Amiga Plus 2004 #2

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»PIC:barclip.ilbm» »CL9: Interview With Rumrunner Of Void »PIC:barclip.ilbm» »CL4: Written by Zerox of Gods »CL7:INTRODUCTION »CL1:After so many years of silence, in 2003 there was finally a new Amiga diskmag, and a new editor on the block! This new editor is Rumrunner, and he did not only appear as an editor last year, he simply coded a new mag-engine also. In the first issue of his mag Saxonia for instance, he wrote almost all the articles, plus he did the code and the music as well! This new talent the EuroChart staff wanted to have a closer look at! »CL0:As a short introduction, please tell the readers a few words about yourself, your function and what you want to achieve in the Amiga scene? »CL2:Rumrunner: Let's see, I'm 22 years old, and I come from Norway, where I enjoy travelling around in the mountains. I got my first Amiga back in 1990, and entered the scene in 1999. I had been interested in music long before that time, but it seems that I'm more of a coder and editor nowadays. »CL1:When did you enter the scene and how did you first get attracted to it? »CL2:Rumrunner : I entered the scene in 1999, after having stayed away from computers during a few years. You see, back in 1994, I bought a PC, as I didn't get anything for the Amiga anymore, I pretty much relied on getting all kinds of software from one friend, and when he left the Amiga, the flow of bytes started to dry out. Well, as everybody can tell, the PC was no fun and I nearly didn't use a computer from around 1997, I think. However, when I got in touch with an Amigascener, memories from that wonderful machine started flowing through my mind, and before you know it, I had bought an Amiga again. Since I knew sceneproductions from before, I wanted to see if I could do something myself. I like making things, whether it's a wooden cup (see Saxonia 1 for that), drawing on wood with burning-in pen or computerwork. I think what attracted me to the scene were all the golden productions I remembered from years back, I wanted to see more of this. »CL1:Why did you enter the scene instead of just playing games, and being an Amiga user? What do you find so fascinating with the scene? »CL2:Rumrunner: Like I said, I like making things and with a computer such as the Amiga, you can really use your imagination, which isn't bad either. I like being able to find out new ways of doing things and improve my old work, perhaps getting some feedback from it and such. I must say though, that there are certain games that can be fun to play, but they cannot keep my interest up for longs periods at a time though. »CL7:GROUPS »CL1:What do you think are the good and bad sides of Void? »CL2:Rumrunner: I think the best about VOID is that we have a friendly atmosphere in the group. Also, the members have very different backgrounds which I think is good for getting ideas. »CL3:If there is a bad side in VOID, it must be that currently, we don't have an "inhouse" graphician. But, at least for our mag Saxonia, this is not a big problem as there are many graphicians who want to work for us. »CL1:How important do you think it is for a group to have a good organizing and real friendship between the members? Are you pleased with being a co-organizer of Void? »CL2:Rumrunner: I think that the most important is that everybody in the group likes eachother, afterall the scene is just a hobby and if you're fed up with some of the other people in the group it's easy to just quit (or change groups). Since there's not much pressure anymore, I don't think that this is a big problem though, when there were many competing groups, all of them wanting to be the first to release this and that, things can have been different of course. Organising is important in the matter of keeping members in touch with eachother. If you cannot keep contact to the others, it's hard to coordinate work. »CL1:What's the next release we'll see from Void? »CL2:Rumrunner: The next thing out from us will be issue three of Saxonia. The mag should really have been released before christmas, but as that proved hard to do, we will release it anyday now. Also, I'm still working on both a musicdisk and a demo, but I don't know when it will be finished. All I can say about these two productions now are that they will both be in the "old" style. »CL1:What's your all-time favourite group? And why? »CL2:Rumrunner: My favourite group is, and I think it will always be, Andromeda. This group always managed to come up with stunning productions, perhaps not too many records in a time when this was considered more or less compulsory when releasing a demo, but everything was so thorough-worked, there was never a single pixel misplaced. The overall layout and feeling of the productions from this group has forever become nailed to my mind. »CL1:Which groups do you consider to be the most active and interesting these days? »CL2:I don't know whether you can say that a group is the "most active" one anymore. There are not many groups that release anything outside of parties, so I have a feeling that they all do about the same work, the last week before the party that is. However, there are some