{fb1000000'Mmm', I thought as NoPhobia's 'Come and see' demo loaded and left me with interference, 'my telly's knacked'. Unfortunately, my TV had knacked, but luckily I was watching this demo on a monitor, and the TV had been broken for a number of weeks (I just happened to think about it then, that's all). I was then told to 'COME AND SEE'; come and see what? Well, the start to this demo reminded me of the more recent 'Liquid Dreams' by quantum, and in fact there were also certain similarities as the demo progressed, but I'm sure it's all just coincidence. The demo now ran straight into a typical German techno tune. I put Massive Attack back on the CD player and continued my viewing...
This demo is split into no less then nine separate demos. Each has it's own "NoPhobia" logo, but do (slightly) different things. In between these sub-demos is a nice stars and text bit (<cough>-ontum), giving you info on what's coming up. The nine parts are as follows:
{fb1C00000Lisajoue balls {fb1000000There are a few balls, like, and they like, twist around in what are known to mathematicians as lisajoue patterns. Watchable.
{fb1C00000A wave plasma {fb1000000Now this is good. It's not as hot as the 'WavePlasma' demo by George Saliaris, but it still looks really good. It is able to run a high speed due to only plotting one in every four pixels, but still seems to flow effortlessly.
{fb1C00000Dotty blankets {fb1000000Ooo, lovely, something for your granny.
{fb1C00000Sinus scroller {fb1000000The height this thing achieved; it almost got up my nose.
{fb1C00000Fireworks {fb1000000Hey, these are pretty cool; thank the good old general projectile equation.
{fb1C00000Depth shaded sphere {fb1000000Hand me the 3D glasses, oh no, you don't need them, it goes in and out and around and spins and woah...
{fb1C00000Bobs {fb1000000A classic amiga routine (apparently - because lots of people do this routine) in action. Watch it and see. Sorry if I can't help <cough> -ontuming.
{fb1C00000Rotating sprite {fb1000000Not as fast as the '_Adept_"PD.Games.games27"' demo, in fact, it probably took the author ages to do this, and it will only look impressive on a RiscPC (oops, come to think of it, this thing won't work on the RiscPC, because it uses the dodgy music player routines).
{fb1C00000Starwars {fb1000000It's the disappearing into the distance text, just like at the beginning of Starwars (or is it Empire Strikes Back - when's the next local Starwars party?).
All in all, it's a demo, so that means: Get it, run it, archive it, never watch it again. It's probably not worth the price of a PD disc, but if you have access to HENSA, it can be ftp'd from there free, or if you send a disc and a stamp to moi, I'll pop it on a disc for you (with some other stuff).
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{fh2000000Quantum's Liquid Dreams
{fb1000000The one thing I feel that lets this demo down, is the continuity. There are quite a few sections each with their own style with no apparent theme. 'Liquid Dreams' could actually be seen as a few demos linked together with a common piece of music of very good music. Having said this each section is good in it's own right though the whole does not really benefit from any one part. The presentation is very professional and well thought out. The mood of the music echoes parts of the visuals sync-wise.
My favourite section is the simple 'Cityscape'. This is made of crude white dots on a black background (dot vector) where the camera angle/ viewpoint revolves around a fixed point - a crossroads with cars zooming up and down a city street. Simple yet very effective. Worthy of a whole demo on it's own! Which is a possibility I understand by reading through the Help file, as many viewers have already expressed a liking for this section.
I felt the style of each visual piece was too different from the previous and there are even a few still (ie non-animated) graphics which apart from illustrating the power of the Arc and the skill of the artist don't actually link the demo together via any common thread. They just made me think, "What's this bit doing here? Get on with the animation and clever tricks!"
The most breath-taking part of this long demo must surely be the final still graphic at the end (as seen in Acorn User magazine - Jan 95) where the word 'Quantum' is displayed in gloriously rendered 3D. Pity it doesn't stay on screen a little longer before the demo loops back to the beginning to play again and again... By the way, there is neither a scroll-text nor a star-field in sight in this demo which must make it unique and well worth the price of a PD disc alone! Well done Quantum.
