pouët.net

reminds me of lobster's native world.

my goodness...

this is in my heart forever.
I love you halcyon ppl!

At least, something imaginative. I really love this piece.
It's a shame to see that the demoscene is being hit by the 'spectacularism' that already hit movies, books and of course tv. If your demo doesn't rock&roll, got bitches on screen & techno in speakers, then it's crap. Disqualifying Chimera is a kind of censorship, censorship is BAD. God bless capitalism.
D13.
Halcyon, I'm with you guys.

unsoundable beauty

fuckings to the nerds

>because the jury doesn't understand art this didn't show up in the compo.
>you be the jury.

Um, no, I was on the jury. It didn't show up in the compo because it never made it to the jury to begin with. Now if it was entered on time and the main demo organizer deleted it before I got a chance to see it, then my bad.
I haven't seen it yet, but to date, there's no Halcyon demo I wouldn't want to see in compo. The scene needs to get a little less paranoid.

impressive, and even more, this is simply harmony.

You can't judge a demo by it's style, or the scene will never evolve...

This Demo Roxx. I dunno why it has been disqualified either. Well, sue the Organizers.

once again i'm beginning to wonder if my machine is broken, all i see is some red and black shapes, is this correct? :)

well, at least it's different. pretty slow code though.

As a "demo" this simply doesn't work IMHO. Call me oldschool and you'd be right. As a sort of experimental... huh... thing, I guess it makes sense.

Innovating has merit, but being "different" doesn't make you "good". Kudos to Halcyon for doing this... whatever it is you wanted to do - it always sucks to not see your prod on the big screen.

Oh, and kudos to the people who got something out of it. I sure didn't. To me this is like showing a brickwall and talking about the poetry of "what is behind that the author, in his subtlety, didn't want to show". Well, whatever but the brickwall sure is just a boring pile of ugly bricks. :)

agree with phoenix, i was on the jury too and we haven't seen it correctly ..

honnestly i still haven't seen it but i really doubt we would have refused it if we had watched it

'Lynchian' minimalism™? :P, whatever, it has a really cool mood for me x')

it is very athmospheric, however maybe too few diversity and the music is also quite monotonic.
I liked the end part best

jare: I disagree, different is good.
Of course if anyone else makes a demo like this again, then it would prolly, suck, because it wouldn't be different.
Hmm makes me think I should actually do a demo around the aphex twin 'song' called tassels.

Just downloaded it coz it's Halcyon. Very atmospheric sound, very different look. Experimental stuff, with ASM probably released at the wrong place. Nice to see that Halcyon is back :)

i tend to agree with jare.

i won't say it's bad. i won't say it's good either - because hell whatever it is, it sure didn't reach me. i tend to disagree with factory - something being different can be a reason to try it out, but just because it's different doesn't mean it's good.

anyway - whatever was the real reason for being disqualified (if it even was, and not simply submitted after the deadline or something like that) - I certainly think that everyone who doesn't know exactly what happened should prolly keep his mouth shut about organizers trying to censor out art to get a more mainstreamish democompo or stuff like that.

"because the jury doesn't understand art this didn't show up in the compo".

haha. That's the oldest trick in the book and you fell for it. Let me guess, you can all see the Emperor's new clothes too, right?

Congrats to the Asm organizers for leaving this one out. There's already too many pretentious prima donnas in the scene at the moment.

it is indeed athmospheric. i enjoyed watching it atm, because i'm in the right mood.

but i thank god, that i had not to watch it tired in a compo on a party (like the 'longest democompo in history' on ms).

could've had a bit more movement, but I liked this one. Excellent composition, interesting visuals

Reminds me of Stanley Kubrick movies somehow ^^

This demo was in fact shown among the "disqualified" entries. This means that someone díd not get its feeling, I guess.

Halcyon = Pretentious prima donnas? Don't think so...

omg....so many faces!

actually if it weren't halcyon nobody would have given this a second look

indeed, a boring brick wall

Yeah, i must be plain stupid.

analog: you dont seem to know many kubrick movies..

stelthz: True, as I don't like cinema. But your point has nothing to do with the fact that this demo reminds me some scenes of 2001.

I never said they ripped it NOR that I was a smartass.

Dull, like a wine that hasnt aged long enough.

I just don't get it.

I do and it's great! The music is awesome, so is the concept.

As for the assembly thing... I think it was submitted to the wrong party. And the jury was not drunk/stoned enough.

I don't want to offend halcyon (still love you) but ile is damn right. if it wasn't halcyon, some people probably would have pushed esc after 10 seconds.

who cares about "some people"

I really enjoyed this. The atmosphere and visuals are absolutely perfect. One of the most interesting demos I've seen in a while.

atmosphere+ it's alive!

this is very simple yes. it's long, some people would call it boring. still it manages to keep me entertained for 5min+.. assembly perhaps wasn't the place to show this kind of demo though.

Allright, I watched it, and allright, I think we did see it in the jury, and it obviously wasn't picked. So we're a bunch of evil bastards, hey, it happens :). It's.. interesting, maybe thought provoking toward the end, but it's really not big screen/big compo material. At least you can download it and watch it yourself, and that's what counts. Like others have said, much of the praise comes from the group name alone - though the music from croaker is rather nice. Oh, and if you have ADD, don't watch this demo. It moves verrry slooowly. :)

(another wonderful neutral/mixed/inconclusive review)

dunno, i'm a big fan of these kind of "art from demoscene" movements, a fan of Halcyon works, but this one doesn't works for me.

maybe too slow and repetitive, going nowhere (i find the evolution too restricted), i must admit that i've pressed ESC before the end the second time.

good idea, incredible ambiant atmosphere and music, but fail to intertain me nor impress me, and it's slow as hell on my box without reason.

maybe "different on demoscene" alone is not a good reason to venerate a (nice) demo (i.e.: look outside your pc-life and you'll see that this approach of spacepadding is not so new).

Pretty cool one.

it worked for me.

There is nothing cool about this.
The graphics sucks - nothing to see but plain polys at a poor framerate.
The sound sucks - using an mp3 for this shit?
Close look in the data-directory brings up the question why nothing of this shit was generated?
A lamer production and not art, how it's called in the readme.txt.

try not using the desktop resolution in your demo next time please.

i like the sound and negative spaces created by the red and black shapes.

i agree with jare.
only difference: i liked it.

it´s beautiful.

What a sad comeback.
Not even remotly interesting.

hm, you guys at halcyon call it "art" ? then tell us your concept. modern art without a concept behind is illegitimate. i could make no sense out of it. and that's though i'm VERY open-minded towards modern art, with my father being conceptualist and stuff... anyway, halcyon, explain your thoughts behind this and show the world that it's not just midless black blocks on red ground.

pigface for now

First, dipswitch, modern art is not modern anymore.

Second, being abstract is completly orthogonal to being conceptual.

dipswitch: tell us the concept? you need an explain? hmm. how do you want to explain abstract things,that just looking good. You find it also in pictures. I, for example, hate video-geschraddel-Wild-demo, but this here is very nice. the plain objects, the beginning part, the music. everything is so beautiful in this demo.

_, i completely disagree. malewich's "black quader" was a conceptual piece for sure, and you can find dozens of other examples in 20 century's artwork for abstract conceptualism.

i said it was orthogonal, not antithetic.

you seemed to imply that because chimera was abstract, and contemporary, it had to be conceptual. which is based on false premises.

The demo reminds me of a scene in the movie 2010.
I don´t know why it has been disqualified by the asm 2002 jury...It´s very original and towards the end it really wants to reveal something...If the demoscene is heading to a lame-ass commercial scene then i am outta here...I always enjoyed groups like halcyon and orange...They brought new ideas into the scene.... Anyway...a great demo!!!

