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- «c2»«al» INTERVIEW WITH SCICCO/SCARAB«»
- «»
- «c1»«ac»By Zerox/Gods«»
- «»
- «c5»«ac»INTRODUCTION«»
- «»
- «c6»«as»As a short introduction, please tell the readers a few words about
- yourself, your function and what you want to achieve in the scene?«»
- «»
- «c7»Well, I think this will be the easiest question to answer. :)
- My realname is Dirk and I'm living in Berlin, the German capital.
- I'm 24 years old and I act as coder in the group Scarab. Additionally
- I'm responsible for our website.«»
- «»
- The most important aim for me is to have fun in the scene and to
- produce some stuff which the scene likes. And building friendships
- all over the world is the best side-effect of it.«»
- «»
- «c6»When did you enter the scene and how did you first get attracted to it?«»
- «»
- «c7»It happened in the year 1999 when Lubber/Padua started to be active
- in the C64 scene again. He wanted to travel to the Mekka^Symposium 2k-1
- and as he knew that I loved my Amiga he asked me to come with him.«»
- «»
- The deciding voice that convinced me to start coding was the intro
- Grid by Nature which I watched at the MS 2k-1. After I saw this really
- great intro done in only 40 kb I knew that I want to do such stuff
- by myself, too.«»
- «»
- Back home I started to learn Assembler which I still code. ;)«»
- «»
- «»
- «»
- «c5»«ac»GROUPS«»
- «»
- «as»«c6»As Scarab is a very new group in the scene, please tell us a few words
- about it and the reason why you all left Secretly!«»
- «»
- «c7»You might have heard that Secretly! worked quite well except one member,
- our so-called leader Mr. Vain. He always talked bad about StingRay and
- me, he wrote mean mails to us and later also to our internal mailing list
- as recipient. There are quite a lot of examples I can list here but this
- would be out of proportion.«»
- «»
- Anyway, some days after the MS 2k+1 he wrote another really nasty mail to
- all of us, which should have been the last one. I decided to leave the
- group, StingRay did too. After I talked to all other members we decided
- to stay together and to found a new group as it was a nice working
- together.«»
- «»
- Some weeks later Scarab was born and Sniper and R.A.Y reinforced us. Today
- we have one more member, Puryx supports us with great music.«»
- «»
- I know that it was quiet around Scarab till we presented our homepage and
- some people thought we lost motivation and died. But you can be sure that
- this is not the truth, we usually work quiet, that's all. ;)«»
- «»
- «c6»What do you think are the good and bad sides of your group?«»
- «»
- «c7»One of the best side is the location of the most members. We have five
- members living in or around Berlin, this makes the internal communication
- much easier. Another good side is the friendship between all the members,
- almost everyone knows each other.«»
- I have no idea about bad sides in the group, but remember that Scarab is
- too new for talking about bad sides. ;)«»
- «»
- «c6»As you perhaps could be described as the unofficial organizer of
- Scarab, how important do you think it is for a group to have a good organizing
- and real friendship between the members? Is it important at all?«»
- «»
- «c7»In my opinion the friendship is the most important thing if you want to
- have fun and success with a group. Of course some things have to be
- organized and all I do is to manage most of these work. I don't feel like
- a leader or the chief. For me it is very important that every member can
- say his own opinion and everyone listens to it. Most of the work is based
- on more than only on the imagination of the coders. Every member has got an
- own potential and it's just good for a group if you respect it.«»
- «»
- «c6»What's your all-time favourite group? And why?«»
- «»
- «c7»Well, this seems to be another easy question. :)
- As I said some lines before Nature was the reason why I started coding.
- I learned to know them on the last Mekka and they are really friendly! So it
- is not really hard to say that Nature is my all-time favourite group.«»
- «»
- «c6»Scarab have a few doublemembers, do you think this would be a
- disadvantage for you? Like slowing down the production speed?«»
- «»
- «c7»Of course a doublemembership will steal you some resources from the group
- which results in a longer period of development. So it is on the group to
- get most of the power out of a doublemember for the groups interests.«»
- «»
- I think the key to keep a member interested in some work for Scarab is to
- give him a prospect of success and the feeling that the group still stands
- behind him.«»
- «»
- «c6»What's the next release we'll see from your group?«»
- «»
- «c7»You have to see that I don't want to tell you much about our plans. :)
- I dislike it to announce a production which might will not be finished in time.«»
- «»
- But you can be sure that we're currently working on some new stuff. So keep
- your eyes open.«»
- «ac»«c5»CODING«»
- «»
- «as»«c6»As you're quite a new coder on the amiga scene you haven't released so many
- productions. But what's your favourite own-made production?«»
- «»
- «c7»That can be described with only four letters: Boom :)
- (Even though it's not completely own-made, StingRay did some codework, too.)«»
- «»
- We spent much time to finish this intro and the work with it was real fun.
