| The Monthly Ramble This month, we bring you great tidings of joy! And, well.. more articles for the Scene Zine, of course! Here you have it, your monthly collection of zen. I warn you, some of these articles contain knowledge and insight, so read with caution. Wouldn't want you to learn anything, would we? All jesting aside, this issue sports some excellent content, and a great new design. Props to Patrick Groove for the layout; it's a great new look for our growing 'Zine. We hope you all like it! As always, be sure to let us know how we can better cater the Scene Zine to your needs. Already we've received some great feedback, and as a result, several changes have been made since we've started. These changes have always been made with you, our readers, in mind. Go, now, and read the rest of the Scene Zine. It is calling your name. 2004 Elemental Music Competition Announced!The 2004 Elemental Music Competition will be kicking off March 1, 2004! The object of this compo is to compose a new piece of music inspired by, or which depicts, one of the four elements: Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. Information for the compo, including rules, awards, a discussion board, and such can be found at the link provided below. The deadline for submissions is March 31, 2004. Best of luck to everyone who enters! 2004 Elemental Music Compo Information Send us your news!!! We'll put it here next month! From niko, uncle-x/mfxHi! I only discovered the Scene Zine after reading the advert for issue #9 on ojuice. I proceeded to read all of the back-issues and found them interesting and entertaining. Same with the latest issue, though I didn't have time to read all of it yet. Regards, .niko, uncle-x/mfx ps. keep up the good work. From javisasanHello! Nice zine!! Still haven't read it all, but it seems cool! And, as you say that you hadn't feedback last month... well, here you are! A little feedback from Spain!!! lol ^_^ Well, you are doing a great job... go on working like this! And it's good to put some info for scene's newbies who are trying to learn to code by-their-own (like me... still fighting with C++!!) Well, good design, good contents... good zine!! Congratulations... and thank you for your work. P.D: Sorry my bad English!! lol byos ;D From Mike VandenbergI read it! I think it's a good initiative too, everybody complains about websites, but there's hardly any with 'content' like pouet, monostep, scene and maybe OJ. Big up trans atlantic! Mike Vandenberg AKA Weyland Yutani Amsterdam Holland From SergeeoHi mates! Sergeeo writing, i think we've chatted from time to time in modarchive chat room! Been reading the bbs thread in pouet.net and I'd like you to give you my honest opinion (this tries to be a constructive opinion :) I must tell you that i've read all of the Scene Zines published till today: The good points :) 1st- The web format is ok, it's simple and easy to read and my browser loads it fastly. 2nd- It's good that you release an issue each month (perseverance is important!) 3rd- The tutorials you publish are very good to introduce people into the demoscene imho. The bad points :( 1st- Don't let "I'm only a scene consumer who's never gone to a party, never release a track or a demo..." people write in your mag. That tracking messiah - I think you know who I am doing reference - who believes he's someone with a great knowledge about the modscene - but NEVER ever written a song - who believes he can be a leader of some kind of revolution - even with a derisory manifesto... well, I know it sounds hard, but many people - as I - think his comments and articles are lame. 2nd- Please, look for experienced sceners for an advanced tutorial section writing. Basic tutorials are very good for the new people around - please don't stop writing them - but if you get some "hi-level" sceners for your staff... that'll be great. Sometimes what makes the difference between two articles, is not the words and the sentences but the person who's written them. 3rd- I know it takes a lot of time and effort to you making this, if it is feedback and communication what you want you'll get it as soon as this mag was made with a true scene spirit. I read static-line too and, to be honest, I find more interesting the articles published there, even if they often are more philosophical and abstract. Well, I encourage you to keep the good work up and please don't take the bad points as an attack or something. You wanted feedback, here it was :) See you on irc sergeeo/dust inc http://sergeeo.scenesp.org Intro Systems Years ago, in a land [well, not very far away], in the dark ages before the Internet, a fast modem clocked a download of about a meg per hour and the demo scene was born. In this era many people swapped disks of software and demos. Before the Internet became as accessible as it is