can tell you what went wrong, big time: It was the modeling, or rather how long it took me to finish it.
01:00:11:23 01:00:20:15 I did most of the modeling myself with CH3, if I remember well, having lots of reference from online models and pictures.
01:00:20:21 01:00:25:08 All that was done in Wings3D and Blender.
01:00:25:15 01:00:31:05 These models have quite a few polygons, actually the flea and the
01:00:31:11 01:00:36:24 ant head have around 80,000, but I tried to do UV mapping and light baking on that.
01:00:37:00 01:00:43:24 It just takes forever, and then you get the wrong balance and contrast so you start again and again and so on.
01:00:44:00 01:00:49:19 I'm no 3D artist, and most of the time I have no idea how to do a proper 3D model
01:00:49:26 01:00:55:21 I'm sure there are better ways to do... textures using something else other than Wings and Blender
01:00:55:27 01:00:59:30 but there was no time to try something else.
01:01:00:23 01:01:05:04 So, I had to stick with that.  Anyway, all that time spent waiting for Blender
01:01:05:10 01:01:10:26 is now past, and the demo altogether was not one of my favorite ones, but it got finished
01:01:11:03 01:01:12:30 and we got first place at the compo
01:01:13:06 01:01:22:02 Maybe we need to do another reflective 3D big demo, this time without any pre-baked textures.
01:01:35:17 01:01:38:17 Long before any knowledge of electricity existed
01:01:38:24 01:01:41:14 people were aware of shocks from electric fish.
01:01:41:21 01:01:46:26 Ancient egyptian texts dating from 2750 BC
01:01:47:02 01:01:52:24 referred to these fish as the "Thunderer of the Nile", and described them as the "protectors" of all other fish.
01:01:53:01 01:01:59:17 They were again reported millennia later by ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic naturalists and physicians.
01:01:59:23 01:02:04:19 Several ancient writers, such as Pliny the Elder and Scribonius Largus,
01:02:04:26 01:02:10:09 attested to the numbing effect of electric shocks delivered by catfish and torpedo rays
01:02:10:15 01:02:13:21 and knew that such shocks could travel along conducting objects.
01:02:13:27 01:02:20:16 Patients suffering from ailments such as gout or headache would elect to touch electric fish in the hope
01:02:20:22 01:02:22:24 that the powerful jolt might cure them.
01:02:23:00 01:02:28:25 Possibly the earliest and nearest approach to the discovery of the identity of lightning
01:02:29:01 01:02:33:09 and electricity from any other source is to be attributed to the Arabs
01:02:33:15 01:02:39:12 who, before the 15th century, had the arabic word for lightening applied to the electric ray.
01:02:40:05 01:02:44:05 That certain objects such as rods of amber could be rubbed with cat's fur
01:02:44:11 01:02:49:14 and attract light objects like feathers was known to ancient cultures around the Mediterranean.
01:02:49:20 01:02:56:08 Thales of Miletos made a series of observations on static electricity around 600 BC
01:02:56:14 01:03:02:19 from which he believed that friction rendered amber magnetic, in contrast to minerals such as magnetite
01:03:02:26 01:03:04:23 which needed no rubbing.
01:03:05:12 01:03:09:26 Thales was incorrect in believing the attraction was due to a magnetic effect
01:03:10:03 01:03:14:26 but later, science would prove a link between magnetism and electricity.
01:03:15:02 01:03:20:24 According to a controversial theory, the Parthians may have had knowledge of electroplating,
01:03:20:30 01:03:26:19 based on 1936 discovery of the Baghdad Battery, which resembles a galvanic cell
01:03:26:25 01:03:30:16 though it was uncertain if the artifact was electrical in nature.
01:03:30:23 01:03:36:27 Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for millenia until 1600,
01:03:37:03 01:03:41:25 when the English physician William Gilbert made a careful study of electricity
01:03:42:01 01:03:46:10 and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity
01:03:46:16 01:03:48:10 produced by rubbing amber.
01:03:48:16 01:03:55:05 He coined the New Latin word electricus to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed.
01:03:55:12 01:04:01:01 This association gave rise to the english words "electric" and "electricity"
01:04:01:08 01:04:08:15 which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646.
01:04:08:25 01:04:16:10 Further work was conducted by Otto von Guericke, Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray and C. F. du Fay.
01:04:16:17 01:04:23:16 In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin conducted extensive research in electricity
01:04:23:22 01:04:26:04 selling his posessions to fund his work.
01:04:26:10 01:04:34:19 In June 1752 he is reputed to have attached a metal key to the bottom of a dampened kite string and flown the kite
01:04:34:26 01:04:41:01 in a storm-threatened sky.  A succession of sparks jumping from the key to the back of the hand
01:04:41:07 01:04:44:08 showed that lightning was indeed electrical in nature.
01:04:44:14 01:04:54:01 Through such people as Thomas Edison, Ottó Bláthy, Sir Charles Parsons, George Westinghouse, Alexander Graham Bell and Lord Kelvin,
01:04:54:07 01:05:00:29 electricity was turned from a scientific curiosity into an essential tool for modern life,
01:05:01:05 01:05:05:10 become a driving force for the second industrial revolution.
01:05:08:08 01:05:10:15 Hello, I'm paniq from farbrausch
01:05:10:22 01:05:12:04 I'm ryg of farbrausch,
01:05:12:10 01:05:14:02 and I'm chaos of farbrausch.
01:05:14:08 01:05:19:16 This was, like, my first demo.  I directed it, but
01:05:19:22 01:05:21:22 actually wrote none of the code
01:05:21:29 01:05:29:14 it uses werkkzeug which we had just used for kkreiger, and this was the first demo made with werkkzeug 3.
01:05:29:20 01:05:33:22 A bunch of rough patches we had to go through;
01:05:33:28 01:05:37:12 but it did have a functioning shadow system from the game
01:05:37:18 01:05:39:19 which you see being shown off here
01:05:39:26 01:05:44:08 The first couple of scenes that are kind-of setting the scene a bit
01:05:44:14 01:05:48:24 the second part, this is just kind-of the outskirts of this world
01:05:48:30 01:05:55:15 the scene was actually inspired by a Goa party I had been to in the summer
01:05:55:21 01:05:59:23 And they actually had a stage that was built like this with these huge speaker towers
01:05:59:29 01:06:02:16 and I wanted to do something like that in a demo.
01:06:02:22 01:06:06:26 Some of the scenes, like this one, I think this one's really excellent,
01:06:07:02 01:06:16:09 was done by cp who helped me do a lot of the scenes so we could actually fill more in two minutes of the visuals.
01:06:16:16 01:06:22:17 That was actually an experiment with black and white shapes, very simple primitives,
01:06:22:23 01:06:28:26 like... see what we can get out of these very simple combinations
01:06:29:24 01:06:33:03 This is the start of the second part of the demo
01:06:33:09 01:06:37:03 where it's all continuously moving towards the center
01:06:37:10 01:06:45:02 We are always following this red line, so if anyone is telling you this demo has no red line, they're obviously lying.
01:06:45:21 01:06:52:08 This inside I actually had planned for -- whoops, there goes the paniq logo
01:06:52:14 01:06:59:12 I planned actually to fill the skies with all kinds of highways, and this kind of stuff,
01:07:00:30 01:07:08:17 I decided it was so far away it would all just be gray, this is all still inside of the huge sphere
01:07:09:28 01:07:14:10 And we... take a hard turn to the right... into the infinite cube world!
01:07:14:16 01:07:17:25 which was one of the effects done specifically for this demo
01:07:19:11 01:07:25:10 Doesn't look like much, but I spent a lot of time hand-tweaking this to make sure it turned out.
01:07:25:17 01:07:29:18 The next scene is running backwards, and they meet again,
01:07:29:24 01:07:35:18 and the scene runs forwards... I used one of the effects I saw in The Popular Demo here,
01:07:35:25 01:07:40:23 which is blinking windows... a variant on the same trick
01:07:42:01 01:07:47:08 So you can see this demo's really... kind of continuous motion through the scenes
01:07:47:14 01:07:52:13 without any real breaks; it was, I think, the first demo of ours that really
01:07:52:19 01:07:57:20 did that consistently through a number of scenes, and it worked out quite well.
01:08:02:06 01:08:06:17 This demo with a very monotonous pounding... techno-ish soundtrack
01:08:09:06 01:08:12:24 but all the events are synchronized and it all works quite well
01:08:12:30 01:08:14:24 and it's all about the motion.
01:08:15:00 01:08:19:02 This infinite pathway here was actually a bit of a problem for me
01:08:19:08 01:08:22:16 When we arrived at the party, this was where we were on the demo,
01:08:22:23 01:08:33:14 and I got to the scene with the giant scorpion only after being in this story hole thinking about what to do next
01:08:33:21 01:08:36:25 and here it is, a big partying scorpion.
01:08:37:02 01:08:43:07 Which was actually tricky to work with, because, as an actor, it was rubbish. (laughs)
01:08:43:14 01:08:49:10 Because this was from the game, and kept missing his marks, because he wouldn't just teleport from one position to the other
01:08:49:16 01:08:56:28 ...rearrange some time so he would slowly walk through the whole scene, working ages to get the timing down here
01:08:57:04 01:09:01:26 because we always had to work for the robot to reach his destination and turn the right way
01:09:02:02 01:09:08:02 to synchronize it, so it was hours to get this part down, and we really had other stuff to do, but yeah.
01:09:08:08 01:09:09:25 In the end it was worth the time.
01:09:10:02 01:09:17:23 You couldn't repeat this scene, it would play only once in the right way and you had to reset the whole (thing)
01:09:17:29 01:09:22:08 and it's hard to see it again this way.  It worked very fine.
01:09:22:14 01:09:25:01 In the end, yeah.
01:09:31:17 01:09:38:18 Hello, it's mfx here again, with me uncle-x, 216, pommak, and synteesi
01:09:38:25 01:09:44:13 Yes, I made some of the graphics on this one, especially all those... god things.
01:09:48:25 01:09:55:09 I just thought of this demo, our biggest inspiration for this, I think at least for me
01:09:55:15 01:10:01:17 and pommok was a painting at a bar in Helsinki called "Underbar"
01:10:01:24 01:10:07:18 which unfortunately doesn't exist any more, but if you ever went to that place
01:10:07:25 01:10:10:23 you'll know which painting we're talking about.
01:10:11:20 01:10:18:15 We got the idea in that bar at least a few times before we started to make this demo
01:10:26:05 01:10:31:03 that was a really fun thing that we managed to do
01:10:31:09 01:10:37:07 all this psychedelic world
01:10:37:25 01:10:43:06 Other people involved in this demo who couldn't join us today are
01:10:44:08 01:10:51:13 Visualice from farbraucsh, who did most of the 2D graphics plus the 3D models
01:10:51:19 01:11:00:24 and Droid who did the rest of the 3D models, scoopr who did a little bit of 3D as well,
01:11:01:01 01:11:05:21 heat did some programming on the harder effects in the demo
01:11:05:27 01:11:13:11 and of course the guys who made the soundtrack, Irschtas and 1in10.
01:11:15:03 01:11:20:03 Irschtas being a Finnish psychedelic trance producer, and a DJ.
01:11:21:14 01:11:27:16 Droid also did some programming like, including this particle mesh generator
01:11:28:14 01:11:35:24 used here, and also the one growing prettily in the end
01:11:36:01 01:11:45:07 Some of you may spot these three creatures, or whatever they are; I like to call them the actual deities
01:11:47:04 01:11:56:10 and they're very much inspired by this old 80's japanese cartoon which went with the name Macross
01:11:56:17 01:12:03:02 and Robotech and whatnot, and those were almost directly taken from there
01:12:03:08 01:12:17:28 This tone here was one of our first shader experiments, and it's too bad you can't see from this demo
01:12:18:04 01:12:25:04 but the texture in this tunnel is actually like, really really sharp; it's almost impossible to spot
01:12:25:10 01:12:30:05 any texels even if you were to go a millimeter close to it.
01:12:33:16 01:12:40:26 This particular scene took ages because we don't use any sync tools or anything
01:12:41:02 01:12:49:15 Everything was programmed in by hand, and let me tell you it wasn't fun.
01:12:56:06 01:13:01:27 This was actually one of the first effect ideas we got for the demo
01:13:02:04 01:13:10:08 this thing climbing up the wall, it's actually doing it in some pretty accurate physical way,
01:13:10:14 01:13:15:13 but it was actually one of the last effects that we got into the demo
01:13:15:19 01:13:24:26 I think we got it working on the last day, some hours before the democompo was
01:13:25:02 01:13:28:15 This effect was refined quite a lot in the final version.
01:13:29:03 01:13:34:06 like um... it's more "finalized" in the final version? (laugh)
01:13:35:11 01:13:42:17 The biggest headaches that the demo caused us was this particular effect, the glowing tree thing,
01:13:42:24 01:13:54:07 which was coded by Droid, and it contained a nasty, hard-to-spot bug that made sure the demo crashed completely randomly on random computers.
01:13:54:13 01:13:59:22 It caused us some stress, like a few hours before the deadline
01:13:59:28 01:14:04:16 even like half an hour before the demo compo when we were still trying to find the bug
01:14:04:22 01:14:10:19 And this effect here uses 216's particle shadowing algorithm
01:14:10:25 01:14:19:03 made completely by particles, and shadowing algorithm is something that I can't comment on, but
01:14:19:09 01:14:21:27 maybe 216 has some ideas how it's done? (laughs)
01:14:26:01 01:14:31:26 Check every combination of particles and... something
01:14:32:03 01:14:38:06 or maybe... sorry it wasn't that complicated after all.
01:14:38:15 01:14:40:13 (laughs)
01:14:50:16 01:14:56:18 Hi, this is Pixtur, and I'm trying to add an audio commentary to my favorite production so far: Passing.
01:14:57:12 01:15:03:00 So we open with credits, Still-05
01:15:03:07 01:15:08:07 five productions to go until we become grown up and do something serious with our life
01:15:10:22 01:15:16:01 And the title, of a small party reminder version at the bottom... the typography was done by nero who
01:15:16:07 01:15:21:10 refused to be credited for this, while(?) although he did a decent job of typography ... like usually
01:15:21:16 01:15:28:12 So we start with a tunnel scene, basically introducing the concept of the demo
01:15:28:19 01:15:35:10 A little bit like... Star Guitar by Michel Gondry, repeating scenes over and over again
01:15:35:16 01:15:38:25 and really subtly (?) being synced to the music
01:15:39:01 01:15:43:12 What we've got here is basically one scene being repeated
01:15:43:18 01:15:47:21 and twisted, and the camera staying at the same position all the time
01:15:47:27 01:15:55:06 just looking around, and the scene's being pushed along by the camera.
01:15:55:13 01:16:01:06 So it's actually not a camera moving, but a scene moving
01:16:01:13 01:16:10:12 Somewhat this get to this really weird look; basically the streets start warping
01:16:10:19 01:16:12:14 and not really looking real.
01:16:13:15 01:16:23:25 And so, it was a little bit like, having this "passed out", almost "falling asleep" feeling when you drive
01:16:24:16 01:16:36:04 like you're in a car, you look out of the window, things pass on by and they try to... sync to music in the radio, something like this.
01:16:42:13 01:16:46:19 Wow, we have some serious twisting going here, this is the central part
01:16:50:12 01:16:54:14 this is basically the moment when I said okay, I need to do a demo for this music
01:16:54:20 01:16:59:29 for the soundtrack of mad, excellent abstract track
01:17:00:20 01:17:08:03 Actually this was, when I came up with the whole idea for this music, like having some kind of ? being trapped inside some memory
01:17:08:09 01:17:15:22 Is it a dream?  Always competing, maybe like an accident or something
01:17:18:06 01:17:25:15 Now we've got some serious twisting going on, and street turning into some kind of labyrinth
01:17:26:10 01:17:37:17 Maybe a little bit like Lost Highway turning into... something else weird, things going on in your head.
01:17:42:24 01:17:46:12 Maybe a little bit, of course, inspired by "Debris"
01:17:46:18 01:17:52:22 Now we've got a little scene, actually, it's supposed to be some kind of DNA structure
01:17:52:28 01:18:00:26 like double-helix, like on the street, on each side, but it's not that obvious
01:18:02:30 01:18:07:13 Actually, I love this scene, most people hate it but I like it a lot
01:18:08:11 01:18:13:10 because it perfectly fits my impression.
