Assembly Accelerated Demo Compo Review

Written by v0id

This is a review of the 3d-accelerated demos released at Assembly '99. I have examined the top five, and this is what I think about them. Something which these demos have in common is that they are all 3d accelerated (hey, that was meant ironically).

My computer I have used for testing the demos is:
AMD K6-2 400Mhz with 128 Mb RAM
3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 16Mb of RAM
Sound Blaster 64
DirectX 6.1

Virhe By Mature Furk - 1st Place - 3323 points

I believe Virhe is Error or Fault in Finnish. The first screen you meet once you have started the demo is a little picture in the lower left corner. From your speakers you get some futuristic computer speaking sound. Some seconds later the screen changes to some kind of I-don't-know-how-to-describe-this effect. After that the credits appear. Next we get to see a face in 3d with environment mapping, hey didn't it twinkle. After a few seconds of waiting, some fast moving 3d hand with light effects and stuff in the background comes. Then we are out in space and looking at a 3d object with lots of lights, and in the middle there is a transparent object that is transforming. And between the effects we get to see nice 2d art. Okay, I can understand that this demo was voted No.1. 'Cause it's a very nice demo with a lot of 3d. This demo really uses the advantages of Glide 3. The graphic is no low polygon stuff. The music really fits the demo. I don't need to say much more about it, download it, it's worth it.

Traumatique By Trauma - 2nd Place - 2567 points

At first you see a man who gets zapped by electricity, then the credits appear while a nice 3d land and park are showed where a lot of birds are flying around. Then you come back to this man who got zapped. He looks like some kind of cyborg inside a rotating wire-framed sphere. Now you can spot some people praying to a big Trauma tower. At the same time there are some lights flying in front of the people. Later you get to see a UFO flying in space, but it crash lands on earth. Until here the music has been soft techno. But now some futuristic search vehicles come, which change the soft techno music to a more beating techno-like music. Finally it's over, but to ensure that you will start praying to the Trauma they show the Trauma logo for almost a minute. I must say that the initial 3d park with the birds would be a very nice scene, if just the cyborg had been better modeled. Over to the praying people in the city, there are some light particles flying in front of them, that looks cool. And then you fly through the city, but apart from that there isn't anything special. Except that for some mystic reason it's slow on my computer. When we come to the city with those search vehicles, the houses are really different, because they look like anthills.

DoZen By Komplex - 3rd Place - 1837 points

I'm really sorry, but I didn't get this demo to run, so it's very hard to make a review of it.

Käyttökuksa By tAAt - 4th Place - 1262 points

Ok, first there scrolls some blurred text. After that we visit the Kuksaworld. In the lake are some whales swimming, one of them flies away for some mysterious reason (maybe inspired of "Save Willy"). Then we leave Kuksaworld for a moment and get to see some colorful 2d things. A good old plasma effect can be found here too. Afterwards we follow a submarine (I think) into a tunnel. Then a alien ship is zapping a SPAM can and puts it on Mercurius. Not much to say, this demo is nothing special, it's an ordinary standard demo. No technical surprises.

Evolution By Amuq Creations - 5th Place - 958 points

When you start the demo first you get a nice configuration panel where you can change resolution and do a 3d performance test. As soon as you press start, an Evolution logo appears on the screen with some blur effect. Then you get to see a cube thing that changes its shape and makes a tunnel of itself. Later you will get to see a torus knot with a lens flare. Then you fly through a red colored landscape. When they zoom out a friend from South Park appears; I don't know this fellow's name because I rather watch The Simpsons than South Park. But back to the demo, now you get to see how a plastic duck is born, but a damn thing throws the plastic duck away so it drowns and that's not all: Then a very-low-polygon-dolphin eats it up. At least the greetings appear in water bubbles. The configuration panel was a good thing, but would not rely on the 3d performance test too much, because in the demo there are much more advanced objects. So if the test polygons run slowly, the demo will be even slower. This cube thing I was taking about before is a cool effect. Then this torus knot with the lens flare, I think we all have seen that before, but it's nice anyway. About the water scene with the dolphin, I think it's sad that the dolphin consists of so few polygons because I believe that they could have done that dolphin in like 20 more polygons and then it would have looked a lot better. The greetings with the water bubbles are very cool though.

I have chosen to include Platipus by Incognita in this review because the Assembly '99 compo crew seems to have fucked up everything. So I will make a review of the demo here, because I believe it could have easily been in the top 5 hadn't the demo crew at Assembly '99 fucked it up.

Platipus By Incognita - (1st Place?) - Not presented at Assembly '99

First of all they want you to "Fasten your belts", "Hold tight" and that's not a commercial stunt; I recommend you to do so. This demo seems like a real killer. Ok, first we get to see this Icg logo. After that we are in a room and looking at some paintings. The motives of the paintings are old effects used in other Incognita demos. Now we are travelling in space, at the same time the hardcore music pumps in your speakers and you get the lyrics on the screen. A fast change to a landscape with 3d volumetric fog and a dragon that is flying over the landscape. This is all done with use of the LOD (Level of Detail) technique. After this part we get to see some real raytracing stuff. And in the last part we are in a temple where the greeting pop up while we are flying through the inside of the temple at the same time. If Platipus had been showed at Assembly '99 I think that it would had been No.1. Because the 3d scenes are not only fast - they look great, too. I have never seen so nice 3d scenes like the room and the temple, and what about the dragon with the fog. WOW! This is a high quality demo, it would have kicked ass.

This is the end of this 3d-accelerated demo review, all the 3d accelerated demos are available at http://www.scene.org so don't hesitate, download them now and take a look.

Thanks for reading...

v0id / Alpha Millennium