Amiga Plus 2004 #2

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Wrap

Text File | 2004-01-31 | 13.4 KB | 446 lines

»PIC:barclip2.ilbm» »CL9: Fast Breakpoint Productions Review »PIC:barclip2.ilbm» »CL4: By Zerox/Gods »CL7:The Breakpoint 2003 - http://breakpoint.untergrund.net »CL1:When: 18th to the 21th of April 2003 Where: Bingen am Rhein/Gernany »CL7:Introduction »CL1:The first Breakpoint party ever took place between the 18th and 21th of April 2003 in Bingen am Rhein, which is located in the south-west of Germany. Even though this is the first Breakpoint party, it can be looked upon as the successor to the more famous Mekka & Symposium series. The organizers of Breakpoint have lots of organizing experience, not only from the Mekka & Symposium but also from parties such as Underground Conference, Evoke and Dialogos. Therefore the visitors were in safe hands. »CL0:The Breakpoint party was a celebration of digital art, which means that creative persons from various computer platforms could show their skills. There were sceners from the C64 scene, Atari-scene, the PC-scene, the console scene, and of course from the Amiga scene. »CL1:In the last issue of the EuroChart done at the Breakpoint party, both me and Darkhawk wrote live reports. This time I'll instead write a few words about the various productions released there. »CL7:The productions »CL1:There were no Amiga 64k-intros at Breakpoint, and a lot less demos than at the previous Mekka&Symposium party for instance. That was perhaps a bit disappointing, but I'm sure there will be more Amiga demos and intros next year. Unfortunately many groups didn't manage to finish their productions in time for the compo this year. And as this is the first Breakpoint party, some sceners were at home and waiting to see if the party was a success. More sceners will definately come next year. Nevertheless, the Amiga scene once again got to see quite some quality productions this easter. »CL0:It's time to have a closer look at the various productions. Let's start with the 4k-intros. At Breakpoint there were 3 intros in the compo. »CL7:Entry 1: Tulou 4k by Tulou »CL1:This intro is the only "weak" Amiga production released at the BP party. At the bigscreen it was mentioned that this intro was made for the Party 1997, but missed the deadline. The intro has no music, and only show 3 effects. Infact, the intro is also exceeding the 4096kb sizelimit. »CL0:The intro starts off with a rather small texturemapped object/background in a few greyish colours. The background is being pulled very slowly towards the upper left in the screen. Then some of the same mapping is used again but the object looks more like a circle if I remember correctly, and it's expanding out on the screen. The last routine has the exact same mapping as the first effect, and the background is generally just rotating and being zoomed very slowly. »CL1:All in all, not a quality intro for sure but it works on most Amigas. »CL7:Entry 2: Fact by Scarab »CL1:This is definately a quality intro. Fact got quite many nice details which I'm sure at least the coders would notice. The intro starts off with some good music including a quality bass-sound. »CL0:We get to see an object with 4 screens, with a written Scarab on one screen, Fact on another etc. This figure spinning around is actually animated, but the effects on the screens themselves are naturally coded in real-time. In order we will get a closer look at the effects on all of these screens. »CL1:The first screen with the first effect we get to see, is the S in Scarab with some special things around it. Then we move over to the 4 spinning screens again, and afterwards we zoom into the next screen. »CL0:Now the best effect of the entire intro appears, it's some greatly created particles which is flowing down over the screen perfectly natural. The opposite triangle prevents all particles in hitting the water. »PIC:budgie» »CL1:After this we zoom into yet another of the 4 screens, this time an S in green colours which are blinking. The 4 spinning screens return, and its time to zoom into the last screen. »CL0:The last is simply saying Scarab, Fact on a blue background. And I guess it's being reduced and faded out. »CL1:All in all, a very nice intro with many good details. Also a great samplecalculator and samplegenerator was used to do this intro. The only problem is that the intro is too short after my opinion, and I did like Nano from last easter better. This intro needs fpu to work, but a no-fpu version may be released later on. »CL7:Entry 3: Timur Lenk by Spaceballs & Ephidrena. »CL1:If I'm not mistaken, this intro is the third cooperation 4k-intro between Spaceballs and Ephidrena, and it also seems to be a lucky strike for them as this intro won the competition. The name of the intro seems to have been taken from the name of an mongolian warlord. »CL0:The intro is mainly dealing with one routine, which has been used to create several cool effects. It's a bit hard to explain it all, but I'll try my best. »CL1:The intro starts off with a black screen and the name Timur Lenk written down at the left side of the screen. »CL0:Then the show has opened. We see a texturemapped object which is rotating, changing, 2 parts are melting together, then getting separated, and then suddenly the object is being divided into two screens which are looking exactly the same. »CL1:Next is a very nice effect. It's some kind of spiral, perhaps texturemapped. At least it's very colourful. The circles inside are of different sizes. This object is rotating etc. Suddenly a small screen pops up down in the right of the screen I think. It's an exact copy of the object. The object also seems to be a bit blurred. »CL0:Afterwards the credits appear, they are Spaceballs, Ephidrena, Slummy and Loaderror. Quite a good combination of forces. »CL1:Then we see something similar to the opening effect, just that more is done with this effect. More effects are added. »CL0:Some backgrounds are added, and they are moving slowly. In front of them, we see the shadows of some objects. »CL1:Next we see a rather strongly lighted object, which is moving around. Nice. »CL0:Back again comes the spiral vector object, it's changing a lot. »CL1:After that an object/effect which looks like the first effect appears. Naturally more things are happening this time around. At the end the