01:18:16:05 01:18:22:28 Greetings part, nobody can read the greetings - I don't care-  it's a little bit forced at this place, but yeah
01:18:23:04 01:18:36:02 you see the Statue of Liberty in the background and some more syncing to lights and... being left behind
01:18:36:09 01:18:43:03 ? taking a crash again.  And we have some credits:  cynic, mad, pirx, pixtur
01:18:43:09 01:18:50:18 at Function 2008, great party.  Thanks to Gargaj for inviting us.  Okay, see you at the next party.
01:18:53:03 01:18:55:22 Hi everybody, my name is Kenny Magnusson
01:18:55:28 01:19:01:04 aka Louie 500, and I have with me here:
- Pantaloon.
01:19:01:11 01:19:05:24 - Pantaloon.  He wants his real name?
- Nope.
01:19:06:01 01:19:11:02 This is Only One Wish.  What's it about?
01:19:11:09 01:19:16:20 Yeah, well, it's not this kind of story-driven demo like debris or Frameranger
01:19:16:26 01:19:25:16 it is supposed to be more like a gallery of street art, and that sort of art stuff.
01:19:25:22 01:19:34:26 Grafitti, t-shirt designs, pins, shoes, that sort of stuff, more "streety" design.
01:19:37:09 01:19:48:05 And the name of the demo comes from a Röyksopp tune, "What Else Is There?"
01:19:48:12 01:19:56:05 I think in the tune they sing something like "just only one wish" or "just one wish"
01:19:56:11 01:20:02:27 I really like the name of One Wish.  And here we have the second scene,
01:20:03:03 01:20:15:06 it's a bike frame, and I always liked bike frame stickers, I've always thought it would be cool to animate them.
01:20:21:09 01:20:28:12 Here we have some objects that Hoyt, one of the guys at DICE a co-worker of mine built,
01:20:28:19 01:20:35:16 and Magnus has done some fracturing stuff on them.
01:20:36:27 01:20:48:11 You see the border around the picture all the time, that's made by a Chinese friend of ours, really nice.
01:21:04:03 01:21:07:18 And here is some old T-shirt designs I've done.
01:21:09:01 01:21:18:16 A lot of these scenes are T-shirt designs that I always thought would be cool to animate.
01:21:25:16 01:21:36:07 These are also T-shirt designs that... are animated.
01:21:36:25 01:21:45:10 And the background here, there's a lot of gibberish stuff that I've painted when working at DICE, when the game was building or something like that.
01:21:50:13 01:21:55:12 And here is Magnus' stuff, I don't know if you want to say anything about those
01:21:55:18 01:22:00:00 It wasn't intended to look like this, it was something that just happened.
01:22:00:06 01:22:02:29 The same with this scene.
01:22:05:10 01:22:09:17 It's baked in Maya, in turtle, all the textures and stuff in this one
01:22:10:25 01:22:17:22 This smoke was actually supposed to be crystals moving around the structure of the logo
01:22:23:09 01:22:30:26 There's some graffiti stuff that I've done, on real walls (laughs), now it's on a Fairlight logo.
01:22:34:02 01:22:43:19 And this is the end.  Thank you for watching Only One Wish by TBL and Fairlight.  Thank you very much!  (Yeeah!)
01:23:02:08 01:23:10:29 Hi guys, this is Raimo from Matt Current.  You're watching the demo Bombman from 2006.
01:23:11:05 01:23:17:04 It was presented at Assembly and placed 4th in the combined demo competition.
01:23:20:13 01:23:25:14 This one is probably our demo with the most effort put into it.
01:23:26:25 01:23:31:14 You can maybe see that; it's not really that, um...
01:23:31:20 01:23:41:17 this would have been such a huge project, but I guess we generally make really quick hacks for most parties
01:23:41:23 01:23:50:04 but this time we actually spent a couple of weeks, just putting the stuff together
01:23:51:26 01:23:54:19 working on the 3D scenes and stuff like that.
01:23:54:25 01:24:03:05 It's more than we just... the programmer just makes an engine and maybe spends a couple of months on it
01:24:03:11 01:24:07:27 and then the actual demo is made in a couple of days.
01:24:08:24 01:24:10:13 Or even less.
01:24:13:19 01:24:24:19 This one, I personally did what I usually do, which is 3D graphics, as in making the 3D scenes
01:24:24:26 01:24:29:20 and setting up cameras and lighting and texturing and things like that.
01:24:29:26 01:24:37:03 There are also two other 3D graphicians working on this demo
01:24:39:11 01:24:50:11 one graphical designer working on the overlays and some of the 2D graphical elements in the demo
01:24:50:17 01:24:56:29 but then there was only one programmer who did pretty much everything that a programmer does
01:24:57:05 01:25:05:17 and then there were two musicians involved who of course made the soundtrack.
01:25:05:23 01:25:12:08 We had the soundtrack done long before we actually started working on the demo.
01:25:14:21 01:25:25:15 Working on the demo kind-of started with that soundtrack, and we just decided that this is something we want to make a demo with.
01:25:29:11 01:25:37:00 Those of you who know a bit more about the demoscene probably already recognize that this demo is actually something
01:25:38:25 01:25:48:04 many demosceners mock as a 3DS Player demo, which means that it's the kind of demo that
01:25:48:11 01:25:58:11 is technically just a 3D animation player and most of the things you see on the screen
01:25:58:17 01:26:05:23 are actually just done in a 3D modeling and animation software
01:26:05:29 01:26:13:26 and then the demo just plays back that animation that has been already done there.
01:26:15:07 01:26:20:05 There are some demosceners who think that this is not the way that demos should be made
01:26:20:11 01:26:27:22 and that everything should be done by the programmer, but the fact is that
01:26:27:28 01:26:32:17 a lot of programmers just don't want to, just work on the effects, and they prefer
01:26:32:23 01:26:41:24 making these more versatile 3D engines and tools that enable other people, as well as themselves,
01:26:42:00 01:26:47:13 to make the actual demos more easily.
01:26:49:07 01:26:55:24 Still, with that approach, there's a lot of work with the engines and the tools and the post-processing effects
01:26:55:30 01:27:00:20 and things like that.  It's still quite interesting.
01:27:00:26 01:27:05:10 But yeah, this is something we've done quite a bit with our demos.
01:27:07:11 01:27:14:29 Although it may seem like there's some kind of idea behind this demo,
01:27:15:06 01:27:24:10 there isn't really; we just whipped up some stuff we like to make
01:27:27:28 01:27:36:08 The name of the demo is just the name of the track we used with the demo.
01:27:36:14 01:27:44:24 We still used that idea in some of the scenes, like these bomb things
01:27:45:00 01:27:56:13 Other than that, we just made some things that kill people, because that's something we kind-of like to make.
01:27:59:07 01:28:07:25 And now we've reached the end of Bombman, so thanks for watching and enjoy the other demos.
01:28:18:26 01:28:20:28 Hi, this is Willbe of Cocoon.
01:28:21:04 01:28:29:23 Nazca is the demo we made for the Intel democompetition 2008, organized by Intel Europa in Germany.
01:28:29:29 01:28:35:09 Only five groups were selected to compete, therefore we were extremely honored.
01:28:35:15 01:28:43:03 But, as we knew we were going to make it, we then had only two weeks to deliver a fresh production for the compo,
01:28:43:09 01:28:49:16 facing prestigious groups like Fairlight and TBL, mfx, Inque, and Still.
01:28:50:14 01:28:55:07 Not to mention that we recently finished our longest and most painful production of our lives,
01:28:55:14 01:29:00:13 with the everlasting Shad3 demo that you can watch on this disc.
01:29:00:19 01:29:07:00 And that, when Intel told us we were selected, we had no single idea for a new demo.
01:29:07:06 01:29:10:04 So you can picture how pressured we were.
01:29:11:08 01:29:19:11 Basically we spent these two weeks on our computers logged into MSN, sharing data with FTP storage.
01:29:20:12 01:29:25:21 On top of this, Nytrik became a father for the second time during this period.
01:29:25:27 01:29:33:10 So we had to be efficient.  We used the same methods as in our previous demos, knowing what works best and fast.
01:29:33:16 01:29:40:03 We didn't have the luxury of testing any new features or styles, so we made what we knew well.
01:29:40:09 01:29:44:10 First, we had to choose a theme for the demo as fast as possible
01:29:44:17 01:29:47:25 so we could start working on it.
01:29:48:02 01:29:51:26 For some reason Nytrik wanted to make an outdoor desert scene.
01:29:53:04 01:29:59:09 We talked about pyramids, ancient civilizations, about Nazca, and the mystery of the geoglyphs
01:29:59:15 01:30:06:15 giving us a selective cocktail of ancient architecture, edgy textures, ? guards, and possibly aliens.
01:30:06:21 01:30:13:21 I composed a piece of breakbeat music, using samples of traditional Mayan religious music.
01:30:13:27 01:30:16:12 This is the human voice you can hear.
01:30:16:18 01:30:21:10 Nytrik did assist to add a digitally new sound in the very beginning.
01:30:21:17 01:30:29:21 Guille's demotool was basically the same as in our previous demo, but thankfully, time management was improved
01:30:29:28 01:30:33:12 allowing us to adjust the screenplay at will.
01:30:33:18 01:30:37:29 This is how we could achieve such a complicated screenplay in such little time.
01:30:38:15 01:30:44:14 Also, the flash player used to display all of our graphics was now able to load bitmap pictures
01:30:44:21 01:30:50:10 This, too, helped to display some detailed and highly synchronized content in a short time.
01:30:50:16 01:30:58:10 This time, Nytrik was the only 3D artist, contrary to the previous demo where Tenshu had made most of the content
01:30:58:16 01:31:01:13 so he could express himself a lot more.
01:31:01:19 01:31:06:20 Guille's demotool also allowed us to apply image post-processing
01:31:06:26 01:31:11:30 giving Nytrik the ability to apply a coherent look and feel to the entire demo
01:31:12:06 01:31:17:23 contrary to shad3, where a lot of content had been discarded and not used in the demo
01:31:17:29 01:31:24:06 This time, nearly all of what was done was used.  The demo ranked third in the competition
01:31:24:13 01:31:26:25 and we were quite happy to take part in it.
01:31:27:02 01:31:28:20 Thanks for watching.
01:36:15:06 01:36:17:27 Hi, welcome to We Cell by Kewlers.
01:36:18:03 01:36:23:07 One of the worst demos in the history of the demoscene (laughs)
01:36:23:13 01:36:25:16 (Well, that was a nice start!)
01:36:28:12 01:36:30:12 No, I'm just kidding.
01:36:33:05 01:36:35:04 Yeah, so Little Bitchard here.
01:36:35:10 01:36:37:04 And Fred Funk.
01:36:37:11 01:36:39:20 Curly-brace, hi.
01:36:39:26 01:36:41:23 And math daemon
01:36:44:25 01:36:52:06 Part of the inspiration for this one was some photography I did in Spain when I flew there from Africa
01:36:52:12 01:36:56:19 studying "blur of field" (depth-of-field blur).
01:37:02:20 01:37:09:18 It sure is blurred.
Yeah, that blurring thing is one of the main themes of this demo
01:37:09:25 01:37:15:05 and showing off the engine that can precalculate the different blurred versions of particles
01:37:16:17 01:37:20:25 Pretty slow, actually... that's why it loads for (a) long time.
01:37:21:14 01:37:23:15 Yeah, blur! (laughs)
01:37:28:13 01:37:34:01 But yeah, actually there's no ordinary polygons... (laughs) here
01:37:34:17 01:37:39:21 They are just STRANGE particles.  Weird quantum mechanics. (laughs)
01:37:39:27 01:37:45:03 Flowing from one instance to another.
01:37:46:19 01:37:50:09 Maybe I could call them beer ? (laughs)
01:37:50:15 01:37:53:29 Just kidding with you, man. (laughs)
01:37:54:22 01:38:02:13 We actually did this commentary already once; it went well.  This ain't going that well.  (laughs)
01:38:02:19 01:38:06:01 I think this is NOT going on the DVD...
01:38:06:07 01:38:11:16 - Wait wait, you guys are seriously drunk already.
- No we're not!  We're just having fun.
01:38:14:16 01:38:24:28 About the soundtrack: It was originally... the first version of it was made in 2002
01:38:25:04 01:38:31:27 this version in the demo was completed only a week before Assembly
01:38:32:03 01:38:41:19 so um, the guys had a tough time adjusting to the change; the original song was
01:38:41:25 01:38:47:30 straight four-to-the-floor beat song,
01:38:48:06 01:38:53:18 Yeah, actually, you can see that in most of the syncing because we didn't have enough time to
01:38:53:25 01:38:59:23 alter all the syncing to the breakbeat version of this song.
01:38:59:29 01:39:02:25 Yeah, so the syncing is a bit rough.
01:39:05:07 01:39:14:05 One quick (note) about layout graphics and especially the so-called "jokes"
01:39:14:11 01:39:21:10 Jokes = our idea of what's fun and interesting
01:39:21:16 01:39:27:25 Jokes appeal only to Finnish people, mostly, I think.
01:39:28:01 01:39:33:29 I'm not sure how many people across the world are aware of Finnish presidents
01:39:34:05 01:39:40:28 or... whatever the texts point to.
01:39:44:13 01:39:48:27 Well, fecal blur being of course rather obvious (laughs)
01:39:49:06 01:39:51:25 No shit!  Well, yeah.
01:39:52:01 01:39:56:15 - I don't know how to make Finnish Presidents the fecal blur
- I like that last part of this scene
01:39:58:14 01:40:02:18 Yes, this scene was inspired by a very specific worm I came across in Africa
01:40:02:24 01:40:06:03 during my travels.
01:40:06:09 01:40:12:18 - You actually had that worm up your ass.
- Yeah, but we're not gonna mention that, right? (laughs)
01:40:16:19 01:40:25:04 And of course the layout of the texts you can see across the demo are inspired by Orange demos
01:40:26:10 01:40:34:05 called... what was it?  Something with Ibiza.
- The (Nonstop) Ibiza Experience.
01:40:34:11 01:40:41:11 It's kind-of like a tribute to Orange, from the text itself you can see we respect them
01:40:41:17 01:40:46:29 what we think of... (laughs)
01:40:49:10 01:40:50:24 Crrrrayon!
01:40:52:03 01:40:59:05 I'll get your coat, sir. (laughs) There's always time to improvise.
01:41:00:01 01:41:03:04 We are running a bit short on this commentary, though.
01:41:03:10 01:41:13:03 Yeah, well, I think we said already enough on the first version of this commentary
- Which you are not going to hear. (laughs)
01:41:13:09 01:41:17:12 We're going to chop it up a bit.  I'm going back to Africa.
01:41:17:22 01:41:20:21 (laughs)
01:41:24:24 01:41:29:20 Hi, this is Jim Leonard, also known in the scene as Trixter, and I'm the producer of MindCandy 3.
01:41:29:26 01:41:35:01 I'm here to tell you that there is no commentary for Faded Memories; Visualice tried to do some,
01:41:35:07 01:41:40:01 and he felt after a while that he felt odd doing it, it was out of place for him
01:41:40:08 01:41:45:17 and he suggested that we just put the (music) track there, where it's supposed to be, as he likes these things
01:41:45:23 01:41:49:21 speaking for themselves, and I can totally (understand) that.
01:41:49:27 01:41:58:06 He concluded that he is "merely an instrument of the higher currents," and that "it is the ego that wants to claim the attention."
01:41:58:22 01:42:07:00 I totally respect that, so here is the track for Faded Memories.
01:47:05:23 01:47:08:06 And now:  Some Words About Clouds.
01:47:08:12 01:47:22:27 A cloud is a visible mass of droplets.  In other words, little drops of water, frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere
01:47:23:04 01:47:27:21 above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body.
01:47:29:10 01:47:42:12 A cloud is also a visible mass attracted by gravity such as masses of material in space called interstellar clouds and nebulae.
01:47:53:11 01:48:01:00 Clouds are studied in the nephology of cloud physics branch of meteorology.
01:48:01:07 01:48:11:24 On Earth, the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals
01:48:12:01 01:48:23:25 typically 0.01 millimeters, or 0.00039 inches, in diameter.
01:48:24:21 01:48:34:26 When surrounded by millions of other droplets or crystals, they become visible at those wavelengths.
01:48:36:03 01:48:46:26 They just appear white, at least from the top, 70-95% throughout the visible range of wavelengths.
