hpf3s3c10caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaf b b b f1A critical insight into modern f3b b f1demos' monotony and hints on what f3b b f1to learn from this. f3b b b daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaae f1c07 ON VECTORS AND THE ART OF MELON c08 an Essay by Hotwire c09Yeah, I've heard all this before, I've been here before, all this the Scene is stale, the Scene is dying, the Scenes got no innovation. Well the answer to the second statment is a long and complex one, but the other two, they are just pure bollocks. Those of you that are able cast you minds back to the early nineties, just before the arrival of demos such as f4c08"9 Fingers"c09, c08"Fullmoon" f1c09and f4c08"Arte"c09f1. The Scene was totally stale, why? Well the culprit then was the same as the culprit now, Vector Graphics. People seem to insist on creating Vector demos, yeah well after c08Silents f4"ICE" f1c09it all becomes a little repitative, ooh look a vector isn't that nice. Now compare the sight of a Gourad or even Phong shaded vector to the sight of the f4c08"Plasma Zoom" f1c09in f4c08"Nexus 7" f1c09by c08Andromedac09. All my non-scene friends love Nexus 7, particularly that bit, but they like me are bored to death of Vectors. c07 LAYING A FINGER INTO THE WOUND c09Yes the maths is complex, yes mathematically they are impessive, yes for a 14 Mhz Machine to be able to do Complex Gourad vectors is impressive, but only in a scientific way. People have missunderstood what c08Melon c09stand for when they said they wanted design, The didn't ever say they wanted people to design like f2themf1, they wanted people to Design f2Full Stop!f1. Why is it that I keep seeing bloody vectors on a Background and keep seeing people saying the Scene is stale. Well here is the answer, Melon (and others such as c08Axis c09and c08Polka Bros.c09) have tryed (in vain it seems) to encorage c10Art c09in the scene. The creation of something breathtaking that hasn't been seen before. Now when a new routine comes out people like to play with it, now it's easy to say how good your vector routine is, more faces, more colors, or your Doom routine, but it's more diffcult for a coder to boast about his/her plasma's and other graphical tricks. So What. I want to be Impressed, I want to overwhelmed by colours, I want to be shown something I've never seen before. I want some Bloody Originality! I want an Overscan 256 colour proper Lo-res (not 2 X 2 Chunky) Plasma Zoom!! c10(continues) c07 TAKING MELON AS EVIDENCE c09So what is it that makes Melon Special? I don't know, they seem influenced by all sorts of things, modern art, popular culture, 70's Music, Psychedelic fashion, Japanese Art, the complex inter-play of politics in the scene and f4c08"huge amounts of Alcohol and Cannabis." f1c09So why should we be suprised when some of the scenes most talented people produce classic productions such as c08f4"Mind Expanding" c09f1and c08f4"Baygon." f1c09However what people forget is that these people have reached the top of their fields, from time to time they like to remind us, the picture at the end of f4c08"Acid Trip" c09f1springs to mind, the rest of the time they do not care. c07 MELON ARE MISUNDERSTOOD! c09It strikes me that Melon have gone their whole Scene life being misunderstood, they stand for original design, they take this to an extreme with the style of demos that they do. So people think aha! Thats cool I'll do that style of demo, then wonder why they get slagged down by Melon for lack of originality. Melon never said that the only good demos are in their style, they say f4"the only good demos are original demos." f1It's a modern art thing. Like Melon, Modern art is misunderstood. People look at a brick that has been painted Blue and say f4"that's not art"f1. But what its doing is making you Look! at the brick, I mean when did you last f2c10look f1c09at a brick? Modern art takes the everyday out of context and makes you look at it, that is the Art in modern art. However after the creation of this particular work some one presented a pile of bricks as Art, now the critics loved this (they had not seen the Blue Brick), however all the true artists rubbished it, why? Well the concept had been done before. Thats what Melon is about, Melon is about High Concept, Melon is Modern art, Melon is seperating the product from the machine, Melon is a sweet fruit. c07 SUMMING UP c09So please, pretty please with sugar on top, give up the vectors and start trying to blow us away again. Things with colours are cool, graphical effects are cool, demos that go in time with properly selected music would be nice as well...