Written by Adok
April 17th, 2011, one week before Revision: On this warm Sunday afternoon, I met Paralax at a small café close to the center of Vienna in order to conduct an interview with him for the Hugi Magazine. We talked about his own development as a democoder, the achievements of his group Speckdrumm, his demoscene outreach activities, his computer science studies, and more.
About the person: Paralax was born in the early 1980s in the province of Upper Austria. After graduating from high school, he started studying computer science in Vienna, the capital of Austria. During his time as a student, he discovered the demoscene and became active in it. He is a coder and organizer of the group Speckdrumm, which comprises members from various parts of Austria and Germany. Speckdrumm has been very successful at various German demoparties, winning 1st and 2nd prizes several times.
Adok:
First of all I would like to thank you for agreeing on this interview.
Paralax:
No problem. If I hadn't agreed, I'd now be sitting at home, working on the demotool.
Adok:
Your demotool - Hennecke?
Paralax:
Hennecke was the name of the old tool. The new tool has the codename "Bart". It is going to be a general-purpose platform. We have learned from our old demotool and want to consider our experiences. Our tools are not simple; on the contrary, they are rather complex programs. I am currently working on the adaptation of our 3D engine. It should be possible to direct effects, sequences etc. in a graphical environment. That is what we need the tool for. In order to be able to edit the effects, the 3D engine needs to be integrated in the tool.
Adok:
Some of your demos contain the phrase "Powered by Hennecke and Ketzer". What's Ketzer?
Paralax:
Ketzer was our old 3D engine. While Hennecke was written in C#, Ketzer was created using C++. Our new 3D engine goes by the name Superhøegen.
Adok:
What advantages do the new systems have?
Paralax:
We have been involved with the demoscene for quite some time already. There are demogroups that switch their 3D engine once every year, whereas our cycle is very long. After Evoke 2003, we started developing Hennecke. The system we used before that (for example in Tayfur) was script-based. Editing scripts is cool, you can edit effects in realtime while the demo is running. But it is difficult to teach a graphics artist scripting. Graphics artists are accustomed to more visual tools such as 3DS Max. That is why we wanted to create something similar to 3DS Max. Farbrausch's "Werkkzeug" motivated us.
After 7 years of development and use in our demos we noticed that there are cases in which this system no longer does its job, cases in which the system is difficult to use.
Adok:
What, for example?
Paralax:
The management of multiple timelines, time management as a whole and certain editing features. You can't just select a bunch of keyframes and move them around in time. Instead you have to work with each keyframe individually. This was fine some years ago but nowadays there are other standards. It would have been possible to update the tool, but we wanted to make use of our new experiences regarding software architecture - that's why we restarted from scratch. After all, if you keep updating old software, you will sooner or later reach the point when you will no longer write any demo, but only maintenance code, and try to remove the bugs. We wanted to make a new tool using which everything would be better. In my opinion, we have been successful at this endeavour.
A problem we had with Hennecke concerned the insertion of external effects (such as metaballs) into 3D scenes. That's why we wanted to have a better resource administration which could be directly integrated with the demotool.
Adok:
Regarding software architecture: I've noticed that you're fond of design patterns. How can this technique be applied to democoding?
Paralax:
In the course of time you learn where you can apply design patterns. It is not sensible to keep a checklist and mark the design patterns you used. One of the patterns that is definitely worth using is Model-View-Presenter, which is a further development of the well known Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern. You use this pattern when you want to strictly separate your view, your business code and the data. With Hennecke, we did not always apply this pattern; sometimes we had business code inside the user interface code. This made maintenance very cumbersome. In Hennecke there were cases like: If the user moved the time slider, the time display in another window had to be updated as well. The more a tool grows, the more problems you get if you do not strictly separate user interface and business code. In the year 2003, I did not realize that yet.
