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The Legend of Sisyphus by Andromeda Software Development [web]
[nfo]
screenshot added by aMUSiC on 2023-08-05 21:54:58
platform :
type :
release date : august 2023
release party : Assembly 2023
compo : pc demo
ranked : 1st
  • 178
  • 15
  • 1
popularity : 75%
 75%
  • 0.91
  • 10
alltime top: #220
added on the 2023-08-05 21:54:58 by aMUSiC aMUSiC

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Insane
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 21:55:14 by neon neon
woah D:

clearlyon of the best, if not the best pc demo in the recent times
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 21:56:27 by wbcbz7 wbcbz7
Unbelievable next level design.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 21:57:27 by gaspode gaspode
https://youtu.be/FzC9H9lSQfs
added on the 2023-08-05 21:58:26 by Navis Navis
omfg.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 21:59:01 by mantratronic mantratronic
yes!!! so much yes!! <3
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 21:59:49 by Enfys Enfys
exceptional
rulezcdc added on the 2023-08-05 22:00:27 by Daddy Freddy Daddy Freddy
Definitely stole the spotlight, incredible demo
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:00:30 by HEXWALKER HEXWALKER
Excellent, tad too long though.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:00:47 by leGend leGend
This demo is the thing of legends!

Incredible style, visuals, music, progression,... This is next level ASD
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:00:49 by p01 p01
Really nice demo as always by ASD, artistic nsfw stuff, nice music, very trippy and unsure about the story but great stuff
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:02:46 by Queen_Luna Queen_Luna
it's A to the mf SD :O
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:03:31 by sensenstahl sensenstahl
That was quite a trip.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:04:00 by break break
Holy shit. Yes
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:04:24 by shaiggon shaiggon
Pure, utter perfection.

Absolutely stunning in all respects.

Possibly the best PC demo in the last 15-20 years, if not ever.
rulezcdc added on the 2023-08-05 22:04:29 by uncle-x uncle-x
This is pure magic!
The visuals are stunning.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:06:23 by guille^cocoon guille^cocoon
No words, holy shit.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:08:35 by Brittle Brittle
did hear the story now in the Compostudio and interview with Navis :)
Love it. The visual style. The great music. The dancers.
Well done, ASD!
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:12:15 by ham ham
That is simply amazing. 1-2 mins. too long, but other than that; Holy S***!
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:13:07 by PRiDE PRiDE
Yooooo amazing. Absolutely stunning.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:13:13 by MuffinHop MuffinHop
Spectacular! ASD wins the demoscene! Might be the best demo of all time, some next level stuff that no one else comes close to. Perfection! Thank you for giving us this!
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:13:18 by java java
Magistral !
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:17:36 by alkama alkama
Haha Jesus Christ what a tour de force. Some things bothered me but goddamn that’s nitpicks on what is clearly a fantastic demo.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:25:54 by okkie okkie
amazing work!
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:28:06 by psenough psenough
Unbelievable amount of content, polished to perfection! Incredible style, will surely watch this often! Maybe it's a bit too long, and I didn't get why she was nude and he was clothed, but well. Masterpiece!
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:29:47 by v3nom v3nom
A masterpiece. Nuff said.

Unfortunately crashes here about two thirds or so into the loading process (Radeon RX570).
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:31:59 by Saga Musix Saga Musix
ASD is back !! lovely demo <3
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:37:56 by bsp bsp
what okkie said
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:41:49 by post malone post malone
Loving everything about this. Especially for being the first demo featuring human movement that's not just believable, but also creativel worthwhile. Beyond the usual and way overused mocaps. The coherence between soundtrack, direction, parts, and everything is amazing me, too.

Overall, it captured something from the dark side of the moon for me. In a very different way.

Excellent excellence. Damn'it! :)
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:44:22 by rp rp
many thanks!
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:45:55 by Frozzy Frozzy
Beautiful
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:53:42 by Depeche Depeche
Quote:
Unfortunately crashes here about two thirds or so into the loading process (Radeon RX570).

"Worked" here on an RX580, but it definitely didn't look like it was supposed to and the music kept stuttering - which also happened on my NVIDIA PC where it looked correct.

I don't know.

There's a lot - A LOT - to love here: it is a compositing masterpiece and it definitely feels like one of those pieces where there's barely any demoscene influence detectable on it, and instead feels like a modern music video produced by a forward-thinking creative studio with a ton of resources - to have this made by a handful of people for a demo compo (i.e. running realtime) is both impressive and hopeful. ("Old guard" argument notwithstanding.)

