Artwork/Reviews
Greenday (1995, 23.04, AGA Multifile, 3 disks)
Review by Glenn Lunder
DEMO OF THE YEAR, and a hell of show from the Germans in their first ever production...amazing! Lots of goodlooking effects are on offer, and this time that means phong-shaded toruses, a texturemapped cube combined with a stretching zoomrotator (and then the zoom-rotator's also mapped on two sides of the cube!!), voxel landscape, and a spacecut texture mapped cube. The tune is not quite up to Virgill's best, especially the jazz shit that accompanies the voxels are out of place.
However, an AMAZING picture by Fiver almost makes up for the shortcomings the soundtrack has in places. The picture is called "Green Trash", it depicts a human wrapped in black plastic, and came 2nd in the graphics competition at the same party!
Please note that I tested an incomplete distribution, and that there's even more to this demo than what I've outlined! Artwork was back one year later, and won the Symposium compo for the second time in a row with "The Gate". Please read the excellent 'making of' article in ROM4. According to this article, the demo does NOT require a HD, but can be run from floppy - my butchered distribution didn't give an indication of this! I'd be VERY happy to receive a proper distribution.
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
Note: Tested with an INCOMPLETE distribution!!
Dawn (1995, 28.12, AGA 4k Intro)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Certainly impressive for a 4k intro, Dawn set new standards for the genre. Just some of the things featured are: Phong shading, moving light source, environment mapping, environment glenz motion blur, morphing, and voxelspace. Quite a list for a 4k intro :)
A few months later it was re-released, with music, and won the Symposium 40k competition! :)
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
Creep (1995, 28.12, AGA 40k Intro)
Review by Glenn Lunder
This is one impressive intro! There are lots of great-looking phong shaded objects on offer here, and most are a little more imaginative than the standard donut variety. Several also offer extras, like an 'afterburner' effect and transparency. Around the middle of the intro there's a full-screen picture (2x2). This picture is a redrawing of the album cover for Mercyful Fate's "Don't Break The Oath" album. The pic is then waved, like a flag in the wind. The next new routine is the most impressive one, though. We're talking about a high resolution texture mapped phong-shaded elastic donut that looks FABULOUS! The show is finished off with an effect that's a little hard to describe, but I think transparent phong pulse explosions is about as close as you get. The music is excellent throughout.
In june 1997, Azure released version 1.1, which fixes some problems on 040/060 machines, as well as the classic The Player 6.1A bugs.
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
The Gate (1996, 07.04, AGA Multifile, 4 disks)
Review by Glenn Lunder
After this there can be no doubt - Chaos is dead, long live Azure and Tron. Artwork won the Symposium for the second year in a row with this demo - brimming with good-looking, advanced effects! It opens with an interpolated voxel landscape with the credits overlayed, and the powerful opening tune which creates a great 'heavy demo' atmosphere. There's a lot of bumpmapping effects in this demo, from a lightsourced zooming bumped tunnel to a lightsourced bumped cube. There's also a graphicszoomer that's quite similar to the one TBL later used in their Gathering'97 winning demo "Captured Dreams". There's also some different mapping stuff, with the metal-env-mapped (?) head and the cube with the protrouding face the highlights. Need I go on? The music is great, the graphics are great, and it's quite simply a BIG demo - in every sense of the word. Download NOW!
The endtune, "Opium" by Virgill, competed in the music competition at the same party. Some information leads me to believe there is a special version of "The Gate" for the Graffitti videocard...can anyone confirm that this is so?
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
Dawn.remix (1996, 07.04, AGA 40k Intro)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Certainly technically impressive, this remix of the originally 4k intro "Dawn" [12/95] is very very good. This time around, the shapes are env-mapped and sometimes afterburned, like in "Creep" [12/95]. The music is cool also, and suits the intro beautifully. I like this, small as it is. :) The reason there's no entry for graphician above is that this intro contains no graphics. Included in the archive is a 1x1 version of the original 4k intro.
Will work on standard A1200's, but recommends fast and acceleration. You can press your right mousebutton to skip forward one effect.
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 4mb fast/3.0.
