What is your favourite own demoscene production?
category: general [glöplog]
Christian / Puryx <3
You never visit me anymore? :(
I did post the correct link. I have no idea how to make demos so I am not even able to have a favorite of my own. Just stuck my big fat nose into this thread to thank Ferris for sharing (in detail) his creative process. Very interesting read for people (like me) who have very little experience in being part of a group making a demo.
You never visit me anymore? :(
I did post the correct link. I have no idea how to make demos so I am not even able to have a favorite of my own. Just stuck my big fat nose into this thread to thank Ferris for sharing (in detail) his creative process. Very interesting read for people (like me) who have very little experience in being part of a group making a demo.
Eight Dollar Math by Ate Bit https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=24332
One of the few vic-20 demos I've done with proper hardware tricks in the end part.
fUji by Orb https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=69797
It's always a pleasure working with Ultra and Keops on anything, but it's one of the few music projects I've done where I had to create some new tech to get the result. (the instant volume ramping, which I've used in other chip emulations now)
Transform by Ate Bit https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=53646
I think this one of the most solid collabs Paul and myself have done. Also still using modules when mostly everyone had moved to softsynths is something I'll continue to do. Even if coders quite rightly get annoyed with that. :) There's still more tech to use with modules, in the followup intro Paul added real-time compression and reverb into the mix chain.
One of the few vic-20 demos I've done with proper hardware tricks in the end part.
fUji by Orb https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=69797
It's always a pleasure working with Ultra and Keops on anything, but it's one of the few music projects I've done where I had to create some new tech to get the result. (the instant volume ramping, which I've used in other chip emulations now)
Transform by Ate Bit https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=53646
I think this one of the most solid collabs Paul and myself have done. Also still using modules when mostly everyone had moved to softsynths is something I'll continue to do. Even if coders quite rightly get annoyed with that. :) There's still more tech to use with modules, in the followup intro Paul added real-time compression and reverb into the mix chain.
Megalactic by Schengen Allstars https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62331
The most memorable prod for me to the day is still Megalactic. This was one of the funniest and exhausting scene projects i worked on to the day. The concept was chaotic to nonexistent with a basic idea. We were working with a Boatload of people, a completely broken Engine and a concept that evolved on the go.
I remember many many great chats with great people who were on this project. It was a pleasure to work with everyone of you, i'm still humbled that we pulled this off, despite the fact of geological dispersion and individual characters. We survived pure chaos! Mad props to the whole team!
Very memorable for me was when Okkie sent me the video of him with his christmas sweater, it was crazy to key the video properly for the demo and since Okkie disappeared in the nowhere without internet due to christmas it was really funny to do this whole thing just with one shot. Especially because him and Moqui talking were completely separate videos, they both agreed on a script and recorded themselfes talking to an imaginary Moqui/Okkie replica. I'm still overwhelmed how great this worked out :) :) :)
we had an idea for a camera path in the toilet tunnel. So in order to make it natural we wanted to capture real data. If i remember it correctly at some point DFox taped his iPhone to his head while running on his treadmill. We didn't end up using the sensor data at all but it was great fun :D
I was working in our old house that had an open fire place, it was fucking cold and i accidentally started a fire in the middle of the night.
It was also a time of great sadness. We were taking care at home of the grandmother of my then-girlfriend. I found the grandmother asphyxiating in the middle of the night while coding, had to call the ambulance and she was sent to the ER. This was a few days before the party, around christmas, and we were in heavy crunch mode. I decided to stay at home and not go the the party because of her condition, so i didn't see it live on the bigscreen. But DFox called me later and told me how great the response was. She died several weeks later.
The most memorable prod for me to the day is still Megalactic. This was one of the funniest and exhausting scene projects i worked on to the day. The concept was chaotic to nonexistent with a basic idea. We were working with a Boatload of people, a completely broken Engine and a concept that evolved on the go.
I remember many many great chats with great people who were on this project. It was a pleasure to work with everyone of you, i'm still humbled that we pulled this off, despite the fact of geological dispersion and individual characters. We survived pure chaos! Mad props to the whole team!
Very memorable for me was when Okkie sent me the video of him with his christmas sweater, it was crazy to key the video properly for the demo and since Okkie disappeared in the nowhere without internet due to christmas it was really funny to do this whole thing just with one shot. Especially because him and Moqui talking were completely separate videos, they both agreed on a script and recorded themselfes talking to an imaginary Moqui/Okkie replica. I'm still overwhelmed how great this worked out :) :) :)
we had an idea for a camera path in the toilet tunnel. So in order to make it natural we wanted to capture real data. If i remember it correctly at some point DFox taped his iPhone to his head while running on his treadmill. We didn't end up using the sensor data at all but it was great fun :D
I was working in our old house that had an open fire place, it was fucking cold and i accidentally started a fire in the middle of the night.