But then the more it flashes the more my eyes get tired of it, and there's that midsection where it's basically the same content for a solid 3 minutes both visually and aurally, and it just feels like someone either ran out of ideas, or was perhaps too overconfident to trim it...? (And mind you, all those shots are fantastically composed - but it becomes an exercise in permutation rather than something progressing the experience.) And then out of nowhere a tunnel, because you can't get rid of ALL the demoscene cliches, apparently :(

Like, don't get me wrong, if this (and Mechasm - a demo that is, entertainingly, the diametric opposite of this) is the future of demos, sign me the fuck up - but kings are meant to be measured with the scale of kings, and to reach perfection it could've massively benefited from at the very least an editing pass.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 22:55:30 by Gargaj Gargaj
Very much a contender for my favorite ASD and PC demo, I just respond to a human body that much more passionately than anything else in demos, especially when unnatural movement is included. Having a narrating main character and a personality in your cast is something I find is often lacking in demos, and mindfully pushing that in the forefront of a heavily symbolical world and journey in a demo like this hits me deeply and makes me appreciate your work as artists. I find it difficult to justify any cuts or removals in this one. Thank you for participating and making something so beautiful for us to enjoy and learn from. If nothing else I’m very fired up about 4d scanning technology and AR’s possibilities in demomaking, and you’re exactly showing us how fantastic and real can intermingle on an emotional level.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 23:05:24 by visy visy
Wow. The graphics design alone in this one makes a grown man weep. I loved the reference to bell tower in Lifeforce.

This is one of the best demos I've seen in a long time, and it had the biggest impact on me in the last 10 years at least. Bravo.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 23:11:25 by Piru Piru
A bit long perhaps (the middle part also seems to repeat a bit), but still absolutely nuts.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 23:23:29 by Trilkk Trilkk
@Trilkk: Yeah, the middlepart misses some changes in the music.
added on the 2023-08-05 23:27:36 by gaspode gaspode
Sick effects and mograph! Design was *really* on point and shaders complemented that. Like rp/visy mentioned, the human movement was so refreshing... it felt imperfect and personal!
Personal nitpick - I do feel the snare (and track) is overstated, but that's what the demo is going for :)
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 23:37:44 by wrighter wrighter
I was not ready for this.
Masterpiece.
Pushing the bar again.
Wow.
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 23:39:45 by wullon wullon
This was crazy! Quite different than older ASD demos, but very very unique visuals. It will take more re-watches what's going on the screen. Also ran nice in my PC with RTX 3060 (8MB).
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 23:49:06 by Optimus Optimus
"It will take more re-watches" - to appreciate/understand "what's going on the screen"
added on the 2023-08-05 23:49:40 by Optimus Optimus
Absolutely incredible piece. Huge grin on my face frame the first frame to the last.

Looking forwards to the final...
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 23:55:43 by evilpaul evilpaul
Great stuff as usual.
I would join the high level nitpickings of it beeing pretty long and repetitive, but maybe thats the intended part of the sisyphus experience as a viewer :P
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 23:56:04 by gopher gopher
Too many JUGZ Vibes to be a complete ASD revolution for me, but it looks hella good.
The Soundtrack is also very nice but a bit too poppish and dim at some points
rulez added on the 2023-08-05 23:57:31 by wysiwtf wysiwtf
We waited for five years for ASD to return to Assembly with a blockbuster, and I was not disappointed. I only saw it on stream so far, but it has very much the quality of a modern music video (both in terms of direction and rendering)—only realtime. I agree it becomes a little repetitive at some point in the middle, but then he gets to the top of the mountain and it just takes a different turn, which helped a lot. (I also feel like it got a bit unlucky in the compo, in that we already saw a lot of mocap dancers in the previous prods, which lowered my tolerance a bit. But that's not this demo's fault, of course.)