01:48:49:16 01:48:58:24 Cloud droplets tend to scatter light efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases
01:48:59:01 01:49:06:15 with depth into the gasses, hence the gray or even sometimes dark appearance of the cloud base.
01:50:01:17 01:50:05:27 Cloud types are divided into two general categories:
01:50:06:04 01:50:08:20 Layered, and convective.
01:50:10:01 01:50:14:18 These names distinguish a cloud's altitude.
01:50:14:24 01:50:24:13 Clouds are classified by the base height, not the cloud top, and bases may differ depending on the geographical zone.
01:50:24:19 01:50:34:24 This system was proposed in 1802, when it was presented to the Askesian... (mumbles) some people.
01:50:38:01 01:50:46:08 High clouds will form between 10,000 and 25,000 ft (3,000 and 8,000 m)
01:50:46:14 01:50:55:12 in the polar regions, 16,500 and 40,000 ft (5,000 and 12,000 m)
01:50:55:19 01:51:04:07 in the temperate regions, and 20,000 and 60,000 ft (6,000 and 18,000 m)
(omitted: "in the tropical region")
01:51:05:17 01:51:13:09 This includes several cumulus, cirrus, and cirrostratus clouds.
01:51:13:15 01:51:25:11 Middle clouds tend to form at 6,500 feet (2,200 meters).  Nimbostratus clouds are sometimes included in the middle clouds.
01:51:26:25 01:51:39:09 The low clouds are family "C".  These are found up to 6500 feet (2000 meters) and include the stratus dense and gray clouds.
01:51:39:15 01:51:45:15 When stratus clouds contact the ground, they are called fog.
01:51:57:03 01:52:00:22 Hi, I am Preacher of Traction, and I'm one of the programmers of this demo,
01:52:00:28 01:52:02:14 and you are watching Onwards.
01:52:02:21 01:52:05:23 The rest of the crew are Rale who programmed some of the effects,
01:52:05:30 01:52:09:04 Vulture who programmed the original engine this demo is based on,
01:52:09:10 01:52:13:15 Bridgeclaw who did the graphics, and Zeebr of the group deMarche who composed the music.
01:52:14:23 01:52:17:13 Onwards was made quite fast in about two weeks.
01:52:17:19 01:52:22:05 We had received a song from Zeebr a bit earlier and decided to make the demo for the Stream party.
01:52:22:11 01:52:26:15 The original idea was to have old-fashioned demo effects planned, with a wistful demotune,
01:52:26:22 01:52:28:19 but things changed a bit along the way.
01:52:28:25 01:52:34:02 I then had the idea of combining this demo and an earlier one of ours from 2005 called "insert coins"
01:52:34:08 01:52:35:25 making them one continuous show.
01:52:36:01 01:52:40:07 In that demo, we had a protagonist in the form of a red triangle that wandered through the demo.
01:52:40:13 01:52:43:23 In the first scene of Onwards, it's almost the same as the end of "insert coins".
01:52:43:29 01:52:49:07 Here you're getting the red triangle protagonist morph into the red cube that will make its way through the rest of this demo.
01:52:50:19 01:52:52:22 Technically, Onwards is quite simple.
01:52:52:28 01:52:56:06 It's written in C++ and uses OpenGL for rendering.
01:52:56:12 01:53:00:01 No tools were used in making the visuals; we just hard-coded everything.
01:53:00:08 01:53:04:21 The colors mostly come from the standard OpenGL's field mapping and a few nice textures.
01:53:04:28 01:53:11:15 Almost all of Onwards is made with a standard fixed pipeline, with shaders used only for the blue post-processing step.
01:53:11:22 01:53:14:19 The visuals are mostly built out of cubes as you can see
01:53:14:25 01:53:19:03 with a few particles thrown in to give the scenes a bit of depth and a sense of perspective.
01:53:19:09 01:53:24:27 The shapes are built out of splines and randomly-generated data, with a few very simple particle systems.
01:53:29:21 01:53:34:15 This scene is one of the few that ended up using the red protagonist cube properly.
01:53:34:21 01:53:40:15 In retrospect, making this demo a "sequel" was a really bad idea, since none of us ended up using much of the concepts
01:53:40:21 01:53:43:21 and the first scene doesn't really fit with the rest of the visuals.
01:53:43:27 01:53:48:20 Onwards did, however, in my opinion, did turn out to be quite pretty and it does stand on its own.
01:53:48:29 01:53:53:21 The inspiration for this tunnel part comes from an old 90's demo by the Psychic Monks called Babylon
01:53:53:27 01:53:56:29 which had a similar effect and that made an impression on me back then.
01:53:57:05 01:53:59:28 This scene also divides the demo between my part and Rale's.
01:54:00:04 01:54:05:20 The ones that come before this and including this one are mainly by me, and the ones that come after are by Rale.
01:54:07:11 01:54:10:17 The greetings scroller is probably my favorite part of the demo.
01:54:10:24 01:54:15:24 I think it feels cheesy, in a good-natured way, just like demos in general, and especially the music,
01:54:16:00 01:54:19:06 and it reminds me of the old demos that we used to love.
01:54:24:02 01:54:27:02 The end part of the demo was unfortunately left a bit unfinished
01:54:27:09 01:54:32:18 due to lack of time, as always, but I think this transition from the dark world to the beautiful painting by Bridgeclaw
01:54:32:24 01:54:35:28 really makes up for it.  The demo does end a bit suddenly, though,
01:54:36:04 01:54:40:12 so maybe there will be a third sequel someday, and the story will continue from there.
01:54:40:18 01:54:43:17 Who knows.  Thanks for watching Onwards.
01:54:57:06 01:55:00:07 Hello all.  This is Navis of Andromeda Software Development
01:55:00:14 01:55:03:08 doing a commentary on the demo called Metamorphosis.
01:55:03:14 01:55:07:19 Actually, it's two demos you'll see here, one after the other,
01:55:07:25 01:55:14:17 The one you're watching now is called Metamorphosis, and straight after you'll watch Midnight Run.
01:55:14:23 01:55:21:21 The two demos were written separately, but since the second continues from where the first one left off,
01:55:21:28 01:55:28:23 and since they both very much look the same, the producer decided to glue them together as one.
01:55:28:29 01:55:31:17 I'll start my commentary with the credits.
01:55:31:24 01:55:40:00 I, Navis, wrote the code; aMUSiC did the music as usual; and Amoivikos and iM did the 2D graphics.
01:55:40:06 01:55:46:07 I almost forgot Roscoe and Matilda.  Roscoe does the voice which you won't hear in this mix,
01:55:46:13 01:55:52:00 but I'm going to tell you what he says anyway, and Matilda is singing a Greek song at the end of the demo.
01:55:52:07 01:56:00:01 Needless to say, all of this music and singing is original; it was made and recorded for these two demos only.
01:56:01:16 01:56:07:03 Metamorphosis is my absolutely most beloved demo of all ASD demos we've done so far.
01:56:08:13 01:56:14:29 And it took quite a while for me to warm up to it; at the beginning I thought it was probably an average to good demo
01:56:15:05 01:56:20:21 that would be forgotten soon anyway, superceded by fancy demos with all the latest 3D goodies
01:56:22:17 01:56:28:07 But with time, I realized that it's actually pretty unique, not only because of its different graphics,
01:56:28:13 01:56:33:17 but also because of progressions, story, music, and sound effects.
01:56:33:23 01:56:38:08 But also because it doesn't try too hard; there's no coder-porn here,
01:56:38:15 01:56:42:03 and there's no need to, all the effects are relatively simple to reproduce
01:56:42:09 01:56:49:01 it's the demo telling the viewer that we are past the age of showing off our capabilities and coders,
01:56:49:08 01:56:56:22 and now we should try to work on telling a story using the array of tools and skills we, as the demoscene, developed over the years.
01:56:56:28 01:57:01:18 Metamorphosis means the changing of something into something else
01:57:01:24 01:57:05:22 The story's quite simple; it shows the progression of organic into non-organic
01:57:05:28 01:57:10:23 If you noticed, we start the demo at the beginning looking at an ant colony.
01:57:10:29 01:57:14:06 Lots of ants are swarming around the big dead flying insect
01:57:14:13 01:57:19:27 so far, and everything looks very natural.  As the camera goes up,
01:57:20:03 01:57:23:21 we see a growing tree, then the sea, then people walking,
01:57:23:27 01:57:28:05 so we now have the introduction of men, first instances of mechanical instruments,
01:57:28:12 01:57:31:12 wheels, scissors, and robot arms, and cities.
01:57:31:19 01:57:38:06 There are also some visuals ? drawn by tiny humans, and a watchful eyes and mouth moving around observing the action.
01:57:39:30 01:57:47:04 Those with a sharp eye will notice here this guy,
01:57:47:11 01:57:52:09 inspired by the iconic sculpture by Rodin sitting on the edge of a surface
01:57:52:15 01:57:55:05 in deep thought about all this madness.
01:57:55:11 01:57:59:24 All this action is happening while the sense of scale is distorted as much as possible.
01:58:00:01 01:58:03:19 The size of man, ants, and machinery are all messed up,
01:58:03:26 01:58:07:19 and actually, the further we go into this drama, the better the effect.
01:58:07:26 01:58:12:21 It's interesting to know that all this is achieved by use of relative scale and movement
01:58:12:28 01:58:19:26 there are no other depth cues to play with, such as focal shadows, and I think it makes it more
01:58:20:03 01:58:23:18 believable and captivating than many other full-blown 3D demos.
01:58:24:20 01:58:29:18 As this part of the demo is reaching the end, we see the visuals settle down after all this craziness
01:58:29:24 01:58:38:02 the ants come out of the hole running towards the new fly, which is now a huge scary robot that comes down from the high heavens.
01:58:38:08 01:58:41:01 In the original version, what happened is this:
01:58:41:08 01:58:47:11 The monster goes away, and in the second demo Midnight Run, it starts just after a voice
01:58:47:18 01:58:51:16 introduces us to the universe of Metamorphosis.
01:58:51:23 01:58:54:30 I will recite by memory the exact words of the voice says:
01:58:55:06 01:58:59:23 So here I am, all on my own, feeling cold and tired and lonely.
01:58:59:29 01:59:03:24 So I open my eyes, and decide to go on a midnight run.
01:59:04:00 01:59:10:29 Then the visuals start again, as if you had just opened your eyes, and the fly monster goes away.
01:59:11:05 01:59:17:13 The theme in Midnight run is slightly different than Metamorphosis.
01:59:17:19 01:59:21:20 It's the story of you and me, the individual made out of bones and flesh
01:59:21:26 01:59:25:25 to escape the surreal world that was built in Metamorphosis.
01:59:26:01 01:59:28:22 You escape by swimming through the whole thing.
01:59:28:28 01:59:38:16 The swimming reference is actually from my personal experience from when I used to swim competitively a long time ago.
01:59:38:23 01:59:42:16 I used to spend a lot of time in the pool, just me and my thoughts
01:59:42:22 01:59:47:21 There are far fewer distractions in the pool then when you walk or sit watching TV,
01:59:47:27 01:59:54:06 and back then I used to think just about everything, from my life in general to programming graphics on the Commodore 64.
01:59:54:13 01:59:58:22 I thought it would be a good idea to make a demo one day that would relate these experiences.
01:59:58:28 02:00:05:07 Before starting work on this, I thought we would match it with a moody, melancholy soundtrack
02:00:05:13 02:00:07:04 probably based on blues.
02:00:07:13 02:00:13:30 The finale was going to be different too, a lot more pessimistic than it is now.
02:00:14:06 02:00:20:06 In other words, the man swimming would not really make it in one piece.
02:00:20:12 02:00:24:30 But aMUSiC had different ideas about it, and I'm glad that we followed his view.
02:00:25:06 02:00:30:01 His soundtrack is anything but dark; it's uplifting, with a summery tone,
02:00:30:07 02:00:33:23 and some Greek lyrics too, sung beautifully by Matilda.
02:00:33:29 02:00:39:07 He just said, "Look guys, it's summer, and I'm in no mood for tragedy right now."  And it did work.
02:00:39:13 02:00:45:15 It worked so well, that they finally gave him the scene.org award for Best Music for the soundtrack.
02:00:46:13 02:00:50:11 Technically, the demo was as easy for me as Metamorphosis.
02:00:50:18 02:00:59:07 There are no shaders or complex effects, cameras... that's why the two demos only took 2 to 3 weeks max to make from scratch.
02:00:59:14 02:01:01:27 The demos are built like a platform game.
02:01:02:03 02:01:05:10 They are of course mostly showed as a single take
02:01:05:17 02:01:12:30 split a couple of times, for example where the floating scissors appear where the swimmer goes into the cave
02:01:13:06 02:01:17:25 and all I had to do was place the different objects around the virtual map and do the animation.
02:01:18:01 02:01:24:22 The animation of the swimmer, by the way, was done by me in a 3D animation program frame-by-frame
02:01:24:28 02:01:28:12 after observing myself on video swimming on my kitchen table.
02:01:29:30 02:01:35:03 This, as well as pretty much everything else, especially the first part, is done in vector format,
02:01:35:09 02:01:38:22 which means that the demo can scale up without a loss in quality.
02:01:38:28 02:01:43:04 The ants, for example, are procedurally made from trigonometric functions
02:01:43:10 02:01:47:16 and triangles by hand, not by using Photoshop or animation software.
02:01:47:23 02:01:53:14 Same goes for the blind man dancing over the walls of caves; iM drew the bodies in Inkscape
02:01:53:20 02:02:00:02 and then we put together a function to animate the different parts, just like they do in traditional shadow theater in Greece.
02:02:00:08 02:02:06:17 The net effect of using vector graphics supersampling is that the demo looks very beautiful in high resolutions
02:02:06:23 02:02:11:11 especially when it was shown on the big crispy screen at Breakpoint 2008.
02:02:12:02 02:02:16:04 The dance of the people, as well as their imminent fate inside the meat machine
02:02:16:10 02:02:22:09 and what happened next entertained our audience when we first presented this demo at the demoparty.
02:02:23:11 02:02:28:19 And what happens is this:  The man is transformed from a lonely swimmer to a man using a flying machine
02:02:28:26 02:02:35:05 and flies away, ending the demo on a very very positive and happy scale.
02:02:44:10 02:02:47:22 This is Route 1066 by ukscene allstars
02:02:47:29 02:02:51:06 and this is Smash of UKScene Allstars.
02:02:51:12 02:02:53:05 We start off with the credit sequence
02:02:53:11 02:02:55:04 this is actually the last thing we did
02:02:55:10 02:02:57:15 and we were really pushed for time and we thought
02:02:57:22 02:03:00:02 what could we do in very little time and fortunately
02:03:00:08 02:03:02:27 we had all these images we use in the background
02:03:03:03 02:03:07:02 and we made this 2D silhouette stuff thing and actually it
02:03:07:08 02:03:09:24 worked out really nice and I'm quite happy with the scene.
02:03:10:00 02:03:12:08 The concept of this demo is basically
02:03:12:14 02:03:15:03 Something not serious, like
02:03:15:09 02:03:18:22 something a bit fun, more design oriented
02:03:18:29 02:03:21:06 than technical. There is no big effects or
02:03:21:19 02:03:23:27 anything like that. But with a
02:03:24:04 02:03:26:17 sort of a lot of little touches like
02:03:26:24 02:03:30:03 little details everywhere, like this
02:03:30:10 02:03:33:16 picture of this geek getting punched through
02:03:33:23 02:03:36:27 and things like that. A lot of growing buildings
02:03:37:04 02:03:41:15 and different arrows and shapes a lot of motifs flowing
02:03:41:21 02:03:43:19 through the whole demo like arrows and
02:03:43:26 02:03:47:16 John Cleese, and other sort of classic British things.
02:03:47:23 02:03:51:07 We used Google image search quite heavily through
02:03:51:13 02:03:53:16 the making of this demo. For example
02:03:53:22 02:03:56:27 these hand pointing things. If you can get away with
02:03:57:04 02:04:00:11 this kind of thing you can get away with anything.
02:04:00:17 02:04:03:21 This is like some quite stupid things that we did
02:04:03:28 02:04:08:28 and this is a classic image of the woman with a cup of tea.
02:04:09:05 02:04:13:23 There is a lot of sort of hidden or shut up message
02:04:13:30 02:04:17:27 that we were trying to put out to various people.