I have ADD (attention-deficit disorder?) and I still liked it :)same here... that slow, creeping style in many of Kubrick's shots

ouch, the quote code is really big on this "forum"...

Yes...the monolith from 2001...But there´s a scene in 2010 (not from Kubrick) that reminds the end of the demo.

it reminds me also on films like "Eraserhead" and "Lost Highway". Both by David Lynch. A great Filmmaker.

This "demo" needs the viewer to be in a certain mood, but it surely has a great atmosphere!

If you think the code is slow, that's your brain that goes too fast ^__^

in my opinion... THIS IS ART

great atmosphere
great music
interesting graphics

of course its art! the ones who dont say this is art dont know what art is.

cool?!

coup de coeur my big hairy butt!

This is art in the same sense that canned faeces and a busted tv in a corridor are art.

l33t!

bahh...

This is shit.

Man, I'm just waiting for the day someone creates a demo to accompany John Cage's 4'33". It'll be great: nothing but a black screen.

no

what kind of shit is this

>because the jury doesn't understand art this didn't show up in the compo.

When I grow up I want to think I'm an artist, so I could answer to people that don't like what I do they're just suckers that just can't understand ART

this thing is a new kind of lifeforms.

awesome music.
simple, efficient and thought-provoking visuals.

though i agree that i may be biaised by the fact that this is halcyon's comeback. i love it anyway. respect.

absolutely pure beautiness.

???

Is there another demo this pure in style?

I had more respect for this.

If it's art, then i don't like art.

I guess this is nothing I could see over and over again.

wow. love the atmosphere. Was really put into trance by this. Will stay in my mind for a long time. I Always wanted to do something as stylish as this

Well this thing certainly wasn't worth downloading, or even discussing. Watching it reminded me of being told about ratemypoo.com - just a really, really bad idea.

Ok, I was very harsh on this and here's why.

This COULD HAVE BEEN SOMETHING, but, it isn't going to be.

Yes, there's something 2001 Space Odyssey about it. There is. There's also something 'early morning at the factory, watching the sun come up over the silt and drek that is the sunshine' - and there's just not ENOUGH of it to BE.

And I was thinking - folks like this, but they're criticizing FR-26 (I think) - Out of the Blue - because the visuals in that 'stink' - and of course I look at the 2 meg mp3 used for this and wonder why the coder can't possibly do this in software - it's NOT that complex to play a single note waveform ... and, well, imagine if you combined the two...

It would work, and if this was less minimal, it would work too. But it doens't, it's just unfulfilling.

I wanted to like it, but with all the pretense given it - it had unrealistic expectations of me.

So, there you have it - Truck's dissertation on why 'art' doens't mean 'worth.'

well, you can do red/black demos with a little more fun, and drive :
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=7005

anyway this one is kinda .. uhmmm

Don't mind if it could have been smaller, or better technically-suited.

This one instantly became one of my favourites ever. I definitively love it. My best congrats to Halcyon: keep on going.

hmmm ...
there are not a lot of demos out there that I deleted without watching them at least twice... hell I even saw nextempire demos a couple of times each before deleting them... but let me tell you, this one got kicked out immediately.

If this is a demo then I'm the queen of england. Halcyon or no Halcyon I don't care, this just sucks.
If you can't make a demo then do nothing, don't just throw a couple of black boxes on a red background and pretend you're an artist.

my two cents

its a progressive abstract futuristic but boring intro. i won't go for the hype, it neither rulez or sucks. i liked hplus more!

Well, what is this? The only use i see for it is to get some sleep :|. Or maybe decorating an ambient bar :). Sorry guys, i expected more from you, certainly this demo can't be used for another thing than a secondary source of attention, too boring to be a primary!!!

Good luck next time

Not my coup de coeur in a million years!

Visualy interesting : i saw a prcessor in a glass of wine .... a quite good one

oh this sucks blatantly- the only reason for not being in #1 of productions never to watch again is craokers input.

Art my ass (and please stop whining)

it is in so far art, as it is done by a great group name (they can do the "real" thing - they proved it with h+), causing arguments about it etc. it is amazingly provocative in how it is exactly opposite to everything usually liked: slow, ugly, red, bad code, no gfx, no style.
the question is, wether it makes sense or rather wether such productions are actually needed.

i give it a sucks from a demoscener point of view, as i would rate it if it was some newby prod without the intent of provocation in order to do it justice and go with the concept :)

no.
absolutely not.
not provoked, just bored. please don't do more like this.

I dont get it.... how could people like this? this is not art at all, well its quite controversy. but still its suxs. stop inovate styles all the time. im so tired of all the industrial IDM based demos. BE NORMAL!
mainstream doesnt mean something bad!
Moppi, Yodel & AND... thats art

Clearly a opinion splitter, this one ;) .. Like the track, like the minimalism - thumbs up!

I don't care if it's art or not...if it was diqualified or didn't make the deadline...IMHO it's a hypnotizing production. I watched this at 01:00 in the night and the atmosphere created by "chimera" was just right. Some kind of "disturbing lavalamp"...sends shivers down my spine, so i'll thumb it up.

All the disparaging comments.. Is the demoscene really this far from sophistication? Maybe the average age of people here is quite low. Nothing wrong with that of course.

in fact, the average age here is > 20.

Sophistication, Nnannon? I think most people outgrew their fascination with primary colours and basic shapes by the time they left kindergarten.

art?? where´s the message? imho it´s boring, nothing more.

art doesn't have to contain a message, except under despotism governments ..

you guys have a strange vision of the world ..

still haven't seen that one .. so no vote ..

"I think most people outgrew their fascination with primary colours and basic shapes by the time they left kindergarten."

Wade, the ghost of Piet Mondrian is on line 2, he'd like to have a word with you ;)

I heard this never even got to jury. can't _REALLY_ figure out why.
this is fuckin spectacular. it's just sad...

Sophistication???
hmm, well people says: "you dont understand the demo" and things like that. but this is pure crap to me. i offten like extraordinary and controversy productions, but this demo has nothing to do with art if you ask me. i like halcyon as a group but this demo is the worst i have seen i think. what happend to the demoscene? what went wrong? almost every group tries to break the design barriers, but there is a limit you know. idm and industrial everywhere,
like i said in the other post: the best releases on asm02k was the contributions by Yodel,Moppi & AND!! thats quality.

Expanding black structures or deteriorating red ones? Beautiful either way. Such change in mood through such small variation.

Some of you have compared this to Kubrick's 2001. Now personally I didn't like that movie. I found it quite boring. However, you won't hear me going around stating "this is not art". It is art. Art that had little impact on me, but still art.

So, unless I'm wrong and the definition of art does in fact include "something that the viewer doesn't dislike", this, as an attempt to create a feeling through sound and images, IS art.

You need to stop with the "clearly you don't understand art" attitudes though. Placing works above the realm of critique is a statement against individual thought, and that doesn't go all that well with my definition of art.

its atmospheric and got a very special vibe..
it even waits for you before start to get into mood.. its just as slow and calm as you wish your life to be sometimes. there is nothing more needed than in there and its even not too long to get boring. just some beauty trapped within computor.. what else do you expect from demo?