I love the music, too. Congrats :-)
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 00:01:04 by Sesse Sesse
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.
added on the 2023-08-06 00:07:17 by aMUSiC aMUSiC
ihan perus
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 00:16:09 by yzi yzi
What uncle-x said. The best demo for a loooooong time. Unbelievable from start to finish <3 <3 <3
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 00:21:33 by mayday mayday
absolutely loved this one
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 00:41:48 by msqrt msqrt
A massive demo, for sure! I'm curious about the motion capture and 3D scans, though. Some dot clusters remind me of the Kinect stuff, but I'm sure this can be done in a number of ways with LIDAR capable phones, etc. Cool, cool stuff. ❤️
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 01:15:42 by Morden Morden
I'm still in awe.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 01:23:07 by fenarinarsa fenarinarsa
epic just like all asd demos!
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 01:37:13 by kimi kardashian kimi kardashian
It can't be better!
rulezcdc added on the 2023-08-06 02:23:05 by Anat Anat
Quote:
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


When watching the compostudio, listening to Navis' explanation, I could see his interpretation of the demo, but I felt like there was a clear queer interpretation as well, and somehow nobody was mentioning it. But luckily I'm not alone here. (And that's before I read the lyrics - I couldn't even make out the words before reading them, as I'm really really bad at understanding lyrics in music.)
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 03:40:15 by porocyon porocyon
Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection we can catch excellence with this demo! Looking at the NFO, having actors and a (hollywood) director is mandatory now? :) Love the Lifeforce references to! Greetz to Navis and aMUSIC!
rulezcdc added on the 2023-08-06 04:30:05 by magic magic
Massive production values. Massive tech. Massive soundtrack. Massive length. Massive concept. Massive comeback. Massive demo. Massive.

But.

For some reason, I wasn't taken away like I was with most other ASD productions. It's impossible to not admire it, and it definitely deserves that, but I felt buried under all the massive. I missed the whimsical bits and the occasional low-key bits of previous ASD blockbusters, because ASD if anyone is the master of putting in a human touch in demos. This demo has people in it, and everything on a scale that hasn't been seen before. But it doesn't have that, at least not in the way that speaks to me.

But it's still, of course, massive. Probably the best demo of recent times and a benchmark for a decade to come.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 07:57:41 by Preacher Preacher
Whow, first you think it's going to be a remaster of an golden oldie. But then it's just some kind of ode to. And than the magic happends. Finally an ASD production that raises the bar. That's the way I like things to go. And now I stop writing, gonna enjoy it once more!
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 08:35:22 by mSW mSW
Next level demomaking! That fractal zoom built from people was so cool! The whole thing has a unique colorstyle too. Not your usual blue/orange fest.

I wouldn’t know how to do this even if I got handed all the assets on a silver plate. There is a really unique style that you’ll have a hard time imitating. And it must have been a huge effort to put this thing together and achieve the right flow.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 09:21:35 by rloaderro rloaderro
I have not been this excited about a PC demo in a long time. Exceptional work.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 10:14:19 by Sebbert Sebbert
Outstanding.
90 seconds too long though.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 10:26:59 by SiR SiR
Insane…
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 11:02:31 by Adam Bazaroff Adam Bazaroff
CRAZY
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 11:31:42 by TomCatAbaddon TomCatAbaddon
while beautiful at times, there's just too much sin in it for my liking
suckscdc added on the 2023-08-06 11:49:00 by randomi randomi
An awesome demo! Maybe the best demo ever made.
But there will always be one idiot thumbing it down :)
rulezcdc added on the 2023-08-06 12:01:20 by hfr hfr
hfr, so sorry for having a different opinion from you, didn't mean to offend you.
added on the 2023-08-06 12:20:30 by randomi randomi
Wow wow wow..wow... Just wow. Watching this on the big screen was epic!
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 12:28:11 by cahva^rno cahva^rno
the more I watch it the less bothered I'm about the length (I thought at first that it was just a tad too long like some other people here). Outstanding work!
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 12:38:00 by illusion illusion
Congratulations! This prod is amazing and is really the next level of a demo.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 13:15:10 by Stalvik^bbz Stalvik^bbz
Highly impressive!

Great music, direction and tech. It is all there. Really, really great work.

Awesome.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 13:28:24 by imerso imerso
Best ASD demo!
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 13:59:38 by ISL ISL
Different league :) Stunning visuals, top quality direction and music. I can't add to what others have written so thank you for the experience.
rulezcdc added on the 2023-08-06 14:53:45 by netro netro
Absolutely incredible. The immersion and the ambience were spot on. The music after around 3:00 is just looping in my head.