exceptions, like Zenon with their GooGoo chippack, Veezya with Embrion, IRIS with Eurochart, and hopefully there will also still be the JurassicPack from Moods. I was also very happy when I found out that Cows'n Snakefights was out, so there's some work done in Nukleus too. »CL3:The most interesting groups I think are the ones that manage to stay away from making everything look like it was made on a pc, 3d only, that is. Some people might consider the following as a stupid way of looking on things but I usually say that if Amigaproductions are to look like PC ones, the Amigascene should have started to do this from the beginning. Then we could "enjoy" nice monochrome 80*25 demos today. I am aware that the PC has changed, but the Amiga is another computer and should stay that way. »CL7:CODING / PRODUCTIONS »CL1:What some sceners might not know is that you've also released some intros in the past. What's your favourite own-made production? »CL2:Rumrunner: Well, I don't have too many productions to choose from. I have released three intros. The first one was the Saxonia advert, which we released some time (a long time perhaps) before Saxonia 1 hit the streets. In a way I still like this intro. At the time, I still hadn't figured out how to use the blitter, as I didn't have any hardware reference manual, so everything is done by the cpu itself, almost as if it was made on Atari or similar. The other two productions are a 4k intro called Bobshower which I entered in a partycontest and got second place. The intro started out as some routines to test the blitter, and when I heard about the party, I decided that it was too short a time to make a big production, so I added a scroller to the bobroutine and some copperlines and released it as 4k. Then, just before christmas 2002 I released an intro, again only with a scroller and some copperbars. I thought this would be a nice way of saying merry christmas to the scene. I had one planned for this christmas too, but time simply got too short, so I never finished it. »CL1:Tell us about your favorite production made by others? »CL2:Rumrunner: Hmm, there are many productions to choose from, but I think I once more have to settle for a demo by the aforementioned Andromeda. Both D.O.S and Nexus7 are still extremely pleasant to watch today. Also Desert Dream from Kefrens deserves to be mentioned. »CL1:Is there an effect you've seen from other coders which you know you would never manage to make? »CL2:Rumrunner: As of today, there are many effects I wouldn't be able to make, at least not without spending much more time on it than I'm interested in doing. 3d is of course such a field. Also, I have a lot to learn about other topics. As I'm very stubborn, I think that I could find out how to do a lot of things if I was interested in them though. »CL1:What's the most impressive routine you've ever seen? And who's your favourite coder? »CL2:Rumrunner: I want to divide the most impressive routine into most pleasant looking and most impressive coding. For visual approach, I have always liked mirror-effects and coppereffects/colourcycling. The most impressive code has to be in one of the 4k intros from Push Entertainment. Exploder from this group should also be mentioned here. There has been lots of negative things said about him before, but there's one thing that nobody can take away from him and that is that he is very skilled at coding. With my rather "uncommon" way of looking at things, I of course also liked Mahoney and Kaktus' idea in Sounds Of Gnome, where they let the user control the speed of the trackloader, by changing the waitroutine between stepping the heads. And ofcourse some credit should again go to Jekyll/Hyde (Andromeda) for what must have been incredible patience to make everything look so smooth. This is also an important aspect of coding, Making small changes to make everything look even better even when the routine works without doing so. »CL1:How do you create an intro? Is there a special way you prefer to produce it? Like first getting a module/gfx, then create an effect, get an idea etc. or the opposite? »CL2:Rumrunner: When I make an intro, it usually starts with me having coded some effect, and then I tuck it in with some coppereffects and scrollers as I still like these. I also collect some routines I make one by one, and when I want to use it in a production like the demo I work on now, I usually rewrite it to make it better suited for the purpose. »CL1:You've created some small Christmas intros in the past, and at least one 4k intro? Do you especially like working with limitations? Is this the most interesting challenge for a coder after your opinion? »CL2:Rumrunner: Limitations are of course one of the funmaking factors. After all, if it wasn't it would be better to invest in a videocamera. That doesn't mean that small productions are the only ones interesting though, but when it comes to demos, I still prefer the ones with different effects shown, rather than the ones that have only one vectorroutine or whatever used throughout the demo. »CL1:At the Kindergarden party 2003 you released a 4k intro. Are you currently working on more 4k intros or other special productions? »CL2:There might