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the first demo from Matrix is GREAT ! it look like a movie more than a demo, all the scene and gfx are really great (nero kick ass !).

the best demo ever made, such a great job !

I should watch it in a big screen pojector

Very interesting and nice software demo! Splendid visuals, a mystical story and good music. Get it, it's demo history!

One of the best demo ever done (stil in software). One one the better 3D engine use for a demo with several impressive effects for the period. The music and the gfx contribuate in a strange (like i love) feeling . I love it !!!

One of the best demo ever made. Good 3d engine, good music, good gfx, and very good story.

Great work made in this demo. All things very well premedited an done with awesome quality.

No doubt it was the best demo in 1998. I admire such enthusiasm Matrix had to make this one.

one of my favourite demos. Great modeling, music, pixelling, code and atmosphere.
I love the eagle. And the moving spotlight with cast shadows at the begining

Time: Easter Saturday 1998 (whenever it was), about 9PM

Location: The restaurant of the Heidmarkhalle in Fallingbostel, Germany, which actually looked more like the organizer room of the Mekka/Symposium than like a restaurant back then.

What happened there was interesting. It started with Doj and Torus who were just recording the demo compo to tape, and every few seconds something like "whoa", "cool", "this is ... great!" was heard.

What happened then, was just cool... every 20 seconds or something like that another organizer went to their table, asked "what are you so happy about?", looked at their screen and just kept standing there, joining the ever growing "whoa" "cool" "this is ... great" choir.

And as it was time for me to join, i looked at Doj's screen, and, well, I understood why all those people were standing there with wide open mouthes at once.

This is one of the best, if not THE best, 3D demos out there, featuring great design, modelling and one of the fucking fastest and feature-rich software engines out there - and it was the demo which made the MS98 one of the coolest parties i've ever been to. You should have been there.

A very epic 3d story demo. I was amazed by the 3d engine in this story demo. It has some nice features implemented like shadows, rays, bump mapping, smoke particles and more!

I remember also the great art in the beginning scrolling pics where it shows the credits..

I remember also the end with a melting metaball logo!

Amazing! Just Amazing!!!
I want new stuf from Matrix!

I really love this demo, I think is one of those that you have to watch lots of times, just to enjoy every little detail from it.

The credits are awesome, with that nice pictures and the way credits appear. The story is interesting and nicely related, and the 3D engine simply rocks!

yes, nice demo, nice animations, nice textures, nice music. overall: nice ;)

and, let's not forget, awesome graphics by nero and made

argh, i just heard a banco de gaia cd and discovered that the sample on the eagle scene (which was the damn most brilliant scene on the whole demo) is ripped.
argh... it's still a very nice demo.. i just wish i wouldnt keep discovering ripped samples on demos. the eagle scene still gives me the cold-hot sweat shivers though.

A really great demo, don't miss it...

just a vote...

amazing,
imho the intro alone would have won the competition
but with the following parts, the FULCRUM slapped around the other entries ^^

excellent job from NERO, the music and code are great too

incredible code and art, but extremely boring to watch (atleast when you get over the "whoa"-, "cool"-, "how did.."-phase). But this is quite general for any Matrix-release.

the first and last time i heard the crowd shouting "agaaaain!" while a compo. damn, they were right :)

macaw: I agree with you, but I keep amazed by the state of the art they achieved for 1998

Macaw: i prefer having the "whoa" "cool" feeling twice instead of "wow they can synch cubes" in 10 secs (before i smash ESC) :)

Whoa! cool!!!!
this is GREAT !!!!!!


löve
=^.^=

damn this is one boring demo

ile, what?! it has the "robotnik" feeling (you know, boring but nice code)

no it doesn't, in robotnik stuff is happening... here we see a guy walking ever so slowly (and i do mean slow) into a hall.. then, when you hope it is all over, he walks into the hall AGAIN.. argh

Heeeeeyyyaaaa!

P.S. Yeah,. Ile has right. It's diferrent than Robotnik. Robotnik had dark/thriler like atmosphere as no other demo could give you which really ownz ya.
This one becomes boring sometimes,.. but it's really beautifull and I shallt definitelly vote 4 it!

One of the best prods to ever appear on the PC scene

Yes!

actually, this isn't that good, heh... but enough to get a rulz. And the code is damn fine.