name Timur Lenk appears again. »CL0:All in all I have to say the intro was quite good, with really great music. It deserved to win. »CL1:As there were no 64k-intros to review, I'll rather write a few words about the demos. There were only 3 demos this time, but I really enjoyed all of them. »CL7:Entry 1: Light II by IRIS »CL1:IRIS had the pleasure to start the show with the follow-up demo to their Light demo released at the Mekka & Symposium party 2001. The demo starts off with a journey forward into a dark landscape also featuring a sky. And we see some particles that are flying in the air. The name of the demo appears: Light II, and IRIS @ Breakpoint 2003. Then the IRIS sign is shown, even though some people would probably notice that the last part of it is missing. Then the credits are quickly shown, together with a nice picture. Afterwards a kind of voxel landscape appears I guess, and next are some greetings. So we enter part II. I also have to mention there are some nice and fast part-links. First is a cool coded tree. It's not an animation unlike the »PIC:drzulun1» TBL demo which won some years ago. Then we get to see a great picture of a girl, a nice coded heart and some fast text. Next up is a cool effect it's a bit hard to explain really. But after that, perhaps the best effect of the demo is being displayed. It's a lot of rising bubbles, which are reflecting eachother and the background. The end effect is a great coded rose which is rotating. I have to mention that roses are some kind of a theme in this demo, as a rose is displayed while showing several of the effects. »CL0:All I can say is that this is a great classic demo, which the audience at Breakpoint really enjoyed. It's also less than 1mb all in all, but you need a 060 to watch it. The demo was however too small to win this party. It came third. »CL7:Entry 2: Fate Fits Karma by Mawi »CL1:This is the only PPC contribution to the Breakpoint party, and I have to say it looks quite similar to previous Mawi productions. When seeing it at the bigscreen at the party place I thought that this demo got to be much better than the IRIS demo. It got more effects and lasts longer. But then again, this demo is actually created using a PPC card and the demo is actually over ten times bigger than the IRIS demo. Personally I think the demo is a bit boring, even though it has its highlights. It's just that I had expected something more from Mawi this time around. »CL0:Anyway, the demo has the exactly same style as the previous Mawi PPC demos, infact even the colourpalette seems to be the same. We get to see a picture saying "modern fable about my own temptation". This picture was also displayed in the graphics compo, and generally this demo includes much gfx. Especially the Fate Fits Karma logo, the Mawi logo and some background pictures are very good. The demo offers a lot of these 3d objects, and some quite complex objects displayed by nice camera movements. It's just that I feel I've seen it all before in other Mawi productions. The most impressive part of this demo, which actually makes it worthwhile to check out the production, is actually a nice picture of a dog which suddenly becomes alive. It's really cool. The picture of the dog has also been online at the homepage of Mawi since July or something. At last I have to say that the music is really nice and fits perfectly. »CL1:All in all, a good PPC demo which lasts around 5 minutes. But I had expected the little extra from Mad Wizards this time around. I'm sure Mawi will strike back even harder at the next Breakpoint party. »CL7:Entry 3: Magia by TBL »CL1:The Black Lotus has won several eastern parties since 1996, and the Breakpoint party was no exception. The start of the demo is a bit boring, but then all the known TBL elements appear after a while. The demo lasts for quite some time, and is what you could expect from TBL. »CL0:Anyway, first of all we get to see a loading picture, just followed by the TBL sign. We get to see the dark whiskeys present and some more text. Next up is a greyish star-like object which is twisting around over a background which looks similar to the object itself. We get some changes of screens, as the screen divides into two before the next screen appear etc. This greyish object returns etc. From then on, the demo really starts to impress some sceners. We move beneath bridges in the water, we see some kind of tunnels toward the sky, we see a nicely created town, we see a sort of vehicle with the TBL sign on the outside, we see a great girl with the number 42 written in her face (great 3d object), we see a mermaid swimming in the ocean (all in real natural movements) and towards the end, some very detailed 3d buildings. »CL1:All in all, quite a cool demo which deserved to win. Just like the IRIS demo, this is a classic 68k-demo, and it's half the size of the Mawi demo. However, I've seen better TBL demos in the past. »CL0:There's not much else to say about the Amiga productions really, you should check them out yourself if you haven't seen them by now. »CL7:Conclusion »CL1:The first attempt of organizing the Breakpoint party was quite succesful after my opinion, and this party is a worthy successor of the Mekka & Symposium. The party location was perhaps not the best one around, nor the facilities, but I think they're good enough to arrange a scene meeting like this. If the friendly and helpful organizers manage to finetune the party for next year, I'm sure it will be perfect. They should just try to have control over the heating from day one of the party, so that both the mainhall and sleepinghall have comfortable temperatures. And I think they should improve the toilet facilities also, and perhaps come up with even more entertainment/happenings from the stage. »CL0:Apart from that, the party was very cool. The atmosphere was really relaxed, and lots of people just chilled outside at the fire. These meetings in the underground scene is all about meeting your scene friends and perhaps getting a few new ones. The active demo forces were present at this party, without managing to make that many productions this year. But I'm sure that will change next year. And besides, the productions released on all platforms were very good. There is no better computer party around the globe than Breakpoint right now, and this is digital culture at its best. Thumbs up!