come some more 4k intros. Just like with the demo, if I have some standalone routines which I'm happy with, I might put some of them together in such an intro. But such productions do not get top priority, as I want to finish the productions I already am working on, in addition to releasing Saxonia without too long time between issues. »CL7:THE SCENE »CL1:Do you remember the first demo you saw and mag you read? »CL2:Rumrunner: If I'm not mistaken, the first demo I saw on Amiga was Cult Megademo, it consisted of three parts, with a linevectorroutine in the loaderpart, showing a disk with a needle moving across it. The first mag must have been an issue of RAW if I'm not mistaken. »CL1:What do you think are the good and bad sides of the scene? »CL2:Rumrunner: I think that the scene is perhaps the only place left where people have the old view of their computers. A computer is not meant to substitute everything else in life, for instance I for one will always prefer to dial people up on telephone to book ferrytickets, hotelrooms and whatever. I don't like using the computer for such purposes. Also, when I hear that people say their machine is too slow, I have to argue. Most of the times it's not the computer itself that is too slow, it's the code that stinks, either the code of the program in question or the code for a shitty operating system. Scenepeople seem to be the only ones to understand this and also in other aspects they have a more "relaxed" view of everything computerrelated. Hypes are all too common in the computerworld. Furthermore the scene is an excellent place for everybody who has imagination, sadly it seems that the common way of life today removes this quality from many people, but at least those who still like to think up something for themselves have great possibilities in the scene. I like to think of sceneproductions as artwork. »CL3:There are of course some bad sides to the scene aswell, or atleast one. It's the commercialisation that sadly finds place in most corners of life these days. I would like to see people still being able to release demos outside of parties just for the fun and fame they gain for doing so. Perhaps, if we can take a special look at things, we should be happy that there are still crackers who do their work. Atleast cracktros are productions released outside parties with huge prizes. »CL1:Tell us your favourite sceneproduction of all time? »CL2:Rumrunner: Again, there is hard competition here between Andromeda's various products. Instead of naming one single production, I think I have to split it up a little. »CL3:My favourite demo must be something in the lines of D.O.S or Nexus7 from Andromeda. They have also released my favourite slideshow, Seven Seas, but Forgotten from Mirage is also excellent. When it comes to musicdisks, I think that His Masters Noise from Mahoney and Kaktus deserves first place. It's hard to take into consideration the (often chip-)musicpacks that groups like Zenon (GooGoo) and Apathy (Digital Chips) release as this is not one single musicdisk, but rather a series. Why it's easier to select best diskmag when this is also productions released in series I don't know, but my alltime favourite mag is currently Upstream from Balance. »CL1:Do you think it's ok to include animations in demos/intros? »CL2:Rumrunner: Animations can be fine if there's a purpose to it, like showing off an animplayerroutine or it's used as a break from the other effects. A demo where the animation gets most of the attention is not a real demo for me though. You can refer to what I said about using a videocamera instead before. Also, disguising the animation as effects is wrong, and several people must agree here, just take a look at articles in older diskmags, like RAW after Odyssey/Alcatraz was released (debated whether this was code since it took up five disks). »CL1:What do you think about nowadays demos? And what do you think about the 3d in Amiga demos in general? »CL2:Rumrunner: There are some good demos released today, but I think there's far too much 3d in demos. There are many other effects which give a greater pleasure to watch. This doesn't mean that 3d is altogether wrong, but it's not a good idea to build a whole demo just on 3d. The best newer demos I think are the ones where there are at least some non-3d effects. »CL1:What do you think about nowadays mags? »CL2:Rumrunner: I think that all Amigamags today are good at the scenepart, although the quantity of articles is lower than before. This is to be expected as there are fewer people, but as long as the people still involved are genuinely interested in what they do, this doesn't matter. We are perhaps a bit spoiled from the old mags, where there were loads of articles to read each time. »CL3:What I think most mags miss are articles about things outside the scene, articles like Grapevine from LSD had. Most scenepeople have other interests too, and I have always thought why not share these in a mag too? »CL1:Do mags have any influence in the scene? »CL2:Rumrunner: I think that mags have some influence, perhaps not in the way they used to have, where you could almost ruin a group's reputation with a single article, but rather in the way of