02:04:18:03 02:04:21:27 These arrows and spotlight skin this is
02:04:22:03 02:04:25:25 a piece of graffiti was one of the first thing that Neil did
02:04:26:01 02:04:29:08 on the PC in a long time and it actually worked out really nicely.
02:04:29:14 02:04:33:26 The arrows here again there is arrows just running through the demo
02:04:34:03 02:04:35:23 we are using arrows instead of leaves.
02:04:35:29 02:04:38:16 The interesting thing about this scene is what's in the background,
02:04:38:22 02:04:41:09 like there is a thumb pointing down in the tree.
02:04:41:15 02:04:44:01 There is a John Cleese hanging from the tree.
02:04:44:08 02:04:47:04 There is a lot of little things hidden around the scenes.
02:04:47:10 02:04:50:02 You just have to watch it and pick them out.
02:04:50:08 02:04:54:11 The arrows are using a flocking routine to fly from
02:04:54:17 02:04:57:19 one tree to another which is quite annoying to pull off
02:04:57:26 02:04:59:28 actually due to the large number of arrows
02:05:00:04 02:05:07:10 but they roughly end up flying back to the trees and getting stationary again.
02:05:07:16 02:05:12:03 And this scene, we used this tool to generate
02:05:12:09 02:05:14:13 the vines that grow along all the buildings
02:05:14:19 02:05:17:15 and then I just spawn loads and loads of arrows
02:05:17:22 02:05:22:00 off all of them and I did some vertex shader-
02:05:22:06 02:05:23:25 based animation to make then fly.
02:05:24:02 02:05:27:08 It was never really...it was just something I was messing around with
02:05:27:14 02:05:31:04 and actually when I put it in it worked
02:05:31:11 02:05:32:30 and we just sort of went with it.
02:05:33:06 02:05:35:00 A lot of this demo was made quite quickly.
02:05:35:07 02:05:39:15 Again it was made in any...probably all of the graphics and stuff took a couple of weeks
02:05:39:21 02:05:42:22 there was me and Devistator doing the graphics
02:05:42:29 02:05:45:04 and Keito doing the soundtrack.
02:05:45:11 02:05:48:11 We took a couple of weeks to make all of the graphics but
02:05:48:17 02:05:51:08 most of the demo was actually put together in one weekend.
02:05:51:14 02:05:54:20 And then we took a few days after the party to touch up.
02:05:54:26 02:05:58:18 So this scene again, we did these street signs
02:05:58:25 02:06:03:28 to show sort of the Allstars logo on the sign
02:06:04:05 02:06:07:03 and like a break dancing logo on the sign.
02:06:07:09 02:06:10:10 Finally we had to use a lot of British references
02:06:10:17 02:06:12:21 and the biggest one we had to use was John Cleese.
02:06:12:27 02:06:16:21 So, we have a tribute to the Ministry of Funny Walks,
02:06:16:27 02:06:18:26 but in a quite dark way I think.
02:06:19:03 02:06:23:06 We have the classic poses of John Cleese
02:06:23:12 02:06:25:20 And turning to smoke at the end.
02:06:25:26 02:06:29:03 And in this sort of crowd scene
02:06:29:10 02:06:31:14 formulation, all in black and white of course.
02:06:31:21 02:06:33:25 A very low color look to the whole demo.
02:06:34:01 02:06:37:15 And finally there is this quote at the end of the scene
02:06:37:21 02:06:41:29 I actually saw it on the street in Soho just written on the pavement top
02:06:42:05 02:06:44:13 Someone had written it there and I thought
02:06:44:20 02:06:47:15 Oh, I'm having that. I had to use that in the demo
02:06:47:22 02:06:53:11 so I uh, we, uh, took it and put it as graffiti on our demo.
02:06:53:17 02:06:56:23 And finally we end with this classic image of
02:06:56:30 02:06:59:24 Columbo as a stencil with an Uzi
02:07:00:00 02:07:03:17 carefully hidden under his arm.
02:07:06:01 02:07:09:27 So, Agenda Circling Forth was a strange demo for us
02:07:10:06 02:07:12:26 We did it for Breakpoint 2010 and we didn't
02:07:13:03 02:07:16:06 really expect to do very well in the competition
02:07:16:12 02:07:20:21 we hope that it just for us to do something nice that we liked
02:07:20:27 02:07:23:19 and we really expected to get hammered in the competition,
02:07:23:26 02:07:26:25 but it turned out that it was our most successful demo of the time
02:07:27:02 02:07:28:27 and to this point.
02:07:29:03 02:07:31:07 The main Agenda Circling Forth
02:07:31:13 02:07:34:16 was actually the product of an internet anagram
02:07:34:23 02:07:37:28 generator from CNCD Fairlight and Orange.
02:07:38:04 02:07:41:14 But it turned out Orange had nothing to do with this production.
02:07:42:14 02:07:46:21 So the basic idea of the demo is to make everything out of particles.
02:07:46:27 02:07:53:11 So, we built a load of 3D meshes and scenes and that kind of thing
02:07:53:17 02:07:57:26 and we convert them to particles with various means.
02:07:58:03 02:08:01:13 Some of them are generated straight off animated meshes
02:08:01:19 02:08:04:02 and some of them are generated by rendering everything to a
02:08:04:08 02:08:09:02 frame buffer and spooling particles over the active areas of the frame buffer.
02:08:09:08 02:08:13:13 It gives this really nice, quite unique look.
02:08:13:19 02:08:16:18 and it means that we can easily make everything
02:08:16:24 02:08:20:05 move and morph and change all the time
02:08:20:11 02:08:23:19 so agenda has this kind of feel where everything is moving
02:08:24:30 02:08:27:27 like this soft slightly drugged out kind of feel to it.
02:08:28:03 02:08:29:19 That everything is always moving
02:08:29:25 02:08:32:07 with this slight fluid dynamics kind of look.
02:08:32:13 02:08:38:03 The moon in this shot, we quite like the way it looks like an image
02:08:38:09 02:08:40:20 and then it just goes
02:08:40:26 02:08:43:21 with like a big fluid dynamic pulse.
02:08:43:27 02:08:45:21 It just goes Boom!
02:08:45:27 02:08:49:24 That was actually the only real fluid dynamics in the demo.
02:08:51:11 02:08:56:23 Each scene/frame in the demo contains
02:08:56:29 02:08:58:01 about a million particles at any one time.
02:08:59:08 02:09:02:18 It was the engine that I developed for blunderbus
02:09:02:24 02:09:05:13 and we have enhanced it a lot for Agenda
02:09:05:20 02:09:07:27 and made the first proper demo with it.
02:09:08:03 02:09:11:16 The creature in the forest scene
02:09:11:22 02:09:13:07 is actually a dog.
02:09:13:13 02:09:15:25 And it's this model we've had kicking around
02:09:16:01 02:09:17:10 for a few years actually,
02:09:17:16 02:09:19:12 we've just never found a good use for it.
02:09:19:18 02:09:22:10 The models got a few bugs in the mesh
02:09:22:16 02:09:25:14 And we had huge problems getting the skinning to work
02:09:25:20 02:09:27:26 Because of the way it was rigged in Lightwave
02:09:28:03 02:09:30:12 it was really odd so it never worked
02:09:30:18 02:09:32:27 and we finally got it working well enough for the demo
02:09:33:04 02:09:34:29 but there are still some bugs in it
02:09:35:05 02:09:38:20 so it works a lot better as particles where you can't see the bugs.
02:09:40:07 02:09:42:16 This fire thing, originally we were gonna do
02:09:42:22 02:09:47:01 like a house on fire but in the end a dog on fire
02:09:47:21 02:09:49:06 worked out kind of better.
02:09:51:01 02:09:53:18 The character models, I think they were originally
02:09:53:25 02:09:57:09 based on some models from poser that were
02:09:57:15 02:10:00:06 that were rigged and textured and everything
02:10:00:13 02:10:04:03 and turned into this sort of human body style thing.
02:10:04:09 02:10:06:20 I quite like the creepiness of the whole thing.
02:10:06:27 02:10:11:08 The demo actually does have a storyline that is quite hidden.
02:10:11:15 02:10:14:21 But, if you watch it there is a movement
02:10:14:27 02:10:18:06 there is a constant flowing movement throughout all the scenes.
02:10:18:12 02:10:22:04 And this was shot the way the moon pushes
02:10:22:10 02:10:24:21 and then the dog is running through the scene
02:10:24:27 02:10:26:27 and the characters are running
02:10:27:03 02:10:30:21 there is this constant flow; there is a story to it
02:10:30:28 02:10:33:22 it is just very quite abstract and quite hidden.
02:10:33:28 02:10:37:09 But it does have a meaning. Everything in the demo does have a meaning.
02:10:37:15 02:10:40:18 This morphing face we had the ability
02:10:40:25 02:10:45:16 to morph particles into any kind of mesh target and it worked quite well.
02:10:45:23 02:10:49:21 This final scene is an underwater shot
02:10:49:27 02:10:52:06 and what you can kind of see
02:10:52:12 02:10:56:10 this is actually a model of a girl
02:10:56:16 02:10:59:12 whose basically underwater.
02:10:59:18 02:11:02:21 She's like she's died. She's underwater
02:11:02:28 02:11:06:16 there's like this weighed down by blocks kind of character
02:11:07:17 02:11:12:29 In this sort of flowing seaweed the demo is actually really dark.
02:11:13:17 02:11:17:04 It was real surprising the competition
02:11:17:11 02:11:19:19 because we just didn't expect to do very well at all.
02:11:19:26 02:11:22:06 And I actually had...when this shot came on
02:11:22:12 02:11:24:05 and people were around me were into this
02:11:24:12 02:11:26:06 I just said I can't watch this
02:11:26:12 02:11:28:02 and I ran out of the room!
02:11:28:08 02:11:30:05 But actually, I was so surprised.
02:11:30:11 02:11:32:23 I expected to come in about 10th in the competition
02:11:32:30 02:11:35:02 and we ended up WINNING Breakpoint.
02:11:35:08 02:11:38:08 Then we won three scene.org awards.
02:11:38:14 02:11:40:23 We got the most nominations for any production.
02:11:40:29 02:11:42:26 in history for a scene.org awards.
02:11:43:02 02:11:45:06 And it seemed like people really got it.
02:11:45:12 02:11:47:02 It was a big surprise to me
02:11:47:08 02:11:48:20 and we were just really happy
02:11:48:26 02:11:52:05 because all we set out to do was to make a demo that we really liked.
02:11:52:13 02:11:54:21 And we got a great response out of it.
02:11:56:26 02:11:59:23 OK. Hi, its mfx guys here.
02:11:59:29 02:12:02:04 Little Bitchard here.
02:12:02:10 02:12:04:07 Pommak and Uncle-x.
02:12:04:13 02:12:06:07 And you are watching Aether
02:12:06:13 02:12:09:25 Our entry for Breakpoint 2005.
02:12:10:02 02:12:13:06 (Pommak) Now this is my first demo
02:12:13:12 02:12:17:10 where I was teamed along under mfx and this is my first effect
02:12:17:16 02:12:23:25 in Aether and it was based on misusing the engine
02:12:24:20 02:12:29:26 The end result was quite interesting
02:12:30:02 02:12:33:20 even though it was mostly a bok, sort of
02:12:33:26 02:12:39:16 Yeah, this demo had a part from us three guys
02:12:39:22 02:12:42:10 Visualice from Haujobb and farbrausch
02:12:42:17 02:12:46:24 worked on some artwork for us mainly the pencil drawings
02:12:47:00 02:12:51:18 and Scoopr of mfx made a little bit of 3D modeling here
02:12:51:24 02:12:57:17 and Heat from mfx coded some of the more memorable FX of this demo
02:12:57:23 02:13:01:16 and Mel Funktion worked with Little Bitchard on the soundtrack.
02:13:01:22 02:13:05:11 Yeah, unfortunately Mel Funktion was unable to make it to this
02:13:05:17 02:13:09:08 recording session but he sent a few comments
02:13:09:14 02:13:11:22 about the soundtracks.
02:13:11:28 02:13:18:08 Details, or his input to it and he stated that
02:13:18:14 02:13:23:07 it was to a great extent inspired by the
02:13:23:14 02:13:28:21 Double Figure album by Plaid and he wanted to create a
02:13:28:27 02:13:34:09 wide variety of warm basic sounds for me to
02:13:34:15 02:13:39:27 process further then and the back patterns were
02:13:40:04 02:13:47:04 programmed in Fast Tracker and pad synth in infector
02:13:47:10 02:13:51:10 were used for the synth sounds and
02:13:51:16 02:13:57:14 Matilde tracker and granular probability generators
02:13:57:20 02:14:00:21 for the drum and percussion sequences.
02:14:00:28 02:14:08:30 From there we then brought the sequences to disc and
02:14:09:06 02:14:14:10 the soundtrack was assembled in ACID 6.
02:14:15:03 02:14:18:01 One interesting thing about this demo is
02:14:18:08 02:14:21:14 that even though it contains lots and lots of explosions
02:14:21:21 02:14:25:13 of particles and what not the thing that you are seeing at the moment
02:14:25:20 02:14:29:19 is the only actual physics based effect in the demo.
02:14:29:25 02:14:34:03 All of the explosions and everything like that
02:14:34:10 02:14:39:29 they have actually been done using just the sine and cosine formulas
02:14:40:05 02:14:44:17 and what not and I have to confess that
02:14:44:23 02:14:48:08 I have no idea what I was thinking at the time I was doing them.
02:14:48:14 02:14:51:25 Like the hard way around.
02:14:54:21 02:14:58:30 And of course we did this for Breakpoint
02:14:59:06 02:15:03:25 we were finishing this demo actually maybe five hours before the
02:15:04:01 02:15:08:13 demo compo starts so the end part of the demo is
02:15:08:19 02:15:13:25 as you can see, recycling parts of the demo earlier effects
02:15:14:02 02:15:15:19 that you have already seen once
02:15:15:26 02:15:21:15 with the walking creature thing that made a later appearance
02:15:21:21 02:15:25:17 in one of our other demos the ballet dancer, mainly.
02:15:25:23 02:15:30:08 Yeah, we had quite big problems making the camera
02:15:30:15 02:15:35:22 and the (object) to look good.
02:15:35:29 02:15:42:07 but at least I and he through our coding
02:15:42:14 02:15:46:25 this last scene during party place like really close to deadline.
02:15:47:01 02:15:52:05 Bye Bye - laughing
02:15:53:13 02:15:58:02 Hi, I'm Pixtur of Still and you are listening to the audio comment for Ferner
02:15:58:08 02:16:02:15 which was released on 2007. Ferner was
02:16:02:21 02:16:06:01 or second production. Basically the second production by Still.
02:16:06:08 02:16:10:12 Of course we did some productions before, *under LKCC and Bauknecht*
02:16:10:19 02:16:15:17 So, it was actually our first demo we
02:16:15:23 02:16:21:11 did with *"Tooll"*, our demo editing tool called *"Tooll"*, *well it was Summer*
02:16:21:17 02:16:25:27 *went through Xit* of course but, well, it was the first time
02:16:26:03 02:16:33:25 that maybe in like 2 years of investment into building a demo tool
02:16:34:01 02:16:36:19 paid off, that it might pay off one day. I don't know
02:16:36:26 02:16:41:09 *its like we had try*. So the productions more or less a party production
02:16:41:15 02:16:43:20 because ronny delivered an excellent soundtrack
02:16:43:26 02:16:45:23 just a couple of days before the party.
02:16:45:29 02:16:49:06 So that is why some scenes are quite lengthy
02:16:49:12 02:16:53:16 we are still on the opening credits and they go on and on and on
02:16:53:23 02:16:56:00 because it was actually it was really not enough time
02:16:56:07 02:17:01:01 to fill up the four minutes of soundtrack so the credits are still keeping
02:17:01:07 02:17:06:24 keep on going and so it's basically a plain old feedback
02:17:07:00 02:17:08:19 effect of distortion applied
02:17:08:25 02:17:12:14 but with our demo tool we had some kind
02:17:12:20 02:17:15:17 well, just a little bit of chance to control this effect.
02:17:16:00 02:17:19:03 So we know in the first scene, which is basically
02:17:19:09 02:17:23:20 it's my office building which I modeled and applied z buffer textures on it.