today smart vendors became wise and sold floppy disks, provided pay as you go download stations [supply your own floppy disks], and much later... sold - cd-rom compilations (gargantuan in their capacity!!!). It was in that environment and pre-pubescent time that I encountered my first intro maker. I had scrounged together my allowance saving up, planning for weeks a trip to the video store halfway across town. Rumor had it that the video store had a shareware kiosk... and inserting quarters; you would make a selection from the touch screen that would copy to floppy disk. The idea of pay as you go shareware and freeware was as appealing as my high-speed broadband connection is today. I took the bus down to the store equipped with a full box of high capacity floppies, which gave me the ability to walk out of the store with megabytes [wow!] of data. The store was quiet... and I stood there, hunched over... most of my Saturday afternoon - swapping disk after disk, madly pumping change into the allowance eating abyss which was consumed in a haze of digital either. Eventually, either my allowance gave way … or I ran out of disks. Either way... I left there; satisfied and excited to try my digital bounty, with legs that felt that some kind of rigor mortis had set in. Some how, as is by miracle... when I left... a file called "intro30.zip" was one of my disks. I immediately started playing with intro30.zip (on my 40 mb hard drive; and a sound card that was incompatible with almost everything [the company went chapter 11 shortly after it was bought]). In moments, I was hooked. The tool "Intro Maker 3.0" made it fun and cool to make simple scrollers. With batch files and clever tweaking - you could make your own demo with a very smooth scroller. I was used to programming, and didn't need the tool... but the idea of a tool that allowed you to make your own content without needing anything else - was and is to this day - fantastic. I messed around with this product a lot, adding sequences using batch files. These included FLI / FLC animations that were played back with command line players. I released some greetings for friends, and "for shame!"... I even used the scroller tool to put a greeting into a little production to impress a romantic flame. Now, one digital revolution and a half later - I haven't loaded the tool for ages... but I never forgot how much fun it was. As the years have passed from that time, I got a job... and in almost reverse fashion, dug myself deeper into the demo scene. Finally I was with a budget! I founded a demo group (northerndragons.ca), and traveled to Assembly a few years ago. Intro makers it seemed - weren't very popular. Still while in Helsinki there was an interesting piece of software shown called "DemoPaja". There was a missing dll, so the production wasn't released into the compo - but they showed it on the screen for much fan fare. I didn't realize that I was seeing a demo created with a complete real-time demo engine. Now, a few years later - I've noticed a sudden explosion of demo engines, and makers. Perhaps it's just me... but suddenly I hear about them more and more. Some of the old ones are still around - and there are a lot of "new kids on the block". When you search for one of these however - you won't find a compilation page... no one stop reference page to find demo engines and intro makers for the Intel PC. So... before embarking on a demo-creating column, I've decided for you dear reader - that it's time for a compilation of these technologies so we learn from our ancestors. This issue includes Phase #1 - The IntroMakers. Download... play and enjoy :). And if you can… save your quarters :-) * Please note, some of these early systems may not work fully on your modern pc. They can be fun to look even if only parts work - so... I've created a time based chronology that shows some of the evolution of the programs I've been able to find for the PC. If you decide to use these, know that your mileage will vary. I'm not really reviewing these programs - instead I want just to promote awareness of their existence. If you know of more PC intro makers / demo engines - please email me the details, so I can extend the list! * The Intro Makers Intro20.zip - "Intro Maker 2.0 by Coded by Sauron" Circa 1991 This intro maker is the predecessor of the one I downloaded in the video store. If you download this one, be sure to watch the sample "Sauron.exe". What's fun about that intro is that it shows how the product has evolved from version 1.0 - to version 2.0. Every new feature - "change fonts on the fly! Change the speed of the font!" … etc.. is mentioned in the sample scroller. It's a reasonably simple interface; but not error proof… so be sure to read the accompanying documentation. Also, this is important: be sure to read the documentation with