In the demoscene there are many people who program something that satisfies the intended use case, but which does not work in other cases. In contrast to that, I want to write robust, reusable code. This requires the specification of test cases. These test cases do not even comprise real demo code; I only test whether the tool does what it is supposed to do. That takes a lot of time. Our approach is the total opposite of the approach of a 4k coder who opens Visual Studio or Assembler, implements a couple of effects and then releases his creation. (Of course I realize that there are high flyers such as Loonies who even manage to have crazy tools for their 4K projects even across very different platforms.) We care about creating a real framework on a meta level which permits us to implement whatever we need. It is possible to reuse patterns, which makes software development more efficient. All in all this approach of demomaking takes a lot of time, but the basic idea is the same.
Adok:
Some of the older productions of Speckdrumm, such as "Die Speckulation" and "Speckdrumm vs. Ferdi Tayfur", no longer work on modern computers. Do you plan to release new versions of these demos?
Paralax:
No. That's because parts of the sourcecode have got lost, and the original engine programmer (Bauchi) has not been active for a long time. The engine was originally created in Delphi and ported to C++. The demo "Die Speckulation" requires the Intel Indeo 4 codec, which is usually not installed on modern PCs. I have a computer at home on which these demos are still working. I'd like to create videos of the demos using kkapture and put them on Youtube. Our group has its own channel on Youtube: SpeckdrummHD. Sooner or later we will put all our works online on that channel.
Adok:
In a week's time, there is going to be Revision 2011. I guess you will be part of the party. What are your expectations?
Paralax:
On the one hand, I believe in continuity. Many people who have been involved in the organization of Breakpoint and tUM will be part of the organizing team of Revision - basically it's almost all of the German demoscene as well as a couple of people from the Benelux countries. Acryl showed me a photo of the party place, it was very promising. Unless something unpleasant happens (such as quarrel with neighbours), it will be a great easter experience. The compos will surely be as great as the compos at Breakpoint, as well.
Adok:
What do you expect demosceners to release at Revision?
Paralax:
I assume that there are going to be similar releases as at Breakpoint. I don't know who is planning to release something this year. But since there hasn't been any new ASD release for a while, I believe that they will show something. ASD, Farbrausch, Andromeda,... I hope that there will also be more top 4k intros. Since the genre is becoming more and more popular, we do not even have to hope; I'm sure it will happen.
Adok:
With "Magellan", Farbrausch already presented a very sophisticated demo at tUM 2010. Do you think that they have prepared something even more impressive for Revision?
Paralax:
I would not underestimate Farbrausch. They have a large number of members. The demo at tUM featured some people I had never heard about before. For example, the people who made the graphics. The Farbrausch organizers have a talent to gather the most talented people. Perhaps Visualice has been working on a Revision demo for a year already. He is very productive after all. His demos are always great. Platinum for example. Since I am a member of the Scene.org Awards jury, I have thoroughly watched all his demos. Although people keep saying about Visualice that he always does everything in the same manner, that he has a style that never changes, that the demos he made with Haujobb and the demos he made with Farbrausch look alike, he is definitely a good man. If he does something for Revision, it will be a top scoring demo.
Adok:
These days, most demosceners are already occupied with jobs. Nevertheless many of them seem to have enough time to release a new demo at least a few times a year. How, do you think, is that possible?
Paralax:
That is a topic which concerns me as well. Similar to the term "work-life balance" in the world of business, one could also speak of scene-real life balance. My own job is not related to the demoscene, but on a medium-term basis I'd like to go into a direction that is compatible to my demoscene ambitions. The key to success of today's demoscene generation: Either you study and have a lot of time, or you make a living with computer graphics or tool creation. Otherwise you have too little time. Unless you are so motivated that you really manage both job and scening. But that's crazy.
Smash of Fairlight is working for Sony Europe. Every days he goes to work by train. He has his laptop with him and produces the new Fairlight demos on the train. I wonder how it is possible to achieve this. I am extremely sensitive towards sounds and anything distracting. One hour on train - you need to be very disciplined to be able to work that way.
Adok:
You are working yourself. If I'm well informed, you are part of the Business Informatics Group at the Vienna University of Technology?
