The Making of discloned

Adok/Hugi

"Shad 2 in intro. Haujobb intro world domination!" Phrases like this could be read in DemoJournal already before the final version of "discloned" had been finished. At D-Lee/Exceed/Haujobb's place in Szombathely/Hungary, where Psychic Symphony had stayed for several days during his European tour '99, he had been able to take a glance at a beta of the upcoming 64k. And it had taken his breath away.

A preliminary version of the intro, called "pre-cloned", won the 64k intro competition at the small German party Evoke '99. Just as expected, the final then reached the 1st place at LTP 3 in Paris, France.

Short after the release of "pre-cloned", I talked with Hellfire about the work on this intro. Here is the interview.

Who was involved in the making of "pre-cloned"?

This time, quite a few people contributed to the intro. Maybe that is the very reason why it became that good. Now the whole Haujobb crew has moved their asses to work! *smile* I guess Nytrik had to do most of the job. He modeled all the scenes and drew the textures. That was probably the hardest job because the intro should look very "demo-alike", yet it should not be bigger than 64kB. The 3d engine was developed by Cynic and me. Except for some small changes, it had already been finished before we started with the demo. As well, Droid and Sagacity contributed a couple of 2d effects, and Insanity wrote the (in my opinion fairly cool) tune. It also proved to be useful that the other Haujobbers kept an eye on the design, which has to be appreciated, too. *smile*

When did you start coding this intro?

Sorry, but I can't really answer that... Our 3d engine has been growing for years, and if we had not already made other intros, it would have probably taken us for ever to launch this baby... Using the existing routines, we started to design the scenes and to adjust the code to pack the whole thing in 64kB about a month before Assembly.

How did the creation process go on?

Since, for a change, I didn't make the demo all on my own within a few days *grin*, it turned out to be like "send this code to this address, send that graphics to that address..." Of course it also happened that I made changes which did not please the other coders, and vice versa *smile*. But by now, all of us like the intro. However, we'll make another version in which a few things are yet subjects of change. Best wait for this version... you'll get more out of it! *smile*

Why did you choose the name "pre-cloned"?

The regular title of the into is "discloned". However, at Evoke it was clear that we would make another version. That's why the version that was released there is called "pre-cloned", hehe... While we were working on the intro, our main aim was to create something new, as most of the recent intros look very similar. So we also wanted to pull the current intro series' legs with the title (from which I don't want to exonerate myself either *grin*). You might interpret it as a little side-swipe at FudGe's "clone" series (hey Echo, no bad feelings, we all love you! *smile*).

What's so special about the intro that some people regard it as superior to Jizz/Stash and all the demos that were released at Evoke '99? Are there any innovative effects? Or is it rather music, design,...?

I don't think that I, as the coder of the intro, am the right person to decide whether this intro is superior to any else. However, I think it looks beautiful, and you can also spot some effects which I haven't seen in this form yet. Which doesn't mean that they didn't exist before, though *grin*. The only thing I can say is: Watch the intro and decide for yourself!

Does the intro also have a message besides the technical and artistic aspects?

The message is: "Make good intros!" *grin*

Why did you decide to release "pre-cloned" at Evoke although it's a rather local party hardly known outside Germany?

First of all I have to admit that it was originally planned for Assembly. However, that's not because Assembly is that cool or we're keen on the massive prize money which you won't get in the end. Yet your productions get more attention if you present them at the "big" parties (the LAN parties *grin*). Well, apart from that, Evoke is probably the least commercial and most familiar party that exists, and we think it's important to support such happenings! Moreover, Poti [the main organizer of Evoke] always looks so sweet when he begs for a release that you simply can't say "no" *grin*. And finally, Evoke is the familiar and funniest party in Germany so we are glad we could support it!

What are your/Haujobb's next plans?

The first thing to do is the final of the intro. Besides, we are working on a demo, which I'm not allowed to tell much about yet, though... *grin*