aMUSiC information 301 glöps
- general:
- level: user
- personal:
- first name: Sotiris
- last name: Varotsis
- portals:
- demozoo: profile
- demo Windows The Legend of Sisyphus by Andromeda Software Development [web]
- For those of you who like behind the scenes stuff and feel like reading through a leeeengthy analysis of the soundtrack creation process, I've written a blog post about it.
- isokadded on the 2023-08-25 05:43:55
- demo Windows The Legend of Sisyphus by Andromeda Software Development [web]
- Quote:
Forgot to comment on the sound: amusics soundtrack works really well here. While I like overindulgent rectified guitar riffs that I came to associate with many of amusics previous soundtracks, they wouldn't have worked so well here. Actually, I think that soundtrack and demo form a better symbiosis than in some other ASD demos. Some improvement may be possible on the vocal mix, and it would be cool to see demos make more use of sound effects and ambiences in general, to increase immersion.
Let’s not forget Leviathan though who’s been crucial to composition and those nifty guitar riffs and playing in all those ASD demos that featured them!
As for the sound effects, it is a bit challenging to incorporate them so that they complement the visuals, but at the same time they don’t sound jarring inside the soundtrack when you’re listening to it on its own without the video.
Regarding the vocals, as I both wrote the lyrics and sung them, I always understand them from the get go, and at the same time since I’m not really a singer (lots of pitch correction in Reason) I’m a bit self conscious about them, so their volume in the mix felt comfortable to me. Loud enough to make out what I’m saying and at the same time blended in the mix with various effects to not take a dominant role at the center stage. I might produce a mix with the vocals being more pronounced and upload it on soundcloud and get some feedback. I’ve listened to this track more than 1000 times while creating it to the point that I’ve lost all objectivity towards it. - isokadded on the 2023-08-17 14:45:18
- demo Windows The Legend of Sisyphus by Andromeda Software Development [web]
- Quote:
Quote:ps.at first I thought the guy is wearing stockings because of the dithering
Hahaha, I had exaclty the same thought! I still do sometimes! I got to blink my eyes and enable my internal disbelief filter to snap back to just shorts (cause I know he wasn’t wearing stockings during the 4d capture).
Sometimes also it makes me believe that in the scene where Sisyphus walks under the legs, they’re women’s legs and not his own.. fortunately he’a not looking up :P - isokadded on the 2023-08-08 18:01:25
- demo Windows The Legend of Sisyphus by Andromeda Software Development [web]
- Davince, we’ve never ever done size coding and that’s you’ve never seen a 64k or 4k intro from ASD (and you’ll most probably never will).
Since the target platform that we write demos on has no uniform restrictions across the board (like how it once was were all C64s had the same limits), we focus our efforts on art (and try to make our demos run relatively smooth on hardware that has been available in the past 5 years and doesn’t cost a fortune to acquire).
Now, demos have always been compared with the gaming industry as they’re closely related in terms of technology and algorithms, and in the past the demoscene was pioneering by looking and performing bettter than the games out there.. this is no longer the case.. games have been looking better than demos for a while now, not because they have pioneered new technologies and better algorithms (although they have done that on occasions), but because they have armies of artists creating massive content, something that we folks on the demoscene han hardly compete with. Content and assets take up space, and the more you want to make your production look good and compare with games the larger the filesize will be.
Back when the year was 2007 and debris pioneered things at only 177kb we were all impressed and went apeshit. But since then we’ve seen all the things debris did back then in numerous demos (and in some cases in smaller filesizes). 16 years later, new ideas, new effects, and what we did in Sisyphus, can not fit into 177kb, no matter what compression wizardry you use.
In a similar manner people could complain about my music. It’s not procedurally generated, not tracked, not replayed on the fly by a softsynth. It’s a whopping 20MB mp3 at 320kbps bitrate. Essentially it’s the equivalent of a “prerendered video with a player”. But nobody complained, as nobody complained for the thousands of demos that replay an mp3 file for music. It was the new paradigm shift, we dealt with it!
There are categories and demos made for them with strict restrictions, so that old scene spirit can be found there. The pc demo category (and following our demo) however, is not one of those. - isokadded on the 2023-08-07 20:50:49
- demo JavaScript Mundane Institute by mikucom
- This ranking 9th is sheer injustice!!
- isokadded on the 2023-08-07 18:02:08
- demo JavaScript Wake Up / Rise Up
- This is a lovely first demo! I totally love the “Wake up, Rise up” message, especially being interspersed between the greets. Acts like a nudge/wake up call for groups to make more stunning demos!
Now, get yourselves a group name, start planning on your next demo (next year maybe) and be legends! - rulezadded on the 2023-08-07 17:58:16
- demo Windows Focused by Gaspode [web]
- I absolutely love this! Clean, clever, crisp! Gets the message across and a lovely tune! WTG gaspode!!
- rulezadded on the 2023-08-06 01:46:26
- demo JavaScript Mundane Institute by mikucom
- This brought me back to the days I was looking at demos and wanting to be a demoscener! Good work! Now send me a fridge magnet!!
- rulezadded on the 2023-08-06 01:36:46
- demo Windows The Legend of Sisyphus by Andromeda Software Development [web]
- It often happens that on the same material Navis and I have a different interpretation of the story in the demo, and this case is no different. My interpretation (which was imposed in the vocals) also derives from the loop in the myth of Sisypuhs, but is expressed as the evergoing search of ones sexual preference and identity (in the voice of Sisyphus), in a battle against the world’s narrow mindedness and bigotry (in the voice of Hades) with a pinch of distraction (in the voice of Merope, Sisyphus’ wife).
Here are the lyrics if you want to sing along ;)
[Hades]
Rolled back to the bottom
the stone is standing still
My previous iteration
is waiting there uphill
[Sysiphus]
I've made no sense
Oh I don't know
My innocence
was lost the day Ι looked inside me
From boys to girls
and back again
It's so intense
the way I doubt if you can see me
Was I this way
or I was made
a role to play
in every chapter of my journey
From up to down
deep underground
a thorny crown
my prize for looking past the red line
[Hades]
Rolled back to the bottom
the stone is standing still
My previous iteration
is waiting there uphill
The perils of your journey
a lot but far apart
hardships and temptations
my gifts as you depart
And once you cross the treeline
the boulder disappears
a prophecy repeating
to bolster all your fears
your fate has been decided
ten centuries ago
now rest up for a minute
and down again you go
[Merope]
Life in Circular Motion
Also, a small look behind the scenes, the actor did not actually sing these lyrics. I have no idea what he’s saying/singing (or even if he’s singing at all). I was given the end result of the animation sequence and I wrote the lyrics to sync as close as possible the mouth movements. - isokadded on the 2023-08-06 00:07:17
- demo Windows For Your Love by Andromeda Software Development [web]
- Leia in fact asked me if the theme of the demo was related to the recent wildfires in Athens (which is not as the visuals for the demo had been completed months earlier than that), however Leviathan lives in the area that got burnt. The night of the fire he was at home composing for the track, while having one eye and ear out the window in case he needed to evacuate his home so he doesn't get burnt alive.
Fortunately for him, the fire stopped about a click away from his home.
And @sesse, i missed the refugees mention in our convo in the stream chat. I too get a strong "uprooting of people from their home" vibe in the scene with the buffalo and the rising human models. In fact the vocal chant in the background is an homage to that (though it pertains to a much much older uprooting in the greek history). I'm not sure that can be construed as a political message though.
But in any case, I'm happy that people noticed that in this particular scene, and not the fact that the buffalo has two penises :P - isokadded on the 2018-08-05 18:07:18
account created on the 2001-09-02 18:08:04