suggesting and promoting ideas, which perhaps would not be considered by many people without articles giving some hints and ideas. I would like to mention one example I thought was interesting when reading it. It's the article where Dr Doom/IRIS hints about representing 256 colours in four bit instead of eight, and then changing the copperlist to select which colours should be used. This is something I enjoy about the scene, just like I mentioned earlier, such pieces of work must give greater pleasure than just buying a new processor. »CL1:What do you consider to be the future of the magscene? »CL2:Rumrunner: I think that the biggest task in the future will be to get articlewriters other than the regular staff. I think that the mags which have the hardest questions to answer here are those who have been released for many years. The makers will perhaps see that the number of articles for each issue becomes smaller and smaller, and then perhaps wonder if there's any point in continuing. I think that we can expect to see smaller mags in the future but not necessarily fewer articlewriters each year. Smaller issues, although with fewer articles in each, at least inspire people to write more than one single huge issue every year. I hope that the old mags which are still left will cope with these changes as I don't want to loose even more mags. »CL1:You've released two issues of Saxonia in 2003, and Saxonia 3 is soon to be released now in the beginning of 2004. What do you think Saxonia can offer the scene which other mags in the present scene lack? »CL2:Rumrunner: I think that Saxonia has the possibility of seeing things from different views than the other mags, since we are a new mag and have not gotten used to different customs. This also seems to inspire new people to make contact and ask about the scene and Amiga and such (although two issues of the mag is too little to say whether this will last or not). Also, I have chosen to keep the mag ocs/ecs and possible to run on most Amigas. I have a feeling that this can attract some of the old Amiga users who have perhaps never gotten used to AGA machines, and perhaps some of them will come back to see what it's all about. »CL3:Next, I also, like mentioned before, try to include some articles about non-scene topics in every issue. It's nice to relax and read about other parts of life in a mag too, I think, and I have at least gotten one positive remark about this. »CL1:What's the future of Saxonia? Any inside tips for our readers of what improvements we can expect? »CL2:The sooncoming issue three will have the same code as issue two, and then I will update the code. If the new version is finished, it will be used in issue four. The updates will include first and foremost mousesupport and menus to choose modules from. I also have other ideas which I haven't seen in diskmags before, but I don't know which issues they will be implemented in. »CL1:How do you imagine the scene will evolve in the future? What direction will it take? »CL2:I think that the scene will split up in different parts, you will have the ones who are really interested and open to something other than 3d routines and you will have the ones coming from pc-gamers who think seeing texturemapped 3d objects is the most exciting in the world. I also think that we will soon see a split where somebody turns to animations and mp3music while the other part will experiment more just like people did in the late nineties on Amiga and before that time on C64. There are really loads of paths to walk, and I will tell more about one specific idea I have for PC's in Saxonia, it's just too much to mention here in this interview. »CL1:Do you consider PPC to be the future of the scene, or is there still room for classic Amigas? »CL2:Rumrunner: There will always be room for MC680X0 Amigas, as they offer something that no other processors do. This isn't specific for this processor, just take a look at for instance the 6510 bug which C64-coders get something out of. I think that the best place to start learning assemblycode is on the 68000 series, it's simply the processor where you quickest get the idea of assembly, because of the instruction set. Also, a faster processor, while useful in many situations, makes it harder to impress anybody, especially when you see the filesize of many newer demos (not only on Amiga) and wonder if it's just an animation or real code. »CL1:What do you think of the next generation Amiga, the AmigaOne? Do you think this machine will manage to get new people to join the scene? And will this be the future scene machine? And what about the Pegasos, do you think this machine has any future among sceners? »CL2:Rumrunner: I don't know much about either of these machines, as I seldom feel the need for anything besides my 040-equipped Amiga1200. The mentioned computers are surely good computers when you look at the hardwareside, except that they lack the copper and blitter which I think is a compulsory part of any Amiga. So these computers would not be real Amiga to me even if they are a much better piece of hardware than the common PC. I have to mention though that what I have seen from MorphOS looks decent enough, it's the common