PIC:barclip.ilbm

CL8:              Live Interview With Stingray of Scarab & Scoopex
PIC:barclip.ilbm

CL8:                          Written by Zerox of Gods

CL7:                                Introduction

CL1:As  a  short introduction, please tell
the   readers   a   few   words  about
yourself,  your  function and what you
want to achieve in the scene?

Well, what do you expect to read here?
:)  I'm  just  a  coder (someone might
even   say   I'm  a  lazy  coder  :D).
Seriously,  I'm  doing some coding for
[S]carab and Scoopex, we just finished
the  latest  4k  intro for [S] here at









Breakpoint (which was only possible to
finish  because Blueberry/Loonies gave
us his cruncher so I want to say a big
"Thank  You"  to  Blueberry) and I can
tell  you  one thing (well, actually 2
:D),  it's  f*cking  cold here and I'm
tired  due  to  coding  all night even
though  I swore that I wouldn't do any
coding  on  a party again, but well, I
did  it before and I'll probably do it
again.  :)
(it's  now  quite  some hours later, I
had a bit of sleep under the table and
I just woke up because it's quite cold
in the hall again...)

About  my  goals in the scene, well, I
just  want  to  make productions which
people like and just want to have some
fun.  I also like to meet other people
from  the  scene (at this point I send
out some greets to all the nice people
I   met   here   at   BP  (Zerox/Gods,
Darkhawk/Iris,Peci                 and
LostCluster/Scoopex,  Noogman/Scoopex,
Barock/TSL,         Slummy/Spaceballs,
Blueberry/Loonies,  all  the  [S]carab
members which are present here and all
the  nice  people  I forgot to mention
here).

When  did  you enter the scene and how
did you first get attracted to it?

I got in contact with the scene in the
early  90's  (1991 to be exact) when I
met a coder (Hosot/Dytec) and with the
help of this guy it was quite easy for
me  to enter the scene.  You know, the
scene  wasn't  that open to the public
as  it  is  nowadays,  i.e.  it wasn't
that  easy  to  enter  the  scene back
then.

GROUPS

As Scarab still could be considered as
a  rather  new  group  in  the  scene,
please tell us a few words about it.

Well,  Scarab is the perfect group for
me  mainly  because  of 2 reasons, one
being  that  the  group  is  based  on
friendship,        not       business.
Furthermore,  if  someone doesn't want
to  do anything, nobody will be forced
to  do  something  at  all.  If Scarab
will  die  someday I will end my scene
activities too!


What do you think are the good and bad
sides of your groups?

I  don't  see  any  bad  sides when it
comes  to Scarab.  As I told you a few
lines  above,  Scarab  is  the perfect
group  for me.  You can read about the
things  I like about Scarab also a few
lines above.  :)

Are  you  meeting  regurarly  with the
other groupmembers?

Yes,  at  least  Sniper, Scicco and me
meet  quite  often  since  we  are all
living  in the same city (well, Sniper
lives  a bit outside but it's not that
far   away).    A   few   days  before
Breakpoint,  all  three  of us visited
DanDee (one of our graphicians) and we
had a small meeting at his place which
lasted  till  the start of Breakpoint.
We  also  hold meetings with the other
members  and it's always a lot of fun,
I  don't  want to miss these meetings.
The  only member of [S] I (and all the
other  [S] members I guess) didn't see
in real life yet is Gone, but I'm sure
this will change soon.

How important do you think it is for a
group  to  have  a good organizing and
real  friendship  between the members?
Is it important at all?

I   think  that  friendship  is  quite
important,   if   you   have  to  work
together with someone you don't really
like  I don't think you will give your
best  to  achieve your goals.  I think
groups    which   don't   care   about
friendship  between  the  member won't
last that long.

What's  your all-time favourite group?
And why?

You're  a  doublemember  of Scarab and
Scoopex,  why  do  want  to be in both
groups?
My reason for being a member of Scarab
should  be clear by now, about Scoopex
I  can say that I was asked to join by
Laxical  because  Scoopex needed Amiga
Coders.  Since I think that Scoopex is
quite   a   legendary  group,  I  just
accepted  to join because I don't want
to see Scoopex fade away on Amiga!  So
watch  out,  some  new  Scoopex  Amiga
releases will be finished soon!

What's the next release we'll see from
your groups?

I  guess  it will be our demo which we
didn't   manage   to  finish  here  at
Breakpoint  but  maybe we will release
something  else before, I'm not really
sure so just look out for our releases
to see what we did.  :)

                Coding

What's    your    favourite   own-made
production?