It's a pity to see how many people are prisonners from themselves. How they want the 'demoscene' to stay mainstream, to stay everlasting boring.
When I read such things as : "BE NORMAL!
mainstream doesnt mean something bad!", I become afraid, then angry, then in need of doing & seeing more works like Chimera. To help you guys, with yourselves.
Most sceners don't like "arty-essais" and don't like story-based demos. Most sceners are stuck in the "oldschool/newschool effects slideshows with pr0nlayers" demo-prototype. Demoscene is dead guys, it's time for multimedia-art. Wake up !

however, splif i wont agree with you.. "multimedia-art" will be long time dead when we'll be still watching rasters, scrollers, rotating cubes and sinedots.

top class

Yeah, just don't be creative, right ? Just always watch the same old stuff =)
Well it's a question of taste. I can understand you prefer effects than something else, but then, people shouldn't flame those not-mainstream essais.
I don't flame "mainstream demos" even if I don't like them ;)

Splif, the problem is that every fucking group tries to do demos like that are strange and odd, and to offten it turns out really bad, orange and halcyon was great at it in the past, but now everybody makes "idm demos" (i dont know what to call em.. idm is maybe wrong, but dark demos with strange poetic quotes flying around on the screen, and music that could have been made by a lunatic).

every demo/intro soon looks like Uniques tekkno 2 isnt THAT mainstream?

"I think most people outgrew their fascination with primary colours and basic shapes by the time they left kindergarten."

"BE NORMAL! mainstream doesnt mean something bad!"

these are prolly the two most inconsiderate comments on the thread so far.

at least from where i'm standing it looks like that the fascination for basic colors and primary shapes in their different forms lasts a lifetime (at least that's the case with most people). how else could f.ex. abstract art be so popular? i guess wade thinks i'm standing in the wrong place then.

staying "normal" in the case of demoscene is staying dead. "normal" is always defined by the dominant culture. therefore there can be no universal normalcy found. usually people get bored with the current standards at some point. and therefore what is abnormal in the year 2002 can be totally normal, usual and boring in within few years. that's called cultural evolution. you wouldn't want the demos of today look as if they'd been made in 1992, would you?

thumbs up for chimera for it happens to be one of the smartest and most interesting demo ever made. coming up with new ideas is not forbidden (no, not even in the demoscene, tho most people are prolly doubtful) fuck with the standards.

halcyon rocks, a brave comeback.

i'd say it's mainstream to produce non-mainstream demos. this is the trend!

If this style becomes mainstream, would it suck then? :)

now that's a paradox.

how many prod's like chimera have you seen so far?

read, understand and then comments. this is not the trend in pouet.net forums (hello manticore).

tekniks i meant ;-)
i hate my english.. i cant express myself when i argue :-)
splif dont make this to a thing between you and me. just ignore me please
(and i didnt mean that this demo was like tekniks)

Mempheria, it's not a thing between the two of us, i don't know you, i don't have anything against you, just respecting your tastes BUT giving my point of view. As I said before, I don't flame and thumb down mainstream demos. And I won't do so even with mainstream-demos-loving-guys. =)
Peace & respect.

"look as if they'd been made in 1992, would you?"

no, but i really want em to look like:
Halla by Moppi Productions
32 degrees in the shade by Yodel

Oh and I forgot, I don't like depressive-goth-i-am-16-and-listens-to-marylin-mansion with-poems-inside-demos either. But Chimera isn't that AT ALL.

Manticore: More boxy, two-color uninteresting buildups going nowhere with an airheaded soundtrack consisting of a sampleloop gone awry, right?

There's a lot of diverse demos out there, some are quite innovative. This is like a haujobb demo without textures, overlays, design, scenes, music and effort. That is not a demo worth watching. Art maybe, but only in the sense that it's supposed to set an all-time low in demomaking. Art's a lame excuse for this crap.

Splif: roxs =)
well... the red in the demo was ok if im honest :-)

shifter: more new ideas. less ever so boring uninteresting 3d flyby demos with no other meaning but to show that the makers can do it in opengl.

art might be sometimes a lame excuse for crap, but more often claiming something crap is a lame excuse for narrowmindness and impatience.

macaw: just give me a waterproof argument of how can making a non-mainstream demo be mainstream, and i stay silent for one hunred years, meditate awhile and then unite my soul with nirvana. what is mainstream if mainstream is non-mainstream? which came before, the chicken or the egg? does a falling tree make a sound if none is listening? what is the sound of one hand clapping? what the fuck is wrong with my head if i can't discover the answers?

and in what part of my message i claimed that there was somekind of trend going on in the pouet.net forums?

"no, but i really want em to look like:
Halla by Moppi Productions
32 degrees in the shade by Yodel"

mempheria: those two are good demos (Halla imo the best in the compo) and one may want demos to look like whatever one pleases, but at the minute someone makes something that has not been done before one _imo_ shound't be calling it crap as you refer to it.

even if it proves nothing out of the makers ability to code. that point has been rather dim for a long time in the nuskool demos anyway.

for manticore's comments =)

uhm it's mainstream to be different seen from the point of view that everyone is trying to do weird/ugly/borring/artyfarty/whatever-you-want-to-call-it demos. It's just as common to see an experimental demo as it is to see another tbl-pc-cloned demo.

Face it, this is the demo for the high-society dudes in the demoscene.

different != interesting
mainstream != stupid
experimental != art

a great comeback. Fuck the masses.

Chaosfr is right, these adjectives can not be used as synonyms. However they complement each other quite neatly:

"Chimera is an interesting and different demonstration of experimental art, which manages to break with stupid mainstream productions."

I so hate the adjective "experimental": it's simply overused. This is NOT experimental.

but mainstream

How many ambient demos have you seen so far? Apart from {, +1-1, a fire upon the deep, xtal.. ? The thread is not that thick..

Perhaps chimera should have been much longer, like 30min or so..

"too experimental" is often a cause for disqualify at parties or putting the thing in frame. some will always say experimental is cool whenever its crap while others will always classify it as nonsense just because its something they are not used to.

just percieve demo as it is.. you will compare, ofcourse but there can be equally great demos with rotating cubes and just some strange shapes, the same goes for music blablaaaa

and aye 30 mins of chimera and i am gone!

This thing is not a demo by any standards - finding it beautiful or not is completely beside the point. It's a show of some kind, an audiovisual experiment, a "weird" thing. It should have gone into the Wild compo and nobody would think of disqualifying it.

I don't intent to be some kind of zealot, but you must understand it, genres and styles have boundaries. There is a difference between 4K and demos because you want to have room for giving value to different things. Or should we just make Assembly a single huge compo because labeling productions with "types" or "genres" is degrading the art involved? On the contrary!

- A game is not a demo.
- A screensaver is not a demo.
- An animation is not a demo.
- A still picture with bubbling sounds in the background is not a demo.
- ...

If you find these assertions questionable, then we clearly have no common ground on which to debate.

Make this into a 4K and I will be the first one to love it! Why? Because of the combined artistic+technical merit upon which 4K intros compete against each other (anybody remember "Rise" by Freestyle?).

There used to be a time when "weird" productions had a place as "weird" productions and nobody had a problem with that. Don't bring your cat to a dog contest and complain you are left out.

jare, there is no definition of demo at all.. if there was one we've lost it several times (first demos contained ripped gfx and music and something dynamic like scroller or a couple of sprites).. demo is something made by scene for scene. animation is too but its not realtime thats why we call it animation. this one is realtime thus demo and quite good one at that.



rise is 64kb btw

Dangerous: It contains art!

i will surely never watch it again. again, that doesn't mean its bad...

Chimera is good, but that's my opinion. You may have yours and I respect that.

Halcyon probably got frustrated for not seeing this on the big screen. I understand that. Attacking asm orgas in the infofile, though, was low. Too low for Halcyon.