a dos based editor [such as edit.com]. The system uses special character codes [alt-# codes], which will not render properly in notepad. The system comes with 42 pre-packaged fonts for use; but no documentation on how to make your own. Once you wrap your head around the key sequences - make a few text files and cook up your own dandy scroller with palette effects and images. The system supports the GIF file format (the Graphical Interchange Format introduced by CompuServe released in the mid and late 80's)... so it should still be easy to make your own 320x200, 256 colour artwork for it. Intro30.zip - "Intro Maker 3.0 by Sauron and ZigZag of THG" Circa 1992 Well, I'm sure that it comes to no surprise - that at the time.. this one was a classic. This was a real deviation from the second version of the program... For one thing - this package is more than five times larger, and includes several support programs. There are three sample intros that show off the system - sample1.exe, sample2.exe and sample3.exe. Music can be included in the form of "STM" files - by using play.exe, or .mod files using intromod.exe. Both systems play a music - while running another program in the background to allow both to occur simultaneously. This does mean that your production had to include a few files... but you can script those with batch files. For an added professional touch - bat2exe is included - allowing you to turn batch files into exe files. The system really advanced, by supporting "ribbon scrollers" using the "anywhere scroller system." You draw the path you want the text to take - which is then used by the intro maker to draw that scroller in the path you desire. Again - ensure you read the documentation in text mode due to the use of [alt-# codes]. The system is well documented - so it's east to read up and have some fun! Razorint.zip - "Intromaker From Razor" Circa 1993 This intro maker takes a simple approach. It takes in a text file, and well - that's about it. The author sums it up "BTW- I didn't add sound 'cuz FM sucks and .mods take up too much damn room for just an intro. :-)" Any intro created with this system will have an animated "Razor" logo on top of a tiled blue sphere screen. It displays its text entries on the bottom centered, so it's more like a message in a bottle than a scroller. [since the message doesn't really scroll] While I doubt most people will want to make productions with the big "Razor" logo surfing the screen, the interface is simple and smooth. By running editor.exe, you can do everything; Enter your text, Generate your exe etc. This is neat - because there are no command line switches to fight with. The system also doesn't allow for un-centered text... so you are advised to "pad your text" if requiring a certain alignment. It's a hack.. but what else did you expect from them? ;-) Tkim20.zip - "Intro Maker By Kings" Circa 1993 This dos based intro maker displays sideways scrollers, snow and palletized video effects. It uses graphical mode 320x200x256; so any picture on the screen can have a maximum of 256 colours - but these colours are really indexes to a palette. So you can assign each of those 256 - to be any colour in the rainbow. With tricky palette changes - you can "animate things" .. making colorful motions. This system is fun to look at - as you can see in the tongue and cheek attitude of the authors come out. "Call us! Register! You won't be sorry!:-)...." The system is sparsely documented.. Sample exes are compressed [so you can't really see into them if you want to dig with a hex editor. You would need pklite to extract first]. Still - from AutoDesk animator [to create .raw image files and .pal palette files], and palette text files - you can make a simple scroller. The sound system is no longer usable on modern pc's it uses CT-VOICE.DRV... which is unlikely to work anywhere outside of the dos box for which it was designed. However, on the right pc - you can play something similar to wave files known as "voc" files. Bjim040.zip - "BoniJoni Intro Maker By UnLimited" Circa 1993 This dos based intro maker shows some evolution of technology. It supports the stx music format from the mod scene - giving full length tunage in small files. However... this of course, is only for old style sound blaster cards. The system features the font editor "bjfe.exe". The font editor creates fonts and stores them in ".ubf" files, or ".fnt" files. UBF files are BoniJoni's internal format "Universal Bitmap Format". Fnt files are like the popular "raw" format. Ether way, the system comes with 24 pre-made fonts. There are several command line utilities included in this package. All2bin is used to create the scroller text, bjfe is the before mentioned font editor, while mod2stm and stm2stx provide music conversion. Bjim is the main system and creates the intro