Paralax:
Yes. First I was working for two years at Microsoft. Entro of Farbrausch told me about a free job position in the company and it sounded interesting enough for me to apply. Microsoft likes people with personal interest, with initiative of their own. Not all people in the IT industry are like that. An "additional drive" is very interesting for employers.
After these two years I joined BIG since I wanted to finally finish my studies and write the master thesis. For that project, I needed one year of programming. Now I am in a follow-up project related to my thesis. It revolves around business documents and interorganizational choreographies. Although I am no business informatician by training, I was chosen by the BIG because I've made experiences with workflows, and that was a skill they had been looking for. I am very practically minded - I do not have any ambitions to do theoretical stuff, but I rather want to create something practically useful, like in the demoscene. My colleagues would like to keep me. However, I'd rather like to do something demoscene-related in order to live up to my own interests.
Adok:
Have you profited from your democoding skills in your job?
Paralax:
The only thing that remains from demoscene activities is the "freak factor". It is funny: You are considered to be the guy who makes 4k intros. After showing your colleagues a couple of your own productions and other people's productions, you are classified. People do not really seem to understand what the demoscene is all about. Or maybe they do, but I do not notice that. If I compare myself with an average student of these days, I can conclude that I definitely needed far more time to complete my degree, but I did more practical things. Nowadays a lot of students want to complete their studies in the minimum time and then get employed. I did not care about getting done with my studies fast, but I did a lot of things besides studying, working on practical projects (for instance, I did a project for a gambling company). There are so many things you learn only if you fail yourself. Due to Hennecke, I have made several experiences which others who never tried anything like that have never made. At work, it becomes obvious that I have skills my colleagues do not have: On the one hand, I have knowledge of C++ (which is hardly taught at the Vienna UT), and on the other, I have more experience with software architecture than my colleagues.
Adok:
About your own development as a democoder: If I'm well informed, you started programming when you were 15 years old.
Paralax:
Where did you read that?
Adok:
Well... I read that on the Internet.
Paralax:
My first programming experiences had little to do with democoding. My first computers were a C64 and an Amiga. As a teenager I was mostly interested in playing computer games and getting entertained. I entered the demoscene much later.
My first phase of learning to program: At school, at grade 9, we had to program using Turbo Pascal. I was quite fond of that: programming in order to entertain your friends. First I programmed for text mode, later on using a graphics library by Borland. It was great fun for me. I was 16 years old back then. In the end I started programming my own games using Turbo Pascal.
How it continued: I tried to find people at school interested in programming games together with me. In this way I discovered somebody who programmed using C++ and DirectX. For me, that was a complete mystery. When preparing for my final exams, I started learning C++. At our "Maturareise" (ed.: in Austria, after graduating from high school, young people usually travel to a Mediterranean country, where they spend one or two weeks at the beach drinking alcohol and eating unhealthy food //Adok) I sat nearby the beach reading a book on C++.
So it all started with game development. We tried to find a name for our group: First we came up with Intergames, then with Speckdrumm Interactive.
When I was studying, I remembered the demoscene. I knew cracker intros with greetings and that stuff from my C64/Amiga days. I knew that there was an "underground scene" in which something was happening. But I did not have any ambitions to go to the post office and send out letters. In Vienna, however, where I had started studying, I had Internet access and conducted research on the demoscene using Google, Altavista or whatever people were using in the year 2000. In this way I discovered Scene.org. Thereupon I watched the "viewing tips" and most of all the fresh releases from Assembly 2000. These releases included two productions that have remained among my favourite demos until today: "the nonstop ibiza experience" by Orange and "antimoney" by Threestate. At that time, I was very impressed, and I was not able to find an explanation why people were doing those things. The effects and the soundtracks had something "romantical" to them: To me, it seemed like self-sacrifice for the sake of art. What big amount of time and resources these people invested in their art, voluntarily - I was shocked! Of course I was aware that the demomakers profited from the wealthy repository of code and art they had been building in the course of the years. Anyhow, for me this was the point in time when I decided that I wanted to do something like that myself.