- I still like to watch it even I've seen it a hundred times now. Every time I
- loose a bit motivation I watch Boom again and I feel back on track.«»
- «»
- «c6»Tell us about your favorite production made by others?«»
- «»
- «c7»I can't say that there is only one production which is my favourite one. But
- there are several productions which I really like to watch now and then.«»
- «»
- There are the 4kb-intros Revision and Bier, the intros Grid, Gift and 1000%
- and the demos Love, Nexus7, Rise and more.«»
- «»
- «c6»You usually make your productions together with StingRay, is there a
- special way you plan/build up a production together?«»
- «»
- «c7»There is no special way we plan our productions. Usually we try out some ideas
- and effects. When we finish a new routine we look at it and decide for
- which type of production this effect may be used. If we have enough routines
- to fill an intro we look at them and think about how they could fit together.
- But even this is no regular way, Artifictional for instance had a story before
- we coded one line for it. So you see that it depends. We only have a rule: we
- try to change our style each production to let every release looking different.
- This is really important for us as we don't want to 'rerelease' an intro with
- nearly the same effects just to have one more demo or intro circulating.«»
- «»
- «c6»Is there an effect you've seen from other coders which you know you would
- never manage to make?«»
- «»
- «c7»Well, I think that if someone did some code which works you are able to do the
- same, you just have to learn and understand how it works. Of course there are
- effects which are really hard to grasp so it may take a very long time to clone
- the effect.«»
- «»
- Of course there are effects which I will never manage to make as these effects
- require some knowledge which is hard to gather, and I want to spend more time
- in coding some of my ideas instead of cloning some known routines. :)«»
- «»
- «c6»What's the most impressive routine you've ever seen? And what's your
- favourite coder?«»
- «»
- «c7»My view of the most impressive routine changes everytime I improve my knowledge.
- Two years ago I was fascinated by a tunnel, which is not that hard to code. :)
- But to speak with my actual knowledge there are two routines which really
- impressed me (and they still do):
- The strange tunnel in some of Exploders 4kb-intros (e.g. Humus) and the
- endless zoomer from TBL.«»
- «»
- It's hard to name one coder as my favourite one, but I think coders like Mavey,
- Psycho, Blueberry, Pezac, Exploder, Kalms, Schlott and Pipe in soundrelated
- code often impress me with great codework. There are a lot of more great coders
- outside but I think it would be out of proportion to list them all.«»
- «»
- «c6»Do you think it's ok to include animations in demos/intros?«»
- «»
- «c7»Hehe...this question sounds like a tree. ;)«»
- «»
- A demo allows you to do everything you want to, including the use of animations.
- Even an intro does but you won't have that space to put impressive ones inside.
- If you think about oldskool demos e.g. Nexus7, Love, Brainbug etc. then you have
- to realize that they all used animations. But in my humble opinion you have to
- follow a rule if make use of them: everyone who watches the demo must recognize
- that he is watching an animation now. That's all.«»
- «»
- «c6»What do you think about nowadays demos? And what do you think about the 3d
- trend?«»
- «»
- «c7»There are so many points of view you can have depending on what you are
- looking at when you watch a demo. I think nowadays demos have changed the
- root though. In the past demos were done to show off what a scener is able
- to and, of course, what the hardware is really able to. Today the most
- important thing is the good looking of a production. Therefore a good
- teamwork in a group is more demanded than in the past. Of course the most
- sceners still take pains to do new effects though, but a lot of productions
- feature almost known code but good design. Today the thing is to have new
- ideas of fitting known and maybe some new things together and adapting them
- to some new looking stuff. All in all I like both oldskool and newskool demos,
- maybe because they are so different?! :)«»
- «»
- The 3D trend is related to this development. 3D gives us the possibility to
- bring realistic or fantastic storys to a demo, therefore demos can be more
- interesting for non-sceners, too. But on the other hand 3D demos usually are
- not that good quality compared with those on PC. Additionally 3D demos mostly
- don't have new amazing effects and graphics, so you might feel bored if you
- watch hundred of 3D demos. But I think Lapsuus showed that 3D on Amiga can
- be high quality, too.«»
- «»
- Anyway we don't need 3D only, the Amiga scene stands for great ideas and
- amazing productions instead of hundreds of boring 3D demos, right? :)«»
- «»
- «c6»How do you create a demo? Is there a special way you prefer to produce it?
