From: rjc@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Unreal demo!
Date: 3 Sep 92 19:08:23 GMT
Organization: /etc/organization

In article <1992Sep3.005629.13793@usl.edu> das9674@usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A) writes:
>In article <jbickers.0els@templar.actrix.gen.nz> jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers) writes:
>>Quoted from <1992Sep2.052244.7893@usl.edu> by das9674@usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A):
>>> Wow, guys, any of you with a fast 386 or 486 and maybe a SoundBlaster
>>> REALY REALLY ought to try getting the Unreal demo from nic.funet.fi.
>>
>>    For those of us who haven't managed to get it yet - could you give
>>    use a run-down of the effects that it uses? Things like sine
>>    scrolls (vertical and/or horizontal?), mirror effects, rotating
>>    text, etc?
>
>It has sine-wave text, text that sorta does a 'loop-de-loop' ina
>screwing-type fashion - really great.

  Sine/Twist scrollers have been done in just about every Amiga
intro/demo since 1987. (and they have been done on the C64 in the
last 3 years).  Compare Unreal's Sine scroll to the VectorBob-Sine-Scroller
in Phantasmogoria or Aces High. No comparison.

>It does some amazing color things.  VERY VERY smooth!
>It has a 3d filled polygon space-scene, ships flying everywhere...
>a 'potential well' - looking thing (for all you EE people out there),
>called 'black hole' or something, it looks neat.
>It has a really neat 'terrain' thing at the end.  Scrolls around really fast,
>if any of you have seen t'Powerminger' for the PC, it is similar to that.

   The rest of this stuff is the type of routines that are done
at "the end" screen on Amiga demos except for the vectors.

>I am not too up on 'techniques', mind you... 
>
>ah ahh, maybe you just oughta get it, the music sound great, too.
>
>personally I love 'cheesy Euro-synth'!!  :)
>.

   I challenge any PCer to get a hold of an Amiga and watch
Hardwired, Razor's Voyage, Odyssey, Digital Innovation, Substance,
Cube-o-Matic, etc, compare them to Unreal and come away with a straight
face claiming that Unreal is even in the same _league_ in terms of
creativety, smoothness, direction, innovative routines, and music.

 The MODs in hardwired alone beat Unreal's butt.

  Instead of messing around with Unreal, get REND386,a virtual
reality renderer system. It does something the 486 is good at,
lots of vector transformations, instead of faking something it's can't do,
lots of playfields w/bobs and parallax scrolling.

>
>>
>>> Is this the sort of thing commonly found for Amigas?
>>
>>    Yes, and not so big... :)

   It's the type of routines that are so old and easy that Amiga
demos don't use them any more. Sine Scrollers are _OLD_. If anyone
used them in a modern demo contest they would be laughed out of the room.

  But don't take my word on it alone, ask some of the
hardcore demo collectors in alt.sys.amiga.demos and they will tell you.
Plain Filled vectors are fast becoming old too. Now most demos do 
rubber vectors, real-time image mapping onto polygons (voyage demo), 
shadows,  Glenz/Blenk vectors (morphing vectors and transparent polygons),
spline vectors, etc.  As I said in another post, if Unreal
had been written in 1989, it might have stood a chance of making the
top ten.  If Unreal is the best that PC demo coders can come up with
(pushing the hardware to its limits) than the PC demo scene has a long
time to go.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy