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GM12-94.FAQ
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1994-12-24
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11KB
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267 lines
Guru Magic
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/ | / / | | \ / |__> > | | \
/ |__\ / |__| / |\ < |__| \
\____________\_____________\___| \_____>____________/
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/ \ / __ \ / _______. |/ ______._.. .
/ . . \/ __ \/ |<_ \| | | ___
/ : : / / | \ |_| | | |_| \
\___/|__| \___/ | /_________| |_________/ dd!
|___/ |__/ : :
. .
F R E Q U E N T L Y A S K E D Q U E S T I O N S
Revision 1.11
┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│ How was Guru Magic formed? │
└──────────────────────────────────┘
Guru Magic first started out in 1991 when Duendé met Avatar whilst
studying Computer Science at Pretoria Technikon.
Duendé was in school with Abacus, who, after many threats of physical
violence was finally convinced to code a graphic engine to free the
crew of Borland's lame BGI.
One or two internal productions were produced at this stage, but
none of them ever reached releasable state.
The course run at the Technikon was extremely boring and not suited
to Avatar and Duendé's needs, so they both dropped out. At this
point they lost contact for a considerable amount of time during
which Avatar co-founded a group called Xcalico Crew.
Around mid-1993, Duendé decided to get a hold of Avatar and see what
he was up to. The group was reformed, and after much debate it
was dubbed Guru Magic, a derivation of 'The Handsome Gurus'.
Up until Icon 1993, most of the crew's time was spent engineering
demo engines and experimenting with new effects and ideas.
At Icon 1993, however, Avatar and Duendé ran into Baroque of Freelance
who was demonstrating some of his music to by-standers. Not to
miss such a great chance, Avatar and Duendé approached Baroque and
asked him to write a MOD for an invite to their planned demo party
called 'The Party 94'.
Soon thereafter, Baroque joined Guru Magic, which became his new PC
crew - he still maintains his Amiga crew (FreeLance)
Early in 1994, Guru Magic met Pyramid Software at a BBS party
after Abacus and Duendé had spoken to DAC/Pyramid Software in
response to an invite to Pyramid Software's compo called Dexterity.
The two crews decided to team up to organize the party and so
formed the Dexterity Committee.
Shortly thereafter, Pyramid Software ceased it's existence when
it's artist, and soon thereafter one of it's coders left. At this
point, the two remaining members (DAC and Deacon) joined Guru Magic.
It was very close to Dexterity, so not much time was left for
planning of Shrine, Guru Magic's first megademo. Somehow, however
someting almost satisfactory was pulled off.
At the end of 1994, Guru Magic attended the Explosive Demo Compo
where we met RTFact. RTFact's art was exceptionally good, and
since Guru Magic needed another artist, RTFact was approached and
he joined the crew.
At some minor Software Faire at Sandton City, we bumped into Myst,
who has now become our BBS co-ordinator and our commercial software
vendor.
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│ Where do your ideas come from? │
└─────────────────────────────────┘
Coming up with ideas is probably one of the most difficult aspects of
demo coding. Our sources include music videos, books, dreams and of
course, other demos. We try to be as original as possible. Generally
we sit around at bars or at the Guru Magic Pad and throw around ideas
which ultimately fall together into something stable.
┌────────────────────────┐
│ What tools do you use? │
└────────────────────────┘
If it suits our needs, we use it. Our programming packages include
Borland Pascal and Turbo Assembler. If we have to, most of us
can code in C/C++ aswell, but who would want to?
Abacus and DAC are Assembler programmers, while Duendé is our Pascal
dude. Avatar does a bit of coding too (in Pascal), but when he's
drawing he uses AutoDesk Animator PRO and GuruTrace (our own modeler)
Since RTFact is an Amiga user, his modeler is Imagine which is
similar to 3D Studio on PC, only MUCH more powerful.
Deacon composes using PyraTracker (a music system by DAC) and Baroque
uses either ProTracker on the Amiga or PyraTracker.
┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ So what have you done with your lives? │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
To summarize this answer: "We all try to be creative"
We have released the following:
&EERU ARJ 16911 - Demo for EERU BBS
&GMDEX ARJ 131580 - Invite to DEX '94
&DIGITAL ARJ 88856 - Self displaying piccy from DEX '94
&FFALL3 ARJ 144990 - Music from DEX '94
&SHRINE ZIP 662823 - Mega Demo from DEX '94
&ACEOBAZ ARJ 66268 - Demo for Ace of Base BBS
&SCO-BLU ARJ 84647 - Demo for software connection BBS
&SYMETRY ARJ 67177 - 64Kb Intro which won Explosive
&INSIDE2 ARJ 242179 - Won Explosive multichannel (13 channel)
&MSHRINE ARJ 335517 - The music (.P16) for Shrine
&PTG001 ARJ 52123 - A small player for .P16/.MOD/etc files
┌────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Who are the members of Guru Magic? │
└────────────────────────────────────┘
In alphabetical order:
┌─────────┬─────┬───────────────────┬────────────────┬────────────────────┐
│ Handle │Age │ Occupation │ Tasks in GM │ Real Name │
├─────────┼─────┼───────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│ Abacus │ 22 │ Student │ Coder │ Brad Kronson │
│ Avatar │ 23 │ Student │ Artist/Coder │ Holden Morris │
│ Baroque │ 22 │ Runs own business │ Musician │ Quinton Davie │
│ DAC │ 18 │ Student │ Coder │ Shane Greyvenstein │
│ Deacon │ 18 │ Bum │ Musician │ David Buekes │
│ Duende │ 21 │ Student │ Coder/PR │ Jaycen Dale │
│ Myst │ 18 │ Works at SCO │ BBS Coordinator│ Nick Wessels │
│ RTFact │ 21 │ Bum │ Artist/Rayman │ Jaco Gerber │
└─────────┴─────┴───────────────────┴────────────────┴────────────────────┘
┌────────────────────────────────────┐
│ What are your favourite passtimes? │
└────────────────────────────────────┘
We all enjoy listening to music, although our individual tastes
vary from ambient to hardcore techno, metal, whatever.
Naturally we read a great deal of books to keep us entertained
aswell. Titles range from Hustler to Programmer's Guide to
the EGA/VGA and Advanced Calculus.
■ Books are knowledge, a wise Guru once said
Movies, videos, parties, clubs, sports and bars also play an
important role in alleviating boredom.
We have girlfriends at regular intervals, perhaps certain members
more often than others, but that's beside the point. Besides,
even Gurus need something more than a cold Black Label and a PC
for companionship.
Besides, we were initially called The Handsome Gurus, so what else
can we say, girls? :-)
┌───────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ What demo crews have inspired Guru Magic? │
└───────────────────────────────────────────┘
The first demo that really made an impression on Guru Magic was the
Vector Demo by Ultra Force. Naturally the early Renaissance and
Future Crew also had a major influence. Recently, Dust, Triton,
SpaceBalls and EMF have been our inspiration.
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ What do you think of the South African Demo scene? │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Firstly we are very pleased that there is a demo scene in South Africa.
A lot of work still has to be done, however, before we have a truly
non-lame demo scene. A lot of people are just forming crews for the
fun of it and ripping the countless sources available. Our advice
to any serious crews out there is to keep trying and experimenting.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Do you think that the whole demo scene is just a flash in the │
│ proverbial pan? │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Unlike Glam Rock, Afros and plaid jackets, the demo scene is here
to stay. Demo coding is the first plane in the strive towards
total MultiMedia nirvana. We could go on to answer this question
for the next 50KB, but that would be pure speculation - don't just
take our word for it, stick around.
┌─────────────────────┐
│ Contact information │
└─────────────────────┘
■ EMail - jaycen.dale@softconn.iaccess.za (Duendé)
- brad.kronson@digitec.co.za (Abacus)
- shane.greyvenstein@softconn.iaccess.za (DAC)
- jjg@bbs.sdd.com (RTFact)
■ BBS - You can contact any of us at SCO, just drop a
message in our conference area.
SCO can be reached on the following numbers :
Software Connection #1 +27-11-782-7129
Software Connection #2 Hunt +27-11-782-6810
Software Connection #3 +27-11-782-8138
Software Connection #4 +27-11-782-8159
Software Connection #5 +27-11-888-7435
Software Connection #6 +27-11-888-7436
- Also message us in RsaPROG, ILink-Pascal or TP_Demo
■ SnailMail - Guru Magic
P.O. Box 586
Wierdapark
0149
RSA
Original text by
Duendè and Avatar.
Further corruption/improvement by
Abacus and DAC
Rewritten and formatted by
DAC
Virtually Yours
Guru Magic