based on bjim.scr. The system supports palette tricks and image pours! Have a read of the file to create your own intro! Introgen.zip - "Introgen by Christopher Kleinbub" Circa 1995 Introgen is similar to Intro 2.0 in many respects. The author even based used the font files from the other system! His site mentioned that he felt some features were missing and created his own tool. It's neat to see how a release of an intro maker also tends to generate releases of other intro makers. Next Time - Demo Engines! Intro makers seemed to appear and disappear in the scene in the Early to mid 1990's. I suspect this has something to do with the introduction of windows 95... and perhaps more importantly.. the introduction of publicly available demo engines. In my next article - I'll be show casing demo engines - including systems just recently released. In the mean time - be sure to let me know about what intro makers I've missed on the pc platform.. so I can be sure to include those in a list update, and have some more fun too! See you all next month! An Introduction to Reason 2.0 This is the first part in a series of tutorials covering various aspects of Reason 2.0. So I'll start with a small introduction and description of the various parts you will encounter while using Reason. The Hardware Interface This unit is present in all Reason projects and handles any incoming MIDI signals and also directs the audio out of the software. The other part of this unit is the Transport situated at the bottom of Reasons window and features the usual stop, play, and record buttons, tempo and time signature controls and looping controls.
The Sequencer The multitrack main sequencer is of course where you enter your notes using the common piano roll sequencer style. If you've used one of the other big software based sequencers you should be quite at home with this style of sequencing. The main sequencer is also where you control all the automation of all the other parts of Reason.
The Remix Mixer No studio is complete without a mixer and Reason is no exception. The central point where all the audio signals are pulled together, balanced, equalized and processed for the finished product. You can chain as many Remix mixers as you need and as with all Reason devices all the knobs and buttons can be very easily automated.
The Subtractor Analog Synth The Subtractor is a polyphonic synth fashioned in the style of a vintage analog synth, although as this is software and the designers can do anything like it has many more features and options than an average analog synth. This type of synth is capable of producing a wide range of sounds from shaking bass sounds to mellow pads and sharp leads. Pretty much anyone will be able to start creating sounds with this straight away but some knowledge of analog synthesis is always helpful.
The Malstrom Graintable Synth This synth is new to Reason 2.0 and wasn't included in earlier versions of the software. It uses a method called graintable synthesis which allows for the creation of a very wide range of sounds and is especially good for creating weird atmospherics. One nice feature the developers included in this synth was an audio input so it can also be used as a signal processor using it's analog style filters.
The NN-19 Digital Sampler Although the name states this is a digital sampler, it doesn't actually sample. It's really a sample playback device for samples provided with Reason and also for samples you can import. It's main features are it's multisample mapping ability and it's synthesis parameters which are similar to the Subtractor synth and the kind of features you would expect to find on an expensive hardware sampler.
The NN-XT Advanced Sampler Another device introduced with Reason 2.0. The NN-XT is based on the NN-19 but with a whole array of new features. Probably the most important feature is the ability to layer sounds. It's synthesis engine has also been greatly improved over the NN-19 and allows each multisample to have it's own individual synth settings.
The Dr.Rex Loop Player The Dr.Rex is a loop playback device for use with the .rex file format. These are loop samples that have been processed with Propellerheads Recycle software which lets you slice loops and save them as .rex files. This means the loops can be played back at different tempos and the slices can be played in different arrangements.
The Redrum Drum Computer No setup is complete without a drum machine. Based upon on the classic pre-MIDI hardware drum machines like the Roland TR-808 and TR-909. Redrum can hold up to 10 drum samples at one time and also features some basic synthesis parameters for tweaking those samples. Programming is achieved using the step time method which makes it very easy to create drum patterns in very little time and requires no convention drumming skills.
