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Text File | 1994-09-28 | 18.5 KB | 324 lines

<head> <title="...forever..."> <font=monaco10.fnt> <font=newy36.fnt> <font=time24.fnt> <image=back.raw w=256 h=256 t=-1> <buf=4850> <bgcolor=-1> <background=0> <link_color=253> <module=console.mod> <pal=back.pal> colors: 251 - black </head> <body> <frame x=0 y=0 w=640 h=4850 b=-1 c=-1> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- F A C E T O F A C E W I T H F A M O U S S C E N E R S ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ::: ::::::: ::::::: :::::: ::::::: ::: ::: ::: :::::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::::::: ::::::: ::: ::: ::: :::::::: ::: : ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::: :::: ::: ::: ::: ::: :::::: ::: ::: :::::: ::: :::::: ::: ::: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <link=niko.scr>N I K O / E K O</l> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- one of the most respected gfx-artists on the atari scene! one of the most famous and merited sceners! contributed to various high-quality ST/Falcon releases! living' legend interviewed by Grey / Mystic Bytes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grey: Salut, sixteen-colour-wizard! :) Niko: Hi ! Long time no see... How've you been doing ? Grey: Geesus, it's a REAL pleasure for me to lead an interview with a legend of the Atari scene! :) Sorry to be "so sweet" but I really bow down my forehead for all your efforts for our scene! Niko: You don't need to, you know. Grey: Everyone has surely heard about Your activities on the scene but nothing outside of it... So please squeeze out some facts about your real-life, what are ya doing besides drawing neat graphics? How old are you etc? Niko: Ok, so my name's Nicolas Carrè and I live in Montpellier, southern France. I am 27 and a half years old and do work here for Ubisoft as an artist and level designer. I was involved in the development of Rayman 2 and the more recent Beyond Good and Evil. Grey: What was the first computer you set eyes upon and what were your initial impressions? Niko: That's an odd question. I don't quite remember as it must have been pretty early in my life. My first real memory about the subject goes back to 1983/84, when my father decided to open a consumer electronic shop. It didn't last too long, but for me, as a child, it was a fantastic period. I would come back from school and spend 2 hours playing on the latest games on C64, CPC6128, MSX and all. My impression was clearly, simply, that computers == fun ! Grey: When did you discover your talent? Did you draw any cool pics on paper 1st? Maybe this question sounds kinda lame, but... I am not a graphician, hehe .) Niko: One doesn't suddenly discover he's talented. During my activity on the scene I never had the feeling I was really talented. As a 16 colours painter, I used to feel I was more of a good technician than an actual artist. Maybe talent derives from technique, maybe it just relies on it, maybe there's no relation at all. All I can say is that I really started working on drawing and painting techniques when I started using computers as drawing tools. On the other hand, I never completely gave up with traditional techniques, and at the moment, tend to favour them for creating source materials. Grey: Could you try to search your memory and tell us when did you decide to swap paper for pixels? What tool did you use and on what platform? :) Niko: As I said before, it was not a switch, as I used to do both. Yet I've always been curious about what could be done in terms of computer graphics. My first personnal computer was an MSX. It had really limited graphics capacity, but I spent weeks coding (in basic) a painting program. It was veeeery basic in term of interface, yet, it had most of the useful functions one would expect from a painting program (including loading and saving, alas excluding a magnifier). As for my ST time, my favourite program was definitely DEGAS Elite, then Crack Art, when it was released. On the falcon I worked with Prism Paint, whose interface was pretty similar to DEGAS. Grey: And what about your 1st steps on the demo-scene? :) Could you tell us a little story about it? What groups were enough lucky to catch ya and give you an invitation to join? :) Niko: First steps on the demoscene ? Mmmh... It began with the creation of an obscure swapping/demo group called The League (TLG), set up by a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who was a member of a cracking group called The Corporation. We were meeting every month or something to swap the latest news, and share our latest creations. At that time, I was a beginner, and my friend Joker was practicing GFA, and learning 68000 assembler. Then the group leader, Belgium, told us that somehow, Joker, I and himself, were invited to join MJJ Prod. The fact is that Belgium never actually joined, but the rest is history. Grey: We've seen some of your graphics in the legendary EKO productions. Really *outstanding* artwork, dude! Best congrats! How did you remind the co-operating with one of the coolest Falcon demo-crews? :) EKO did perfectly explain to the atari community the meaning of "design", don't ya think? :) Niko: Thank you again =) Co-operating with EKO was very nice, indeed. What happened is that after checking the "Papa Was a Blade Runner", which was a real stunner, at the time, I got in touch with them and offered to work with them on their next production. All I knew, at the time is that it was going to be called "Are U experienced" so I could design the logo. I actually met the guys for the first time at the Place to Be Again, the day before the demo was released. It was a nice surprise to check the near complete demo, and hope it was a also a nice surprise for them to check my work. The work on EkoSystem was a bit more co-operative, as I went to meet them and helped finishing the demo some days before we left for the party in Germany where it was shown. I was not personally involved in the design decisions, which were more of DefKlf's, Djamm's or even MaxxOut's prerogatives, as I remember. Grey: What are the rest of EKO's wizards are doing nowadays? Are you in touch with any of them? Niko: From time to time, we exchange greetings with Djamm, who was in the web design biz, last time I checked. Other part of the team, (MaxxOut, Nop, maybe others, I don't know precisely) went on to create the core of a game company, naturally called Ekosystem, which were responsible for the development of the game Gift. Dunno exactly what they're up to at the moment. Grey: Could you throw us some details about Your H2O game? Did you draw any pics for that? Was there any "playable preview" released? Any chance to lay our hands on it? Niko: I was not involved at all in that project. I don't know about its current status, but guess the developpement was dropped a while ago. Grey: Was there any new demo planned for the Falcon after the x-cellent "EKO System" and "R U EXPERIENCED"? Niko: Not as far as I know. Grey: Are you still involved with scenish affairs? Did you join any demo- crews after EKO's death? Niko: I'm no longer familiar with any scenish activity. I sometimes check pouet.net to see what the PC guys are up to, but it doesn't go further than that. Actually, until a few weeks ago, I didn't even think there was still activity in the Atari world. Yet, after EKO's disbanding, I kept working on the scene for a while, either on the Amiga with Oxygene, or on the PC with Pulse, though not as actively as in the Atari days. Then I got to work in the gaming biz and completely left the scene. Grey: Have you seen the ST slideshow released under MJJ label? After a long absence they came back and brought us the slide-thingy containing various pics... including yours. Unfortunately their quality was brutally messed up... :/ converted down without any corrections or tricks to display them in an acceptable way. That was a real nightmare to see all these pics shown that way by some irresponsible MJJ folx... :(( not to mention we've seen most of them before in Falcon releases... I guess it has to be a real pain for gfx artists to see their hard work used THAT way...? Niko: I think you're being a bit harsh on them. What we're talking about here are some 10+ years old amateurish pictures, some of which were even not from personal inspiration. If you look at what was mainstream, in the old Atari days, you'll see that every demo artist would compose pics by ruining some more or less famous pictures from more or less famous artists (Vallejo, Riggs, Easley...) into 16 colors personal interpretations, which would look familiar, at best, and at worse plainly suck. And yet, everyone was happy with this situation. It's somewhat similar to the current issue, don't you think ? Just taking someone's work into a viewable Atari ST format, with more or less success. Besides, they're definitely the ones with the most 'moral rights' to do so ; after all, I was in their group =) Grey: After reviews of this shameless thingy in other disk-mags the guys from MJJ tried even to attack their authors for giving low ratings... they seemed to be infected by a very popular virus on the scene called "at least I did something!". What do you think about such kind of behaviour? Niko: If there was blame to put, I would put it on both sides. I mean, these MJJ people are really nice guys. They didn't do that to harm, neither me nor the scene. They released this just as a "we're back" thingy. I guess they did what they could with what they had at the time. Now, going the "at least I did something" route is just not the right way. If I had to defend them, I'd rather say "Just do better, guys" =) Now, on the other hand, what's the point of bashing an Atari prod ? One month ago, I didn't even know there was still activity on the Atari scene. From what I gathered now, it all represents a few dozens of people riding on a nostalgia trip. From my perspective, you're all in the same boat, guys, it's doesn't really seem smart to ignite flame wars, or the boat will just burn and sink (that was a really lousy metaphor, I know =). I mean, there have been prods that really raised the bar in term of the quality we can expect from an Atari, but, since it's a long dead machine, you also have to be indulgent towards the people that are just here to enjoy the party, when they release lesser demos, for