The only bad part was the tunnel near end, which looked and sounded like any average demo. The soundtrack and art were great until that.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 15:13:51 by Mixeri Mixeri
Fantastic demo. I'm glad I was able to see it on bigscreen.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 15:22:58 by luutifa luutifa
Yes, yes, yes! This is it. Sure we can spend our time nitpicking at the details, but the ambition and concept is so unlike anything else, such criticism feels like a waste of time. Personally, I even enjoy the tunnel scene; in a production so far ahead of normal demoscene standards, it makes sense to pay some homage to tradition, even if it's cliche.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 16:23:26 by Rastertail Rastertail
insanely good

will have to watch again.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 17:38:30 by NR4 NR4
Whoa! This is a bunch of *fresh* ideas, very welcome! (and brilliantly executed as always)
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 17:44:09 by NeARAZ NeARAZ
Watched from mobile here at Split beach, great anyway, amazing human movement, bit long yeah. Great for PC :P
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 17:49:33 by Serpent Serpent
Absolutely wild. I love this <3
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 19:42:28 by SnC SnC
state of the art 2.0
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 19:43:03 by ritzu ritzu
Archived size 674MB? Are you fucked up?
added on the 2023-08-06 20:32:31 by foym foym
Very powerful and amazing demo. I loved the small nuances that were straight from Lifeforce (some piano parts, the bell tower, to name a few). I think you guys have developed a lot in artistic manner even though you've been very high level for a very very long time.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 20:55:54 by Aurora Aurora
foym: Yeah, compressing 2TB of 3D motion capture data to 674MB is fucked up indeed. In a very positive, impressive way.
Pure awesomeness, insane prod.
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 22:27:34 by decca decca
I'm not sure what to think about this demo. Sure, it may looks abstract and cool on the one side... but on the other side, i'm not sure what is real 3D and what may be probaly just some anims (video or 2-8 color compresssed bitmap frames) where some fx layer was added.

This happens to me esp from 01:47 to 02:15+ ... Unfortunately, it is simply not clear to me whether this is ingenious code (3D and motion capture) - or just a layer that simply has an animation/video integrated.

This is not meant in a bad way, even i know Navis is an amazing coder and i like nearly all of his stunning productions. Unfortunately, the demo seems to me like a "WildCompo video" (maybe it's just programmed too perfectly), so I'm missing that certain something (can't really name it). So unfortunately it's not my taste.

Last but not least i had to realize that the unpacked demo is about 880 MB in size. WTF? Sorry, but for me that has nothing to do with the classic demos anymore. (Maybe there should be a new and separate category/genre for this kind of demos.)
added on the 2023-08-06 22:41:44 by MrVainSCL MrVainSCL
It's oldschool, the archive still fits on a single CD-R!
(And unpacked on excactly 1000 Amiga disks. Not so much after all.)

Aside from that: Loved how its beginning fits with the ending of Lifeforce (and thereby gave me good memories from my only trip to Helsinki in 2007) and I especially enjoyed the music (not exactly the rap, but most of the singing and the instrumental).
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 23:04:29 by novel novel
Great demo.

Really liked the vocals, a hint of Pet Shop Boys was very fitting :) Would wish they'd be put more forward in the mix so they could be heard more clearly though.
added on the 2023-08-06 23:19:31 by lug00ber lug00ber
Of course deserves a thumb up.

I like the transition effects and custom rendering code.

The "plot" seems more mature in terms of artistic direction.

About file size - nowadays AAA games are around 100 GB, although, yeah, games are *interactive*. But I think I get it - Navis seems to just like to create effects and flow with hand-crafted code - so it's just a choice of medium, like "oil on canvas" for the painting, here is "compute shader on GPU" for animation ;P
rulez added on the 2023-08-06 23:31:17 by tomkh tomkh
674 mb - so what, who cares? nowadays most games i play on ps4/ps5 have at least 50 mb (many over 100 mb) save files.
Absolutely terrific. I generally like the ASD style and this one was another beautiful piece of art. I appreciate the amount of effort you put into it a lot!
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 00:19:44 by juvi juvi
Quote:
Archived size 674MB? Are you fucked up?

These comments are doubly funny because the demo that came 2nd in the compo is actually twice as big to download, but nobody has been crying about this yet (ok fair, it's not on pouët at the time of writing).
added on the 2023-08-07 01:21:53 by porocyon porocyon
Amazing demo.
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 07:48:55 by xoofx xoofx
It looked really nice, well crafted and pure talent in all aspects. What a great level of professionalism. Best ASD soundtrack so far. I love the nice way of how all the Houdiniesque effects have been composited.