It was also a time of great sadness. We were taking care at home of the grandmother of my then-girlfriend. I found the grandmother asphyxiating in the middle of the night while coding, had to call the ambulance and she was sent to the ER. This was a few days before the party, around christmas, and we were in heavy crunch mode. I decided to stay at home and not go the the party because of her condition, so i didn't see it live on the bigscreen. But DFox called me later and told me how great the response was. She died several weeks later.
I really loved working on Sonnet. For years I had missed the deadlines at the X/Takeover demo parties, which was doubly frustrating because it was essentially home turf for me.
For Sonnet I really wanted to hit that deadline and get it released at Takeover 2001 which would also be my last chance to get it released at _any_ Takeover since it was going to be the last one. Needless to say, I was pretty crushed when we didn't get it done in time. Since they won't be reading this I'll just blame Sarix and Stevie for this :P
Anyway, Sonnet has plenty of faults, it was horribly outdated technically on the day of the release (I don't think it's even using vertex buffers) but I loved working on it. After that I was more or less 'done' with the demoscene in the sense that I didn't feel the need or the drive to compete anymore. I've tried rekindling that flame a few times since, but it hasn't really worked out. Oh well. Maybe someday.
For Sonnet I really wanted to hit that deadline and get it released at Takeover 2001 which would also be my last chance to get it released at _any_ Takeover since it was going to be the last one. Needless to say, I was pretty crushed when we didn't get it done in time. Since they won't be reading this I'll just blame Sarix and Stevie for this :P
Anyway, Sonnet has plenty of faults, it was horribly outdated technically on the day of the release (I don't think it's even using vertex buffers) but I loved working on it. After that I was more or less 'done' with the demoscene in the sense that I didn't feel the need or the drive to compete anymore. I've tried rekindling that flame a few times since, but it hasn't really worked out. Oh well. Maybe someday.
I'm going to interpret this question as "which one did you have the most fun doing", which is still going to be hard to answer because overall I've had a lot of fun on almost every prod I've worked on.
With that caveat out of the way: Regus Ademordna is a standout for me. It's the one where Kusma and I actually started to work much more cohesively as a team and the first one where a lot of things just "clicked": I did the music which I was happy with, the demo had an edge to it, we had a new version of GNU Rocket which kicked ass (and enabled me to actively work on the visuals a lot). That demo also had the bonus effect of having the trojan horse/reveal ending which was super fun, to have a jab at my other friends in Andromeda, and it also has two pieces of my favorite bits of sync editing ever:
- the camera jittering down in hard steps in time with the stuttered audio at 01:40, and
- the white block countdown that ends with the edge of the cube breaking off at 03:11
IMHO they work so, so great for the type of demo that is, and it's very, very much "my style". Super happy with those things, the demo overall, how fun it was to make, how much better Kusma and myself got at making things together during that project, and the reception it got. I am told in no uncertain terms that it inspired quite a few to get into the scene "proper", and that makes me happy.
With that caveat out of the way: Regus Ademordna is a standout for me. It's the one where Kusma and I actually started to work much more cohesively as a team and the first one where a lot of things just "clicked": I did the music which I was happy with, the demo had an edge to it, we had a new version of GNU Rocket which kicked ass (and enabled me to actively work on the visuals a lot). That demo also had the bonus effect of having the trojan horse/reveal ending which was super fun, to have a jab at my other friends in Andromeda, and it also has two pieces of my favorite bits of sync editing ever:
- the camera jittering down in hard steps in time with the stuttered audio at 01:40, and
- the white block countdown that ends with the edge of the cube breaking off at 03:11
IMHO they work so, so great for the type of demo that is, and it's very, very much "my style". Super happy with those things, the demo overall, how fun it was to make, how much better Kusma and myself got at making things together during that project, and the reception it got. I am told in no uncertain terms that it inspired quite a few to get into the scene "proper", and that makes me happy.
(Addendum: that demo, while not 100% refined yet (at all), embodies a lot of the things I value in hard synced, heavily edited pieces of media. Most importantly - and I think it's mostly musicians who pick up on this on a conscious level - a lot of the sync elements is grounded in the audio. Not just by their timing, but by what they look like as well. How something sounds should help define what it looks like and how it moves.. and with Regus Ademordna (and especially the Excess demos to follow), that's all on display).