AAAAAAAAA this is just AAAAAAAAAA!!!
Unbelieveable!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAWESOMEEEEE!

I love that one, really fucking great job.

Damn, forgot to vote. :)

had to vote for this masterpiece

a very good demo. nice coherence between the music and the scene.
Apart from the lack of coherence between the first and second scenes.

I wish the music was available as a mod or xm (or S3M or IT)

Fucking brilliant in every way. I'd say the undisputed king of 3d scene players in DOS.

Correct me if I'm wrong though, but it seems like they use two different engines, or the same with functionality stripped for each part: the first and third part show off some nice rays and shadows, but the scenes are suspiciously low-poly. In the second part, the textures have a "bilinear filter" feel, bumpmapping, extremely overdone (unreal) lighting, but no shadows or rays whatsoever. Scene look smoothly modeled as well.

Almost feels like they wrote separate engines for each two sections of the demo, exploiting the best of either scene. What's the deal with that?

Awe filling masterpiece

Shifter: They did. Just look at the readme or credits maybe? :)

Anyway, this one rules.

yeah, like, vote and such. see above.

i'd thumb up for engines (fast bilinear without mmx, wtf? resampling?) and thumb down for being pretty awful looking and sounding at times and for the general boringness. röhröh.

ps pikku pikku i agree about the eagle scene but the rest is so boring i cant escape thumb down

A well made software rendered demo with a storyline. However, I can't for the life of me make any sense out of the 'story.'

I enjoyed this demo sooo much... the ambient and textures are really impressive for my humble being x')_ anyway
It could be more "dynamic" 8P

Neat atmospheric demo, especially in the beginning :)

my #1 demo.. this one got me interested

Kickass demo, nice sound! From the technical side probably the best DOS demo

This really deserves a Win32 port.
Was this the first 'sceneplayer' demo?
The first one I saw anyway, with incredible scenes, and technically the 3d engine was marvellous at the time.
And these people came out of nowhere :)

great 3d 'movie'-style demo. nice engine, nice semi-'story' too!

A jaw dropper at Mekka, quite boring after some watching. Still one great demo.

cool cool cool i would say to!

This is one of the best demos. maybe it´s the best. read KB´s comment.

impressive on the bigscreen at MS98. now just plain boring :) scali : not it wasn't the first one..there had already been 3d players in some french demos (not that advanced tho).

i remember how impressed i was with the first part of this demo... with those shadows, light volumes, etc.... the bumped part was less "eyepleasing" (for me at least), but technically, the demo was a wonder... great work guys!

After the compo I was going to quit the scene. After watching it again, I didn't.
But, still, it kicked.

Soundtrack now available in XM format here (with thanks to their creator).

I feel bad it didn't make Volume 1 of the MindCandy DVD, but we can't have everything we want. We'll save it for another day. It's slow paced at times, but has some inspirational 3D scenes, and the music and graphics are phenomenal. I only wish Matrix didn't fade out so quickly.

I saw that in Frankfurt Demoscene Exhibition "Origami Digital". ~_~ Roxx!! I want Windows Port.

obliged to thumb it up

cinematic. superb. beautiful. stirring.

Yes, windows port would be great

i like it!

yes :)

love it :-)

Could watch this on a bigscreen on 0a000h. This demo was it worth to go to this party. :)

The first part especially was cool with that chill out music and flashlight wondering around the walls... The second part with those aliens and hawk flying around was technologically well done, but it was a bit weird and not so stylish :)
Still a great demo to be proud of

Have completely forgot to commentate this one. This demo is brilliant in creating a special atmosphere. Windows port now please... :)

It has it all and it makes me want to see it again. Haven't tried it with dosbox yet... still, win32 port would kick ass (hint! hint!). A big thumb for this one.

To keep it simple : I love it!

Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!

i remember the amazing engine well from this, and also the great eagle + smoke scene.. maybe it was a bit too boring, seeing as i've not bothered to watch it for a long time. But it still easily earns a rulez.

yeah ;D

Wasn't the group matrix supposed to have a revival or something?
Anyways, technically great for software 98, and the music sets a good mood.
The last time I saw this demo was several years ago. Tried watching it under XP recently, but couldn't get sound to work =( (And believe me, watching this slow-paced demo without sound can get rather boring :D )

simply an alltime classic like f.e. 2nd reality is (at least for me :)..

