Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Saxonia Issue 04 Part 019
Retrostorical
by Browallia/Nukleus
MAY I HAVE A WORD WITH YOU MISTER
---------------------------------------
To write an article about groups from the past, wasn't as easy as
I first thought, when sitting after a couple of hours, with only a
few scattered ideas about the topic. I gladly dig in the past for
getting my nails dirty, but this topic, is more like grabbing out
dead corpes. With all respect to the dead, you still do it with gently
silk fingers! no grave violation! And no thumb licking afterwards!
The groups in this article are shared by me among others, as some of
the best in the past. There are a hell lot to write about, but some
guidelines have to be defined, some cordinates of our focus must be
given for not blurring the contour. So the topic was mainly put to
Andromeda, Kefrens and Polka Brothers. And for me I wanted to give
some rarely views about those groups. And if I give you some new
information you havent realized yourself yet, then I have succeeded as a
writer of this article! :) Lets take the blue pill and go down the
rabbithole for once.
NEXUS 6 and PIXAR ANIMATION
------------------------------
Yes, I hope you made a confused face expression now.. shouldn't it be
Nexus 7?
If I would meet up with the two brainparts of Andromeda - dr Jekyll and
mr. Hyde, there are two things I would like to ask. You may wonder if
'Nexus' is a star. Sounds like it, unfortunalty, my astro-knowledge is
quite low.. My first question would be, if the name 'Nexus 7' was picked
after the Bladerunner movie from the year 1982, where the AI are entitled
Nexus 6? 'N6' was a race nearly indistinguishable by the earthling race,
so my conclusion for the name is making something stable, for the next
generation, the final version, the complete version: the Nexus 7!
Allthough is more or less high level speculations from me. But at least,
it make sense to me and a neat topic to keep warm nowadays!
Then we have the miraculous moving lamp with added realism. 8 Years
before Nexus 7, in the year 1986, the animation compo Pixar did a short
film with a moving lamp called 'Luxo jr'. So will I ever know if Andromeda
guys were inspired of this lamp, doing pretty well copying those movements?
WHAT IF (1 of 3)
----------------
What if we didn't have those groups, such as Andromeda, Complex,
Crusaders, Fairlight, High Quality Crackers, Kefrens, Phenomena,
Pure Metal Coders, Red Sector, Scoopex or the Silents?
Would we have any competing Mega demos, how would they look, and what
would we else do for finding a purpose here on Earth? If no Mega Demo,
what then? If the floppy disk standard, was only 20 kb, and invented
some years earlier. Would a demo from Tristar and Red Sector only contain
chip music, and graphics not better than tiled Gameboy Graphic?!.
Or how about this: what if piracy swapping was legal, would their be
any Intros at all from TRSi then? The group who basically made there
intros for keeping their contacts. While groups like Kefrens and
Andromeda had as main focus create something as small pieces of master
art, just lika a music group want to do some songs, if you understand
what I mean.
WHAT IF (2 of 3)
----------------
How about hardware sprites then? What if we didn't have those in the
architecture? Well, I still believe some scener would invent this
"phenomena" in another way, leaving the technical out of how to realize it.
Of course the same effects couldn't be made in the same way.. As an
example, sprites have priorty over bitplanes, and sprite pair 1-2 are
seen "above" the others. Only with this fact, we can create some easy
effects without thinking about collision detection etc. But again,
coders would invent those effects for exploring new ground. Of course,
a lot of the mainstream intros and demos would disappear, I think.
Because then suddenly even more skills are required for doing those
hacks. The copper is a useful tool, but as all folks with a little
knowledge in coding, you can do it without!
Its just like saying that if the monitor beam would go vertically
instead of horizontally, the first rastabars effect to be invented would
be the ones going from left to right instead of going up-down. First
later, coders would start to examine new ways to code them.
BUBBLE, ANKH, AND MEGA
--------------------------
Looking back, we have some groups, and even if Im sure we would have
something else to fill all hours we have watched Nexus 7. Again, I can
only speculate..
What would replace Nexus 7 ? (Thanks godness, 'psychedelic' didn't win
that compo 12 years ago! ;))
Another Andromeda product which was stunning, was Sequential Demo! In
fact, most time when I see soup bubbles, Im thinking about the opening
in Sequential, they roxx dude! And up to anno 2006, havent seen any 3d
bubbles beeing better than those made in 2d. No way that the rough
bubbles in the water part of TBL's "perfect circle" demo (2001) are
better.
