History of Amstrad CPC Demomaking

[krusty_benediction]

Hello


I think I have not a strong enough knowledge of works of the eighties (end even nineties in fact).
I'd like to watch old demos which made advance some points of demomaking methods (a new effect, a new method, a new record, ...) and I have to admit that I do not know which prod to view or where to search.

Is there any resources retracing the history of CPC demomaking ? or its breakthrough ?
If yes, I'd like to access them.
If no, I may be ready to gather your knowledge to track these state of the art demos.

Thanks

[villain]

Impulsively I'd like to nominate Gozeur's Plasma Demo. Early 90s probably.

[krusty_benediction]

Impulsively I'd like to nominate Gozeur's Plasma Demo. Early 90s probably.

yes, need to add this ; I'll look inside the loader if we can find a release year if nobody remembers

[arnoldemu]

'the demo' - first with a musical loader I think.
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=8746

'logon revolution demo' - first with a split raster?
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=7799

dma plus demo (first with dma music I think)
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=8874

is this the first overscan using splitting?
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=8010

[arnoldemu]

possibly the first that uses mode 2 and dither to create more colours:

http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=7561

one part also uses "interlace sync and video mode" which seems to work on type 1 only.

not sure when rasters were first done, but this is early:

blink soft demo 3

[arnoldemu]

I always liked this one and it uses the '32kb' screen. Rasters from vorspann or maybe vorspann was after?

exocet jupiter bdr 2

I always like the sampler stuff by dragonbreed.

[arnoldemu]

There was one more I liked which had rasters, a scroller, and had sampled drums.
I believe it was converted by Weee and it was based on a c64 demo.
I can't find it now. I thought it was part of the Terrific Demo but I'm not so sure now.

[krusty_benediction]

'the demo' - first with a musical loader I think.
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=8746

'logon revolution demo' - first with a split raster?
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=7799

dma plus demo (first with dma music I think)
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=8874

is this the first overscan using splitting?
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=8010

Is revolog also the 1st with vertical scroll ?
I do not know Final Creation ; will transfer it this week end

[krusty_benediction]

possibly the first that uses mode 2 and dither to create more colours:

http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=7561

one part also uses "interlace sync and video mode" which seems to work on type 1 only.

not sure when rasters were first done, but this is early:

blink soft demo 3

I do not know "blink soft demo 3" ; I'll watch this week end too
it seems to be available there http://cpcrulez.fr/demostestDO_blinksoft-demo_3.htm

BSC could be able to find the date

[krusty_benediction]

I always liked this one and it uses the '32kb' screen. Rasters from vorspann or maybe vorspann was after?

exocet jupiter bdr 2

I always like the sampler stuff by dragonbreed.

once again, I do not know that ; I'll transfer it this week end

[krusty_benediction]

S&KOH of course for the first RVI http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=7591

but what about the :
 - first hardware scroller
 - first line to line splitting
 - first sample
 - ...
?

[arnoldemu]

Is revolog also the 1st with vertical scroll ?
I do not know Final Creation ; will transfer it this week end

revolog: yes it could be.
final creation: it is a classic to me, with the big eyes, big scroller and rasters.

Another good one is kkb's first. Uses mode 2 for the text and split rasters to change the colours at the beginning. It's got many splits, uses r2 for the logo, has scrolling and lots of other bits. I don't think it's the first to do this.

I was going to say 'the demo' was the first to be a megademo, but I think there were others before this, perhaps 'amazing demo'.

I think 'Face Hugger's Megademo' is worth noting. It has interlace, it's bobs, it has lemmings, it has 3d.

[arnoldemu]

once again, I do not know that ; I'll transfer it this week end

I can't find vorspann. It was a demo creator (I think nwc's demo maker may be the first). It had a raster movement which you will see in exocet's demo (exocet's demo is very simple but it may be the first to use this type of overscan).

[arnoldemu]

S&KOH of course for the first RVI http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=7591

but what about the :
 - first hardware scroller
 - first line to line splitting
 - first sample
 - ...
?

esc did some samples - I think one says 'RAX' or something like that 
I can't remember if it's in the twinblast demo or not. I don't think it's the first.