Unbelievable. Great modelling, nice story, beautiful music. Yeah, it's a kind of a flyby, but a good one. It's rare that I don't miss 2d effects in a demo..

I definitely can't call this the best demo ever, but holy shit is it impressive anyway. Some REALLY nice visuals. A tad boring after the first few watches though. Still, wow.

i was very impressed at ms98.. omfg bilinear filtering in software...

Go on bartman, software-bilinear was done already done for voxelspace in the gate/artwork in 1996 and just one year later for polygon mapping in ride/skarla. goodlooking shadows and great pixelwork anyways, so thumbs up :)

A C E

Hmm a missed thumb
The eagle-flight part is just sooo perfect with that music... knocked my socks off when i first saw it :)

POWER ! Great prod.
Thumb!

superb - one of my favourites

** great **
everyone must watch

Brilliant classic in every way.
What about a Win32 port for this masterpiece? ;)

oh god, i loved this one sooo much.
this is excellent!

video, anyone? :)
http://conspiracy.hu/demovids/matrix_fulcrum.avi

Digisnap decided to release the sources for this masterpiece and asked me to upload them and so I did. :) So everyone who wants to have a Win32 port, go and start porting now. :)

first to post, last to thumbup :)

wow. impressive sw rendering. the story is a bit silly and perhaps a tiny bit too ambitious, but the engine and the graphics by nero and made rocks.

Well, windows port done. See you at breakpoint'06

Great port shash!

Shash: I am impressed!!! :)

Shash/Collapse: Great job!
God give me more thumbs for this one. :)

yay

very good prod!

Back in 1998 this was a real killer. It was SO impressive to watch this on the bigscreen at one of the best partys ever held, mekka/symposium98.

ok, today the whole things looks a bit empty and the motions are a bit too slow but who cares, this was 1998 baby :)

What Fzool said...

Nice port shash!

\o/

I never meet this onebefore... strange! the date of release saved the demo from the thumb-down. :/
i never saw a boring demo like this.
the second part is better than the first one but exept the software render and nice 2d art the whole thing is make me dizzy ...

It's a technical impressive software render for the time, but I was expecting something else. It's not really my kind of demo.

gooooooooooood

thanks for porting.

great code and some really cool effects. but the demo itself seems just like an engine representation. some demoish stuff is longed.

97-98 ? super^super

the matrix has you..

after all these years finally a port, respect shash.. at the time The Fulcrum was better. still I like the beginning the best because it has the best ambience, I still miss the old dos days.

really nice
thx or the w32 port

always loved the atmosphere and was very partial to nero's excellent textures and pixel work. very moving.

I just saw this. Not bad.

Sorry, this is an extracheesy flyby. I understand it was technically impressive in 1997, but that does not transfer to an interesting demo.

well not that great but also not that bad too :)

Thought i'd voted for this masterpiece

This thing and me in a dark, cozy room, volume up to maximum - the mood is set for sweet, sweet demo-love!

awesome render!

unique, beautiful, and interesting. ahead of it's time.

Breathtaking!

Bloody nice!
Damn, forgot to thumb it up after watching.

Is it me, or is the footstep sample at the start from an amiga keyboard? Watching again, some parts are excelent, some parts are terrible (like the gamy 'wizards call monsters to fight' part), and while the quality of the modelling and artwork is great, the animation is pretty bad. Still a classic.

Really impressive for 1998, megathumb up
Btw, thx Shash for the win32 port.

and with the source, waw.

i really miss the magic of productions like this.

codersporn, and yet not too shabby in other ways

fulcrum - great demo

great stuff

I think for me watching the Fulcrum together with the Matrix guy’s was definitely the best moment on a demo scene party ever. I was almost perfect – great direction, effects never seen before, some kind of story, very nice pixel-graphics (finalized at the party  ), good music – and of course a hall full of sceners enjoying and appreciating every second - screaming at the right moments. Especially if the crowd got crazy as it was clear that the first break was not the end but the beginning of the main-part, was absolutely amazing, as well as for instance the scene with the 1998-impossible (faked) real-time 3d-bump-mapping – or the melt effect at the beginning of the credits parts. (Digisnap always called it “Erz-Effect”). Thumb Up!

watching this demo at ms98 was magic. one of the most remarkable moments in my personal sceneparty history.

a classic

Fabulous

All has been said. This is bloody codeerpr0n!.
The endtune gives me the shivers.