The Matrix Pattern Sequencer The Matrix emulates the classic step sequencer. You manually enter each note on the grid which has up to 32 steps. This allows for the creation of very complex patterns which could not be played in real time but is very easy for anyone to use and requires very little skill unlike playing in real time.
The Rebirth Input Machine This device is used to integrate Propellerheads Rebirth software into your Reason projects. It uses the ReWire system to direct the audio signals from Rebirths TB303 synths and TR808 and TR909 drum machines so they can be mixed and effected alongside Reasons own audio signals.
The Effects Reason could not be complete without an array of the most basic and most commonly used effects in music creation. Provided are reverb, delay, distortion, a filter, chorus and flange, a phaser, compressor and an EQ unit and are all chainable to create some very inventive effect configurations.
The Cable System Just like hardware, Reason devices are all connected together by cables. The cables can me accessed from the rear of the rack by hitting the Tab key. Reason does make logical connections itself when you create devices but all the cables can be moved around and re-routed to your liking just by dragging and dropping the ends of them.
Monthly Scene Music Reviews Title: Polygon Prison EP The debut EP for the new netlabel Nusprit is a wonderful mix of ambient pads and steady, progressive percussion. The EP contains two tracks, Prisoner A and Prisoner B, both unique but at the same time tied together by similarities in style and atmosphere. The overall feel of both tracks is enigmatic, perhaps a little melancholy, the melody drifts about and the percussion which is a mixture of the clicks and hisses so commonly associated with IDM music and the steady thump of dance music brings the genres seamlessly together making these tracks accessible to people of wide tastes. Overall Polygon Prison is a highly satisfying EP which promises quality tunes from the newly established Nusprit label, fans of most electronic music genres will no doubt find these pieces of music very agreeable. Get Polygon Prison here. Title: Eating Hot Ears If you haven't yet acquainted yourself with Decibelter's music, I suggest that you start listening with my personal favourite Decibelter track "Eating Hot Ears". The tune is a dizzying mixture of psychedelic funk, electronic and chip elements that hum along at a scorching pace. The amount of sonic detail and musical variation contained in the piece is just staggering, it flits between styles with the greatest of ease guaranteeing that you won't be bored for a second. It's hard to categorize such music, but it's like a cross between video game music, funk and a psychedelic drug trip experienced by someone with ADHD. Eating Hot Ears is zany, funky and superbly tracked, it comes highly recommended, so if you missed it, get it now! Get Eating Hot Ears here. The Power of NSV The demoscene has expanded into the streaming video world. The reason? Because it can. With the advent of WinAmp 2.91 and Nullsoft Streaming Video (NSV) it is easier than ever before to broadcast your own video stream to the world. The demoscene needs to expand into new mediums to survive, and it has always done so; ever since the Amiga and C64 demosceners latched onto new technologies - like a dog to a bone - such as the mobile phone and the various game platforms.
NSV is much like Shoutcast, Nullsoft’s answer to streaming audio. You setup your server, select the media you want to play, and viola! Instant internet fame glory (please note that you probably won’t experience any fame if you try this). Instead of playing your MP3’s however you can now tailor new media to your audience. Web cams, video files, and DVD’s are just part of what you can broadcast. As of writing this there are now three demoscene stations streaming content with Yodel TV being the most popular and boasts the most content. Imagine in a few years, you may be able to enjoy a demo party from your home PC due to the low costs and easy to configure technology. Assembly 2003 hosted its own TV program called Assembly TV over Real Video. Perhaps its time to leave Real in the dust and invest in new technology which practically everyone is using. Finally, an AOL product that I like! Demos Exposed So this was going to be a review column focusing on the latest and greatest demos out there, the releases over the last month. Then I realized, quite painfully, that my GeForce 4 card is a year old. That makes it good for games, and quite horribly useless for recent demos. This left me with 2 choices. A volumetric light/guitar fetishist column, or one that focused on something interesting and technical. In the end, I decided on both, which allowed me to bring you pictures and a review of the demos I alluded to last month, which are: Propaganda by inf This demo rocked, because it used ripped guitar music. Oh well, we can't all be musicians. It also used what looked like ripped video. This is all fine. The big cool thing that these guys did was slick volumetric lighting, casting a texture into a volume, twisting this along the way to make nice swirly effects, and then just dropping all pretense and showing off collision of rays with a 3d object. This made me wet my pants. Very very nice. Watch it over and over again, get the tune stuck in your head, go 'ooh' and 'ah' at the effect. Not just technically great, but also an artistic triumph, there's a lot of 2D in here, including the longest painted scroller on record.