Here this sample is 4-bit, I think earlier stuff (around 1985) was 1-bit sampled from cassette.

First hardware scroll, technically, is probably one of them amiga boing demos from 1985.
It's not a hardware scroll with message, but all directions to make the ball bounce.

Gozeur's plasma is an example of line-to-line splitting. I am trying to think if there is something earlier. Certainly Thriller produced some nice effects. The Terrific Demo had a 'bitplanes' part. BSC in his megademo used r8 to do a scroller.

Looking on cpc-power I saw there are quite a few early ones using r2 to distort.

Some of the demos I quoted I saw back when they were released when I was swapping with Warlock and some I saw from UK PD library 'Penguin Software'.

[arnoldemu]

S&KOH of course for the first RVI http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=7591

but what about the :
 - first hardware scroller
 - first line to line splitting
 - first sample
 - ...
?

Overflow produced some nice coding here.
The first part uses what I call 'horizontal splitting'. I think that is RVI? Then the main part uses another technique for the distortion and scrolling of the image.

Is there a list of names for these techniques and a description of what they do so I can know I am using the correct names?

[roudoudou]

Overflow produced some nice coding here.
The first part uses what I call 'horizontal splitting'. I think that is RVI? Then the main part uses another technique for the distortion and scrolling of the image.

Is there a list of names for these techniques and a description of what they do so I can know I am using the correct names?

RVI is a french acronyme for "invisible vertical split" (rupture verticale invisible)


The technic consist in one (or more) split after the visible part of the screen, to jump over lines and choose any memory adress in the video memory for the next displayed line

[villain]

If you want to write the history of demomaking you could possibly try to contact Odiesoft. I think he should remember a lot of things, also from the early years. Another good source could be BSC, you already mentioned him.

[arnoldemu]

RVI is a french acronyme for "invisible vertical split" (rupture verticale invisible)


The technic consist in one (or more) split after the visible part of the screen, to jump over lines and choose any memory adress in the video memory for the next displayed line

is RVB for the more traditional split?
(rupture verticale bloque)

[arnoldemu]

I also recommend NWC.

His pc1512 demo has rasters and a scroll but I think the scrolling is software.

http://cpcrulez.fr/demostestDO_NWC-pc_1512.htm

Also take a look at some of the malibu demos (p007). Some of them have software distorted scrollers.

I think the best example of a smooth sinus scroll, and a smooth hardware scroll done by multiple copies offset by a few pixels, see the european meeting demo:

http://cpcrulez.fr/demostestDO_european_demo_party-logon_system__MMPF.htm

[robcfg]

Don't forget @Prodatron 's productions!

[arnoldemu]

NoRecess remind me of this:

http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/History_of_CPC_Demos

[roudoudou]

is RVB for the more traditional split?
(rupture verticale bloque)

There is another acronyme RVMB for multi-block. As there is no (I)nvisible, the split are "visibles", like Offset part for 30YMD

Traditionnal split is Line per line, as you said before, or split if there is only one


EDIT: oh, RVMB is supposed to use same block width

[villain]

NoRecess remind me of this:

http://cpcwiki.eu/index.php/History_of_CPC_Demos

[slightlyofftopic]But Finland never joined the community. NWC actually is from Denmark. Not sure if I should change this inside the article, since it's a translation and the mistake also was in the original.[/slightlyofftopic]

[krusty_benediction]

Ok,
Thanks for all these answers, I'll treat them as soon as possible.
I do not know all these prods.

@arnoldemu For S&Koh, I was talking of the big rolling picture ; but yes there is a also another technical achievement with the intro

[TomEtJerry]

Hello,

Many "classic" technics as rasters, multimode and hardware scrollers have not been discovered by demo-makers but by game coders. Many programs were using these pieces of code, even early ones.  I suppose some other technics have not been used very often just because they were not really compatible with games' restrictions and loading time on tape:-) (fullscreen).

About new effects, I think "New Age 1" intro  from New age is the first one that uses "border split rasters" trick.
First part with digidrums : In "Amazing demo", a part of Longshot uses "Au revoir Monty" music converted from Atari ST.