I continued getting informed using the Internet, for example by means of Ojuice. That was how I discovered IRC. I downloaded mIRC and joined several scene channels, mostly German ones such as #szene.ger. Back then, the atmosphere was quite different from today: Even if you showed interest and will to learn something, but if you did not have any releases and have never been to a demoparty, you were considered a "lamer" and kicked from the channel. That happened to me several times. But I came back again and again and did not allow myself to be scared off. The first few Speckdrumm members were recruited at that time: seismic, spy-da (two musicians), Blockbuster (my brother), and Bauchi (a fellow computer science student in Vienna). That was the core team of Speckdrumm, and it was us who developed the first few demos. Among the first demoparties we visited were Dialogos 2001 - I remember you were there as well - and Mekka & Symposium 2002. Our first demoscene production was released at UC 6. And since then, we have not stopped. First our aim was to show something at a demoparty. Then we wanted to create something even better. And this way, the time passed. This way the big number of releases and members we have today have accumulated.
Adok:
What have your demoscene activities brought to you personally? Inhowfar have they influenced your life?
Paralax:
On the one hand, I'd say it's important and good to have international acquaintances and friends. The social aspect of the demoscene must never be neglected. Of course demoscening is also about the productions, but the actual excitement stems from the people, from the stories, and all of this results in a culture of its own. That is very essential for me. On the other hand, it's also important to accumulate technical skills. For people interested in technology, that is very important. I know a lot of computer science students who know that they would have to practice programming in order to get better, but they do not have any aims, they do not know what they should program. I have never had this problem - we always had things to do: texture generator (following a Hugi tutorial), demotools and other utilities (3DS Max exporter, viewer,...). The technical skills have proven useful to me.
You are also influenced as a person. How would I have developed had I stayed in Upper Austria? I would probably not have noticed anything of the demoscene. I would have remained a rural person. Now I am an urban man and consider myself a European. When communicating with people from countries such as Hungary or Israel you notice that there are some things that separate us from one another, but we also have many things in common, and that is something that is going to become more and more important in the future: the conception of oneself as a European.
The third thing is that I've had a lot of fun giving birth to ideas and inventing concepts. Every Speckdrumm demo contains a part of myself. You always discover that you can do this or that. You discuss with people and get ideas. This brainstorming, this creative aspect is essential. You perceive many things from a different angle. When watching TV productions, I always ask myself: How do they influence the viewer so that certain impressions are made? Why is the camera moving that way? Why this or that scene? Fine balancing, design - psychological effects - the way I colourize the scene, how I do the pacing, how I do the cutting,... I am not responsible for that, but I provide my feedback as a watcher. I consider this very interesting.
Adok:
In the German demoscene, your group, Speckdrumm, is not only known because of your releases, but also because of "foliba". Who the idea to wear these "fake moustaches", and why has this become such a "running gag"?
Paralax:
That started a couple of years ago with a poster of Hader (ed.: Austrian comedian //Adok). In 2002 that poster was about everywhere in town. It can still be found in the Café Alt-Wien. If you look at that photo, you will notice that this fake moustache does not make Hader any more handsome - on the contrary, the opposite is the case: the beard makes him ugly. We talked about that on IRC: It is absurd to make yourself uglier than you actually are, but we considered that funny. It became a running gag on IRC. Then there was the following situation: At the time Speckdrumm was founded, all the communication happened online. I had no idea what spy-da and seismic looked like. And then there was going to be Mekka & Symposium 2002, a party with 1000 visitors. How should we be able to find each other? Obviously we needed a sign of recognition, and that's why we decided to wear a "fobila" ourselves.
When I arrived at Fallingbostel (ed.: the German town where Mekka & Symposium was held //Adok), I even had problems with my contact lenses, and thus I did not recognize anybody. I was blind. But then I saw somebody running around with a foliba. "Hello, I'm Paralax!" I shouted, and so we met.