Dreamchild by ASD Beautiful and elegant and awe-inspiring. You'd have to be a hard-core gamer to not appreciate this one. This prod uses many pixel/vertex shader tricks, some so subtly that you don't even see them the first time. Refractive water and volumetric light flares are the best of it. I simply can't write enough about this production, it's beautiful and stylish and beyond simple notions of 'plot' that less-inspired prods like 'legomania' had. The incredible vocals, guitar, and sequencing make the music beyond anything I've ever heard in the scene. The effects are not just incredible, they're dense. There are a lot of things happening in this prod, on the second big transition I counted at least 7, which is a lot for 3 seconds. Finally, the visual design is always key, the 2d layout obviously being placed more important than showing off a given effect, especially on the transitions. Elegant mastery of smooth transitions and smooth motion. This prod will not mess you up, if you are stoned. It will take you away. Go watch now, then wait anxiously for the next ASD release.
So now we'll look at some stuff that's interesting for an entirely different reason: code minimalism. I'm not going to mention the 3 byte C64 intro. Nor will I mention the various 9 or 16 byte PC noise makers. Tube I think has gotten enough attention, but I'll mention it because it did textures in 3D, and that's what gets me off. If you're reading this, you've probably seen tube already, but just in case... So now we enter the big fat world of bloated code. Or not. I ran in my track team back in high school, did sprinting and pole vault. Now sprinting is actually pretty easy: you just run very fast, for a short time. Endurance running is also really easy: you run slowly, for a very long time. So if you're fast, you do one, and if you're tough, you do the other. There's an event in between these though, the 400m. It's a real bitch to run this one, because you basically have to sprint the whole way, but you can't sprint that far, so you're going just under a full sprint. It's an endurance sprint. 4K is like this. With 256b, you're sprinting. One effect, set it up and let it go. Done. Minimal, optimized assembler the whole way. With 4k, you've got to do some more tricks, like find (not link!) the Direct3D and DirectSound libraries, and start your endurance sprinting. With that all in mind, here are my favorite 4k intros.
Anyway, the music in this thing is awesome, considering, and it's not just a fractal terrain, but also a sweet plasma cloud effect, and a nifty sun. Better sound than Mojo, no animated plasma cloud effect, but also had a nice fractal landscape. The thing that makes this one super great is the plasma textures and the sheer design. Not content to stay on ground, the Nothern Dragons started and ended this demo in space, swooping through a solar system, down through the atmosphere of one planet, over a (reflective) sea with the fractal landscape, all with a smooth camera, smooth transitions, and pretty anti-aliased everything.
A very pretty raytracer. Chugs a bit, but what else do raytracers do? Geeze. Nice textures and gosh darnit, the lighting and shadows are incredible. I think it would run faster if it were in text mode, but that's next month's schtick.
There's quite a lot happening here, quite a lot of modelling and motion. The flat shaded poly's are not to be sneered at, since it came out in 2001, when graphics cards were a bit more limited than they are now. The tightly synchronized motion and animation of this demo is the best in the 4k category.
Okay, so the 'effect' here is a triangle, and some pretty choices of arrays of directions in which to point the triangles. Not so much happening there, right? Wrong. Just as your spirograph made pretty shapes out of gears and a line, this prod makes smooth, pretty 2d color out of triangles and direction.
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