Assembly orgas did not preselect this demo. They were in a hurry, not in the mood, the demo was not up to standards or did not represent the party overall. That's the rules. It's their party and they'll cry if they want to.

Who gives a shit if this is post-modern meta-baroque minimalistic retro oldskool new-deco? You like it? experience it! You don't? Tough luck.

Sorry bub, I'm currently an avid fan of Mother Mother my ears bleed. *That* is trying to get people to stir their rears. This is not less ever so boring uninteresting 3d flyby demos with no other meaning but to show that the makers can do it in opengl
. Maybe assembly needs this crap, but pouet.net is NOT assembly.

Extra-special note:

talk to the hand, cretin!

Jare, if we follow your theory, we should be still doing scroller-demos with copper bars and c64-like music.
Besides, did anybody sign a contract when joining the scene? What's up with those categorizations? What do they bring to the scene?

And shifter, if you believe you're going to convert anybody in your reactionary crusade, you are truly mistaken on the variety and validity of people's opinion.

Beauty lies within the viewers' eye. And it looks very beautiful here!!!

Btw, if you susbtract the completely retarded poetry from a replay demo/intro you get something worse than this. What's wrong with you? I rather like something that doesn't pretend to make any sense than something which makes a retarded sense.

Chimera is surely simple, but it's complete in itself. I don't miss anything about it. That's the true difference between a good and a bad demo.

I don't give a f*** whether it's a demo or not , whether it contains standard amount of 3D slime or not and/or whether it fits into certain size limit. Can't you guys just stop whining and look at Chimera as it is, without being biased towards it by what you expect to be a "real demo"? Why should I care about any standarts if I find it diverse and fascinating? ;]

watched it, liked it, agreed that it's not exactly 'big screen stuff' or whatever.
still, I'd rather see this one in the finals than any taat stuff.. 8)

baze: word!

sweet!

thank you halcyon

Was it due to a malefunction that it looked like this? The redstuff floating in the air with red-lines all over the place? I am glad that the pre-selection jury removed this one...

without drugs.. it's boring X') but.. nice to see the return of halcyon

very clever..

a sort of living machine ..

the beginning is somehow frightening and it finally turns into more moody stuff.

absolutely nice feeling of loneliness, darkness and depression using evocations of architectural forms and very atmospheric music ..

a mature demo.. we need more demos with such deep emotions..

probably a gool following to hplus .. but i'm a bit disapointed, it should last twice longer, too bad it ends at its highest point.

better watch it when you're on your own, probably in the dark, but at least in a place where you feel comfortable and where your attention will not be asked somewhere else.

and really don't try to analyse it,

i can clearly see what you guys like about this demo... but is running at 8fps on a geforce part of the art ? sorry..
(if it indeed is part of the design, then its quite misplaced)

i dont know if i can call this demo as "art", its more like anti-art because it seems to be based on premises antithetical to traditional or popular art forms. but can anti-art be called art? i dont know.. this demo is defently different from anything i have ever seen which makes it more intresting to watch.. respect to the shrine concept design

this is so beautiful.

thank you halcyon.

Ok, lets staright this out: All those of you who like this has a serious brain-damage! Maybe it is good when you are on drugs, but then again, many things are good when you are on drugs... There are no emotions in this, it is not frightening, it's not a living machine, it only looks like a corrupted file interpreted as a 3d-object. There is no sense in it and it is UGLY!!! and it is running at a framerate witch I can beat with showing pictures with my hands...

And if you find this "beautiful" then you are one of those that thinks a annorectic butugly grandmother is the girl in your dreams (Girls: read fat grandfather).

peggy stop talking rubbish you seem to know jackshit about druqs...

you're programmed what beauty is.

while i just percieve this just like everything else in this world and if it takes me away, its the thang for me and i dont waste my time thinking why should i like it or not, i better go on..

Fear!!!

This is not a demo.

And that's great because demos are generally horrible unimaginative shit devoid of any feelings.

This production - on the other hand - is near perfection. Thank you Halcyon.

Hopefully, this and other releases will also help killing the little that's still left of the scene, so something new, more intresting, can be built up, instead.

one of the most beautiful demos i've ever seen.

demos like this are the reason why there should never be jurys.

Im glad they didn't show this on the bigscreen.

brave ambient truly beautiful.

mental drill. (great work)

after reading the comments on this..

the framerate is extremely low on some geforce cards. so, those complaining about 3fps, go and see it at someone elses machine.

discussion about whether this is art or not is stupid. all things created by man are art. and we all are artists, even those numedia bastards making fucking boring demos that made me sleep during the democompo.

it's really sad to see how strongly some people are against productions like this, are you people really so afraid of something new and different? if you don't like it, fine, but don't go on saying that there shouldn't be demos like this, or that this is not a demo at all. if we want to keep the demoscene alive we need different styles in demos, we need people who do new and innovative productions, people who are not following the mainstream.

macaw, i myself haven't noticed any trend in being anti-mainstream, where has this happened? atleast all prods in almost all compos at the assembly were mainstream (and for me, boring) as fuck.

this demo deserves a second thumb up.

rulez hard i must say..

raver: Uh I am sorry. You are so cool because you KNOW so much about drugs. That is cool. Maybe you've taken a itzybitzy to much so you think it's COOL to brag about it. But then again, I don't know anything about drugs, I can only rely on those I know who have tried it. But this post doesn't really belong here, so if you wish to flame me, use the mail.

no i will reply you here to increase popularity of this demo :P

just refered to your statement that one might like this one on drugs but not otherwise or whatever...

discussion stopped from my side tho' - i suck me not cool but this Demo definitely is. period.

"the framerate is extremely low on some geforce cards. so, those complaining about 3fps, go and see it at someone elses machine. "

actually, a coder who cant get a few cubes running at at least 30fps on a geforce card, should go and learn a bit more...

not that the framerate has anything to do with the prod itself

so, in your opinion all coders should have all possible cards to check their demos on? iirc, it works fine on geforce4, but not on geforce2.

i got an old Asus Geforce 2 and it workes fine.

nosfe: no, and i didnt say it doesnt work, i said its VERY SLOW considering the visuals.
read the comment again

The Visuals ARE slow actually , no matter on which card you watch it. :P

But I really like it.. yumyum.

it should have its chance at assembly. for the rest, i was expecting a little blip in the middle but it didn't happen, sad :]

it should have its chance at assembly. for the rest, i was expecting a little blip in the middle but it didn't happen, sad :]

What? This needs a graphics card? Err...why?

unnamed-one: I don't have anything against evolution. I _do_ have something against being a pioneer of something different and then boo-hoo about lack of understanding, or point fingers. If the scene starts moving in another direction, that's great with me, but don't act like it's already at the new destination.

Having these boundaries between types of productions is a Good Thing. It gives people a way to compare, understand and ultimately, evolve. Saying that stuff like this are not demos imho is giving them the opportunity to earn their place. Accepting everything under the same roof in the name of ... I'm not sure what, is just a way to confuse matters and bring anarchy to the whole picture; focus is lost, evaluation is impossible, and ultimately interest fades.

Those I consider undebatable facts. :)

In my opinion Chimera is not something new, the novelty is in all this controversy. Put some unknown people, or less voicy ones, behind it and it would have been fairly ignored.

As for the people who say "demos can't be defined" and then talk about them having to be realtime, well... nuff said. :)

i really wanted to dismiss this as "pretentious bullshit", because comments such as "you just don't understand art" makes me cringe. it's a line i associate with talentless "pretentious prima donnas" (kudoz to wade) who sees themselves as a "missunderstood genious".

unfortunately though, i liked this prod. and i can't complain about shoddy code either since it runs smooth on my com.

and as for if it's art or not, i couldn't care less.