02:17:23:27 02:17:28:19 and translating *UV* transforms and actually I like
02:17:28:25 02:17:33:17 how the light structures go over the black border on the top and bottom
02:17:33:23 02:17:38:27 So, this is the next scene which is basically a ripoff of Fern
02:17:39:03 02:17:43:05 my first production I made with Mad, I don't know, like 2000
02:17:43:11 02:17:46:21 or 2001 or something and so we are basically
02:17:46:28 02:17:49:01 reusing the scene because we don't have enough
02:17:49:07 02:17:50:20 content for a party production.
02:17:50:26 02:17:53:03 I don't know how this goes by with the party rules
02:17:53:09 02:17:55:14 not to release something again but well...
02:17:55:20 02:17:59:20 So, here are some, basically this is just a windowing
02:17:59:27 02:18:02:11 test, not even an effect it's just like a twang
02:18:02:18 02:18:08:29 *if the render pipeline* of tools working correctly so we do some
02:18:09:05 02:18:14:11 contrast increasements filter out a high white areas and
02:18:14:18 02:18:17:02 blur them and apply them as a glow
02:18:17:08 02:18:21:17 Now we are in a real main effect which is basically
02:18:21:23 02:18:29:05 all the effects before combined so we are extracting the white *areas*
02:18:29:11 02:18:31:25 and then feeding them into a feedback buffer
02:18:32:01 02:18:34:10 and just placing the feedback buffer
02:18:35:10 02:18:39:25 Now we are even adding some detect edges to this feedback
02:18:40:01 02:18:45:17 buffer which gives this really weird kind of flame looking
02:18:45:23 02:18:49:13 colorful displacement effect its like
02:18:49:19 02:18:55:06 wow, it was really, well, being lucky
02:18:55:12 02:19:00:13 *umm, nero of Matrix once told* me that making demos was like
02:19:00:19 02:19:03:25 going fishing, once in a while you catch something
02:19:04:01 02:19:06:23 and most of the time you are not catching anything but
02:19:06:29 02:19:09:23 you keep on trying to make a good catch.
02:19:09:29 02:19:14:01 So this is basically the next scene...
02:19:14:08 02:19:20:06 You see the cube in the middle is actually a reference point
02:19:20:12 02:19:22:22 because we don't have any coordinates in the tools
02:19:22:28 02:19:25:06 so I had to know where the particle assembles
02:19:25:12 02:19:30:17 This scene, actually the same thing applying z textures
02:19:30:23 02:19:35:19 z buffer textures on a very primitive shape
02:19:35:25 02:19:38:19 like just 1000 faces or something but looks complex
02:19:38:25 02:19:44:11 but the textures just make it look complex but actually really simple
02:19:44:18 02:19:49:29 We applied some RGB distortion *effects* like always
02:19:50:06 02:19:59:25 And uh, so, yeah. Breaking at dawn and some credits in the end.
02:20:00:02 02:20:04:03 Okay that was it. See you at the next party.
02:20:05:25 02:20:08:21 Hi this is Jim Leonard also known as Trixter in the scene
02:20:08:27 02:20:11:12 and I am the producer of MindCandy 3
02:20:11:22 02:20:13:05 When we asked for commentary
02:20:13:11 02:20:17:17 what we actually got in return was a very long back story
02:20:17:23 02:20:20:29 that covers these two creatures that you see in the demo
02:20:21:05 02:20:23:25 as well as the planet that is depicted in the demo.
02:20:24:01 02:20:26:14 So, for the commentary I thought I would read that.
02:20:26:20 02:20:30:08 It begins by describing a strange species
02:20:30:14 02:20:32:26 Maybe the strangest thing about these creatures
02:20:33:02 02:20:35:09 who do not even have a common name is the fact that
02:20:35:16 02:20:38:08 they have only just been discovered. How could a species
02:20:38:14 02:20:41:05 and a whole planet inhabited by them be kept hidden from
02:20:41:12 02:20:44:16 the eyes of science for so long? Did they elude from the visible world
02:20:44:22 02:20:47:26 on purpose? Or were they victims of human ignorance that
02:20:48:02 02:20:50:09 disesteems everything that it does not understand?
02:20:50:15 02:20:52:29 That tends to deny beauty if not of earthly
02:20:53:05 02:20:57:02 or still worse, of human origin. Now that we know they exist
02:20:57:08 02:20:59:29 we have to admit they call into question nearly everything we
02:21:00:05 02:21:02:24 thought we knew about the laws of reproduction and evolution.
02:21:03:00 02:21:05:26 When we said that the strangest thing about them were the millenniums
02:21:06:02 02:21:08:23 of secret existence they lead. This does not mean that it was
02:21:08:29 02:21:11:11 their only peculiarity, on the contrary
02:21:12:04 02:21:14:26 The backstory now talks about Berta, one of the
02:21:15:02 02:21:16:29 two creatures you see.
02:21:17:08 02:21:20:13 What was there first? Berta or Ono?
02:21:20:19 02:21:22:28 Our strange species adds a completely new
02:21:23:04 02:21:26:17 dimension to this question which recalls the mother of all questions.
02:21:26:23 02:21:29:10 Berta is a female permanently in search of food
02:21:29:16 02:21:31:02 together with her offspring.
02:21:31:08 02:21:33:24 A strenuous undertaking in the barren landscape of terror
02:21:34:00 02:21:36:21 which at the most knows how to satisfy the needs of the eye,
02:21:36:27 02:21:40:17 but not those of the body. Needless to expect help from the male
02:21:40:24 02:21:44:11 who is only useful for copulation and hardly able to care for himself.
02:21:44:17 02:21:47:04 He prefers to gang up with other males. To roam about
02:21:47:10 02:21:49:09 haphazardly and to wait for another female
02:21:49:15 02:21:52:06 to send out her attractants which is the only stimulus
02:21:52:12 02:21:54:26 that serves as an incentive in his dull existence.
02:21:55:14 02:21:58:20 After having done his duties. He lapses back into apathy
02:21:58:27 02:22:02:23 and would not recognize his own offspring even if it stood in front of him.
02:22:03:05 02:22:05:11 So this self-sacrificing Berta is the epitome of
02:22:05:17 02:22:08:20 the maternal principle. She takes loving care of her offspring
02:22:08:26 02:22:11:22 and often undertakes long walks to find them something to eat.
02:22:11:28 02:22:13:21 She does not have any natural enemies.
02:22:13:27 02:22:16:25 No creature would dare to approach this gigantic figure
02:22:17:02 02:22:19:18 and to submit to her hatred that hits anyone who might be a
02:22:19:25 02:22:21:18 threat to her offspring.
02:22:22:19 02:22:25:17 Her backstory now talks about Ono. The other creature.
02:22:27:03 02:22:29:04 The young itself is all the more helpless
02:22:29:11 02:22:30:22 Without its mothers protection
02:22:30:29 02:22:32:20 It would be inevitably doomed to die.
02:22:32:27 02:22:34:22 So the predominate picture in terra
02:22:34:29 02:22:36:25 apart from the dreary gatherings of the males
02:22:37:01 02:22:41:15 is this, an Ono of a still uncertain walk and blind for its surroundings
02:22:41:21 02:22:43:07 that are as impressive as menacing
02:22:43:13 02:22:45:14 followed by the giant shadow of its mother.
02:22:45:20 02:22:48:16 And yet, this helpless creature is of enormous importance
02:22:48:22 02:22:50:05 for the future of the species.
02:22:50:11 02:22:53:08 Yes, of course its existence is the basis for the survival
02:22:53:14 02:22:56:09 of the species, but there is a very special responsibility that
02:22:56:15 02:22:58:28 rest on its, well, shoulders if you excuse
02:22:59:04 02:23:01:00 this rather inappropriate term.
02:23:01:07 02:23:03:30 The reason is that the Ono, which is born sexless
02:23:04:06 02:23:07:16 has to decide for itself whether it wants to become a male or female.
02:23:07:22 02:23:10:06 Whether it wants to succeed its undutiful father or
02:23:10:12 02:23:13:01 its provident mother. What a decision.
02:23:13:17 02:23:16:13 Once the decision is made the Ono's childhood ends
02:23:16:19 02:23:19:20 and a phase of two years of gradual withdrawal from the mother begins
02:23:19:26 02:23:22:13 but how does this innocent creature come to terms with
02:23:22:19 02:23:24:12 the incredible burden of its decision?
02:23:24:19 02:23:27:20 How is it that not all Ono's succeed the mighty mother
02:23:27:27 02:23:31:24 but that nearly half of them submit to the obviously dreary fate of their fathers?
02:23:31:30 02:23:33:30 And how would not the whole species be doomed
02:23:34:06 02:23:36:22 to extinction if this was not the case?
02:23:37:04 02:23:40:17 The backstory about the planet terra:
02:23:41:22 02:23:43:19 A strange planet, this bleak terra.
02:23:43:25 02:23:46:10 But not lacking beauty. At any rate, it raises
02:23:46:16 02:23:49:04 more questions than it answers. You could almost get the
02:23:49:11 02:23:51:21 impression that that nameless males know more about what
02:23:51:28 02:23:55:14 is going on than you would credit them with. But only almost.
02:23:57:27 02:24:01:30 And that is the end of the back story provided for The Beauty.
02:24:02:19 02:24:05:19 I suppose I can conclude by talking a little bit about the demo
02:24:05:26 02:24:07:30 and what I really enjoy about it.
02:24:08:06 02:24:14:06 I am a sucker for demos that have fantastic tight sync
02:24:14:12 02:24:17:02 with the music to the visuals, especially if they are in
02:24:17:08 02:24:20:20 not just flashes and white flashes when there is a beat or something but
02:24:20:26 02:24:25:23 whenever there is creative use of syncing
02:24:25:29 02:24:28:19 the visuals and the music and I absolutely love the beginning
02:24:28:25 02:24:31:17 part of this demo which has already passed where
02:24:31:24 02:24:38:01 shots are fired to the beat and then they also hit their targets on the beat.
02:24:38:07 02:24:44:07 That is, I've never seen that before and that was really great to see.
02:24:44:14 02:24:49:23 So...[I'm a] fan of The Beauty.
02:26:04:13 02:26:09:21 Hi, this is mfx here again now with me, Uncle-x and Pommak
02:26:09:27 02:26:13:17 and we're going to talk about, a little bit about our demo
02:26:13:24 02:26:20:14 Inflorescence which was released at the 3rd annual Intel Demo Competition
02:26:20:20 02:26:27:25 And this, I don't know, I think this is the most abstract
02:26:28:01 02:26:37:17 of the mfx demos on this DVD with all of the programming done by
02:26:37:23 02:26:44:17 Pommak and myself. The artwork that you see is from Oddjob
02:26:44:23 02:26:47:01 a painter friend of Pommaks. Yeah,
02:26:47:07 02:26:53:27 all the 2D graphics in this demo are actually photographs from
02:26:54:03 02:26:58:10 paintings which are actually quite cool in my opinion.
02:26:58:16 02:27:06:11 About the FX, everything is basically done
02:27:06:17 02:27:14:17 or contains deep parallax mapping that is how this demo is based.
02:27:14:23 02:27:22:09 Including like these scenes, they are like mapped surfaces, no 3D
02:27:22:15 02:27:31:18 basically, or polygons. And there is not any strange optimizations in the
02:27:31:24 02:27:38:17 parallax routine itself like brute force raymarching.
02:27:38:24 02:27:43:05 Yeah, I think the only actual 3D model that was modeled for this demo
02:27:43:11 02:27:50:14 is the flower that Raimo made for us and most of the other
02:27:50:21 02:27:57:22 3D objects are basically spheres or toruses or some irregular surfaces.
02:27:57:28 02:28:02:27 Or cubes. And cubes as well of course. And the soundtrack was
02:28:03:03 02:28:10:05 done by 1in10 again. It's actually interesting, the soundtrack
02:28:10:11 02:28:14:05 contains, both in the beginning of the demo and at the very end
02:28:14:12 02:28:20:08 contains samples from a demo called lifeforce, uh sorry,
02:28:20:15 02:28:24:11 a film called Lifeforce which is ah, some of you may appreciate
02:28:24:17 02:28:26:18 the irony there.
02:28:26:24 02:28:30:30 And, uh, all the metallic looking stuff you see
02:28:31:06 02:28:35:15 is actually just the normal post processing filter
02:28:35:21 02:28:43:18 it is not any texture shader or anything just like only one post process filter.
02:28:43:24 02:28:50:14 And, uh, well as you can see again this demo doesn't have
02:28:50:21 02:28:54:22 anything else except cubes and parallax mapping.
02:28:54:28 02:29:00:06 I actually tried to optimize the steep parallax routines so that it would run well
02:29:00:12 02:29:08:04 and be quite, um, or like, be very free of anti-aliasing artifacts
02:29:08:10 02:29:11:24 and there is actually some bug in the shader so that you can
02:29:12:01 02:29:17:28 see some aliasing every now and then but they are hidden quite well.
02:29:18:04 02:29:25:00 Still. And a little point about the particle effect that you saw
02:29:25:06 02:29:28:04 at the very beginning of the demo and at the end
02:29:28:11 02:29:35:13 that's, uh, I think it contains not many, maybe 20-25,000 particles
02:29:35:20 02:29:42:26 and tries to somehow simulate magnetism but, um, of course its
02:29:43:02 02:29:47:11 all just a big fake. As all good effects are.
02:29:47:17 02:29:57:15 Yeah, and the reference to 2001 monolith is intended.
02:30:07:19 02:30:10:10 Hi, this is Jim "Trixter" Leonard and I am one of the producers of
02:30:10:16 02:30:13:29 MindCandy 3 and I will be reading the commentary that Zd3n provided
02:30:14:05 02:30:19:12 for his wonderful work "Vokawardoai." Sorry to make that cut
02:30:19:19 02:30:22:06 there but, I wasn't even going to try to pronounce it,
02:30:22:12 02:30:24:04 its not my native language.
02:30:24:15 02:30:27:15 When we asked him for commentary he very helpfully provided
02:30:27:21 02:30:30:21 us with a lot of information, not necessarily about the making of
02:30:30:27 02:30:35:00 the demo but more interestingly about how he made this version of
02:30:35:07 02:30:38:21 the demo which are you seeing. We tried to make sure that all
02:30:38:28 02:30:42:10 of the stuff on MindCandy 3 runs at the full framerate
02:30:42:16 02:30:47:07 which is one of the hallmarks of demos, and he took that as an interesting challenge.
02:30:47:13 02:30:51:28 His demo was originally written for 50 frames per second
02:30:52:04 02:30:55:17 so, he had to make a lot of changes, and this is what he writes:
02:30:55:23 02:30:58:21 He says, the first problem is that, as I just mentioned,
02:30:58:27 02:31:02:05 the demos internal micro steps for all of the values for the visuals
02:31:02:12 02:31:04:21 were designed for 50 frames per second.
02:31:04:27 02:31:08:13 Um, and that's, this is me [Jim] talking, actually I think that's not
02:31:08:19 02:31:11:21 really a mistake necessarily, I think if I remember correctly
02:31:11:27 02:31:15:24 his country is a PAL country so he probably grew up on 50 frames per second
02:31:16:00 02:31:19:10 television so, it is not necessarily a problem, but he writes:
02:31:19:16 02:31:21:26 That was a mistake and a good lesson.
02:31:22:02 02:31:25:22 He decided not to touch the original three months of design work
02:31:25:29 02:31:29:16 and also gave up the dangerous task to try to redesign
02:31:29:22 02:31:32:09 all of the micro steps to a higher frames per second rate.
02:31:32:16 02:31:37:18 So, he changed the internal render time to 16.6 repeating milliseconds.
02:31:37:24 02:31:41:03 And he said he was happy that me, Trixter, was satisfied
02:31:41:09 02:31:43:14 with these special needs for the video frames per second
02:31:43:20 02:31:45:06 and that he didn't need to fix it.
02:31:45:12 02:31:48:22 During making the render he realized that the first part
02:31:48:29 02:31:52:24 didn't look exactly as he originally meant. When he checked the code
02:31:53:01 02:31:56:08 he found a bug which caused the falling waves in the intros background
02:31:56:14 02:31:59:24 to fade away after a few moments. The original idea was to keep waves on
02:32:00:00 02:32:03:04 for the whole scene. So, this version you are seeing now is in fact
02:32:03:10 02:32:07:15 the true final version of the demo. The next problem was the desert
02:32:07:22 02:32:12:12 scene. The background bitmap was created with time distortion effects
02:32:12:18 02:32:15:30 and for this filter, movement of the source is important.