Then we used that foliba meme to make other people aware of our demogroup. Demogroups always have to find ways in order to get people's attention. We cannot win against groups that have been around for years - we do not have all the sourcecode they have. That's why we wanted to gain attention using such memes. At UC 6, we brought a lot of folibas with us, and distributed them among the visitors. People kept that in their memories, just like the "Hallo! Was?" meme coined by Sobec and a couple of other, internationally less known memes such as "in die Pute".
Our demos have always been not only about effects, but also about stories. Most of our demos are not as abstract as the typical demoscene demo. They usually have a storyline or at least a theme such as Ferdi Tayfur. Also, we always wanted to have a story behind the demo. I have a preference for the absurd and grotesque. Probably I'm also one of the people in the demoscene who contributed to the largest number of fake demos. My aim with these demos was not to win a compo, but rather to entertain people and to provoke. It was all about enhancing the culture on a different level that is usually not that much in the foreground. Take a look at some of our earlier demos, "Die Speckulation" for example. This was a pseudo-funny fake demo. But my philosophy has always been: Even if the demo is grotesque, it should at least be okay from a technical point of view. Most of the fake demos released in those days, for example Polka Brothers' demos with the elk, did not involve any highly sophisticated technology. But if you take such absurd scenes as the slaughtering of a cow - that is so untypical of the demoscene, it's something special. Very unusual themes, very close to life as a human. Some ASD demos are unusual from an artistic point of view and come along with a lot of new ideas, but in a different way - more demoscene like than what we're usually doing.
Adok:
If I'm well-informed, all of your demos are based on DirectX. What advantages does DirectX have over OpenGL?
Paralax:
We have different preferences within our group. I personally am most experienced with DirectX, but I'm not the main graphics coder. Our two actual engine coders, Muhmac and Coma, master both OpenGL and DirectX. We want to support both platforms. These days, DirectX vs. OpenGL is not on topic any more. All that matters is whether the demo is good or not.
Adok:
Your brother Blockbuster is a 3D graphics artist. That is quite a rare skill, and I guess that the demand for 3D "graphicians" is high even outside of the demoscene. How did Blockbuster acquire his skills, if I may ask?
Paralax:
It's certainly true that inside the demoscene, the search for 3D graphics artists is getting more and more important. That is due to the fact that the demos are getting more and more content loaded. For 4k intros you need no 3D graphician, you generate your material yourself. But for actual demos, 3D graphics artists are very important.
Blockbuster acquired his skills mainly due to me pushing him into this direction. When I started programming computer games, he wanted to join my projects. I said: OK, so you make the graphics. Thereupon he started with Photoshop and 3DS Max. In the course of the years, he became better and better. After graduating from high school, he applied at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg in order to attend the course on multimedia / 3D. That university has very strict criteria, and only 20% of the applicants are taken. My brother wanted to gain skills related to the creation of realtime graphics and computer games. When he applied at the university, he had to create a project related to the theme "underground". Usually people create a video using Maya, 3DS Max or whatever and submit it on a DVD. But my brother had little experience in video cutting back then and did not want to learn it. That's why we decided to do it using Hennecke. In quite a short time period the demo "the unreasonable deepness" was created. All others handed in AVI files, while he submitted the demo, and nevertheless he was admitted. The fact that I was able to help my people with tools I had developed myself made me very proud. The demo was even mentioned in the Scene.org Awards ceremony: It did not get first place, but at least it did get some place in the "most original concept" category.
Adok:
That's very impressive!
Paralax:
That's very cool - with a demo, he defeated 80% of the applicants. Of course it has been useful that he mentioned that the demo was created using self-made tools.
Adok:
You are a member of the Scene.org Awards jury. What would you like to tell us about that aspect of your scene activities?