What about TRSi? Humanity is devoted to all kind of missions bringing
greatness into our lives. Mega and infinity are two words often for
dealing pushing our complex aside. And TRSI was expert no one to speak
about their greatness. To be honest, sceners are not so huge and
powerful as they would like to tell others in their demos. When I hear
the word Mega, I somehow start to think about TRSi demos. Also, imho,
Tristar was better than Kefrens and Andromeda when talking about
cracking and worldwide contacts! You can see a slight difference in the
way a little intro is made by Andromeda, or if its an Tristar & Red
Sector inc. intro. No doubt about that. For an example if you are not
following me, simply compare the way the groups presented their Bulletin
Boarders within their intros, how they present their contact info, the
way they greet people etc.
And while we are talking about differs in design. Have you ever thought
about, that Andromeda uses more round-formed fonts normally, while
Kefrens uses more "harder" font styles with harder edges? As a man of
design issues, I like those kind of analysis :) The trick from Kefrens to
push people to respect them more, may have been through the use of the
Ankh. An egyptian symbol for power of life. A symbol they havent invented
themselfs, but used as a mighty weapon. Just a thought from mysid.....
and clever marketing from Kefrens side :)
GIVE ME MORE :)
-----------------
So, some more about Andromeda then... and no fonts without a nice mandatory
scroller! With those norwegian guys, there were almost fanatic when
comming to scrollers. Today its hard to keep in memory who invented which
scroller first, but I guess most people surely remember the raytracing
scroller. Andromeda was also a group where color themes were remarkable
often in blue tones or light pastel colors. Also, why this roman
calculating fetishism? Andromeda intro made in MCMXCIV etc etc.. Don't
even dare to think Im out of knowledge here.
TRSI was never embaressed to show the world their qualities. Silver was
never enough! To be no: 1, TRSI was a frequent group of golden logotypes.
Shiny gold. I was never so stunned about the smaller intros from Tristar and
Red Sector. What made my mouth wide open was RSi megademo from 1989. No
matter if someone else used the word 'mega' before. For me, Mega is after
that connected with (Tristar &) Red Sector inc.
Even if some members of the Group Kefrens, rather chose the arrogant
style, the "lamer hunt", I still adore them. Even if R.W.O ripped a lot
of graphics, I still love his technique. Over the years, Kefrens truelly
grabbed their Legend status, their deep background stories in a couple
of demos.
Unlike Andromeda, with their roots in galaxies, Kfr never put so much
focus in Sci-fi genre (which infact is easier: ie - you dont have to
explain how come you see a flying cube in space). Instead putting an
anchor to our living myths on Earth. Much thanks to Airwalk's and
Laxity's passion in storytelling I would say. Probably the domination
of human and fantasy-images by R.W.O. All three groups had good
graphicians - TRSI had Fade One, and Andromeda had guys like Fairfax,
but lets stop there, for keeping the thread.
During a post modern AGA-era, Kefrens died, and from the grave of the
Pharao, Polka Brothers arised. The concept was a bit modified with
more music-effect syncro, less serious storytelling, and more focus
on traditional demo effects shown in a fresh way. The concept of polka,
reminded me alot to the concept of Melon except for two things: the
music had a bit more electronic sound in Polka Bros and they also
showed more intresting code. For me, Polka Brothers presented a new
modern design, which would be the bridge between oldschool and newschool.
INSPIRATION SOURCES
----------------------
One genre from real life playing a huge role in the scene is Science
fiction. This was in my oppinion the first genre which was easy
interpreted and adopted to the computer scene. Sci-fi, with flying UFOs,
galaxies, and infinite spaces just suited the Scene perfectly! (thanks
god, that space is black and doesn't look like a colorful ham8 plasma... :)
After that, also fantasy was introduced in the scene. Dragons, elfs,
and beautiful woman out of imagination. After that the techno, rave and
all psychedlic colors entered the scene.
And then we had all creatures inspired of movies such as Jurassic Pack.
Do something - but do it BiG (Big is Gorgeously).
The latest trends in movies, are of coz those with mega battle fields,
like Troja, Alexander, Lord of the Rings... Or those movies adopted
from all time classics such as King Kong, The Hulk etc. Common in all
of those, are, that a lot of things happend simultaneos. Multiple
action. In computer art, this is mostly notified with more visualization
at the same time, such as multi layered effects.
This is another topic Im writing about somewhere else, though.
WHAT IF 3 (3 of 3)
------------------
If Sciencefiction movies wasn't around, would there be less starscrollers,
and instead, a little puzzle-game like Sudoki in their crack-tros? Wouldnt
that be another way to challenge other groups?
For me, I believe in, what we don't have, someone else would invent.
There will always be someone at the top! Humanity wants to fit in, and
fills all gap for having a purpose of living, for answering question about
meaning of life. All wants to do it their ways, and then we have our aims
to be original and differs from the masses.
