Interview with Pl / Imphobia

Cremax/Nothing

1. Can you tell us about you and your group?

Well, Imphobia exists for hmm... around 6 years now (a little more I think)... It was originally formed by Wizard and Darkness, to make a diskmag. I joined after issue one, to make lousy gfxs.

Around issue 3, I heard about a program that could do lighting and anti-aliasing automatically... seeing little animations in shows made it really amazing to me... It was named 3dstudio... I finally got version 2 and started to play with 3d and learned the very basic concepts... with no books, and no one next to me... It was pretty painful :) It wasn't really fun at all and I did mainly awful logos... but the idea to work in 3d was really appealing me... And afterwards, with 'Jurassic Park' 3d really started to get famous... After a few issues I started to enjoy the scene and to take gfxs a bit more seriously (I was always working with DP, my 3ds skills were really too poor :)...

The main reason that made me become a bit more serious was a little comment from Sam when we went to 'The Party II' (maybe III), I asked what he was thinking about my gfxs, and the answer was a short 'no comments' :) It really shocked me, and so my gfxs became better (it started at issue 5 if I remember well, but don't check :) I was also starting to enjoy 3d, but was somewhat frustrated to see how the scene considered 3d gfxs... Most of my 3d pictures remained unreleased... Anyway, while I did really loved dp in the first times, after some issues in 16 colors, I really started to find it boring... and definitely got into 3d... That's it for the story, and now I'm mainly working with 3dsmax and Photoshop. Actually Imphobia the magazine is on a shelf, it was really too time consuming and we always desired to start other projects... and we all have been to university or even started to work, so time was even more precious... The mag will probably restart sometime...but when? :) Anyway Imphobia, the group, is far from dead. It is alive and kicking! We're actually organizing the Wired party (come to Wired'98, infos at nl.scene.org/wired98) which takes a lot of time. We're also doing reports etc...

2. What do you think about the progress nowadays in the demoscene?

Well... Good question, I don't know what to think... To me there aren't many progresses and in some cases the scene is going back... But I'm maybe getting old too :)

3. Do you think 3D is making a better scene or boring one?

I think 3d is the future (how original :) It will get better, and will allow much more things... Soon I think we will have the render power of the early renderers like LW and 3ds (it is nearly the case with accelerators). I don't know... I feel like 3d will be as natural as having a picture made of pixels (if you see what I mean). But I'm a 3d fan so :) It doesn't make the scene better or worse I guess... it just allow some things 2d didn't and can't do all what 2d could do...

4. What do you think about making demos under Windows?

Definitely the future, I don't like them at the moment, as I don't have a recent computer, but it is undoubtly the future... there are drawbacks, but soon it will be the only solution I think...

5. What platform you think supports the demoscene better? Do you think DOS will survive?

I don't think there's a best platform... Every platform can have its scene, and make it good... I generally think the scene moves to the most popular platform of the moment... it was the C64, then Amiga, and now PC... I think that DOS will disapear, Billy G. decided to kill it... So I think we will see the same thing as with the Amiga. The new OS scene will grow bigger, and there will be some 'good old time' extremist that will say 'IT SUCKS'... And finally everyone will move to the new os :) or whatever...

6. What you think about hardware "support" on demos?

Well... demos can't be without hardware he? :) I think that 3d accels are a good thing, it will cut a bit all the 'my engine is better than yours' and will allow more interesting demos and will allow smaller groups to have good 3d... If it doesn't the scene will lose its interest... imo... Though until a real 3d standard come out, we will have the same prob as with the sound cards... which one to support?

7. Which is/was your favourite party (if you attended one)?

I really loved The Party III. I met lots of peoples there... and had a lot of fun... I was young etc :) Also the mixing between the powerful Amiga scene and the new born, but strenghtening PC scene was really nice to see.

8. What is your favourite demo?

Ouch... Liked Orange's demos in the time (X-14/TV), Second Reality was also really nice, even if many peoples are now saying it sucked... don't know... I don't have an all time favourite...

9. Would you want to contribute to the demoscene with anything?

...

10. What do you think about diskmags?

They are a nice thing, as it seems to be the only place where the scene speaks of non scene related topics... It was the case in Imphobia... Don't know if it's still the same with the new mags... But the problem is to make people active for it :)

11. Are diskmags still necessary?

Hard to say... I would say yes, as not everyone has the money to read a mag online... but also the interface of a magazine can be more 'immersive'...more personal... In a browser you still have the same buttons on the top etc... the same frames structure (generally :) But Java/Flash... and better connections could change all this... Actually I think WWW is the best for day to day news, and informations about parties etc.

Mags are better to express opinions, and have more original topics (like poetry etc...) Mags can also reach non-connected peoples... not everyone has I-Net connection (even if nearly everyone has it :)...

12. What do you think about other media like irc, newsgroups, online-mags?

nice nice :)

13. What groups do you consider "well-known" and in some way contributed to the scene?

All groups contribute to the scene... even the smallest ones... the most famous groups seem to be Pulse and TBL. But I don't know if you can still call them groups... more like big corporations or something... With a few really famous people that are working hard, and many others... I don't really know if they have the same feeling as, for example, us in Imphobia :) I don't like enormous groups... I prefer small solid teams but it is just my opinion... Though pulse is really active, and generally try to be original (hello unreal :)

14. When do you think to release a new demo from your group? (we would like to know :)

Well well well, many things are planned. We will release extremely soon the Wired97 report (at last) I can already say that it rocks! Get it! :) After that there's Wired98, the party... with the voting disk, the t-shirts etc... Next is a huge music disk with FM (will really rock too :) We are now also part of the 'Reservoir Dogs' artdisk (rock!). I guess there will be some Wired98 report (will surely rule)... Hmm... maybe Imphobia 13... who knows :) and some other things... that's it...

15. One last question, what are your favourite music bands? ;)

I enjoy cranes, lush, garbage... And also, in a different style, dead can dance/lisa gerrard...