That's  quite  a  hard  question  as I
usually  don't  like  any  of  my /our
productions  anymore  after the coding
is  finished  because  I've  seen it a
million   times   during   the  coding
period.   But  well,  one release I've
made  and  I  still like to watch from
time  to  time  is the Slideshow I did
for   Wade  ("Innocence").   It's  not
because   of  the  great  code  in  it
(actually  the routines you can see in
Innocence  were quite easy to do) it's
because   of   the   really  brilliant
pictures Wade did.
Tell us about your favorite production
made by others?

This  is  easy  to  answer, it's still
Desert Dream by good old Laxity.  :)



You   usually  make  your  productions
together  with  Scicco  these days, is
there  a special way you plan/build up
a production together?  And is there a
certain  way you prefer to produce it?
Like  first getting a module/gfx, then
get the idea or opposite?

No,  not  really.   When we meet at my
place   we   just   do  some  routines
together  and  while  coding we mostly
don't  know  in  what  productions  we
might use them.  Most times Scicco has
an  idea  for a design (contrary to me
he  is very good at designing things!)
soon after we met and did some coding.
We  then  start  coding  and some time
later  we have a new production ready.
:-)


Is  there  an  effect you've seen from
other  coders which you know you would
never manage to make?

No!   This  might  sound  arrogant but
it's  not  meant  that  way!  Actually
coding is based on logic and there are
logic  explanations  for  every effect
someone  might  have coded.  It can be
hard  to find out the way it works but
if  you  really want to code a special
effect  you  will  be able to do it if
you don't give up that fast.


What's  the  most  impressive  routine
you've  ever  seen?   And  what's your
favourite coder?

I've  seen so many great routines that
I'm not able to pick just 1 of 'em.


Do   you  think  it's  ok  to  include
animations in demos/intros?
Well, I don't know why, but suddenly a
tree   popped   up  in  my  mind.   :)
Seriously,  I  think  if  it's clearly
visible that what you are about to see
is  an  animation  it's ok, but if you
fake  realtime  effects  by just using
animations  then  it's  cheating in my
opinion.

What   do  you  think  about  nowadays
demos?   And  what  do you think about
the 3d trend?

I  still prefer the good old 'Push the
hardware   to  its  limits'  demos  so
actually I get bored pretty quick when
I  see  another  of  those standard 3d
demos.       Even      though      the
objects/graphics  are mostly very well
done   in   such   demos   there's  no
innovation,  no  new  ideas, it's just
boring, for me at least.

You're currently working on a few more
productions.   Can  you please tell us
something about it?
I  don't  want  to  give  any  special
information about forthcoming releases
because  else  people  might  wait for
something  which  we might not be able
to  finish/release.  Therefore I won't
say  anything,  you  will  notice when
we'll release something new.

              The Scene

Do you remember the first demo you saw
and mag you read?

Yes, of course, the first demo (I will
only  speak  about Amiga stuff here) I
saw was the good old Budbrain Megademo
which  I still like to watch from time
to time!  The first diskmag I read was
D-Tect's  Hack-Mag  which  is still my
favourite mag.
What do you think are the good and bad
sides of the scene?

How  should  we  manage  to  get  more
people attracted to the scene?

I'm  too  tired  to  think  about such
things  right  now so I will just skip
it, sorry.  But I want to say just one
thing,  support  the  beginners,  they
need your help!


Do  you  have any special scene memory
you want to share with the readers?

You know, I'm growing old so I tend to
forget   things   quite   easily.   :)
Actually   I   really  don't  remember
anything  special  at  all (concerning
the scene at least).

Well,  it's  time  to  find out what's
your taste.  What's your favorite:

SLOGAN        : Bedtime for democracy
                / Anarchy
SLIDESHOW     : Forgotten / Mirage
INTRO         : Planet Potion I guess 
                even though I did 
                watch it only once at
                MS. 
DEMO          : Desert Dream/Kefrens - 
                definitely the best 
                demo ever!
MUSICDISK     : Turmoil/Sanity
FRIENDLY TEAM : Scarab (this one was 
                easy :D)
MAG           : classic: Hack-Mag, 
                new-school: EuroCharts
EDITOR        : Wade/Haujobb


Please tell your opinion about the 
future of the scene:

OPTIMISTIC: The scene will be as cool 
            as in the early years 
            again.

REALISTIC: The scene will become 
           smaller and smaller but it 
           won't die in the next time 
           since there will still be 
           some Freaks who stick to 
           the Amiga.

PESIMISTIC: All sceners realize that 
            Amiga is dead therefore 
            decide to buy a new 
            computer (whatever 
            computer that might be :D)
            and leave the Amiga scene 
            completely.


And  what do you think about the Amiga
plans  and  the  progress?   Would you
consider buying AmigaOne or Pegasos?


