1¶382¹TECHNIQUE AND BEAUTY
                            a5by Sound Aestesis / NGC


     91Some people say that only qualified people sould be authorized to vote
     for  the  charts,  this means that only coders could vote for the best
     coder,  only  musicians  could  vote  for the best musician and so on.
     Other  people think that every one can judge if a work is good or not.
     That's  true, but not entierly right...  dMud 9wrote a very good article
     about  it  in  dTop  Secret  number  12.  9He says :  "Personally I have
     always  thought  that  the  best tunes were the ones I liked to listen
     to".   Ok guy, you're right, anyone can tell if a music is pleasant to
     hear, if a picture is beautiful or not, or if a screen is nice or not.
     I  will  sum  up this point of view by saying that anyone can feel the
     beauty  in  a  production,  and vote for it.  But you can do beautiful
     things  without  being  a  good  technician  (please  stop throwing me
     tomatoes  until the end of this article).  For example, on one hand, I
     love  chessmaps and starfields (not 3D ones, just the classic ones you
     can  see  in  demos such as bDragons megademo 19).  But I know that it's
     just  a  picture  and  copper  bars (for the chessmaps).  On the other
     hand,  I  think  that  the 3D bitmap in bRazor 1911's Voyage 9demo isn't
     nice  (I love the rest of this demo).  But I know that this screen has
     been  very  well  coded  and that few people can do the same (who said
     that  a  starfield wasn't easy to code ?).  So, I will vote for Sim on
     his  3D  even  if  I prefer starfields and chessmaps, just because the
     charts  want me to tell who's the best coder and not who does the most
     beautiful  screens.   I  want  to  make  you understand that very easy
     things  can  seem  to  be very hard to realise while it's really easy.
     Let's take another example.  I remember that when I had just bought my
     Amiga, I admired a picture in which the gfx artist has managed to give
     a  kind of steam effect.  I would have voted for this guy if I had had
     a  vote  sheet.   But soon after, I was told that this effect was made
     thanks to the smooth of Deluxe Paint...  Now, when I like a picture, I
     always  ask a gfx artist if it's easy to realise or not, and why.  I'm
     a  musician, and I can tell you that there are many well known ways to
     make  a  tune be pleasant to hear.  I'll take one example :  Shadow of
     the  beast  II plays a beautiful music when you die (enjoy the guitar,
     dudes  !).   This  tune  is  nice  thanks to the quality of the guitar
     samples,  but  if you ask a guitarist to tell you about the melody, he
     will  say  that  it's  classic  and easy to compose (I've tried with 5
     different  guitarists  and  they  all told me that it was pure shit!).
     It's  nice,  but  you  don't  have  to be good to realise that kind of
     music.   Another  example  :  I saw an intro of xxxx xxxx in which the
     music  w±c1as  csuperb9.   In  fact, I loved the rythm of this tune, it was
     perfect, that was good work.  I asked my favourite swapper to rip this
     tune  for me (he did it!).  When he gave me the module, I saw that the
     rythm had been sampled from a record !  I wanted to vote for xxxxxxxx,
     who  had  made this tune, but I voted for someone else.  His rythm was
     perfect,  his  technique  was  none.   In  fact, I wanna tell you that
     beauty  and  technique  are  sometimes very far one from another.  So,
     what  shall we do ?  I think that we just have to ask qualified people
     if a music, a picture or a code is easy to do or not.  I would be glad
     if  the  charts  could  be separated in 2 categories :  One part would
     tell  us about the best technicians (and the voters would of course be
     qualified people) and the other part would tell us about the guys that
     create  the  most  beautiful things (anyone could vote).  I think that
     the  most  important thing in a demo is its beauty, but don't say that
     xxxxxxxxx  of xxxxx xxxxxx is the best coder cause his copper bars are
     nice!×