- Like first getting a module/gfx, then get the idea or opposite?«»
- «»
- «c7»I don't have a special way, I just try to do some stuff which is usable for
- a production. If we decide to work with a story I try to code some things
- which should match to our ideas, of course. But sometimes I listen to a new
- module and think about some effects which are suitable for this tune and then
- I start coding a new idea. But all this depends. :)«»
- «»
- «c6»You're currently working on a few more productions. Can you please tell
- us something about it?«»
- «»
- «c7»Well, as I said before, I can't tell you much about our plans. But you can
- be sure that we won't stop coding 4k intros as we had much fun with Boom. :)«»
- «»
- «ac»«c5»THE SCENE«»
- «»
- «as»«c6»Do you remember the first demo you saw and mag you read?«»
- «»
- «c7»Yeah, I remember when I saw my first demo. It was State Of The Art by
- Spaceballs. When I saw it I didn't knew anything about a demoscene. I just
- enjoyed this nice piece of work.«»
- «»
- The first disc mag I've read was one of the EuroChart issues, but don't
- ask me which one. I started to read disc mags quite late as nobody told me
- about features of the scene. I started all by myself without knowing anybody
- who was active in the scene. So it took quite a long time till I knew all
- the things that normally are familiar to every scener.«»
- «»
- «c6»What do you think are the good and bad sides of the scene?«»
- «»
- «c7»In my view I think the best side of the scene is to learn to know so many
- people from all over the world and to build friendships. You can have so much
- fun in the scene. Additionally there's the friendly challenge which makes it
- to your task to improve your own knowledge. Anyway it's real fun to finish
- a planned production and to get back positive feedback.«»
- «»
- The real bad side is that you must spend so much time to finish some good
- quality stuff today. This steals you a lot of sleep. But which coder needs
- sleep? ;)«»
- «»
- «c6»How should we manage to get more people attracted to the scene?«»
- «»
- «c7»Well, I think this is a real hard task. I really don't have a solution for it.
- If you show everyone in the world that there is a scene, the scene won't stay
- the scene anymore if lots of lamers join. I think the best way to get someone
- new attracted is to confront him or her directly with the scene. Bring them
- to a party, show them stuff done by the scene and let them read some disc mags.
- If they not only like it but also want to do such stuff by themselves or be
- involved into all of it they are potential sceners. But this will restrict it
- to a small amount of people. I really don't know. What about a poll which will
- discover the way the people stepped to the scene? Maybe this will help us in
- pushing a way.«»
- «»
- «c6»Do you have any special scene memory you want to share with the readers?«»
- «»
- «c7»Hmm...let me have a think. No, I think I have to disappoint you, there is
- nothing in my mind which seems like a special memory. All the things I love to
- remember are moments every scener experienced sometime before, like watching
- own productions on a big screen and hearing the people clapping after the show
- etc. Nothing real special. Forgive me. :)«»
- «»
- «c6»Well, it's time to find out what's your taste. What's your favorite:«»
- «»
- «c6»«al»SLOGAN : «c7»hem...I don't have one... :)«»
- «c6»SLIDESHOW : «c7»Innocence - nice pictures, Wade!«»
- «c6»INTRO : «c7»Grid - no comments«»
- «c6»DEMO : «c7»Cybercinematastics - nice idea Loonies!«»
- «c6»MUSICDISK : «c7»Extravaganja - music vs. design«»
- «c6»FRIENDLY TEAM : «c7»Nature - you guys rock«»
- «c6»MAG : «c7»depends on the contained articles«»
- «c6»EDITOR : «c7»I should say Zerox, right? ;) But I won't tell a name«»
- «t21»here. Most of the editors out there write in equal«»
- «t21»quality.«»
- «as»«»
- «c6»Please tell your opinion about the future of the scene:«»
- «c7»«»
- «c5»OPTIMISTIC:«»
- «»
- «c7»Some time God will become an Amiga scener, too. He will turn hundreds of people
- into sceners with nice ideas and knowledge. There will be thousand of new demos
- and intros each day. The Amiga will get an additonal chunky-chip and the scene
- will become the biggest underground organization ever. All sceners from nowadays
- stay as The Elite and we will win millions at every demo party out there and to
- beat Kimble black and blue will be the first price.
- Roughly like this... :)«»
- «»
- «c5»REALISTIC:«»
- «»
- «c7»I think the number of active scener has ceased to fluctuate. Some will leave,
- some new will come. So I think the scene will stay the scene for the next years.