Phi (1996, 06.07, AGA 4MB 64k Intro)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Phi, the best intro of 1996, opens with a sign of some sort of a progress bar at the bottom of the screen. When the progress bar reaches its end, the show starts...and what a show! To fabulous trancy music by SMT (one of his best tunes EVER) we're treated to one of the best intros since Virtual Dreams won at The Party 93 with "Chaosland" [12/93]!
Azure and Tron have managed to squeeze more demo power out of 64k here than most people are able to in megs! With a couple of pictures thrown in, I'd vote this among the best DEMOS of 1996, for crying out loud! The intro features some of the fastest envmapping I've ever seen on the Amiga, and then some! There's also morphing objects, a fabulous bump-mapping-cum-plasma routine, and some voxelspace stuff that's quite cool. The intro ends with a sole image of a bleeding heart. Pretty much the same intro can be seen in Bizarre Arts' "Fresh!" [06/97] (by Azure and Axis) released just one week later! :)
The accompanying text file mentions it uses ALL of the 4mb fast it requires, so if you (like me) use 512k of your fast to softkick kickstart, you probably won't be able to run Phi on a 4mb fast only setup. Believe me, I've tried :)
In june 1997, Azure released version 1.1, which adds a special custom 040/060 c2p routine, and fixes the classic The Player 6.1A replayer bugs.
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0 -- note: version 1.1.
Efrafa (1996, 02.02, AGA HD Multifile Slideshow)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Efrafa comes across as a very SMOOTH slideshow, much thanks to Fiver's very clean style. Let me just say this first: Fiver _IS_ one of my favourite graphics artists, so if my review seems influenced by this in any way, then...that's because it is! :) Hehe... No, seriously: The show opens with a clean EFRAFA logo, before the screen scrolls down to the selection menu. Here you can choose between the different pictures with your mouse (and see info about them by pressing rmb), or access some brief info pages. There really isn't that much to say about EFRAFA, it just does its job of showing these great pictures, and not much else... Sonics are nice too, but then again we are talking about Virgill here... :)
The pictures are... Flight (32c, unreleased), Under Control (32c, unreleased), Infiltration (64c, unreleased), Under A Blood Red Sky (256c, unreleased), No More Secrets 2 (64c, unreleased), Fish Food (128c, The Party 94), Yoichi (128c, from Artwork's "Greenday" [04/95]), Virgill Dreams (128c, unreleased), Champagne Supernova (256c, unreleased), Efjucikay (128c, used in Generation), Kodak (256c, used in Artwork's "The Gate" [04/96]), In The Kitchen 2000 (256c, unreleased) - 12 pictures in all. Not all pictures are topquality (In the Kitchen...) but those that are, are so great they'd be worth the download time ALONE (No More Secrets 2, Kodak, Yoichi...) Get this, ARTWORK QUALITY all the way!
Generation issue #22 (1996, .10, AGA HD Multifile Diskmag)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Maybe it's me there's something wrong with, but goddamnit, this mag DOES NOT WORK! It plays the first bars of the music and shows a black screen, then...just crashes. This happens every time, no matter what I try! Hmm... Anyone that can help me with a way to fix this?
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.
Generation issue #23 (1997, .01, AGA HD Multifile Diskmag)
Review by Glenn Lunder
It opens nicely, with Spiv's "Casual Insane" picture from The Party 96 (70th!) graphics competition - not half bad. It shows what I guess must be the open, staring eyes of some alien child... Unusual and nicely executed, Spiv! The panel by Cougar is also a feast for the eyes, so graphically there's not much wrong with Generation. This issue has two modules from wellknown scene VIS, but none of them are outstanding in any way... I guess this comes down to taste, but I feel these two can do a lot better than this!
One thing that bugs me a little is the sometime dark palette choices for some of the articles. It's a far cry from the light, happy colors of ROM! I guess I'm just not used to reading on a black background... Another thing that irritates me slightly is that the text does not scroll, like it has in most other good magazines since about...oh, 1992? I suppose it's a small complaint, but it's got a lot to do with the way the magazine 'feels' like to handle. Thankfully, it multitasks just as happily as ROM does, making things like writing this review a doodle :).
Contentwise, there's a lot of stuff from The Party 6 this time, as can be expected. I also found the article from the Atari show interesting, as it's not the kind of thing you usually find in an Amiga diskmagazine. Overall, though, the writing here is of a disappointing quality. I guess we've all been spoilt rotten by ROM - the diskmag standard to which all others are held. With some polishing, a LOT better layour for the articles and a brigther display, Generation could be a winner...