Paralax:
Yes, I've been a member of the jury for a couple of years. That is not a secret. It usually starts in November - internal email discussions, three rounds: 1. we search for demos and intros which fit one of the categories, 2. we have a voting round and determine the top 10, 3. in the final round we have no more than 5 or 6 productions per category. Then we determine who will get the awards. Our opinions often strongly diverge, and the discussions take a lot of time. I usually have an Excel sheet with me, take a look at each demo and 4k, try to evaluate advantages and disadvantages... this usually costs me an entire day, as I have to recall the memories of the demos, even though I've already watched them. But it's nice: You get the best of the previous year on show. We do not know ourselves what groups have won. The presentation at The Gathering is going to be exciting. The main person behind this year's Scene.org Awards is Blueberry, as far as I know - he is the main coordinator who tries to tame the jury, to direct it, set deadlines,... Every decision is kept secret. Since 2003, when these awards were founded, no secret has been revealed.
Adok:
What would you like to tell us about your demoscene outreach activities?
Paralax:
I believe that unfortunately, outreach is becoming more and more important in the demoscene - I say unfortunately, as there has been a time when outreach was not important. People wanted to become member of the demoscene since that was the place where "the cool kids" met. Nowadays that is different since the computer is an ordinary household article. Computers are no longer what they used to be for our generation. There are many other ways to deal with computers in a creative way apart from the demoscene. As a consequence, the demoscene is not as interesting any more. That's why we need to make people fascinated by the demoscene.
What the demoscene has brought for me, the demoscene can bring for others as well. The demoscene can be very profitable. That's why we decided again and again to take part in outreach events, for example Realtime Generation, the exhibition in summer 2008. Realtime Generation was extremely successful, but unfortunately it has not resulted in a lot of new people joining the scene. I guess that's because the presentation scared people off - if you always show only top demos and do not show that there are also other levels in the demoscene, people get the wrong impression.
I tried to organize outreach events in a more private environment, namely in the Metalab hackerspace in the first district of Vienna, which fortunately provides space for demoscene and other "hacker-affine" events from time to time. In the year 2009 we had an event with Widdy, DeeKay, JCO and Nitro. That was something funny for us demosceners - after all, we hardly have any opportunities to live our culture aside from demoparties. Presenting chiptunes to others (including the latest Blibb Blobb release from tmb of Scoopex) is fun. I like the idea to convey knowledge to fresh, young people who would like to watch our seminars. The seminars, by the way, are available on the Net - you can download them as MPEG videos at speckdrumm.org in the Misc section. Probably it would have been a good idea to additionally create a Youtube channel. Youtube didn't work for time restriction reasons but all talks are now available on vimeo.com.
The topics of the seminar in 2009 were very 8-bit centered, which was perhaps not a good idea, as it provided an additional separation layer for newcomers - people who neither have a clue of the demoscene nor of C64 and its obscure graphics modi might have found that seminar interesting, but not inviting. At the next event, which will be in June 2011, we will try to come up with new topics that will be more interesting for newbies. A lot of people have a Wii at home, so we will deliver a presentation on Wii programming, which will be attractive for hackers. Ragnarok might deliver a workshop on pixel graphics - interactive, how do I paint a picture pixel by pixel. That is something you hardly hear anything about: Except for Game Boy development, pixel graphics are usually not considered important these days, while actually, everybody can create pixel graphics using his or her PC. JCO will contribute a live musical piece, kb will entertain people in some way, las will talk about ray marching, a topic currently very interesting for size coders all around the scene.
Adok:
Regarding the works of Speckdrumm, my own favourite Speckdrumm releases (I've watched all that worked on my PC) are "Suspeckt The Moles", "Right after labor", "Tayfur 2: Turkish Delight" and "SpeckGyver". I enjoyed watching "Suspeckt The Moles" because of the synchronization of the effects with the music (the rhythmic pulsations made me swing along), "Right after labor" due to the humorous and affectionate design, "Tayfur 2: Turkish Delight" for the technical and graphical excellence, and "SpeckGyver" thanks to the well known soundtrack and the fine composition of "highlights" from various Speckdrumm demos.