the Spirit, for the fun. Grey: Arf... this topic is HEAVILY irritating... :| Especially 'coz these guys do not understand their mistake :( To cheer you up I can tell that their 2nd slideshow was also including Your pics but in MUCH better quality (this time most of them NEVER seen before - yummie!) and hmmm... it was surprisingly good in quality :) (esp. in comparison to the previous one... real step forward, no doubt!). And there is a real pearl shining in dark ranks of MJJ... It's their new GFX artist called C-rem. Have You seen any of his pics? :) Niko: C-Rem is the guy who phoned me to connect me back to the scene. He sent me some of his work, which are definitely excellent for ST quality standards. I also checked some of his works in several recent demos. I found at first strange, then funny the way he used to cut and reuse parts of my (and other's) logos to compose new ones. In a sense it's just the same approach as MJJ's in the way set their slideshow up. Anyway, from what I've seen, he's currently DA MAN =) Grey: Do you plan to surprise us in the future? Can we expect any new pic pixelled in 16colors leaving your hands? :) It would be pure HARDCORE to see a new pic drawn in such limit of colours by a LEGEND! C'mon, shake up our world a little bit! ;) Niko: Don't hold your breath, man. I think I'd like to give it a run, just to compare my current skills with the constraints of the past time. The fact is that working with 16 colors is not that hard. Actually, I think the biggest difficulty comes from the lack of definition for the palette itself. Besides, stronger constraints tend to stimulate stronger ideas =) . Anyway, I just don't have time for that kind of project. Maybe one day, you never know =) Grey: Ok, Niko! Thanx for all the answers you've given us! Once again maximum *DEEPEST RESPECT* for all Your outings on the atari scene! May your hand possess magic till the last of your days! ;) (not too mention about OTHER parts of Your body... but they used to prosper well so looong... hehe). Niko: *checking my parts* Yeah, the Magic's still in there, thank you =) Thank you for your interest man, keep up the spirit ! See ya around ! --- - - - ------ - ----------- ----- GReY DELIVERS THE LAST SPEECH! ------------------- - - ---- ------- So another legend of the scene has been interviewed! The man with unparalleled talented fingers... the one who co-operated with Gods of the scene, who gathered deserved respect and fame! And you know wot? His answers only prove that this guy is still surprisingly modeST fellow :) I've got totally snubbed reading some parts of our common chat. Ok, there was nothing wrong in using his great pics in the 1st (in)famous MJJ slideshow even if some of them were brutally moved down to 16 colours... Amazing, but maybe that's the way he is? :) I still keep in mind some very different reactions from the scene life.. Just like mOd's contrib to our TearDrop demo for the Falcon. At the beginning we didn't see anything wrong in displaying the pic but mOd did... and he was right! So we did our best to kick another version of the demo with (in our opinion in that time) correctly displayed picture and once again - something was wrong! mOd was mad at MSB for not respecting his hard work, he was a real perfectionist! And now I understand his point of view pretty well! Learning from your own mistakes isn't a bad thing! ;) The same goes to some msx contribs to Chosneck - during putting all this stuff together I did find that some modules don't replay correctly - the reply routine we did use was pretty odd one! I didn't manage to find enough courage to use these modules... And I've been forced to NOT use any of them... I just couldn't mess up our friendship! So such peacful reaction from Niko's side was rather unexpected. I wasn't going to trample his roots which are as deep as the time of MJJ's birth... But I won't change my mind about the sadness and disappointment of MJJ's return after that many years of absence... Anyway I am so glad that Niko turned out to be not only talented but also MODEST chap! :) --- - --------------------------- AND THE LAST SPEECH OF NiKO --------------------------------- Grey's note: After our chat I've got another mail from Niko explaining his "point of view" concerning my last words above. I found it enough interesting to add it here (with the agreement of Niko of course!). (...) I can understand some people don't like it as I can understand what the MJJ guys' intentions were. Sure if I did something now to be featured in a new demo, and saw my work ruined by some unexpected display twist or whatever, I would also be pissed. That's also why, if I was to do something, I'd take the lead design function, to keep an overview and give a strong direction. But as I said in the interview, this is all about 6 to 10 years old uncopyrighted material. I just don't mind anymore. See ya around pal (and please keep me afloat about what's goin' on with your mag =) ! -N2 -- - --- -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- CHOSNECK 4th appearance contact us: done by the dream survivors greymsb@poczta.fm ----------------------------------------------------------------- -- - --- ---- </frame> </body>