I like prods that are not "mainstream" and prods that is different, im open minded, but this is pure crap

Absolutly great, if technically not optimized at all.
it's all about atmosphere, and it's good -not because it's original nor different- just because i found it good.

and imho, far more accessible than H+

analogue gets the point with 2001: a space odissey.

ASM ORGANIZERS ARE FUCKIN' GAYS
D13 BASTARDS D13
Halcyon is making DEMOS, NOT fucking "COMMERCIAL-AND-GOOD-ON-SCREEN" SHIT

Asphyx:

"Halcyon is making DEMOS, NOT fucking "COMMERCIAL-AND-GOOD-ON-SCREEN" SHIT"

So basically you say that this is shit-on-screen and that most demos are commercial?

What are the demos trying to sell me? I havent seen the hidden message in all those commercial demos.

I've been watching this demo for a couple of times now. And I love it. Too bad the asm02 jury was too narrow-minded.

I'm looking forward for the next halcyon release.

so i watched it...
everything.. but ehm
still i dont get whats so good with it.. its like watching UR program on svt... you never get to the point =)

Hmm... I've seen the first frames, and looks nice. But it's too slow on my peecee (and I can't catch why). I must buy a new one... shit!

two thumbs up

.

Might be easier to turn off your monitor for 5 minutes.

preselection always suxx, on Boozembly and on Mekka etc... preselection is filthy censorship, that fading out scene spirit...... this is strange demo, very slow, very abstract, but good (simply this demo going other way then other nowadays boring-3D-only-engine-powered-flyby-demos

canonball, if you don't know what you're talking about, just shut the fuck up.

Well, either you LOVE that piece of art, or you HATE it.

Why shouldn't it be called a DEMO ? What' is a Demo ?

this was nice.

Not bad.. I think that sums it up..
-- controversial because some people might see meaning in it others may not.. No big deal, no need to get so defensive about everything people.

why does this seem like suomi-style to me?

very beautiful, but really the oneliner sums it up about weird taste and Chimera. it was a bit slow compared to much of the stuff I like to watch, but, yeah, why can't it be more like 2001 a Space Odyssey when you watch a demo. A lot of New York critics thought that was crap when it came out, too, by the way.

the only other Halcyon demo I've ever seen was like this and it was done in the mid to late '90s before 3d cards were a big part of the scene. No complaints, and I especially like the end of this...

It's like an ice flow breaking in Antarctica.

honestly the first demo I ever saw, Jizz by TBL, didn't seemingly have much of an effect on me. And after watching this a second time, neither does this. I rescind my previous comparison to Kubrick, but I keep this in mind: like Jizz did in my life before this, Chimera has helped me look at computer art from a new perspective. This is like slow music that you may not hear until later.

first it seemed to me, because I live in the states where the scene is not so big, that only really rich people or top notch academics like the ACG people at MIT (John Maeda and his colleagues) could afford to spend the time to to make good multimedia. just about anyone who has posted on pouet has proved me wrong, including people who have stolen the code for rotating 3d escher knots or whatnot.

now I look at things again in a different way...where can we go with demos. more and more I see an artform that celebrates the dying arts of the city and gets me closer and closer to a land of electric flowers.

This may be art, but not in my definition. Nice (ambient) music, boring visuals.

so irvin, how do you define art then?

this is so beautiful...

pfff, amusing

If you think Haujobb demos is too exiting then this is for you.

Where are the aliens?

It's different; and it's surely a good thing about it. For some people it is *too* different, though. Is it art?

Well, about a year ago at pl.comp.demoscena there was a discussion connected with "demos = art?" subject, and someone asked about our (group readers) opinion whether putting a cross with Jesus into aquarium full of urinal is art or not, because one ... "art" critic (put appropriate adjective there) said it is. Well... after all, the conclusion was: "you may call art everything you want".

I don't care about whether:
- it's oversized
- someone watched it at 8 FPS (whoa? It looks I missed some magical command-line parameter... or maybe he used VMWare? he, he, he)
- it's art or not
- it's Halcyon's or not (Halcyon pals: nothing personal, I just don't rate demos because of group name, but rather what they look like)
- music is MP3/XM/...
- it's PC/accelerated/Amiga/C64/srutututu
- etc.

It has the climate, and yes, Wade, it needs gfx card.

I watched it again some times now, and my opinion slowly shifted.. there is really beauty in there. It depends a lot in how open your mind is to it in order to appreciate it.
One thing though: I still don't get those cheap red particles. They look so wrong.

shiva: they dont look that wrong to me..
see them as syncs i guess.

chimera ownz!

chimera sux

mepheria sux

word.

hrmm, how to put this... art is from within, beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or so the saying goes), demos are just an electronic expression of what we are thinking, nothing EVER has to make sense, it's just an outlet for us to tell everyone exactly what we're thinking... art never has ever had a definate meaning, it's just up to the artist to be as blunt as they can if they want to, or be as subtle as they can.. that's the beauty of art, whether something makes an impression is all dependable on our tastes... and everyone has different tastes... this is just subtle.. i hated it on my machine, liked it on another machine... when ur relaxed, watch it again if it stirs you, good, if it doesn't.. well then it's not ur style.. but i liked it...

demos aren't definable their just an expression on our views..

demos = art always... since it's the outlet we produce, anything creative in some form is art...

[...]

if you like art , buy my canned shit =D

set fire to my polyester digital wrist watch baby :)
and scream dada like a baby

This is no art in my eyes, as it failed to show me something, however I liked the music and after all, Halcyon is back :)

what a good dream :)

Heh, I even registered just to post here :)

well now that I can comment someone has already said what I wanted to say in essence (sh0ck)
but I'll restate in brief:
I have no argument that this is art, in fact it is art in it's truest form. It's fairly well done and interesting in my opinion. However while demos are always art, art does not always make good demo material. This is the fatal flaw from my viewpoint, that this demo does not fit with all the others out there. In my opinion, all demos should have some sort of theme. Some demos have little theme but this has none I can see.

I neither love or hate this production overall. As an artistic piece it is very imaginative and well done. As a demo I don't like it, and consider it unqualified to be called a demo.
But all these things are governed by opinion anyhow, so no 2 of us will think exactly alike :)

Everything can be considered art if sold the right way. I wonder if halcyon made this prod because they believed in it, because they wanted to provocate or because they had not enough time to code something else ;)

Either way, the demo didn't reach me and it didn't impress but I wouldn't say it sucks because of its originality.

"I rather watch Spacenight"(tm)

well the base ambient idea is good, but immo best in this demo is the fade out in the end ;)

no words needed...

definition of art:

something that is beautifull, or something that is ugly and gets talked about too much

3state has just proven that this kind of shit is a new way for the 'bigger' names to attract attention

plek: call it what you want, but it's surely one of the best productions ever.

oh well.
(superplek is an idiot.)
(oh, ile: you missed spelled beautiful.)

as mentioned: chimera is incredible anyway.

AND YOU MISSED SPELLED 'MISSPELLED'!!!

hmmm, it's good to see the concept of joke demos is not dead ;)
more seriously it's not my cup of tea, I almost fell asleep while watching it.

homos homos homos

I agree with superplek.

wtf is that here ???

my god it's so boring!

Boring but great!!!

oh

Good to see that some people are creating something what 'They' want to create instead of trying to fit into a piece of software they is called a 'demo'.
- Jeesus what a lot of absurd/extreme comments this product has produced!
With chimera, you either get it or you dont. If you don't, then thats just too bad for you...