Amiga system-setup with the same systemdirectories and possibilities to use assigns and also the GUI looks the same, which at least for me is a good solution if I ever need something else than the computer I'm writing this on. »CL1:And what do you think about the latest Amiga plans & news? »CL2:Rumrunner: To be honest, I don't pay much attention to this, I prefer to wait and see what comes out of it. The situation would perhaps be different if I didn't have a computer I was satisfied with. »CL1:Do you have any special scene memory you want to share with the readers? »CL2:Rumrunner: I think the feeling back in the start of the nineties was very special everytime I got a new megademo. I always enjoyed (and still do) to read scrollers and looking at coppereffects. Since I knew few people who even knew what a demo was, I got most stuff from one single person and we had lots of fun sitting watching the demos we got hold of. Although I was no part of the scene back then, the feeling is still fresh in my memory. »CL1:In two years from now do you picture yourself as active scener? »CL2:Rumrunner: Yes. Since I never work so much that I wear myself out and get tired of what I do, I cannot imagine that I would quit. »CL7:REAL LIFE: »CL1:What's your occupation? »CL2:Rumrunner: I'm currently going to school where I am halfway finished with the first year in informatics (and I can tell you that after working with Windows the whole day, it's so relieving to come home and do some work on a computer that works the way I want it to. From before I have completed the economy study giving the title "høyskolekandidat", I managed to finish this the last year before they changed the study to a more shitty pattern taking up more time before you could specialise on what you were interested in. »CL3:I don't have any regular work I do, but some summers I have spent working at a cardealer, driving customers home when they leave their car, sending out bills and such. I have had the opportunity of driving many interesting cars. I have plans to apply for a job at the office of a ferry-company not far from where I live, but the school takes up alot of time, so it would have to be in the evenings. »CL1:Tell us about one of your normal days... »CL2:Rumrunner: Usually, I'm very tired in the morning, at least when I know that I won't be able to do what I like that day, like walking about in the mountains, go fishing or perhaps do some coding or musicwork. When going to school, I have 37 kilometers to drive each direction so it takes up a lot of time. There are few lessons each day, so I have some time to do the occasional schoolwork on the schoolcomputers afterwards, but mostly it's trying to look a little into the PC-scene (if there is one) or downloading loads of Amigastuff to bring back home. In the evenings I usually spend some time on the computer, or take a walk, I like being outside. I never get to bed before one or two o'clock, so it's perhaps not so strange that I'm tired in school the next day. »CL1:Do you have any other hobbies than computing? In that case, which? »CL2:Rumrunner: I have several other hobbies than the computer, and I prefer to spend as much time as possible on them. What I like best of all is to travel around in the Norwegian mountains, especially the parts around Vinje and Tinn in Telemark. Hjerdalen is a place where I often catch my mind wandering off to. »CL3:Also, I have a great interest in craftsmanship of different kinds, like woodwork and working with engines. Recently I have also used a little time on photography trying to learn a little the hard way. »CL1:What's your passion in life right now? »CL2:Rumrunner: I don't think that it's one thing alone that I burn extra strongly for. I have lots of interests, and what I'm interested in gets nailed to my memory, so I interrupt my own thoughts all of the time. »CL1:What kind of music and movies do you enjoy? »CL2:Rumrunner: When listening to music, I like quite a variety of styles except for the common ones today. Everything from Annbjørg Lien playing Harding- Fiddle to country "tastes nice", but if there's some things I cannot stand it's rap and the all too common "let's use the same beat and bassline one more time" popmusic from all the cute girlies out there. »CL3:When it comes to movies, I prefer something funny, as I think that watching television should not be depressing »CL1:Thanks for spending a lot of your time here answering these questions. Good luck with future plans... Now you can write whatever you would like, like greetings etc. »CL2:Rumrunner: Right, I would like to encourage everybody to spend some time every day to do something you like, no matter if it's the scene or other topics. People are in too much a hurry these days, things should have been done yesterday and worse. Take things as they come and try to have fun in a world which is boring and irritating in enough ways already. »CL3:I would also like to greet everybody who have decided to contribute to Saxonia, and everybody who have sent feedback on VOID's productions. Furthermore, I would like to greet everybody who still works on the greatest computer ever and I hope you will continue to do so in the future. »CL2:Have fun.