02:32:16:06 02:32:19:23 He originally designed the effects for 25 frames per second
02:32:19:29 02:32:22:08 and when he watched the render, which was at 60
02:32:22:14 02:32:25:10 it resulted in the lack of atmosphere that he wanted to create
02:32:25:17 02:32:28:05 so he had to make a new function that controlled the position
02:32:28:11 02:32:30:19 of the input bitmap for the time distortion effects.
02:32:30:25 02:32:35:14 Fine tuning of such adjustments took a much longer time than he had expected.
02:32:36:05 02:32:39:12 He also, to preview this work, he had to render raw video
02:32:39:18 02:32:42:28 then convert that into playable output and then decide what to do next.
02:32:43:27 02:32:46:26 The last thing of course from the point of design of atmosphere was
02:32:47:02 02:32:50:28 how the feedback effects look different on every framerate.
02:32:51:04 02:32:54:25 But he really didn't want to keep certain backgrounds in 25 frames per second
02:32:55:01 02:32:57:18 or create some crossfade tricks to slow down the feedback
02:32:57:25 02:33:01:06 and keep the pulsing at the same speed so, he left it alone.
02:33:01:12 02:33:04:17 So, this version, that you are seeing now features another
02:33:04:23 02:33:07:13 perspective on the piece and he hopes we like it.
02:33:07:19 02:33:11:29 Making this final version took about two weeks of his hobby work
02:33:12:05 02:33:15:26 and he concludes by saying he is really proud to be a part of this project.
02:33:16:02 02:33:18:05 And we are proud to have his work.
02:33:18:12 02:33:21:05 Thank you Zd3N.
02:35:59:24 02:36:03:09 Hello, good evening or morning. Good evening.
02:36:03:16 02:36:08:25 Or good day sir. This is Kurli from SQNY
02:36:09:01 02:36:14:12 and Piezo from SQNY. What you are looking at here is
02:36:14:19 02:36:21:28 our first demo ever. And this is actually the final version of the demo.
02:36:22:04 02:36:31:03 The compo version was a bit different, this was, it had a blue hue on it.
02:36:31:10 02:36:35:25 This is all black and white which we actually first
02:36:36:01 02:36:41:27 wanted but for some reason we ended up with a blue glow filter
02:36:42:04 02:36:48:21 on top of the demo the first place, which some people considered to be
02:36:48:27 02:36:54:19 better than the final version but this is our view that this is actually
02:36:55:11 02:36:58:19 a better version of the demo. Right? Yeah, I think
02:36:58:25 02:37:03:01 the original idea was to have it the whole time to have it black and white
02:37:03:07 02:37:07:04 to make something very very minimalistic to feed the soundtrack.
02:37:07:10 02:37:14:26 Yeah, and also it, one of the main points was to make it
02:37:15:02 02:37:20:14 fluent on all the transitions and keep it very minimal.
02:37:20:20 02:37:26:15 Which I think we succeeded here. Yes, rather.
02:37:28:18 02:37:36:04 I think we uh, the track was kind of easy to do for this one.
02:37:36:10 02:37:41:17 It was mainly a test for my part to see if I could make this kind of sound.
02:37:41:23 02:37:46:02 I think I had the kind of template for the track lying around
02:37:46:08 02:37:51:09 for about a half a year and then it all came together in about two weeks.
02:37:51:15 02:38:01:10 Yeah, and I also really like this tune. Most of the time the main drive in
02:38:01:16 02:38:10:06 making any demo for me is about the song and this as well inspired me
02:38:10:12 02:38:18:10 very much to do a complete this demo and make it as it is now.
02:38:20:20 02:38:26:21 Yeah, for me it was after a very very long while I'd been kind of inactive
02:38:26:27 02:38:32:19 and it was just something I kind of had to do to keep myself active again.
02:38:32:26 02:38:39:10 This part right here is the camera path is actually recorded
02:38:39:17 02:38:46:03 with a 3D connection space navigator so what we did was
02:38:46:10 02:38:55:03 we first completed the code for the scene and then recorded the
02:38:55:10 02:39:01:02 path of the camera in real time and we did it quite many times
02:39:01:09 02:39:05:20 before we had the camera path we were
02:39:05:26 02:39:10:25 A number of beers were consumed during the time of getting the flight path
02:39:11:01 02:39:20:21 I think we, uh, succeeded well considering the technique used.
02:39:20:27 02:39:23:24 Yeah, I think main idea, main problem was to not hit
02:39:24:01 02:39:26:06 any of the flying objects in that scene.
02:39:26:12 02:39:28:11 Yeah.
02:39:32:17 02:39:36:20 Was that some kind of bug, the thing that in the kind of center
02:39:36:26 02:39:45:00 there. No this FX is all consisting of cubes that are rotated
02:39:45:07 02:39:50:03 towards the center of the object and they are rotating all the time
02:39:50:09 02:39:58:03 and that causes the uh, some of the cubes to go weird, weird in shape
02:39:58:09 02:40:05:27 rotate near the camera here. That's why it looks the way it does.
02:40:09:30 02:40:12:25 And there's the bloody iris again.
02:40:13:01 02:40:14:15 And now it closes.
02:40:16:17 02:40:22:15 Yeah, well, some people thought there is a hidden message
02:40:22:21 02:40:33:07 or underlying something in the demo but, actually no. Sorry.
02:40:33:13 02:40:36:19 (laughter)
02:40:40:19 02:40:46:08 Hi, I am chaos I did code. Hi, I'm Ryg and I also did code for this demo.
02:40:46:14 02:40:50:24 And I'm The United States of America and I did the visuals and the direction.
02:40:51:00 02:40:53:11 And I'm kb and I did the audio programming.
02:40:53:17 02:40:58:16 And you are watching FR-41: Debris. Our demo contribution
02:40:58:23 02:41:02:05 to the Breakpoint 2007 demo compo which we worked on for
02:41:02:12 02:41:06:14 yeah, more than two years actually from start to finish
02:41:06:20 02:41:10:02 though not continuously. With interruptions but,
02:41:10:08 02:41:15:25 it was still too long for a single project. We all hope this is never
02:41:16:02 02:41:20:01 going to happen again. That it would take this long to actually finish
02:41:20:08 02:41:22:20 a demo. It was simply way too much content.
02:41:22:27 02:41:26:14 Its uh, for me it was really boring to do 80% of the time
02:41:26:20 02:41:29:03 the houses and the textures and everything and
02:41:29:09 02:41:32:28 the fun part began when I could start directing and
02:41:33:04 02:41:36:12 it was really was the last 20 or even 10 percent.
02:41:36:19 02:41:40:19 Yeah, the demo only really started coming together
02:41:40:26 02:41:44:19 in the last two months before release and we by that point
02:41:44:26 02:41:51:14 we were all kind of fed up with it and it even four months before
02:41:51:20 02:41:55:14 release it didn't really look like we were going towards anywhere.
02:41:55:20 02:42:02:14 And, uh, then we did this exploding cube effect which is very versatile
02:42:02:21 02:42:05:07 which we are going to see a lot more of through the demo.
02:42:05:13 02:42:09:22 That really kind of help us find a way to wrap this up.
02:42:09:28 02:42:15:10 Actually the buildup of the demo is interesting because it very much
02:42:15:16 02:42:18:09 mirrors the creation of the demo itself. And that
02:42:18:15 02:42:22:11 a lot of the first part of the demo is about showing the city and
02:42:22:17 02:42:26:02 all the stuff that fiver built and then we spent
02:42:26:09 02:42:29:14 the whole second half just being fed up with it and
02:42:29:20 02:42:31:19 blowing everything to pieces.
02:42:32:29 02:42:37:03 One interesting thing is that the name Debris was
02:42:37:09 02:42:42:00 a final very early on. And at the time we didn't even plan to
02:42:42:07 02:42:47:08 have any debris in it. The final part where everything is breaking together
02:42:47:14 02:42:51:18 was planned to be with overlay effects. I wanted to
02:42:51:24 02:42:56:27 tear the visuals apart but not the city and then chaos came up a
02:42:57:04 02:43:00:03 debris effect which was intended for just one scene
02:43:00:09 02:43:05:20 where the street was breaking off and he gave it to me and said
02:43:05:26 02:43:09:09 well this is it, take it or leave it, and this is all I can do.
02:43:09:16 02:43:17:04 Actually this effect was so versatile that I could use it for everything
02:43:17:10 02:43:20:02 and it changed the second part completely.
02:43:20:08 02:43:25:19 I could suddenly tear down whole streets and whole buildings
02:43:25:25 02:43:32:22 and even the sky and it changed the whole meaning of debris.
02:43:32:28 02:43:36:13 Awesomeness ensued basically. Yep.
02:43:36:19 02:43:42:09 And by the way the whole demo wasn't planned to be 64k but
02:43:42:15 02:43:47:15 after we finished .kkrieger we had so much small textures and everything
02:43:47:22 02:43:51:05 laying around that we wanted to show everyone so we decided
02:43:51:11 02:43:55:21 we will not try to make 64k which would have been twice or three times
02:43:55:27 02:43:59:19 the amount of work. But we wanted to make it small but not
02:43:59:25 02:44:03:02 caring if it was 64k, 100, or 500k maybe.
02:44:03:08 02:44:07:27 As long as it would show that everything could be done in
02:44:08:03 02:44:15:05 generated content. Actually the demo consist of sixteen thousand operators
02:44:15:11 02:44:19:10 using the werkkzeug and the operators alone
02:44:19:17 02:44:25:12 are about 64k bytes. So each operator store takes about 4 bytes
02:44:25:18 02:44:30:13 after all the compression we did. And an operator can be something like
02:44:30:20 02:44:34:17 one instruction to create texture bit of noise maybe a cube or something
02:44:34:23 02:44:41:04 like that and so the operators itself wouldn't fit into 64 kilobyte
02:44:41:10 02:44:45:08 but on top of that comes all the code that generates the scenes from
02:44:45:15 02:44:50:13 the operators and we weren't saving a lot of memory there either because
02:44:50:19 02:44:55:10 we have two mesh systems, two material systems. Pretty much
02:44:55:16 02:44:58:10 we took two years to create this, pretty much everything
02:44:58:17 02:45:04:08 we were using seemed to us as outdated and we wrote a better version of it
02:45:04:14 02:45:07:08 but we couldn't remove the old version because then
02:45:07:15 02:45:11:15 we would have to change all the data to fit to the new version.
02:45:11:22 02:45:15:28 Yeah, so this is kind of mishmash in the air, you see the explosion effect
02:45:16:04 02:45:20:23 which is actually the same as the one that pulverizes the cubes
02:45:20:29 02:45:23:28 and it is also the same one that we use later for the street
02:45:24:05 02:45:27:27 it is all this one effect. That said it was really versatile.
02:45:28:04 02:45:33:25 And it may seem like a strange way to greet your fellow sceners
02:45:34:01 02:45:39:10 but this kind of greeting was very well appreciated by those who got destroyed.
02:45:39:17 02:45:46:19 Because, it mirrors their feelings when watching the demo. (laughter)
02:45:48:05 02:45:51:12 Also you should note that there is no real physical simulation
02:45:51:18 02:45:55:13 involved. All the debris particles are just flying on a precomputed
02:45:55:20 02:46:01:11 course, doing whatever random rotation the random generator chose and
02:46:01:18 02:46:05:16 they happily intersect, which has its good sides as you can
02:46:05:22 02:46:08:10 scrub the timeline in the tool forward and backward
02:46:08:17 02:46:14:04 to whatever position you like without having to worry that you can't
02:46:14:11 02:46:19:14 go backwards in a physical simulation. Like if you play the Theta commentary
02:46:19:20 02:46:24:10 where we had the problem with the scorpion walking backwards
02:46:24:16 02:46:27:01 because it was a simulated scorpion, we wouldn't have
02:46:27:07 02:46:30:06 something like this here. Just to avoid the trouble.
02:46:30:12 02:46:32:30 Actually one of the interesting things about this demo is that
02:46:33:06 02:46:36:08 all of the textures are ridiculously high resolution.
02:46:36:14 02:46:41:10 We once did a test recording of this demo in 4k resolution
02:46:41:16 02:46:46:13 so 4,000 by 2,000 something pixels and the textures are still
02:46:46:20 02:46:50:02 perfectly crisp so this is one future proof demo.
02:46:50:08 02:46:51:16 We hope.
02:46:51:22 02:46:55:17 One more very important thing that evolved during the process
02:46:55:24 02:47:01:15 was the music. I must admit I seemed to be very hard to work with
02:47:01:22 02:47:06:16 from a musicians point of view because there were four musicians
02:47:06:22 02:47:10:13 trying to do the soundtrack that in the end was done by ronny.
02:47:10:19 02:47:16:22 We had some very promising demos in the first time
02:47:16:28 02:47:21:01 but they all didn't turn out to be the soundtrack that fit the demo.
02:47:21:08 02:47:26:02 And, uh, Ronny did this and I really did not hear the soundtrack until
02:47:26:08 02:47:30:05 I heard it in the competition which was a really strange experience for me.
02:47:30:11 02:47:33:06 I had finished all the visuals and then I gave it to Ronny
02:47:33:12 02:47:35:28 who did it within one week the whole soundtrack.
02:47:36:04 02:47:40:22 And, uh, yeah, I watched as everyone else for the first time the demo
02:47:40:28 02:47:42:06 in its whole.
02:47:42:12 02:47:47:07 Also thanks to Kicia, Wayfinder, and Fate? who did other versions
02:47:47:13 02:47:51:20 that didn't get used. Sorry, but, yeah, that is how it went.
02:47:52:13 02:47:55:01 Hello everybody, this is Navis
02:47:55:08 02:47:58:23 of Andromeda Software Development, coder of the demogroup
02:47:58:29 02:48:07:04 working together with aMUSiC, Leviathan, iM, ch3, amivikos, and Liska
02:48:07:11 02:48:09:23 to produce this demo called Rupture.
02:48:09:30 02:48:16:03 Rupture was made between January 2009 and March.
02:48:16:09 02:48:20:27 Just after I discovered by accident the math to render objects using
02:48:21:04 02:48:26:17 this rather stylized wireframe mode. And then break all these objects
02:48:26:23 02:48:30:22 into pieces. The demo was written in a nonlinear fashion.
02:48:30:28 02:48:35:12 Introduction and second part for example,  were written last.
02:48:35:18 02:48:39:03 A long time after we established the scenario.
02:48:39:09 02:48:43:01 So what's happening here is this, your home planet is
02:48:43:07 02:48:46:21 about to be destroyed and your only option is pretty much
02:48:46:27 02:48:50:20 to run for cover. You start your journey on a motorcycle
02:48:50:26 02:48:54:17 then progressively move to a truck, a train,
02:48:54:24 02:49:00:00 speedboat, and helicopter. Having established that early on
02:49:00:07 02:49:05:03 that is knowing about the unifying thing it was easy to do the rest.
02:49:05:09 02:49:10:10 So, in a way Rupture has a very simple, was a very simple demo to make.
02:49:10:16 02:49:15:10 I believe it's much harder to get the story right
02:49:15:16 02:49:20:07 actually then the effects and graphics. Coding is the easiest part
02:49:20:14 02:49:25:09 of the demomaking process. The scenario and story is everything.
02:49:27:14 02:49:33:14 Graphics in Rupture are composed with what I call subtractive synthesis.
02:49:33:20 02:49:37:11 So, rather than adding 3D objects in a scene
02:49:37:18 02:49:42:01 I cut away geometrically construction from big cube or cylinder
02:49:43:02 02:49:48:01 using this constructive solid geometry method it is possible to compose
02:49:48:08 02:49:52:08 much much more complex looking walls that it would be possible by using
02:49:52:14 02:50:00:02 token models with added noise. So, let me give you some examples
02:50:00:08 02:50:03:19 the road you just saw was split in half by projecting
02:50:03:25 02:50:09:05 a symboled 2D texture over it and cutting the geometry on a pixel level.
02:50:09:12 02:50:16:24 Same goes uh, same goes for the truck. The projected textures open
02:50:17:01 02:50:22:12 the vertices left and right of the main split so the motorcycle
02:50:22:18 02:50:28:06 could go through and then the same function was played in reverse
02:50:28:12 02:50:32:24 so I could close the truck again. All of the little holes you see
02:50:33:00 02:50:36:21 also all around the place are perfectly ray casted objects. So,
02:50:36:27 02:50:40:12 they intersecting with the geometry. It is possible to render
02:50:40:19 02:50:44:11 an infinite amount of them without any sacrifice in speed whatsoever.