I've been checking out 'demos' for more than 10 years. (First demos i can remember was mental hangover by scoopex, and the kefrens demos on amiga). I never have been active in the demoscene, but just kept on checking them out just as I check out movies, games, literature and music.
Ever since the major shift from amiga to pc and from vga to vesa 16->24->32bit->opengl etc.. i've noticed that things generally stay the same.
Only the res, fps, colordepth, layers and polys went up. Imo these gfx parameters are totally seperate from what you actually 'do' on screen, thats what its about!!
Not if the music only has 4chs or if true raytracing is used or how many polys this object has. (The motion in Chimera is slow because thats what the artists wanted it to be!)
I'm glad that some groups finally are evolving from so-called demo creators to simply creators.

amazing

to those who said this demo sucks, I won't go into great detail. First of all, you're close minded individuals. You think a demo is a set of balls running around the screen grabbing onto eachother, and that's fine. I enjoy alot of demo's of that sort aswell.. However, I have never seen such wonderful art.
Don't look at this demo like everyother demo, look at this demo like you look into the clouds :) Those who understand what I am saying probably are those who love this demo. Simply imaginative :)
Great job, hope to see more!

linux binary. joy!

19:45 <@_rm> joko mun radeon näytti ton pahasti päin persettä
19:45 <@_rm> tai sit toi oli kämäsin, paskin, ja yliarvostetuin demo koskaan
19:45 <@_rm> kuuluko sen olla tasan tarkkaan vaan mustaa ja punasta?
19:45 <@jobbana> jep
19:45 <@_rm> jaha
19:45 <@_rm> sit se oli kämäsin, paskin, ja yliarvostetuin demo koskaan
19:46 <@_rm> tai no
19:46 <@_rm> kyl mä niistä äänistä pidin
19:46 <@_rm> tosi vitun taide
19:46 <@_rm> siis vittu
19:46 <@_rm> en mä taiteellisuutta vastusta
19:46 <@_rm> mut kyl demossa SILTI VITTU SAA TAPAHTUA VITTU JOTAIN
19:47 <@_rm> TOSSA JOTAI MUSTIA VITUN PALIKOITA HEILU TOSI HITAASTI PUNASEN PÄÄLLÄ
19:47 <@_rm> VITTU TOSI IHME ETTEI SITÄ VITTU NÄYTETTY

Boring and totally overrated. Yep, that describes this 'demo' quite well.

might as well translate my comment:
<_rm> either my radeon showed that completely fucking wrong
<_rm> or then it's the worst, shittiest, most overrated demo ever
<_rm> is it supposed to be just black and red?
<jobbana> yep
<_rm> oh
<_rm> then it's the worst, shittiest, most overrated demo ever
<_rm> or well
<_rm> i did like the sounds
<_rm> real fucking art
<_rm> i mean fuck
<_rm> i object to being artistic
<_rm> but THERE CAN STILL FUCKING BE SOMETHING FUCKING HAPPENING IN DEMOS
<_rm> THAT HAD SOME BLACK FUCKING BLOCK WOBBLING ABOUT REALLY SLOWLY ON RED
<_rm> REAL FUCKING WONDER THAT IT WASN'T FUCKING SHOWN

thank you.

rm, you obviously didnt see it (i mean besides running it you also have to hear & see =)

actually i did watch it. hell, i even watched it twice to really be sure.

nice one. very spiky.
another demo that gets attacked by mediocre pouet-ists.

neat that they encoded the MP3 at a dangerously low bitrate (for 44khz-stereo). It alters the sound in a way that works for the demo at many parts

Thank you thank you thank you guys!

sweet.

Different, the right way. Very well done!

that's art ? ...
dutch color sheme. that is

and just... borring as well

eating is one good way to sit thru chimera ;)

from negative comments i thought this
was pretty much shit but then i downloaded
and tried it. it wasnt so bad. it is one
time watch because nice music... and it
has good atmosphere. but please dont
start to copy this style. no more art demos.

I was expecting pure crap too, but this was rather interesting. It really gave some room for imagination, which is never a bad thing. But I don't think I'd appreciate it either if there were many more demos like this one.

i AGREE!!! uns3n posted the best post yet! one demo of this kind is cool! and yes i can understand, it was different, but i FEAR that everyone start make demos like this becuse they cant do better, and call it "art"

does it really matter if lamers are copying chimera or 2nd reality?

Was good to watch it at 3 AM (absolutely impossible to watch it earlier, it makes you sleep). But 3D-engine sucks.

*C*H*I*M*E*R*A*
Like Being In a Submarine Exploring The Bottom of The Red Sea, Killer Sound Effects in The Music File Too.
*H*A*L*C*Y*O*N*

Oh my ...
That rox for sure kids.
So don't be afraid of the red light.

Forgot the thumb sorry.
One thousand of thumbs up wouldn't be enough. I mean.
Life is hard. Art is life .

very very cool in the beginning - wall of sound builds up first, screen still black, then slowly red silhouettes fade in.

what disappointed me was the end - just a fade out, and that's it? i would have liked a clear cut there. or, even better: a 2nd part. because the demo rather feels like a prelude for something big than like a complete prod.

still, a thumb skywards for the mighty and unique atmosphere.

visual masterpiece.
fresh air in the demoproduction.
The comments here are quite interesting, they show quite well how people can have extremely opposite behaviors when approaching and reacting to entities that are new for them, depending on their mind's opening and previous experiences.
This demo speaks intimly to some people, makes other people totaly indifferent, and some others react even agressively to what seams totaly foreign and understandable for them...If you see what I mean

A great experience.

a bit dull and it could've looked "smoother" but at the same time this is unspeakably gorgeous.. this is pure design with code holding it in place.. music is bliss and suits it perfectly as it establishes an atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a spoon.. uhm, anyhow, cool efx and art both have their place in the demo-scene and we should expect varying percentages of each in releases. if it doesn't do it for you then go watch second reality again while reminiscing about how much better things were "back in the day"...

yeah, you guys are really funny.

You need to be in the correct mood to enjoy this. Really great athmosphere!

great!

one of best demos ever...

Do what you want.
They did it.
Their product, their idea.
Art? Don't know, it's some kind of the point of view, wheather its art or not.

Best demo every? Worst demo ever? Only a demo, that looks quite good, within a new style and a nice atmosphere

dairy, nula: word!

Kind of left me wanting more, and a bit pissed off that it had ended without going further.

So it must have been good.

nothing's happening...
nothing's happening...
something about a few pixels...
demo over...
a lot of people in the audience look pissed.
(family guy)

Weird. When during the Scene.Org Awards ceremony, some 10 seconds were displayed of it. And somehow... It "got" me. I was looking at the bigscreen, listening to the waves coming from the speakers... And I was thinking, "hey... this isn't bad at all!"
I don't know a proper reason for this, maybe it was the party-mood, maybe it was the fact that it wasn't just on a monitor anyomore... I guess it looks/feels slight better on a dark room with a beamer.

too bad that this demo didnt run to my pc...only some corrupted reg polygons...

IS THIS ART?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! :-XXX

poor halcyon guys....quit of the drugs!

too bad that this demo didnt run to my pc...only some corrupted reg polygons...

IS THIS ART?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! :-XXX

poor halcyon guys....quit of the drugs!

BAAD F00D

THIS IS DARK!

quite interesting but so fucking boring -> a piggyface

great! In halcyon I trust.

On of the best demos ... why?