A huge letdown for me was the actual length of it. It just drags on and on which totally spoiled the atmosphere for me. I’m absolutely with Gargaj here.

To be honest, watching it on 1.5x speed as a video makes it a totally different demo but a lot more entertaining.

I absolutely value the craftsmanship here, the amount of work that went into it is amazing and we’ve seen a lot of effects the first time in a demoscene production carried out in a pixel perfect fashion.

Best demo of the year for sure!
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 08:13:41 by prost prost
let's fucking GO
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 08:16:57 by ferris ferris
The archived size to me was a huge letdown (647MB). Am I watching a genius realtime calculated demo or simply a pre-rendered video clip?
For me personally size does matter to appreciate the demo magic. The 4K demo Elevated has this magic 1000 times more. I'm not stating this demo would fit in 4K of course, but it would be nice to see a video-render(eg 1080p) turns up 10 times bigger than the actual binaries.
added on the 2023-08-07 10:09:52 by davince davince
Every demoscene should wish for creation of such a great demo.
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 10:34:25 by tjahzi(aka Jimi) tjahzi(aka Jimi)
One of the best modern PC demos ever made.
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 11:04:19 by emoon emoon
Lovely demo!
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 11:06:50 by Rob Rob
Absolutely brilliant demo. I'd be surprised if this didn't end up as the demo of the year, maybe even of the decade.
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 11:08:34 by kusma kusma
Mind blown. And I disagree about the demo being too long the same way as I usually disagree when people say that some techno track is too repetitive :)
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 11:09:11 by cp_ cp_
Hi ! Great experience at Asm, as always (and always in a very different way to previous visits). While the new ("new", ok since 10 years ago) arena doesn't have the charm of the old one, I really appreciate the huge improvement over the sound quality.

I have plenty to say about production etc. so I'll make a blog entry about all of this and give you the link here on pouet soon.
added on the 2023-08-07 11:12:51 by Navis Navis
All I can say is WOW! I've watched it several times already and am still finding new details! I can't wait to see this in real-time on a big-screen, to find even more little things that the encoder is swallowing! LOVE LOVE LOVE this production.
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 11:18:19 by susencrusen susencrusen
Mind blown, absolutely incredible work!
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 11:52:43 by 71M 71M
Hey y'all - something I wrote for this demo

https://navis-asd.blogspot.com/
added on the 2023-08-07 12:58:04 by Navis Navis
suprisingly enough, it does run fine enough on 2060 6gb! (apart of one 2fps-with-stuttering-music hiccup for a couple of seconds, but for such a tiny vram amount it's more than forgivable :)
added on the 2023-08-07 13:43:46 by wbcbz7 wbcbz7
c o n t e n t
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 13:53:52 by sol_hsa sol_hsa
Watching in my homecinema. Goosebumps. I'm not on the "best demo in 10 years" track, but it's really awesome ♥ thank you
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 13:59:00 by HellMood HellMood
Quote:
This happens to me esp from 01:47 to 02:15+ ... Unfortunately, it is simply not clear to me whether this is ingenious code (3D and motion capture) - or just a layer that simply has an animation/video integrated.


There is no 2D animation/video anywhere, it's all 3D even this sequence with the (on purpose restrained) ultra low FOV camera. The texture of the meshes (all ~ 2700 of them) is contained for every frame at a low-ish resolution of 1mp but upscaled internally during rendering. The demo does look different at different resolutions (1440p will be more crisp than 1080p).
Each frame of the 3d meshes has position, UV, indices, velocity vectors and an associated texture. They work at around 25k vertices each but come to a footprint of around 180kbytes. Half of this is the texture. So ~4 bytes for position/UV/index and 3D velocity per vertex; I'll take that.


I could have half of the frames for half of the "perceived framerate" (currently at originally recorded 30fps) but it would look choppy. Why do that?

