hpf1s3c12.------------------------------------. | | | Nowadays topping demos will not be | | remembered well in years to come. | | For what reasons? | | | `------------------------------------' c11 DEMOS WITHOUT IDENTITY by RokDaZone c12Oh, you smartarses! c13Have you finally found a method to hide that you are incapable to design demos? You call it design, but it is not surely. The most recent demos make me sick, with very rare exceptions. When the great scrolly-dying set in, few felt sorry. Scrolltexts are boring to write, they are longbreathed to be read, in the end, they have been inserted just for the sense of having them. So, they got cut out, latest since c12Melon c13popped up with their c12Human Targetc13, design took the place of scrollers to add a personal touch, taking its task as remembrance. At least there was something one keep into ones mind. Not plain effects but also a reasonable design. Nowadays, even this demand seems to be too much. One logo/full-pic as starter and then effect after effect, more or less fit into the scheme, the musician drew before. That Sceners like to recycle is nothing new. That they recycle badly also not. That they search improvement in senseless simplification, however, is new. Each demo in 1996 needs a torus. Surely. I do not know why, but it seems so and I would not mutter at all (at least not much), if the rest of the demo gives something special to look at - yet it really does not. Still, you oh so witty guys, are too lazy to insert those specials, by just showing effects and a blinking screen and call it a design. c12Are you nuts? c11 CHRONICAL CALAMITY c13How would you describe (just as one example taken out of hundreds as I elsewise admire this demo a lot) c12Chronic c13from c12Passionc13, when talking to someone who does not know about the names of effects? You loved this demo, yet for some reasons you can neither remember the name of the group nor the name of the demo itself. What would you say? f4'It started by a logo which looked really cool. Then an effect with the credits. A lot of cool tunnels and also some bumpmapping. There were some pulsating objects and a torus. It had a spaceship flying through circles. And a moving net as endpart.' f1c12Congratulations! c13You now have managed to describe 90% of all recent demos, thus letting a surely stunning demo descend to just an average release. Demos, created following this common scheme lack entertainment and get forgotten soon after. Is this what they wanted to achieve? Some simple lines of text, when one would not expect it; some strange particles of graphic in the right spot and the adressed person would exactly have known that you meant Chronic. By the way, can somebody please tell me, what the title had to do with the rest of the demo? c11 CHEAP RELEASES WITH PURPOSE c13Why, hell, why are you doing this? Is it just that you want a release in every possible competition without much effort? f4'(...) Another one is the abusing of routines, remixes seems to be very in nowadays.' f1c12Shane of Crux c13complains in a mail to me. f4'One of the masters in such stuff is, in my opinion, c12Azurec13. His intro c12Phi c13published under the Artwork label and c12'Fresh' c13a c12Bizzare Arts c13productions are more or less the same in the code! Just a bit mixed and hop, Azure got a new intro, a new change to get money! Is it that what we can call productivity?' f1A liar I would be to tell him it is. Keep in mind that Azure was just taken as one prominent example. Here, the non-commercialism of the Scene - speaking in business aspects - is to be made responsible, still it is out of question that multiplying releases by such a cheap method is killing reputations. c11 GORGEOUSLY GOOD GRACE c13As indicated earlier, there are some stunning exceptions. I know describe a demo in the same way than above. Check if you recognise it: f4'It is started by a requester, in which you can choose wether to start the demo or see an animation with some guys, turning out to be masked elks.' f1I guess I already could stop here, but let me continue. f4'The demo has some cool effects like a Doom-dungeon, morphing of a guys face, lot of objects with light-effects, a torus and a funny duck object.' f1This again could be any demo. f4'Over all these effects, there are two cartoon guys popping up saying strange things.' f1Now, is that c12Passengers c13from c12Three Little Elks c13or not? I could do the same with c12Tribe c13from the same group, with the ancient c12Nexus7 c13from c12Andromeda c13or c12Desert Dream c13from c12Kefrensc13, with c12Darkside c13from c12The Black Lotus c13and of course with the earlier mentioned Human Target. Is this so difficult to do? To give demos a face, an identity? In case you really think so, it might be time to reenter the good old scrolltexts, but I do not think, anybody will take their time to read through it nowadays.