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0.
Exit Planet Dust (1997, 29.03, AGA 030 8MB Multifile Demo)
Review by Glenn Lunder
EPD opens with an innovative opening part where (presumably) the coders of the demo are part of the 3d scenes. It's real hard to describe, but it sets just the right mood! Then the music changes, and we move into space... next is a phong object over a moving background, then a spaceship crashes through a wall, and strange pipes twist and turn... EPD is a world of wonder, with lots of strange things going on... Then a quick trip through a tunnel before another phongobjects, this time with some other, smaller objects flying around... Then a falling, colorful object, some bump and envmapping on a couple of new objects... Then - abd this is cool - the entire screen starts twisting around the last object! Next is a massive, colorful and fast 3d scene with a humanoid shape in the middle. Another object follows, before 5R2's fullscreen pic "Earthpeople", winner at SILICONvention 97 that same weekend. Next is a weird sort of bumpmap effect I really don't know what to calll... :) Some more sparkly objects follow, before a new, bumpmapped tunnel. Next is a fullscreen raytraced pic with a red hand stretching towards the user, then some star objects appear at the same time, before three brief objects signify EXIT - PLANET - DUST and it's all over. Technically oustanding, with generally very good music, there was no doubt about who would win 2nd prize at The Gathering.
This is a very very good demo, no question, but... it's simply just not "Captured Dreams" =) The version reviewed is the compoversion, which is missing the endpart (Virgill's module exists only in the final version, with endpart) which was omitted at TG because of the organizers' imposed space limit of 5MB. This is (for some reason) widely regarded as a cooperation with C-Lous, but in actuality Scout was already a full Artwork member at the time. His entire contribution to the demo however was just one tunnel routine. The demo requires an 030-50, but recommends at least 040-40 or 060.
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.
Megademo IV (1997, 30.03, AGA ?MB Multifile)
Review by Glenn Lunder
Unfortunately, after seeing this demo - which is above average, don't get me wrong - I experience a feeling of disappointment. I had just seen the third-placer demo "Thug Life" by Essence, and was thinking 'any demo that can beat this is worth watching'. The problem is perhaps more in the fact that Azure has made SO MANY demos like this - it's got his fingerprints all over it. Azure is one of the best - if not THE best - coders out there, and he's technnically brilliant. However, he does not have that much ORIGINALITY in him, and when he releases two demos so close together, it is perhaps inevitable that they will resemble each other. This is a technically excellent demo, but doesn't EXCITE me. After seeing the demo, I'm afraid I must conclude that Artwork won this competition as much on name as they did on content. Azure told me (via email) that after seeing the competition he imagined it'd end up third. The entire demo was put together from "Exit Planet Dust" leftovers in the two days after it competed at The Gathering, which goes a long way to explain why it is what it is.
"MIV" marks Artworks fourth consecutive victory at the Symposium, which certainly means they've earned themselves a place in the history books. It's just sad that the demo that does it is their weakest so far. The demo has been tested on 8MB fast machines only, but the text file mentions that it may work on 4MB machines too - it's just never been tested. 030-50 recommended for maximum pleasure.
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.0.
Generation issue #24 (1997, .04, AGA HD Multifile Diskmag)
Review by Glenn Lunder
No less than two title pictures open the show this time - another surrealistic masterpiece by Nero opens the ball, followed by a cartoon-like rendition by Geist - whose technique here reminds me of some of the classics from Bustman/Crusaders, that 'blocky' but still smooth look =) The mag itself has the familiar design from Cougar, nothing has changed here. Two reasonable pieces of music offer audial delight. This issue was released just after the two major easter-parties of the year, The Gathering and Mekka Symposium, and contains ample coverage of both.
Nero's title picture is a rendition of "Boheme 29", his 8th-placed picture from Mekka Symposium 97, with the added text "Original by Jamiri" in the top left corner, and a Generation logo in the bottom left. This issue also announced the leaving of Detector, long-time "Generation" coder. The mag would continue without him - but still with his old code...
tested A1200/030-50/2mb chip, 16mb fast/3.1.
