Elements of Atari demos that leave ya in awe

[Beeblebrox]

Been catching up with some of the demo scene releases. So many to watch.

 

I thought I'd start a topic which asked ya'll which specific elements of a demo left you in awe of what can be achieved by excellent coding and imagination on the A8. 

 

So many to choose from but three that stand out of late for me are these.

 

I recently saw the Near demo from Agenda for the first time and loved it as a whole, (multicoloured 3D cubes over excellent drawn graphics, etc). However what realy stood out for me was right at the end - the subway style graffitti parallax scrolling animation end credits (3.25m on the Youtube vid):

 

Agenda's other demo, Triple Threat, showcased great starting music accompanying what appears to be a texture mapped/shaded rotating title graphic, (although maybe it's not actually texture mapped in the real sense) (Youtube vid):

 

 

Another demo, Cyberpunk by Lamers, has IHMO one of the best A8 music tracks ever and from the start an amazing synthesised voice accompanying a train animation travelling across town. (Youtube vid):

 

 

I remember watching a lot of demos in my teens which were great but tended to mainly consist mainly of text scrollers and rainbow DLI multi rolling bar effects. So to see the A8 being pushed like in the demos above and countless others is always great to see.

 

Of course it goes without saying the classic Numen by Taquart, and some of the 3D (Gr9) elements in the Shrine by LAResistance always impress.

 

So this topic post is less what are your favourite demos but more what is your favourite showcased or groundbreaking effect in a particular demo.

 

For newbies and also A8 returners like myself Demozoo is a great place to grab A8 (and other platform) demos and they often have videos also. So is the excellent Pouet and also Fandal's site

 

 

 

Edited June 22, 2021 by Beeblebrox

[drpeter]

Always loved the JAC! Bad Apple Demo

 

Runs on a stock Atari 400 16K + 410  data cassette recorder!

 

Astonishing!

[adam242]

I've always found Illusia's use of a GTIA "window" within a mode E screen to be quite impressive.

 

And I never get tired of Drunk Chessboard's dynamic and fluid scrolling and zoom effects.

 

I guess neither of these are as advanced as Cyberpunk or Near (both absolutely superb!) but they do it for me.

[+Stephen]

10 minutes ago, adam242 said:

I've always found Illusia's use of a GTIA "window" within a mode E screen to be quite impressive.

 

And I never get tired of Drunk Chessboard's dynamic and fluid scrolling and zoom effects.

 

I guess neither of these are as advanced as Cyberpunk or Near (both absolutely superb!) but they do it for me.

I'll second Drunk Chessboard.  Also keep in mind, that the entire thing is only 16kB!  All of that sound, animation, etc. in 16kB still blows me away.

[Wrathchild]

I've always liked 'Ars Mori' (Black II) and 'Black' itself.

I do like where productions have sync'd transitions/effects to the music. 

 

[Mclaneinc]

I still love a good set of DLI colour bars, bit sad I know but even the basic pencils thing made me smile. Can't think of any other named demo's but a nice bit of 3D always impresses, plasma is clever but like chunky scrollers, been there, done that a million times.

[zzip]

I always hated the elongated pixels of the GTIA modes, so any demo that used those modes to great effect always impressed me,   like the old Atari Robot/Ship demo, the Lucasfilm Games intros, etc.

 

For Demoscene stuff

  Numen-  the 3D world and some of the other effects shown here are really cool

  Far Away- You could make a great space game with some of the effects shown.

  Prozac Dream - The use of color here is outstanding.

 

There's many others I can't think of at the moment.

 

16 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

I remember watching a lot of demos in my teens which were great but tended to mainly consist mainly of text scrollers and rainbow DLI multi rolling bar effects. So to see the A8 being pushed like in the demos above and countless others is always great to see.

Yeah, I never need to see another text scroller no matter how pretty the font.   There are too many demoscene cliches that almost every demo uses some form of.   I always like the demos that step outside that box and do something new and creative.

Edited June 23, 2021 by zzip

[Beeblebrox]

Another demo I recently saw was the excellent Prozac Dream by Lamers. Aside the great intro pill animation accompanied by an inventive music track at the start, I was very impressed by the long horizontal scrolling multicoloured banner graphic image with a twist. (The snake tongue 1.45m in on the YouTube vid).

 

[Beeblebrox]

Been a while since I added one to this topic regarding specific elements or effects in demos you find impressive, (as opposed to just naming a whole demo as such).

 

This particular effect in this amazing demo Far Away, (by Agenda), always makes me appreciate how a clever use of one of the A8's graphics modes and the colours it has can allow for such a seemingly elaborate effect.

 

If you go into the demo 3.56min you'll see a skyline/cityscape animation simulating a sunrise transition from dawn to dusk running for around 25 seconds which I think is incredibly clever and effective. The fact you also have moving flying craft "traffic" in the skyline as well really adds to it - (I must admit IMHO the space ship somewhat detracts from this a little, but you can't have everything heh heh):

 

 

 

 

 

The demo has many more cool effects including the little jetpack guy with the 3D raycasting and some great music - but this is one of the effects I really love to watch. 

 

Edited December 12, 2021 by Beeblebrox

[VinsCool]

The Numen Demo by Taquart is the demo that made me fall in love with the Atari 8-bit  

[Beeblebrox]

@VinsCool  I agree - it's fantastic and I like the clever way it ties effects together in a journey, aided to a great extent by the music.

 

In keeping with this thread topic are there any particular aspects/elements of the demo, particular effect(s), that stand out? (It's pretty amazing all round of course). 

 

For me the 3D vector engine and the 3D animated Rubiks cube particularly stand out, and bump mapping:

 

      

Edited December 13, 2021 by Beeblebrox

[VinsCool]

1 minute ago, Beeblebrox said:

In keeping with this thread topic is there any particular aspect/element of the demo, a particular effect, that stands out? (It's pretty amazing all round of course). 

 

Honestly the biggest selling point for me was the journey in the demo itself.

The graphics, the music, and the entire trip (a long demo too!) was well worth it.

 

I still find myself watching it occasionally and still feel amazed by the amount of stuff that was packed into it!

Alright, this deserves another watch  

[+MrFish]

12 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

For me the 3D vector engine and the 3D animated Rubiks cube particularly stand out, and bump mapping:

 

Here's a stand-alone version of the cube, and an interactive version of the vector engine.

 

Numen - Rubik.atr

 

Vector.xex

 

[+MrFish]

More info about Vector:

 

Vector Key Functions
--------------------
arrows or joystick - turn left/right & move forward/back

 

(functions for "z" & "a" toggled with "j")
z - move down or crouch
a - move up or jump 

 

x - look down
s - look up
w - look center

 

[pixelmischief]

I'm still thrilled by Xanth's Swan demo.  I still look at Swing and wonder how the hell they did that.  Just...wow.