- Maybe this will change in many years, but for now I think it won't.«»
- «»
- «c5»PESIMISTIC:«»
- «»
- «c7»The Amiga scene will never die, so the most pessimistic thought I have is that
- all the great Amiga sceners will leave the Amiga and that there won't be newcomers
- in the future. But you can be sure that the Amiga scene will always keep up with
- great stuff. Take a look to the C64 scene. They still produce lots of releases
- every year.«»
- «»
- «c6»And what do you think about the latest Amiga plans?«»
- «»
- «c7»To be honest I don't know anything about the plans of Amiga. I've got an Amiga
- at home and I do stuff for the scene on it. But not because I like the firm
- "Amiga" but I like the classic Amiga, the 68k processor generation and the
- AmigaOS. And as any new Amiga products will not feature this really nice
- processor and the real AmigaOS I'm not really interested in any new plans. :)«»
- «»
- Do you picture yourself in the scene when you're an old man such as me? ;)«»
- «»
- Maybe it will be hard to reach your age, maybe not. But one thing is for sure:
- I will stay active in the scene as long as I can hit a key. :)
- Ok, maybe some time I will lose interest in the scene but I think this won't
- be in the near future.«»
- «»
- «c5»«ac»MAGS«»
- «»
- «as»«c6»What do you think about nowadays mags? Do you miss something?«»
- «»
- «c7»Nowadays mags are mostly interesting, at least from my point of view. I don't
- look at the code nor the graphics but on the articles, the important part of
- a good mag. And those articles are usually interesting. I don't miss anything.
- We have party reports, product reviews, interviews, discussion forums, general
- informations and loads of misc things in any mag.
- Do you miss anything? I don't. :)«»
- «»
- «c6»Are there too few mags around after your opinion?«»
- «»
- «c7»Well, if we have more mags around than we could have a problem: there aren't
- so many releases and happenings to write loads of articles about. So it might
- be better to release less mags but with more interesting articles inside.
- Additionally the most sceners have to concentrate on developing stuff, not in
- reading mags every week. ;)«»
- «»
- «c6»Do mags have any influence in the scene?«»
- «»
- «c7»I think they do. Mags bring informations to sceners which are not IRC addicted.
- And these informations can be quite interesting for one or the other person.
- E.g. it might be quite interesting in reading reviews of your own production
- to learn how you could make some things going better in the future. In addition
- it boosts your motivation if you read about the expectations of yourself or
- your group.«»
- «»
- «c6»What do you think about the various charts in todays mags?«»
- «»
- «c7»In my opinion charts are somewhat strange things. Some oldskool sceners might
- say that coders, musicians etc. from the old scene should be on top as they
- did marvelous things in the circumstances obtaining at this time. But for
- newer sceners which joined after this oldskool time it is hard to vote for
- productions done years ago. They maybe never realized the difficulty behind
- a blitter vector etc. But this is easily understood. So the charts may reflect
- different point of views. Maybe it is better to separate oldskool and newschool
- charts? Don't know...«»
- «»
- «»
- «c5»«ac»REAL LIFE«»
- «»
- «c6»«as»What's your occupation?«»
- «»
- «c7»I'm working for company which produces pace makers. My job is to help the
- employees with any PC problems and to code applications used in the office
- departments.«»
- «»
- «c6»Tell us about one of your normal days...«»
- «»
- «c7»Every morning I'm very tired, this is how every day starts. :) After working
- till about 6 pm I usually drive home and start to code a bit. Usually I'm
- awake till about 1 o'clock spending the most time in front of my Amiga.
- That's all. :) Not really interesting, believe me...«»
- «»
- «c6»Do you have any other hobbies than computing? In that case, which?«»
- «c7»I love to play billiards, do ice skating, having some fitness training and
- some more things. I need all this, it's too hard to spend ALL your free time
- in front of a monitor. :)«»
- «»
- «c6»What kind of music and movies do you enjoy?«»
- «»
- «c7»I enjoy almost every kind of music apart from german folk music. :)
- But I mostly listen to some trance or r'n'b sounds. Additionally I love to
- listen to some old chiptunes. :)«»
- «»
- Concerning movies: I like computer related movies like Matrix and 23. But I
- also like to watch action films, thrillers and horror movies.«»
- «»
- «c6»Thanks for spending alot of your time here answering these questions. Good
- luck with future plans... Now you can write whatever you would like, like
- greetings etc.«»
- «»
- «c7»Thanks to you!
- The greetings going out to all members of my group, hope we guys will have
- much fun in the future! :)«»
- «»
- Respect to all Amiga sceners, especially to the active ones. Everyone of you
- is a part of the nowadays scene! Let's keep the Amiga scene alive!«»
- «e»
-