Because the artists have done exactly what they feel and not what may feel the viewers.
Boring?
You are all boring of writting this "boring" poeters... go better do sth artistic instead of sitting and criticising everything as boring. You'll probably say that Cubric, Visconti, Bergman is boring too. Go better watch another "Armaggedon" or another shit.

Great work guys. I'm waiting for your next act.

Cheers

no need to tell people that their opinion is wrong because that's impossible. an opinion is an opinion, not an absolute fact. if people think it's boring, let them do so in peace.

underoverratedstyleshitrulefucka. dunno how to describe it... interesting and new style: in the right mood, i love it.

i'm sorry, i don't know whoconsiders it art, but it is a vefry boring kid of art. when i ran it for the first time, i saw images change waaay to slowly and the sounfd stutter. i have assumed my computer would be simply too slow. so i ran it now again on my new fast one and the same happened. then i unpacked the music file and made sure that it actually should be like that. ;) really boring.

i think it should be noted that this is a technical demo. i recall Halcyon people were developing an advanced visibility system which allowes to effectively work with even bad occluders. it also should use up the fact that the visible set doesn't change too much in the course of smoothl camera motion. that's why it is all moving so slowly. :> no, it could also do better. seriously, this doesn't make this demo technically too interesting, since visibility determination is not necessarily a task for large demos which has to be done in realtime. it would be better as a 64k, but... well, you all know, it's too boring, and it seems broken however good technically.

Different? Yes.
Art? Everyone has a different definition, and all demos are art in someones definition.
Demo? If you start it, it runs and displays something on your screen while you can hear sound in the background. Thereby it is a demo.
A good demo? Technically no. Designwise it is good, but not outstanding either. It can get you into interesting moods, etc. However, this could have been more effective in many ways, and even though I like it, I think it mainly gets so much attention because it is different and especially because it is by Halcyon, not because it is a good art demo.
Nevertheless, if you liked it and want more, try this: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=8053.
It is even more minimalistic, more abstract, with an even more unusual "music", and even slower.
And, well, the comments are even more split up between those who like it those who do not!

Hulde aan de lui die met 5 minuten werk zoveel weekdierhersenen aan het kraken kregen.

!!

It remains a mystery why people love this demo. It would have been produced by Ps, nobody would have liked it.

most boring thing ever

Chimera is haunting. Chimera is haunting because of one of its distinctive aspects: it's refusal to let time go. By litterally imposing its own linear, slow moving motion, by refusing to give the spectator its minimum dose of 120bpm, it forms a really original object. In this quasi-monochrome red-black rendering of 3d forms, one could imagine familiar architectural constructions, or simply a representation of complexity. The viewer here is not simple spectator, at least if he wishes to enjoy the experience: he must adapt, find the right disposition to create the chimera in his own mind. Unless this adaptation is made, the demo stays an amorphous, slow spectacle.

nicolas: why do you bother? they dont care, they want the boomboomboom and the hightech shit.

I blame the paginated display!

there is no point in defending an issue that has been already sentenced prior to even beeing evaluated. let it go, they'll understand it someday when they bother trying to understand it.

"By litterally imposing its own linear, slow moving motion..."

Kind of like booting up Windows?

"one could imagine familiar architectural constructions, or simply a representation of complexity".

Can't you do that without the demo? Besides, if I'm taking time to imagine things, architecture sits very low on my list.

"create the chimera in his own mind. Unless this adaptation is made, the demo stays an amorphous, slow spectacle."

So unless you imagine something yourself, you see nothing worthwhile? This would be perfect in advertising:

Imagine yourself clean with x brand soap
Or
Imagine the taste of chocolate with the help of this empty wrapper

Why do I feel cheated?

Bollocks

ps you suck, we tried to understand it, we didn't press escape but it didn't touch us. Again, put another name than Halcyon and nobody will care. (despite the good music)

gelis: you couldnt understand what a shark is if it bit you in the face. you're pursuing a diferent kind of demos. you're after vip2's and the popular demos, you're corrupted by your culture, the media, the mentality and a huge amount of closemindedness.
chimera isnt even hard to understand / get into.
you're just too blind to see. you see boring hums and abstract shapes in red. you're not even trying to get inside the mood. you're demanding the mood to get to you. it doesn't work like that with these demos, we are not trying to sell our product, we are just showing it to you.

The wise man pointed his finger towards the stars and the fool kept looking at the finger...

^^

Love it.

the perception of art varies on the person, imho this demo is boring and sucky, but i can understand that some people like boring and sucky demos :)

not good

Screenshot tells more than a thousand words...

I suppose i am also to blind to see the beauty of this product, we cannot all be as intellegent as ps sadly enough :(

i'll just quote "there is always the possibility that im not smart enough to understand a certain demo" and remain obscurely happy now.

more like "there is always the possibility that im not smart enough to understand that people may not like a certain demo"

if this was by rectum cauda nobody would look on it as art.
chaos pretty much said it all

at least ps can write intelligent correctly :P

Some may like it. Or think it's art. But it's a bit harsh to say that it's a fact. After all this is most probably a (very well executed) joke by Halcyon anyway. I myself find this boring. An earlier piece of IRC log described it lovely.. Something about a black dumb blob on a red background :)

The sound is quit nice. But it is a bit boooooring IMHO....

i think it's a kind of evolution, it gets more complex, its entropy...
i love that one..

this discussion is silly.

it reminds me of some discussion in a french class when i was 15. when studying poems by arthur rimbaud, those who wouldn't even try to understand a thing (because it wasn't written using explicit words but more with images) were arguing to the teacher..

note, that i don't consider this chimera thing to reach the perception of rimbaud's poems, but it aims to and it's by far one of the most poetic thing i've seen in a demo.

I don't see my comment here. I guess it was wiped off at the last Pouet destruction.

I remembered some plain black&red boxes then, but as it goes on, you can see few more elements (some gouraud constructions inside the red mist, even few particles, sound gets more interesting too). I guess I was remembering that, either because I pressed Esc or because I just simply didn't noticed or kept it in my brain..

..years later, I decided to have a look at the demo again. Yesterday. Months ago, I had read PS article about these demos imaginated as unexplored beings. That's how I tried to watch this demo, in the dark, without anyone interrupting me.

I had seen the strange constructions and wondered what might they be. The ambient sound sets you in the right mood. I like when something gets revealed later, still letting you wonder. Especially when some lines, like hairs or something, start growing upon the boxes. It gets better as it goes, still slow but progressive.

I was still wondering what that was when it ended. It had some effect upon me, totally absorbed me (or just my curiosity). Wow!

It does this if you ask for it. At the older times, when I clicked to run demos, I was expecting flashy visuals and code. With these expectations, it's natural to just press Escape.

But yesterday, as I was more interested in those abstract demos, more curious to understand what's behind Chimera and why so many people love it, it was the right moment to watch it. It wasn't that bad. It made my fantasy work and set me into various thoughts and feelings..

Like a message from an alternative reality. There are things we can't see. I'd like to..

omg... i don't understand why, hell, why i got afraid by the bubbles there... i found the red something being offended by those... omg.

Very moody - if you like darkkness you gotta go Halcyon!

best.

Would have been ok in 64k ...

have no time ...

Halcyon has made some of my favorite productions, yet really leaves me cold with this production. Were it not made by such a legendary group, "chimera" would have most likely sunk into demoscene oblivion.

nice effect. bad colors. too freaking not moving fast enough.

be free

this prod has balls. BIG BIG BALLS.

go freak out on lsd.

Let's see... Dark, at first black and red, but still evoking structure. Then, shading. Then, amazing stuff, slowly and deliberately such that I didn't notice the changes until they were already under way.