I  won't  spend  any  money  on  Amiga
hardware any more because I think it's
just  a  waste of money, sad but true.
The  Amiga  is  dead and I don't think
we'll  see  a  revival of this once so
wonderful  machine...  Sad to see such



good  hardware  going  down the drain,
but  that's  just  the  way  the story
goes...   I  will never sell my Amigas
because  I like to do coding on Amiga,
but  I will never ever buy a new Amiga
again,   it's   just   not  worth  it.
Furthermore,  what  I  read  about the
plans  for the new Amigas, I think you
can hardly call it Amiga any longer...
Amiga = Classic Amiga, period.

Do you picture yourself in the scene 2
years from now?

Once a scener, always a scener I think
so most probably you will still see me
coding  on  some  party  in 10 years I
guess.  :)


              Magazines

What do you think about nowadays mags?
Do you miss something?

I  really  like  the mags we currently
have on Amiga.  I would be cool though
if  there  would be some more.  What I
miss  a  bit  is  the feeling good old
mags  such  as Hack-Mag, Disc and even
Raw  gave  me.  Nowadays mags looks so
damn  serious,  every mags tries to be
as  perfect  as possible and this is a
bit boring for me.



Are  there  too  few mags around after
your opinion?

Just have a look above.  :)

Do  mags  have  any  influence  in the
scene?

That's quite a hard question which I'm
not  able to answer in a short time so
I will skip this one.

What  do  you  think about the various
charts in todays mags?
Well, I don't really care about charts
because  it's  mostly  the same people
who  fill out votesheets so charts are
bit  boring but still I like to have a
look  at  the charts!  :) I also think
that   charts  are  a  good  thing  to
motivate  people  to  give  their best
whatever   they  do  because  I  guess
nobody does have a problem reading his
name in the charts.  :)

              Real Life

What's your occupation?

I'm  currently working at a dentist, I
don't  know the english translation of
my  job,  sorry.   Most  of the time I
have to fix the computers though since
my   boss   doesn't  know  much  about
computers at all.

Tell  us  about  one  of  your  normal
days...

I  don't want to bore the readers.  :)
I  just  wake up in the morning, smoke
my  1st  cigarette  and drink my first
(but  not  the  last ;D) cup of coffee
and  then I go to work at about 8 a.m.
I  get  back  at 4 p.m.  and then I am
meeting   friends  almost  every  day.
Well,  since  time flies when you have
fun  I'll  go to bed very late so I am
always  very  tired  the  next morning
when  I  have to get out of my bed.  I
guess  that's  all  I can tell about a
normal day in my life and I guess it's
not that interesting to read.  :)

Do  you  have  any  other hobbies than
computing?  In that case, which?

Yes   of   course!    I  like  meeting
friends,  having  some fun outside and
stuff  like that.  I also like reading
good  books  very  much (e.g.  Stephen
King)  unfortunately I don't have much
time for reading books these days.

What  kind  of music and movies do you
enjoy?

I        like       listening       to
Industrial/EBM/Darkwave/Gothic  musics
(Wumpscut, Das Ich, Lacrimosa, Project
Pitchfork,  Suicide  Commando,  Funker
Vogt, Umbra et Imago, Blutengel etc.).
I  hate  almost  all of the commercial
musics, I just can't stand it.  I also
like  good  movies very much, the last
I've  seen  was  'The Ring' and it was
one  of  the best movies I've seen for
quite some time.

Thanks  for spending alot of your time
here  answering  these  more  or  less
standard  questions.  I don't have any
new  ideas  to come with, and my hands
are  freezing  like hell too.  Anyway,
good  luck  with  future plans...  Now
you can write whatever you would like,
like greetings etc.

Ok,  since  I  am  still  quite  tired
(might  be a typical coder problem :D)
I  will make it short here.  Thanks to
you,  Zerox,  for interviewing me (you
made  me  feel soooo important :P) and
having  a  great time together here at
ice-cold  Breakpoint.   Also greets to
all  who want to be greeted from me ->
Nobody  mentioned  - nobody forgotten.
;)  If  I would have some cigarettes I
would  continue writing for quite some
time   here   but  I  don't  have  any
cigarettes  left  (I  killed  'em  all
while  doing the coding on our 4k here
at  Breakpoint)  so  I will try to get
some  cigarettes  from  the MadWizards
guys  who  already  supported  me with
cigarettes  (and  quite a lot of booze
:P)  this morning (Thank you Flapjack,
Kiero, Azzaro and Silent Riot :D).  So
I  will  have  to  find  Flapjack  now
therefore  I  will  just  stop writing
now.   No  Coffee,  No  Cigarettes, No
more Ascii characters in this text ;)

Good  bye  says StingRay - the man who
really needs a cigarette now ;)

(note  from  Darkhawk:   I  don't know
what it is with me and interviews, but
this time around, I don't have time to
spellcheck  this  one before release..
Ok,   signing   off  with  this  sorry
excuse)
