fpf1s3c07 HARDCORE VS HAZMIX - COMPARING THE INCOMPARABLE by RokDaZone, Skyphos & Fiver/Artwork c09I an earlier artikel named f4c10"Beauty or Art"f1c09, we have discussed the question, taken the newly enlarged storage capacities for demos, wether hardcore coding still is the major matter of interest for modern demos, or if real computer art can be achieved by featuring splendid precalculated visual cores, such as animations etc. This article, however, deals with a related issue, but has a more practical meaning. The basic issue here is, if maximum use of the given storage capacity automatically means a better release. We have chosen two relativly recent releases to test in order to underline our train of thoughts. The first one comes from c08Syndromc09, has been released at the c08Saturne4c09, where it was awarded by the first place. It constitues of one executable file and not less than 37 datafiles 'weighs' 6568838 bytes unarchived, and is called f4c10"Hardcore"c09f1. The second one was released at the Gravity Party'96 in Poland where the producers from c08Amnesty c09captured the first prize in the 4 KByte-competition with it. The impressive 4088 Bytes of that intro called f4c10"HazMix" c09f1make an imposing 0.06223% of Hardcores" overall size. When looking at the major opinion that the boasted capacity allowance at competitions enable producers to improve the enjoyability for viewers, we find that Hardcore should be several dozend times more enjoyable than HazMix. Is this really the case? Can we even dare to make comparisons like this? Two 'multiple Sceners' (read: Union of coder, musician and graphicians) namely c08Skyphos c09and c08Fiver c09try together with us to answer these questions. c07 THE DESIGN c10f4"When it comes to design, (Hardcore) is just Syndrome standard." c09f1Skyphos claims, c10f4"they evaluated in a way to make strange designs." c09f1Also Fiver is not entirely convinced: c10f4"The design is neat taken the best case." c09f1And yes, it is. Sadly. The parts are not cleverly linked and although they tried to stick with the same standard of graphical design, the demo looks like torn into pieces and glued together again in a hurry. f4c10"These pseudo-evil horroranims are simply more than embarrasing," c09f1Fiver underlines. For the ones not being able to enjoy the winning demo of the Saturne 4: We see a moviesequence in a typical low resolution and quality that one get when digitizing from video. A naked man in leather and chains gets lead outside by a domina, who finds it suitable to blow away the mans head with a revolver. c08Gosh. c09As if this was not enough, they included themselves committing suicide for the credits. Worldrecord! This must be the worlds largest credit area in any demo so far. But for no good it seems: c10f4"The Animations are ridiculous. They seemingly tried to make the under 12 yeared vote." c09f1Skyphos frozzles. Comparing HazMix to this seems hard and also Fiver points at this: c10f4"Of course it is quite difficult to compare a 4 KByter with a full demo." c09f1In the end he still finds a basis, f4c10"Relativly seen, is Hardcore designtechnically spoken just a weakly ripped off cut of some successful productions." c09f1HazMix with its simple but very attracting blue steel-design can be remembered as a standalone release. Concluding, Fiver underlines again: c10f4"From the techniques of design, HazMix belongs in any case to the best there has been in its class. Hardcore again is just one demo out of many." c09f1Skyphos is not emtirely sure if HazMix has a so much better overall design, f4c10"although a movelist with a quadratic texture is cool!" f1c07 MUSIC & GRAPHICS c09Still, HazMix even does not have music! A reasonable release without music - where is the point in that? Actually it is a pitty that f4Hazid f1forgot at least to program a synthetic tone pulsating. This really could be an indicator for coders having forgotten how to program oscillators due being comforted by modfiles. This must be the weakest part of the 4 KByte intro: No sound at all. Yet, let's listen what we can say about the music of Hardcore... Skyphos is careful: c10f4"If one likes it. Its extremely in direction of e-guitar music." c09f1A horror for a Technoid like him, surely. I personally can only underline that the musician behind it did one prominent mistake by mixing up thousands of styles, which do not fit together in the end and therefore never underline a certain sphere or tone of the demo. This is everything but a thin red line. f4c10"It just does not reflect the standard of the demo," c09f1Skyphos puts it to the point. Added up, one still has to admit that its better to have no music than to have bad music, but it keeps better to have a strange and non-fitting music than to have no music. Also when it comes to graphics, HazMix suffers naturally from its size limitation, but does that term exclusivly include painted graphics like fullscreens, but can it also contain textures and similar? For example uses HazMix quadratic textures in its Movelist which can be decribed as really tasty, although they are in any aspect not difficult to do. Here again we are posed to the question if they can be valued under the label of being pixelled out or if they should belong to the design comparance as they do not leave an impression on the qualities of a graphician or renderer? Hardcore again gives a lot of graphics by c08Tenshuc09, who seemingly prefers to draw teeth, as all of his monstrous creatures seem to consist of teeth and claws only. It is needless to say that these pictures give one highlight of the demo for the innocent eye. Asked about his opinion from the eyes of a graphician, Fiver who recently released his own slideshow, admits that they are f4c10"qualitivly obviously much better than in the elder demo," c09f1but f4c10"what one feels about the motives remains a matter of taste." c09f1When summing up his words one could say that they hit the upper average of todays painters level and also Skyphos expresses in a similar way: c10f4"Qualitativly ok, but questionable when it comes to motives, but" c09f1he grins, c10f4"You know Tenshu and his style." f1c09Yes, when it comes to graphics and music, one certainly has to say that Hardcore can provide much more. Remains the question, what would have happened if the 4KByter was a 40Kbyter with sound and some nice pixels? c07 THE EFFECTS c09Here it gets proven what since c08Dawn c09was obvious: Good effects simply do not necessarily need many bytes. Our two specialists are of the same opinion when it comes to HazMix: c10f4"Some effects really would have a legitimate position in a big demo." c09f1(Fiver) c10f4"Bumpmapping, Movelist, Rotator... Yes, I do like the 4KByter better." c09f1(Skyphos) On the other hand, both do not leave any bad word about the bigger one either: c10f4"Really, I like that Watereffect from Hardcore!" c09f1Skyphos is euphoric and also Fiver does not deny: f4c10"The Watereffect is the only real remarkable thing about Hardcore, but this one is really good." c09f1Summing up one could say that the Amnestics (excuse the pun) were able to impress more with their effects both objectivly and subjectivly as when a 6.5 MByter would have exactly the same effects, one would call it weak compared to a 4 Kbyter. Do what you wish, having a nice 4 KByter is always more impressing than a 1+ MByter! c07 SUMMING UP c08HazMix has brilliantly shown evidence that there is no causality between quality and size! c09This intro is better than most of nowadays bigger demos. Congratulations to Amnesty! c08Hardcore, however, has proven that the huger a demo is, the higher expectations arise. c09Because: If Hardcore would have featured a fitting overall design and music and if they would have entered some nice cameramoves, maybe then it would have legitimized its size. Lucky who did not download Hardcore - the way it is, it is not worth the tremendous phonebill it creates.