02:50:44:18 02:50:49:07 And same goes with the tunnel which was an intersection of geometry
02:50:49:13 02:51:01:06 over the uh, the truck and the cylinder. The train scene was
02:51:01:12 02:51:04:23 amongst my favorite to work on. So many things are happening
02:51:04:29 02:51:07:18 but, in a sense, it's a pretty straight forward journey.
02:51:07:24 02:51:10:29 Just a train running on the tracks and revealing slowly
02:51:11:05 02:51:15:01 more and more about it. The internals of its engine
02:51:15:07 02:51:17:15 where I introduce a second color of the demo.
02:51:17:21 02:51:21:02 Which is the grayed in over red until it was white.
02:51:21:08 02:51:24:14 And the surrounding wall which is various real?
02:51:24:20 02:51:27:03 Indicating perhaps that we are kind of getting close
02:51:27:10 02:51:30:02 to the resolution for the whole drama.
02:51:30:08 02:51:34:04 Again, all of the textures are mathematical equations added by
02:51:34:10 02:51:38:03 trial and error. As it's always the case in demos.
02:51:38:09 02:51:42:11 The scene where the train falls was amongst the hardest to make.
02:51:42:17 02:51:46:14 Remember, it was something like a couple of hours of work for its
02:51:46:21 02:51:47:27 demo seconds.
02:51:48:06 02:51:50:26 During the time I was writing this demo was,
02:51:51:02 02:51:53:11 I was actually recovering from a new operation and
02:51:53:17 02:51:55:25 I had to stay home to look after myself.
02:51:56:01 02:51:59:06 So, I was lucky to have the extra time to spare.
02:51:59:29 02:52:05:01 Um, so, the train falls or it looks like that in reality it was a camera trick.
02:52:05:07 02:52:09:17 If I could put a wall coordinated static camera you would see that
02:52:09:23 02:52:12:08 none of the vehicles actually goes anywhere falls
02:52:12:14 02:52:15:30 or jumps, it is only the geometry around the camera
02:52:16:06 02:52:19:04 that makes it look like that. The cut to the speed boat scene
02:52:19:10 02:52:21:18 was done with millisecond precision.
02:52:21:25 02:52:24:17 Where the equations subtracts from the first and second scene
02:52:24:24 02:52:27:24 are cross interpolated. I was very happy with the results
02:52:28:00 02:52:30:11 giving the feeling of the train drawing under the waves
02:52:30:17 02:52:34:28 and the boat just floating. Chronologically the speed boats scene was
02:52:35:04 02:52:37:12 the first one that I made. Long before there was a
02:52:37:18 02:52:40:05 train or a helicopter as you will see next.
02:52:40:11 02:52:44:26 The problem we had was how to link this with the next scene
02:52:45:03 02:52:49:12 and I think the idea of the vortex and falling boat into the city was
02:52:49:18 02:52:55:08 a bit of cheating as it isn't as powerful as the previous ones
02:52:55:14 02:52:57:27 especially as the ones going from train to speedboat.
02:52:58:03 02:53:02:04 But I guess at this point the demo runs to fast to notice and
02:53:02:10 02:53:04:07 and be hugely disappointed.
02:53:05:20 02:53:10:03 You can now get the feeling that we were getting close to the end.
02:53:10:09 02:53:13:04 The music, unlike the graphics, is additive
02:53:13:10 02:53:18:05 aMUSiC and Leviathan working together. aMUSiC is usually
02:53:18:11 02:53:24:14 putting down his codes and then Leviathan adding his guitars.
02:53:24:21 02:53:29:08 As for the graphics, me and ch3 were working on the
02:53:29:14 02:53:34:02 3D models, Liska the voice at the beginning and the face of the video
02:53:34:08 02:53:39:11 iM and ch3 working on the textures and the vector city
02:53:39:17 02:53:44:18 the final scene with the city destruction is the highlight of the
02:53:44:25 02:53:49:22 demo in my opinion. And the good people at The Gathering 2009
02:53:49:28 02:53:54:20 where I presented the demo at the demo competition.
02:53:54:26 02:53:59:26 Cheered and clapped quite a lot which gave me a very warm, warm feeling.
02:54:00:02 02:54:05:24 All in all we were, I think we were all very happy
02:54:05:30 02:54:09:01 with this demo and how it worked out.
02:54:10:24 02:54:16:16 It was a good, good implementation of some clever routines.
02:54:16:22 02:54:23:04 Good music, and a very good result at The Gathering.
02:54:36:09 02:54:38:29 This is Frameranger by CNCD, Fairlight, and Orange,
02:54:39:05 02:54:43:13 and this is Smash, a Fairlight coder of Frameranger.
02:54:44:19 02:54:50:12 So this demo is like our final attempt to win Assembly at last.
02:54:50:19 02:54:53:02 We've probably worked on it for over a year in the end.
02:54:53:09 02:54:55:19 It was originally due for Assembly 2008,
02:54:55:25 02:54:58:10 and we worked on it a few months before then,
02:54:58:16 02:55:00:27 and then we got to the party and we just thought,
02:55:01:03 02:55:04:13 "We don't want to do another Track One or another Media Error,
02:55:04:22 02:55:07:16 we're actually going to give this the time it deserves."
02:55:07:22 02:55:13:16 So we stopped production and left a year, and finished it for Assembly 2009.
02:55:13:24 02:55:16:01 It was still a massive rush in the end.
02:55:16:07 02:55:18:23 So, yeah, it starts with the earth scene.
02:55:20:16 02:55:22:24 There's a rough concept, the story to the demo...
02:55:23:03 02:55:29:14 It's about this robot ship coming to earth, the Frameranger of the title.
02:55:31:13 02:55:38:06 This scene is actually one of the few things that survived almost intact from the Assembly 2008 version.
02:55:38:13 02:55:41:05 So there's the credits, obviously you have to have the credits.
02:55:41:14 02:55:49:06 And then this big ship, which is actually a 3D model, flies down and crashes down to earth
02:55:50:02 02:55:54:29 with an explosion.  It makes a small little  explosion in the earth.
02:55:55:13 02:55:59:05 Then when it hits the earth, it's actually a car.
02:56:00:02 02:56:07:13 The explosion that's been caused by the ship hitting the earth forms this wave of arcs
02:56:07:27 02:56:11:18 which are impounding on the earth and breaking the road behind it
02:56:11:25 02:56:14:29 so the car is like driving away from the arcs as fast as it can
02:56:15:05 02:56:18:03 as it's driving away, the road is breaking in front of it.
02:56:18:09 02:56:21:17 It gets into the tunnel, leading up to the city.
02:56:21:24 02:56:26:18 So it's in the tunnel, driving through the tunnel with all the pretty lights
02:56:27:06 02:56:32:15 and it comes out in the city.  So it's driving through the city, a few little billboards here and there.
02:56:32:22 02:56:35:13 We had a small bug with the wheels, let's not mention that.
02:56:35:19 02:56:41:13 So the car is driving through the city, and then it encounters it's enemy
02:56:42:09 02:56:45:21 the spider robots, when it gets around this corner.
02:56:45:27 02:56:47:04 THERE IT IS.
02:56:47:10 02:56:51:29 The spider robot attacks the car.  It's making a pounding in the ground, attacking him.
02:56:52:05 02:56:56:11 So the robot -- the car is driving away from the spider as fast as it can.
02:56:56:17 02:57:05:03 Then, so the city is actually quite a big scene in the end, everything is lit real time.
02:57:05:09 02:57:08:17 We didn't bake anything because we didn't have space.
02:57:08:24 02:57:12:22 We had to do everything real time, including all the lighting, everything, all the shading.
02:57:12:28 02:57:17:28 So now the spider is now fighting the car, firing missiles at it.
02:57:18:05 02:57:21:21 Fortunately, the car has got a gun, so it can fire back.
02:57:21:28 02:57:28:22 The explosions are very problematic for us.  We had a few issues with the sheer number and the size of them.
02:57:28:28 02:57:33:04 So, in the end, we did this quite graphical thing, it doesn't look that realistic.
02:57:33:10 02:57:35:14 It's more style than realistic.
02:57:35:20 02:57:42:21 Now, the car transforms into a robot.  So now he's like, he's transforming to the robot and now
02:57:42:28 02:57:50:11 he's going to fight back against the spider using his advanced Tai Chi moves.
02:57:50:17 02:57:58:21 So now it transitions into this like robots and spiders firing, still firing missiles at him,
02:57:58:28 02:58:02:04 but the robots fighting back.
02:58:02:10 02:58:07:24 There is like fifty camera cuts in about a minute and a half of this scene.
02:58:08:00 02:58:12:21 It was an incredibly large scene, larger than we ever made anything--
02:58:12:27 02:58:16:14 we had never made anything this big in the tools before, and
02:58:16:20 02:58:18:16 it stretched it to the absolute limit.
02:58:18:22 02:58:23:09 Every camera cut had to be individually set up with post effects and
02:58:23:15 02:58:25:26 all the animations had to be setup and cut.
02:58:26:02 02:58:29:24 It took an awful lot of work, it took a couple of weeks just to get it done.
02:58:30:00 02:58:33:13 So now the robots are fighting back.
02:58:33:19 02:58:41:22 It goes for an attack on the spider, and goes for the uppercut, which stuns him, and
02:58:41:29 02:58:46:06 then fires off the missiles to finish him off, which takes his head off.
02:58:46:12 02:58:48:06 So that's the first part of the demo.
02:58:48:12 02:58:53:30 We went for this sort of classic homage to early 1990s demos
02:58:54:06 02:59:01:20 where you have like this story party, the design part, and then you go into this sort of hard core effects part to try and like--
02:59:01:26 02:59:07:14 so you show off your design skills, and your graphics part, and then you go in for the effects part.
02:59:07:20 02:59:10:29 That's where we-- we actually did this here, we transitioned to this--
02:59:11:05 02:59:13:17 the music transitions to this very old school style.
02:59:13:23 02:59:18:14 This looks like very old school rendering style, like early 1990s rendering.
02:59:18:21 02:59:26:03 But actually it is incredibly heavy effects because it's like raytracing ambient occlusion in real time.
02:59:26:09 02:59:31:08 So it's actually quite heavy, high end effect even though it's doing something very old school.
02:59:31:15 02:59:35:06 The blocky, colored shapes-- it's all done with a height map.
02:59:35:13 02:59:45:10 The shapes are actually the robot from the story scenes rendering as cubes.
02:59:45:16 02:59:50:03 So now this scene is like very heavy fluid dynamics.
02:59:50:09 03:00:00:07 It hasn't captured all that well, but it's like raytraced liquid effects, like 3D fluid rendering effects.
03:00:00:13 03:00:06:23 Very high end lighting, very large, very heavy for real time.
03:00:06:30 03:00:09:26 At the time it was cutting edge.
03:00:10:02 03:00:14:16 And this is like rendering about 100,000 metaballs or something insane.
03:00:14:22 03:00:21:13 It's like the heaviest metaball effect anyone had done up to now, done by a raytracing in realtime.
03:00:21:20 03:00:32:01 There's a lot of proprietary-- like, brand new effects that took weeks and weeks of work, entirely new effects.
03:00:32:08 03:00:43:22 Finally, we get to the credits, which is not actually brilliantly used in this demo, but it is a 3D smoke solver, grid solver.
03:00:43:28 03:00:51:09 It is like one of the heaviest ones that anyone has ever done in real time, with shadows calculated for it in real time.
03:00:51:16 03:00:56:10 Everything is very high-- and rendered-- unfortunately, it's quite washed out so it's not completely obvious.
03:00:56:16 03:01:00:02 I guess that means we get to use it in another demo and get away with it.
03:01:00:08 03:01:04:19 It is actually rendering the credit meshes and turning them into smoke,
03:01:04:25 03:01:10:28 but we had to impose the real credits on top just to make it readable.
03:01:11:04 03:01:15:27 We had a choice of making it good looking, or readable.  We had to, in the end, go for readable.
03:01:16:03 03:01:18:15 That's the demo.
03:01:46:08 03:01:48:28 Greetings.  This is Willbe of Cocoon.
03:01:49:05 03:01:55:07 Unfortunately, my group mates, Guille and Nytrik couldn't make it for the recording of this commentary,
03:01:55:14 03:02:00:22 but I've got their input by email or by phone, so I will speak in their name.
03:02:00:28 03:02:05:17 This is about the Shad 3 demo that is Cocoon's biggest production ever.
03:02:05:24 03:02:08:00 The story behind it is quite simple:
03:02:08:07 03:02:13:04 We wanted to release a blockbuster demo at Breakpoint 2006.
03:02:13:10 03:02:21:24 We wanted it to be evil, loud, and massive, and this certainly explains why it took us almost three years to deliver.
03:02:21:30 03:02:25:27 Mainly the graphics and the 3D scenes are made by Tenshu.
03:02:26:04 03:02:28:28 Later, vastly reworked by Nytrik.
03:02:29:04 03:02:33:20 The first scene we now see was the first one designed for the demo.
03:02:33:27 03:02:39:20 With animated and skinned characters, a flexible particle editor with timeline control,
03:02:39:26 03:02:42:06 and a custom shader editor for the landscape.
03:02:42:13 03:02:50:15 Next scene is a nice logo by Nytrik featuring light maps, glow, depth of field, and some smoke done with a particle editor.
03:02:50:21 03:02:53:19 Next one.  The jail scene.
03:02:53:25 03:02:57:27 For this one, all modeling and animation were done by Tenshu,
03:02:58:04 03:03:07:05 and the TV and overlay animations you can see during the demo were rendered in a texture using a customized SWF player
03:03:07:11 03:03:09:16 for which I've made the Flash content.
03:03:09:22 03:03:17:09 The shader parameters can be animated, and we used this to move the particles through the wires from room to room
03:03:17:15 03:03:20:26 and the fading of some zombies near the end of the shot.
03:03:21:03 03:03:33:21 Technically speaking, Guille has made a demotool written in C++ and HLSL featuring a 3D engine that needs DirectX 9 and Pixel Shaders 2.0.
03:03:33:27 03:03:41:00 For the sound track, I wanted the first part to be hard rock, so I've made the sequences in Reason,
03:03:41:07 03:03:46:12 then recorded my drums and asked for the help of a guitarist friend.
03:03:46:18 03:03:51:24 We are getting closer to the monster, then a typical 2D gfx by Tenshu,
03:03:52:01 03:03:55:02 then a frenzied tunnel by Nytrik.
03:03:55:08 03:04:02:21 Guille has made a sound-based animation controller that was developed and used quite often for this demo.
03:04:02:27 03:04:06:29 The motion of field of view here is a nice example of that.
03:04:07:06 03:04:11:16 On top of the sound track, I've put a lot of sound effects on the party place.
03:04:11:22 03:04:16:29 Next scene was entirely modeled and animated by ZaaC of MaNkinD
03:04:17:05 03:04:22:13 and we've got this content by email a few hours before leaving home for the party place.
03:04:22:19 03:04:29:20 That was quite the timing.  You can notice the grey bone in the mouth of the gorilla that shouldn't have been visible.
03:04:29:27 03:04:36:03 But, fortunately, since piercing is quite popular, we decided to leave it this way.
03:04:36:09 03:04:49:00 Yet another 2D gfx by Tenshu, then another 3D scene by Tenshu made a few years before the release of the demo.
03:04:51:24 03:05:00:26 Next, a quick flashback using some assets from the first scene, focusing on the human character made by Tenshu.
03:05:01:02 03:05:09:01 A naked female robot leading to the tunnel of greetings made by Nytrik.
03:05:09:07 03:05:16:21 As previously seen in the demo with TV animations are rendered realtime in a texture using a custom Flash player.
03:05:16:28 03:05:22:27 This part of the soundtrack is now heavily drum and bass, entirely made with Reason.
03:05:23:04 03:05:30:14 We are really fans of this kind of fast-paced music, so we absolutely wanted to have some in our demo.
03:05:30:21 03:05:38:17 Here is the gigantic tower by Nytrik and Tenshu, with another load of Flash animations.
03:05:38:23 03:05:47:01 The screenplay of the demo has been made by me on a software video editor, using videos of every part of the demo.