Oh yeah, and it worked at my full screen resolution (1650x1040- I've got widescreen).

not a ruling one, bu ti like it for a non explainable reason.

haunting.

A last Halcyon chillout? Very suggestive.

true masterpiece

I watched it and first of all i thought it was a joke...but then alas! the sun shone through the watery haze and a great ray of light shone down and a voice said ***CHILLOUT CHANNEL***

yes it is definately art and i loved the chillout music
So here's my market appraisal

a chillout domain name like chill.tv or whatever
would stream this and sell a commercial trailer to a skincare company or sunbeds/massage/ natural healthremedies market

also could be sold into chillout rooms/installations in nightclubs

so it just goes to show there is gold at the end of the rainbow :)

rubbish

lovely.

Controversial ratings.
For me it's wonderful!

who cares if it's art or not? it's BEAUTIFUL!

just not my cup of tea. sometimes it seems to me that somone thumbs something up and some nominal members have to do the same because they "follow the leader"(so demoscene is like a real social structure). for some reason this prod looks to me like "mainstream art". someone thumbs it up and it becomes over night one of the demo scene pop culture best ofs. maybe i am totally wrong.. you know i suck ;)

yes, it is beautiful indeed (oh no, now i'm following dipswitch thumb, trigger was right!)

whyyyyy

reeeeespect!!

parapete: You ARE British, aren't you?

well, i stand with halcyon, and ps.. and kosmoplovci, and Ryoji Ikeda, and Merce Cunningham, and Ulf Langheinrich.

I like this a lot; yes it has balls. *stylistically*, i felt it actually could have been longer. still, a memorable trip.

that was just plain boring

why not?
The impression that there is a deep tasting in production is received though it is certainly tedious.
I don't hate it.

This doesn't really work for me, I just don't really get it. But I have to admit that I loved the ending. The last few seconds when the polys drift apart. For some reason I can't explain, I really digged that. Those few seconds alone deserve the thumb.

<3

+

why not shown? music is way ill but it fits.

One of the most disturbingly nice productions i've ever seen scenewise. The slow pace, the perspective, the sparse palette, the music and the subtle changes sure makes my day. Any day.

demonstration?
has got sickness / genius style of 2001 by stanley kubrick.
superthumb!

this was disturbing yet enjoyable. otherwordly. awesome soundtrack.

Five years later: definetely one of the best demos ever made. Preselecting it from Assembly made it even more relevant.

Nice discussion, too.

BORING

soundtrack+mood..

why haven't i thumbed this yet?

be cool

Yeah, this deserves a thumb up just for the discussion it created.

Also, it rulez.

This rocks.

:O it is soo good..

fuck no. and 2.7mb of data?

The cure for insomnia. Utterly boring. Could write a lot more here but I let the thumb do the rest. :)

I love the music. The visuals weren't that inspiring, though, even for abstract art.

Where is the screenshot?

I totally agree with Dipswitch about this one. Gets a piggy because of the sound, the rest does absolutely nothing for me except making me want to press esc

( )

love it, just forgot to thumb :)

This should probably be watched only on big screen, because on a monitor it doesn't have that much dimension.

I won't watch it twice...

In regard of the avatar i've chosen, i owe halcyon to comment this...
Whatever you think of it, this demo had a critical influence on the demoscene history.

Leaving things open to the viewer's interpretation (and this demo left pretty much everything open) doesn't do the trick for me. Only thing I could make of it was some sort of representation of loneliness/emptiness/void, but it's a rather cheap and obvious representation if that was the intention.

All in all it failed to impress or move me, and what's left then is kind of butt-ugly and very simple.

Mystic. well, kind of... don't know.

wow....

thanks for leaving room for my imagination.

what else?

I'm with Jare.
It's a boring pile of dark bricks presented to some sort of "sound" that might include a distorted church bell of some kind.

I like the atmosphere.

I really don't get this prod. To me it's just plain boring.

Art.

Fart.

bI

atmosphere

Worked for me back in the days. Still works fine today. It requires the proper viewing conditions, though.

yeah, turn off all the lights!!!

Yes and always yes.

7 years old and stil owrks like a charm!

Yup.

I guess there's something I'm not getting... barely moving scenes of some black boxes on a red background... I don't know, it doesn't do anything for me other than bore me to tears.

sweet.

This was a great inspiration to me the first time I saw it.

Miraceously dreamy - real art - that taps to the imagination of a viewer, rather than trying to force down my throat a fairytale that I don't feel to really be mine at all, like most of the nowadays 3D flybys attempt to do.

the sound is .. immersive

=)

yes!!!

What "thumbdowners" said.

brainwash at its best. perfect for some background visualizations.

A few parts lack intensity in my opinion, but a pretty neat prod otherwise.

A great demo.

Accelerated gfx alarm there! :-)

black hairy boxes on a red background. somethimes something happends -- sometimes. killed me with boredom

What TomS4wy3R said. A niche prod, but an awesome one.

no!

meh

YESS!!

not really my cup of tea, even if I'm a big fan of Halcyon :)

ok

don't try to concentrate on what isn't - and what is not going to be there. instead, remove all expectations, and keep your eyes and your ears open.

watched it again, and it's still inspiring.
must be the extremely good music.

Great atmosphere. Visuals were one interpretation derived from soundscape, and a fitting one at that, although just by closing eyes i had much better visions and thoughts. Or then vice versa, visuals make room for the soundscape, everyone can decide on their own.

Wacka wacka!

überweird.

CCE sent me here after a short discussion about saudade and the feeling it transports (for me). This one needs the special mood as well, but hey it's Sunday and I still have coffee.
Somehow such conceptional demos always make my mind come up with stories, like as a kid when you played VCS and the blocks became turtles that had to go home - and the bullies wouldn't let it (that's what I came up with for playing pong O_o)

This feels like being an astronaut, accidentally finding a spaceship cemetery far beyond Jupiter, he does his EVA and just floats - being somehow scared but also mesmerized by the view.

And sure, one could be unimaginative and just see dumb blocks with hairy lines,- but one can also just let go and enjoy the view, regardless how big the mp3 is. Sometimes it's more about the product, then the way it was produced (at least for me).

YES !!!

CHIMERAAAAAAAAAAAA!
IT SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS!
P.S. Change teh skrinshat

Might have its merits, but didn't enjoy it. Piggy.

this really bored me af.

Mesmerizing.

I have to agree with Analogue; evolution can be good. Whatever you think of this work you have to agree that it has done the work of Art and stimulated people's minds or inspired them enough to comment.... Look at the number of posts!

Loved it.... Thank you for sharing and the work that went into it!

Wonderful minimal ambience.

That was boring and pretentious.

so much controversy for such a great atmosphere and ambient, mystically awesome and classy

An important landmark in the stylistic evolution of demoscene

i dig its aesthetic

It's good

how have i not thumbed this up.
this is the quintessential art production in the demoscene.

in da way it is displayed! horticulture4thayeha!

love't in the past and now.

A bit dull but conceptually interesting.. Funny to remind how Halcyon was bad lucked to Assembly

way ahead of its time. "all" fancypancy 4Ks of today are like this.

Recently I tried to remember this demo, wondering what's the point with these kind of demos, I still don't understand, I am pretty sure I thumbed it down. Then I was browsing the comments to look at the reaction. Then I found my old comment thumbing it up enthousiastically and saying somethhing about alternative worlds and realities and hahahahaha

first saw this around '06 iirc, and I didn't get it, but now I think it rules

This can loop forever.

Way ahead of its time. Great music.

Whoop, no.

One of the best alternative deomos ever!