-e

ANother one I wish I had seen at the time of the release. But, hell I was just a kid back then and didn't know about the scene.

I remember calling a friend who was at M&S that year and asking: "So, I heard there was that unbelievably fantastic Pc Demo in the compo?" And he told me: "Umm, sorry, I slept during the compo... too much booze." So I waited for the download to appear... and when I finally watched this, I couldn't believe that my friend had missed this beauty. Awesome... the swan song of the dos era...

Very nice piece of a demo indeed.

I totally missed this one. Indeed, it rules alot for its time.

This is good. Real good!

Fucking A

mig-29 fulcrum

All-time classic!

Certainly something different. I really, really like the 2d graphics.

I always hated this demo. I know the technical aspects are great but the demo is fucking boring.

Exactly same as thec.

nice

Coderporn for the masses!

showing the metropolis poster at the beginning is pretty pointless.

fond memories

And I thought it was over after the credits. What the hell. This is pure awesomeness.

Masterpiece.

one of the demoscene milestones. total respect to Nero for the visual side

What Gargaj said

it was absolutely breath taking at the party! my all time favorite!

Amazing.

When I first saw this long time ago, I was amazed, but today the implementation doesnt feels so precise. I miss spline animation instead of the linear interpolation.
However the projected shadows and other fake effects, and the bumpmapping are still amazing on that old hardware.
This is one of the works that dragged me into the demoscene. Many thanks.

I sure it was just fantastic in 1998.

I remember this one. I saw it in 2000ish for the first time, never having made it to M&S, and I recognize(d) the technical achievements, but... to me, it was, and still is, too dull for a thumb. Really makes you realize the difference good demo design makes. Still, definitely not a thumbs down - the (fake) effects are just too awesome for the time for that!

A lot of work obviously went into this. Animation/modelling/pixelling is quite good.

wow - I really love demos from the end of 90s - but this one is really special with its movie-like design. Really like it!

Made a capture on youtube for it too:
Youtube

Greatness from 98

That 9 hours for the Windows port was well worth it, thank you.

Whoa, cool.

It was perfect for its time. Even the (end) credits, awesome.

If you watch the live version of this demo on Youtube, you feel the real spirit of the demoscene of the nineties.

Pretty damn good actually, what was I thining a few years ago... :)

Source code link doesn't work :(

Preacher: try again, some problems with the ftp settings, I fixed the source link.

Suck Matrix. Very Fulcrum. Wow.

Ah, the 1990s and its low-poly, crudely textured and animated models, that had to do the big movie things, but really couldn't lift the weight.

In hindsight: A good example of a concept/technology mismatch. But: The port rocks and the eagle scene still rocks. (The Yugioh/Pokemon proxy fight not so much. That always looked way too goofy. :)

Ambitious idea, but the execution didn't make it. It's interesting to see parallels with this and Secret Rooms, namely the scenes with cyclop creatures and a hand reaching through a wall.

dunno about the DEEP, ARTISTIC stuff but techwise this is very cool

I'm nostalgically tied to this, that's why I love it.

Technically it wasn't all that new at a time, remember that Quake1 is 1996/1997 and Unreal 1998. Still nice to see shadows in decent software renderer.

I like the fact it has some story. First I thought it will be boring to watch, but it was actually strangely engaging. Overall, good work.

Ace stuff. Movements look a little stiff here and there but nothing to throw a fit over. Spooky looking main character.

Yesterday I just watched GUS compatible demos. After several metaball releases I saw this. The contrast was incredible.

Remember how it impressed me in 98. It's great work and still watchable.

the credits tune is fantastic

remember seeing this at Mekka 98 - what a blast!

this is what demos should be like ... 15 minutes long and a whole year of work by 10 or more alien geeks

awesome 3D engine

I was very impressed, when I first saw this. I love all of digisnap's work - very technically impressive. The art here is great and so is the soundtrack. However, I sort of feel that it's more of a game demo, than a demo. I don't know what it is, maybe because of the story? Trauma's and Oxygene's demos are also mostly 3d scenes, however, they have a more demolish feel, maybe because they are showing off more. Not that it isn't showing off, but I think you know what I mean.