03:05:47:07 03:05:53:21 This way I could really synchronize the scenes to the music, and everyone in the group was about to watch and give the okay
03:05:53:27 03:05:58:02 before and during the actual timing values in the demo tool.
03:05:58:09 03:06:01:05 Now the final part of the demo, made by Nytrik and Tenshu.
03:06:01:12 03:06:04:22 Initially, the character was to be shown during the jail scene,
03:06:04:29 03:06:08:16 but Nytrik decided to change this a few days before the party.
03:06:08:22 03:06:13:26 We felt that the final part of the demo had to feature a character.
03:06:14:02 03:06:19:28 For the metaballs generation it was Guille's first attempt to make some multi-threaded code
03:06:20:04 03:06:24:28 and it symbolizes the demo god that the zombie guy is worshipping.
03:06:25:04 03:06:33:19 This demo was ranked 3rd at Breakpoint 2008 and we were very happy to make it to the podium with farbrausch and ASD.
03:06:33:25 03:06:36:14 Thanks for watching.
03:13:02:27 03:13:10:16 Hello everyone.  This is Navis from the demo group Andromeda Software Development.
03:13:10:22 03:13:17:18 Me and my friends in ASD wrote the demo you are watching called Happiness is Around the Bend.
03:13:17:24 03:13:20:14 The full credit list goes like that.
03:13:20:21 03:13:26:20 Leviathan and aMUSiC wrote the music and played the instruments, the piano and guitars,
03:13:26:27 03:13:33:17 Amoivikos did some 2D graphics and I did all the rest, the coding and the 3D graphics.
03:13:33:30 03:13:41:00 This demo continues from where Lifeforce, a previous megademo of ours from Assembly 2007, left.
03:13:41:07 03:13:49:22 It is the same setting, we are sinking, and presumably dying, into the water and then escape this world into another world.
03:13:49:28 03:13:53:03 The world we're heading into is a very strange place.
03:13:53:09 03:14:01:01 I tried to add notes of strong surrealistic images where objects from opposite realities meet on the same campus.
03:14:01:07 03:14:08:10 So for example, you may have a school of fish flying through mid-air or mesh with the relative scale of things.
03:14:10:21 03:14:15:29 So more or less, all you need to know about the structure and story in this demo so far is this:
03:14:16:06 03:14:18:20 It reads like a dream.  A bad dream.
03:14:18:27 03:14:24:28 And just like in a dream, you mix up elements that transform from one state into another and so on.
03:14:25:05 03:14:32:06 This is a very strategic decision in demo making in my opinion, and the reason being is this:
03:14:32:12 03:14:38:22 I always first try to think of what is giving motion, or animation, in a scene.
03:14:38:28 03:14:45:16 In other words, find the elements that create action as opposed to inaction, as opposed to a static scene.
03:14:45:22 03:14:50:03 This demo was built around the following elements that animate.
03:14:50:10 03:14:56:11 There are figures of people running or walking and throwing things.
03:14:56:18 03:15:03:10 There are some animals that fly or wave or walk.  Tentacles that move.
03:15:03:17 03:15:13:25 There is a rather exotic effect of a transformation from one mesh into the other which you'll see shortly in this scene.
03:15:14:02 03:15:26:14 And there are some very simple particle animations as seen with the snow, some mesh destruction, simple water effects, 2D animations, and some rope physics.
03:15:26:20 03:15:34:11 I think these are the elements that hold the demo together and differentiate it from a fly-by.
03:15:34:18 03:15:45:25 Therefore to make an eight minute demo, assuming this was a given target, that's not a boring fly-by, we had to mix all of these animation elements together.
03:15:46:01 03:15:52:13 And the only way to do so would be to combine places and objects that really don't belong to the same reality.
03:15:52:19 03:16:03:19 I think we could only force this, and-- we could only justify it as a surrealistic, completely out-of-this-world dreamscape.
03:16:06:14 03:16:15:22 You may notice, over the progress of this demo, that there are effectively not one, but two different worlds in here.
03:16:15:28 03:16:18:09 Both of them working side by side.
03:16:18:16 03:16:28:24 The first one is the, let's say more static world, that is painted in colors of brown and gray, and looks like everything is made out of concrete.
03:16:29:01 03:16:38:10 The other world has aqua-marine colors, is far more active.  Things move in here.
03:16:38:17 03:16:41:26 Things in here also have very strange proportions.
03:16:42:02 03:16:52:04 To give you an example, the first world, let's say the boring world, is the one with the guys pushing the figures on the chess board and then becoming solid like a rock.
03:16:52:10 03:16:58:25 The aqua-marine world was shown in the intermission with a tank inside the ?, or this scene with the morphing vehicles.
03:17:01:12 03:17:06:20 There are plenty of personal symbolisms and inside references with respect to all that.
03:17:06:26 03:17:13:26 Especially the previous demos of ours, like Rapture and Lifeforce, but I won't go into further details here.
03:17:15:25 03:17:25:10 As a matter of fact, I would like for the demo, ideally, to stand the test of time without any further requirements from the viewers, such as knowing all about our previous work.
03:17:28:08 03:17:37:27 So, now, the demo is slowly moving into some sort of a resolution, where, as I said before, the two worlds would link and we would escape this nightmare.
03:17:38:04 03:17:45:03 I must say at this point that all of this was loosely scripted, although there has been some important deviations.
03:17:45:09 03:17:51:03 The current part was originally thought of in only 2D with a small difference.
03:17:51:09 03:17:55:08 The figures that you see here would be part of a pop-up book.
03:17:55:14 03:18:03:11 They would jump out, do some sort of magic, and connect with the following scene through the tentacles that come after.
03:18:03:17 03:18:14:11 The scene of the last supper, which now stands in between the two, came as an accident as I was playing around with the two dimensional figures, which by the way is myself.
03:18:14:17 03:18:18:21 The accident was the addition of the halo behind my head.
03:18:18:27 03:18:25:25 And I saw it, I thought, "Now that would serve as a nice high point of the demo", like a small post to catch our breath.
03:18:26:02 03:18:30:14 It works quite well I think by adding another metaphysical element into the story.
03:18:30:21 03:18:37:08 I quite like it how these figures (and then people) are running away from the unknown menace which is not fully explained.
03:18:37:14 03:18:41:12 Technically speaking, the demo is a major improvement over previous work.
03:18:41:19 03:18:45:27 I have a list here of some of the new stuff that we have tried.
03:18:46:23 03:18:53:00 First of all, there is an almost unified pipeline for all graphics, 3D or 2D, throughout the demo.
03:18:53:07 03:18:59:25 It makes life a bit easier for me, as all effects are layered, so nothing has-- to give an example,
03:19:00:01 03:19:08:21 everything has to give an example, a touch of field of view blurring at the edges, a bit of screen space ambient occlusion, and soft shadows and so on.
03:19:08:27 03:19:19:21 So what I had to do was make a versatile shader once for triangle rendering and post-processing effect, and then use slightly different versions of that.
03:19:19:27 03:19:23:20 There are some new effects presented in this demo, such as the metamorphosis,
03:19:23:26 03:19:28:09 which you saw at the part when the different vehicles transform into each other.
03:19:28:15 03:19:34:07 It is a very straight forward effect, just imagine a cross-scaling of the objects with some pearling noise on the vertices.
03:19:34:13 03:19:38:03 But it wouldn't look half good without all the additions that I mentioned before,
03:19:38:09 03:19:40:15 such as the ambient occlusion in the shadows.
03:19:40:22 03:19:50:06 The fact that I had this new technology to play with made the whole creation of the demo, from a technical perspective at least, very straight forward.
03:19:50:12 03:19:54:04 I can honestly say that this demo didn't bother me at all.
03:19:54:11 03:19:58:11 In thinking back, it must have taken less than three months from start to finish.
03:19:59:26 03:20:05:21 As with all recent ASD demos, the graphics were made first and then came the music.
03:20:05:27 03:20:12:10 As you can imagine, this method of creating a demo is quite liberating for the people responsible for making the graphics,
03:20:12:16 03:20:14:28 but it is very hard for the musicians to follow.
03:20:15:04 03:20:21:10 There are many-- there are too many styles and key changes to follow as music has to reflect what is happening to the visuals.
03:20:21:17 03:20:26:24 Taking that into consideration, I think that the musician did a very good job with what they had.
03:20:27:00 03:20:34:06 So we are here at the end of the demo, where our character leaves the dreamscape and swims to the surface.
03:20:34:12 03:20:39:17 There is a strong reference to the final moments of Midnight Run, a demo we did a couple of years ago.
03:20:39:24 03:20:48:08 Looking back, it seems to me that our demos either end in destruction, sadness, and sorrow, or in a high note of hope.
03:20:48:14 03:20:53:14 Maybe, and I'm actually making this note as I'm saying this, they come in pairs.
03:20:53:27 03:21:02:13 Happiness is around the Bend is paired with lifeforce, and the whole is, in my eyes, greater than the sum of its parts.
03:21:19:28 03:21:26:01 Hello, this is ryg of farbrausch speaking, and you're watching fr-043: Rove.
03:21:26:07 03:21:33:27 Now this demo had a very clear theme, thematic idea that we wanted to do from the very beginning
03:21:34:04 03:21:42:17 which was that we'd been watching nature documentaries, particularly BBC's awesome Planet Earth series,
03:21:42:24 03:21:45:14 (that I can thoroughly recommend if you haven't seen it yet)
03:21:45:21 03:21:52:23 and we wanted to capture that feel, of showing beautiful landscapes and the animals that inhabit them.
03:21:52:29 03:21:59:26 And, like, have this alien planet that you see right now, with the 3D kaleidoscope effect
03:22:00:03 03:22:06:29 and wanted to show that landscape... yeah, the life that lives there
03:22:07:05 03:22:10:30 and... yeah, just make something out of that, because it seemed like a cool thing to try.
03:22:11:06 03:22:15:11 And at the same time, we had a very clear vision of where we wanted to go with this technically
03:22:15:17 03:22:20:07 which is, that we wanted to experiment with 3D particle systems
03:22:20:13 03:22:26:29 which has been a recurring theme for us starting with Debris, which had these cubes flying around
03:22:27:06 03:22:31:09 and then later we did the demo Momentum which expanded on that
03:22:31:15 03:22:34:12 and this time we wanted to do no cubes but kind-of more complex shapes
03:22:34:18 03:22:42:08 but still have the 3D particles, and something more interesting than the usual smoke particles and, like, sprites
03:22:42:14 03:22:43:29 that you see in games and such.
03:22:44:05 03:22:49:20 This scene here is probably... conceptually this was the first one
03:22:49:27 03:22:56:19 because this is based on the effect in Debris that we used to implode the houses and so on
03:22:56:25 03:23:04:26 kind-of an extended version of that, and the thing that started us looking at 3D particle systems in the first place
03:23:05:02 03:23:10:25 was a scene that fiver had done for Debris: We had these cubes, these exploded cubes flying around,
03:23:11:01 03:23:15:25 and put a light source in it that really looked great, we thought.
03:23:16:05 03:23:18:21 So that's what got us started on this.
03:23:19:01 03:23:25:13 And the whole theme of "light sources inside the objects moving" is another thing you'll see a lot in this demo.
03:23:25:19 03:23:30:09 And the whole play of light and dark on interesting measures.
03:23:38:13 03:23:45:09 Yeah, this scene has these objects... well, basically "glow-sticks" I call them,
03:23:45:16 03:23:50:12 and they're moving in this sinewave pattern and this whole scene kind-of reminiscent
03:23:50:18 03:23:58:28 of this "sine-wave fractal landscape" thing/effect you see in a lot of early 90's demos
03:23:59:04 03:24:05:22 this is kind-of recreating that effect with more modern hardware, and it's an interesting spin on it, I think.
03:24:08:14 03:24:15:07 This scene is probably one of the most memorable in the whole demo, which is just this huge, very long pullback
03:24:17:07 03:24:22:06 over this really really awesome landscape that goes all the way out space
03:24:22:12 03:24:33:03 in one scene, and it looks great, but it really... this scene only works for this one particular camera path.
03:24:33:09 03:24:38:17 The illusion immediately breaks down once you deviate from that path;
03:24:38:24 03:24:43:11 it's built like a film set where it really only looks great from the few angles that you need.
03:24:43:17 03:24:47:19 But... yeah, that shot is spectacular, I think.
03:24:48:14 03:24:51:06 Here we are in space.
03:24:51:13 03:24:59:04 And I believe that asteroid belt is actually made from taking a planet-shaped object and slicing it into pieces
03:24:59:11 03:25:01:18 but I might be mis-remembering that.
03:25:02:05 03:25:05:23 We certainly implemented that at some point, but I'm not sure if it got used.
03:25:06:00 03:25:12:26 Now, here's the glowstick scene again at night, which explains why I call them glowsticks :-)
03:25:15:11 03:25:20:21 Here are the lights at the bending towers.
03:25:28:25 03:25:31:09 And the exploding object again.
03:25:32:00 03:25:41:15 As said, the whole "light inside object with moving 3D particles around it" was a very interesting thing that we wanted to explore.
03:25:43:24 03:25:52:02 This scene is basically a 3D lissajou curve that we move these extruded ribbons, what you might call it around/through
03:25:52:09 03:25:57:02 and the next scene has the same with basically a swarm of fishes
03:25:57:29 03:26:00:21 This is directly inspired by a scene from Planet Earth,
03:26:00:27 03:26:06:17 where the camera turns and all the fishes in the swarm turn around and you get this reflection like this shot
03:26:06:23 03:26:09:22 (this was) something fiver wanted to recreate.
03:26:11:26 03:26:16:22 This is another idea that fiver had been wanting to do for a long time.
03:26:17:02 03:26:25:28 He was one of the first, and probably THE first, artists to work on a 3D infinite zoom
03:26:26:04 03:26:32:18 and he actually came up with the idea, so he'd been wanting to do a 3D version of the "infinite zoom" for a long time.
03:26:34:11 03:26:40:03 This is the result, it just keeps going into the planet, and then that planet's another planet, and so on.
03:26:41:01 03:26:43:16 I think that scene came out very well.
03:26:58:27 03:27:03:11 It's also the last scene of this demo that shows off new effects.
03:27:05:13 03:27:10:09 "Dedicated to 1000 years of Breakpoint", which is binary for 8 years of Breakpoint,
03:27:10:15 03:27:16:00 the party where the demo was originally released, and 2010 was the last edition.
03:27:19:11 03:27:21:15 Dedicated to the memory of the party.
03:27:22:23 03:27:28:24 Now you see the credits:  theunitedstatesofamerica, aka fiver2, who did the direction
03:27:29:01 03:27:33:23 all the concepts, a lot of the graphics, especially texture work too, actually.
03:27:37:08 03:27:45:08 Code: Mostly chaos in this demo; he was the only one, the only coder who was on this project from beginning to end.
03:27:45:14 03:27:53:12 I did some work early on, but then lost interest and then kb and tron helped chaos near the end of the project.
03:27:55:25 03:27:59:28 Graphics by aTom, theunitedstatesofamerica, and wayfinder.
03:28:00:04 03:28:07:06 aTom did the landscape meshes and the flyers and the animals, and... came out pretty awesome
03:28:07:13 03:28:12:13 and wayfinder loved... did a lot of the particle systems and so on and some of the effects
03:28:12:19 03:28:15:19 and also the soundtrack, which you're now listening to.
03:28:16:08 03:28:21:15 And now it's the obligatory end scroller,
03:28:22:13 03:28:26:13 which you can read, but I'm going to use this last minute
03:28:26:22 03:28:35:13 to thank Trixter, Phoenix, and the rest of the Hornet crew for making the MindCandy DVD...
03:28:35:19 03:28:42:11 this is MindCandy 3, which will be the last MindCandy DVD sadly, and this will apparently be the last demo on it
03:28:43:07 03:28:49:06 So yeah, thanks for watching, thanks again folks for making this really really awesome
03:28:49:12 03:28:55:25 DVD, and now Blu-ray, and hopefully showing demos to a new audience.
03:28:57:04 03:29:04:07 I think we really... It's hard to explain how much work this kind of project is,
03:29:04:13 03:29:07:10 if you have never done anything like it.
03:29:07:16 03:29:12:00 I've done some video editing myself, and yeah, this is spectacular work, so... thanks guys.
03:29:12:06 03:29:14:10 And yeah, that was Rove.