Definitely still need to make my favorite prod (but for now i was happy with what i was able to achieve in 32 bytes with lBlake 32)
electro glide in black has a special place in my heart for many reasons, probably a lot of them related to the emotional rollercoaster i was going through at the time with leili and suicidal depression, i like what i managed to do with the track (which was later taken by navis for anoxia redux) but the visuals themselfs were very tight (exploring fft sync) and great to look at at the time, wonder how well it aged, haven't played it in years.
life after was one of my favorite collaborations with visualice, he did all the visuals without showing me any preview, but i felt a huge connection with the storyline and direction, pacing was very on point.
the lost religion of light was also something that worked out very well and brings attached to it great memories of visiting serbia and working with the kosmoplovci folks on it.
also very proud of what we did with your song is quiet pt2 helping elfh take the concept of the demo one step higher and also being able to work on a demo for the zx spectrum for the first time, which was my first computer, where i first learned to program (in basic).
life after was one of my favorite collaborations with visualice, he did all the visuals without showing me any preview, but i felt a huge connection with the storyline and direction, pacing was very on point.
the lost religion of light was also something that worked out very well and brings attached to it great memories of visiting serbia and working with the kosmoplovci folks on it.
also very proud of what we did with your song is quiet pt2 helping elfh take the concept of the demo one step higher and also being able to work on a demo for the zx spectrum for the first time, which was my first computer, where i first learned to program (in basic).
This
because it was my first proper CPC production in ages (more than 25 years, actually) and I collaborated with a good old friend. It was also the first ever aimed at being part of a compo (the missed deadline is just another story, but I feel like even that's more common than I assumed) and it got really stressful during the last 2 weeks before easter - twice :D Because we also missed the deadline last year. Slackers are slackers, I guess. And I have been working on sound engines and experiments leading to this demo for almost 10 years, with life happening all the while. Then in between those two Revisions, a friend passed away with whom I shared some of the WIPs leading to this demo, making it quite the emotional endeavor to continue working on it. And I got some really encouraging feedback from some fellow Amstradists, so all in all this has got to be the most personal prod I ever made. Not that surprising maybe, given my early demos, but it also seems to fit so well with how I perceived Revision 2021. It was very different from the ones before and that was the mood which I was in while finishing it. Thanks for reading my rant.
because it was my first proper CPC production in ages (more than 25 years, actually) and I collaborated with a good old friend. It was also the first ever aimed at being part of a compo (the missed deadline is just another story, but I feel like even that's more common than I assumed) and it got really stressful during the last 2 weeks before easter - twice :D Because we also missed the deadline last year. Slackers are slackers, I guess. And I have been working on sound engines and experiments leading to this demo for almost 10 years, with life happening all the while. Then in between those two Revisions, a friend passed away with whom I shared some of the WIPs leading to this demo, making it quite the emotional endeavor to continue working on it. And I got some really encouraging feedback from some fellow Amstradists, so all in all this has got to be the most personal prod I ever made. Not that surprising maybe, given my early demos, but it also seems to fit so well with how I perceived Revision 2021. It was very different from the ones before and that was the mood which I was in while finishing it. Thanks for reading my rant.
Virtual Escape
Because it was the most technical demo we ever worked on in regards to the time period and hardware (we were super proud of it), because it was incredibly fun to make and because it was made with my best friend Starlion, which I miss because we now live 6000 km apart.
We are still in touch and we regularly make jokes about making a new one together once we get old and we are retired :D
Starlion had a very good influence on me when I was 16~18, which was a very troubled period for me (like for a lot of kids I suppose). I somehow owe him for helping me find the right path in life, starting with my studies. I still think that working together and him getting me into the demoscene back in the days is what eventually led me to my current job in video games, which I still love after 16 years.
Because it was the most technical demo we ever worked on in regards to the time period and hardware (we were super proud of it), because it was incredibly fun to make and because it was made with my best friend Starlion, which I miss because we now live 6000 km apart.
We are still in touch and we regularly make jokes about making a new one together once we get old and we are retired :D
Starlion had a very good influence on me when I was 16~18, which was a very troubled period for me (like for a lot of kids I suppose). I somehow owe him for helping me find the right path in life, starting with my studies. I still think that working together and him getting me into the demoscene back in the days is what eventually led me to my current job in video games, which I still love after 16 years.
For me, it's nano.
Unlike almost all of my other prods, this was a properly designed demo with a somewhat coherent theme, not just a disconnected effects show. It was a true group effort too, with Gabi contributing a lot to the overall design. And then there was this whole "pioneering a platform" thing to it that was just incredibly fun to pull off. (Being the smug bastard that I am, I'm still somewhat sad that I didn't get a scene.org awards nomination for it :)
Unlike almost all of my other prods, this was a properly designed demo with a somewhat coherent theme, not just a disconnected effects show. It was a true group effort too, with Gabi contributing a lot to the overall design. And then there was this whole "pioneering a platform" thing to it that was just incredibly fun to pull off. (Being the smug bastard that I am, I'm still somewhat sad that I didn't get a scene.org awards nomination for it :)
