X The pefect demo theoryX__Having watched another demo, did you ever asked yourself if the things you
saw were perfect or ideal? Surely, there will appear a lot of "wise men"
saying that it's impossible, because evolution doesn't stop, the style and
the fashion on the FX changes every year. On the other hand, there are
lotsa people claiming that the ideal production exists, and giving "Nexus 7"
or "Hardwired" for example. They suppose these oldschool demos, made with
old Amigas, are unreachable masterpieces. I'm not gonna take any of these
sides. Having hundreds of demos seen in mind, I'm gonna analyze them and,
basing on this, create a conception of the perfect demo, could it be
possible.__First of all, in my opinion, the undoubtful and everlasting disadvantage
of all demos is total absence of global conception and scenario. The reason
for this is obvious: a lot of production isn't created by one man, and it
often happens that people, involved in the same project, live in different
countries or even at different continents. This reason leads to the absence
of contact, or minimal contact between them. For example, it's hard to
coder to make a connection between newly appeared ideas and the prewritten
musical score. In most cases, the scheme of making demo or intro is like
that: the musician composes a tune and gives it to coder. Having this tune,
the coder tries to make a general appearance of the things to do, using a
complete or incomplete set of FX. Then, coder gets in touch with graphician
and explains what he's gonna need: textures, graphics and whatever.__Of course, not all the demos, but a big doze of it were created, are
created and will be created (as the great Lenin said :=) -Ed.) having this
scheme in mind. And it leads to unavoidable failure, as I suppose. Demos
without a plot became usual, so most sceners already got used to it.
Therefore, watching another demo, they value not the general conception,
but the technical appearance made as 3D FX slideshow.__Indeed, a lot of demos with pretty good conception and acceptable technical
appearance stay unnoticed or misunderstood. I think, the masterpiece of
that kind are Poland groups' demos. However, notwithstanding they are
unique, Europeans still ignore them, don't take them seriously and don't
vote for them. Actually, I talk about "Falling Angels" demo of Venture. It
couldn't be described with a couple of words. The demo looks like a
wideframe film about drug addicts. It's main feature is the amazing
combination of digitized and (the most important) real-time processed video
with very original and interesting "chunky-to-planar" FX. And also the perfect made soundtrack. It's strange,
why such a production stayed completely unnoticed. It's the one of not
numerous demos, which will attract the attention and interest of any man,
not dealing with computer scene. A normal watcher will have the impression
if original video.__Anyway, I cannot affirm if it is the perfect demo. I'd say it's
outstanding product, and it would stay it for years.__If we lose the idea of plot of the demo, we could overview another side of
the problem. The point is how to prevent the slideshow effect. A superb
fantasy is needed to make a logical sequence and interconnection of FX.__The best example of this is the of the latest The Black Lotus demo - "Captured
Dreams". I point that demo not because there are a lot of new FX in it, but
because TBL guys tried to make a maximum connection between these FX. And
they managed to make it with that quality, to make "Captured Dreams" an
example of how a demo must appear. However, the absence of global
conception puts down the final impression.__So, what id perfect demo? Is it possible to make one? Of course - in
theory. The process of demomaking should be like the process of making
video with a ton of computer psychedelic FX, if they're substantiated and
they make a background of the plot. The idea of demo as a set/sequence of
visual FX, demonstrating the technical possibility of computer, should be
lost. We have to change our view to this according the modern time.__A demo today is a logically made sequence of the great amount of
psychedelic computer FX appearing at the screen and synchronized with the
soundtrack. After watching the demo there should be another impression, but
the memories of a flying cube, the one it was made for.__We need another way of approaching to demomaking. I think, it's the right
time to people who only write scenario for demos to appear at the scene.X by Gdm (c) Insomnia'98 (my thanx goes to Ira and Notorious)