Paralax:
"Right after labor" is the latest release - you notice the demoscene spirit. It is certainly nice to release a demo at a party and watch it on the bigscreen since this makes the work pay off. This demo, however, was released outside a party. Back then, Muhmac's wife gave birth to a child, Arne, and we decided that it was time for a birthtro. We extended the tool by a small interactive part. "Right after labor" was developed using Hennecke. Effect code with whirling around - simple physics code. The family was very pleased. We did not want to reinvent the wheel, we simply wanted to show: We are with you. A demogroup should not only be a community of people with similar interests, but also a circle of friendship. We appreciate people not only because of their skills, but also as persons. When we wanted to send Muhmac our congratulations, how did we do it as a demogroup? Right, we made a demo.
Why did you mention SpeckGyver? SpeckGyver was a fast demo. We took our assets from the nonstop schlachthaus experience, showed cows, David Hasselhoff,... The theme of the fast demo was Chuck Norris, MacGyver and explosions. All of that mixed together resulted in a fakedemo.
"Suspeckt the moles" was a very early demo - it was the demo from our group that came closest to the usual demostyle: abstract objects in the center, Speckdrumm Scripting System (S3). We worked with 3DS files and tekkno music.
My personal favourite demo was zapdrumm. We did everything that worked well. We implemented the concept straight. The soundtrack was contributed by Keito of Alcatraz, it was fantastic. Unfortunately, our demos tend to be very short as we quickly shoot our bolt. This was the last demo we made with Hennecke. Let's see what the future will bring.
Regarding Tayfur 2: This demo was created because we wanted to flash people again. Tayfur 1 was really grotesque, it hit the people off-guard (one of the best soundtracks was muddled and modified as a happy hardcore tune, and Ferdi Tayfur and some symbols were displayed in the center). We wanted to do the same again. Blockbuster made a lot of effort and created nice 3D. Without his work, this wouldn't have been possible. I like the demo very much myself. It was a concept we wanted to continue - every demo should begin with an introduction sequence, showing a Speckdrumm face that gets hit. This idea must be continued in future demos. At least we gained 2nd place at the tUM, so it wasn't all that bad.
Adok:
What are your favourite demoscene productions in general?
Paralax:
On the one hand, the nonstop ibiza experience, which I consider interesting just because it has a completely idiosyncratic demostyle of its own. While everybody else tried to work with 3D acceleration, they said "we continue with software rendering". I love the colours and the fantastic soundtrack from Dune - absolutely ingenious. One of my favourite demos. It is a kind of timeless demo, in contrast to the large number of productions which made an impact after their release but grew less interesting in the course of time, such as Kasparov: Kasparov was a fantastic demo at the time it was released, but it also aged rapidly. This is because its main appeal is based on technology which has evolved so fast in the course of the last years. If design is in the foreground, demos lose less of their fascination with increasing age.
I also liked that disqualified Assembly demo from Melon Dezign: "I feel like a computer" - that retro stuff, take a look at it, it's fantastic. It's timeless since it does not try to show any super highly tessellated 3D effects; the visuals remain monocolour and stylized. That's their strength. The demo was disqualified because it used a commercial soundtrack. Such things are not tolerated by Assembly organizers.
Of course a lot of demos from Farbrausch, Orange and all these top groups are fantastic. If I am supposed to pick something with a peculiar style: "Codename Chinadoll" by katastro.fi, "paimen" by Coma (you can find it on the MindCandy 1 DVD), and "Saint" by Halcyon and Da Jormas.
Adok:
Well, great. Is there something else you'd like to tell the Hugi readers?
Paralax:
The only thing that pops into my mind is a sentence that is often cited: Make more demos. Of course nobody gets younger, but I believe that the demoscene is a dedicated community which will still persist for several years. If we stay true to our roots, there will be parties for many years, and the demoscene will remain worth being part of. We do not only want to booze, we want to do something and make the demoscene advance.
Adok:
Thank you very much for the interview!
Adok