There is also a 90mbyte pointcloud that corresponds to the 10s of Mparticles tunnel thingie at the end, that contains XYZ color and AO info, recreated from photogrammetry. Also a gigantic dll from opencv and a 20MByte mp3.
It's still all fairly well compressed, as the zip and the unzipped file are of fairly similar size.
added on the 2023-08-07 13:59:46 by Navis Navis
Also the decoding/decompressing of the frames is super-fast at 100's of fps. What takes considerably longer, unfortunately, is the composition of that into display lists. Don't ask me why I use display lists and not something else (much) faster like VBO to keep in memory. I had a good reason but I forgot it :-).
added on the 2023-08-07 14:15:55 by Navis Navis
This takes so much mastery of so many skills, I can't even realize. All I know is that this flawless technique is only there to serve an awesome artistic performance. Kudos to everyone involved.
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 14:37:24 by Soundy Soundy
Awesome demo, fresh and using mocap in a refreshing way to the typical moves we see which I dig very much. Beautiful demo and quite the achievement, more well deserved praise incoming.
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 15:26:04 by keito keito
I really don't understand people complaining about the file size. in 2023, 700mb is really not that much data for what is shown here. And with video compression becoming better too, yes, demo's will be larger than their capture, it has nothing to do with the code? I'm really baffled about _that_ as a complaint..
added on the 2023-08-07 17:15:29 by okkie okkie
Oh, holy cube ... that was outstanding. I smell awards :D
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 17:36:54 by dirtie dirtie
Thank you!
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 17:41:29 by Mystra Mystra
Quote:
I really don't understand people complaining about the file size. in 2023, 700mb is really not that much data for what is shown here. And with video compression becoming better too, yes, demo's will be larger than their capture, it has nothing to do with the code? I'm really baffled about _that_ as a complaint..


I think this is because part of the "WOW" that made the scene was always the incredible size-reduction which came with procedural content generation.
Having a Demo that could well be a video in size does take that away somehow, no matter if your connection and computer can handle that amount of data easily these days.
This doesnt imply the demo is "just a video player" or "badly optimized" but the bigger the data the more awesome you expect being packed. Spoiler: it doesnt scale like that.

Same thing with games actually - a pixelart indie with <100MB in size is still more impressive to me than the one that comes in the 3GB flavour, no matter what the data is actually used for.

Having that said: an intro is an intro and a demo is a demo - so theres that and this is awesome.
added on the 2023-08-07 18:04:19 by wysiwtf wysiwtf
Quote:
demo's will be larger than their capture

*demos

Also, that statement is only true in 1080p, and not in, say, 4k - which you can run the same demo in.
added on the 2023-08-07 18:08:12 by Gargaj Gargaj
...and even a 1080p capture of this demo at 700MB would probably look pretty shitty compared to realtime.
This is so next level on so many points that indeed, its critics will have to resort to next level bad faith.
Quote:
I really don't understand people complaining about the file size. in 2023, 700mb is really not that much data for what is shown here. And with video compression becoming better too, yes, demo's will be larger than their capture, it has nothing to do with the code? I'm really baffled about _that_ as a complaint..

Lossless H.264-capture (4:4:4) in 1440p ended up at around 50 GB, so 700 MB is reasonable. :)
added on the 2023-08-07 18:57:07 by neon neon
Quote:
I really don't understand people complaining about the file size. in 2023, 700mb is really not that much data for what is shown here. And with video compression becoming better too, yes, demo's will be larger than their capture, it has nothing to do with the code? I'm really baffled about _that_ as a complaint..

Seems you do understand but don't agree. That's different but fine. In my case I also wasn't complaining, but described my personal take on this demo in comparison to lots of other demos I watched in the past 30 years and sorry to have a preference. Maybe i'm old skool, but weren't it the (size)restrictions that made the demo scene in the first place?
ps: i'm just a lamer, unable to produce something that can participate in any party, so I would never criticize the people creating demos as I have deep respect for them.
added on the 2023-08-07 18:59:57 by davince davince
No I legit don’t understand the file size being the issue. Nobody ever complains about needing gigs of RAM. Size restrictions were never really a thing for demos, and they always used assets and weren’t “procedurally generated”, those are size coded demos (or intros)

Also kinda meant “video might take over eventually” and honestly love being proven wrong as I totally forgot the sizes of 4K or even 1440p haha.

Also gargaj, I’m Dutch, don’t hurt me.
added on the 2023-08-07 19:18:22 by okkie okkie
Someone will point out that some demos are procedurally generated so yeah not all.

Either way, this is a fantastic demo and I’ll stop this derail.
added on the 2023-08-07 19:19:58 by okkie okkie
Nice, though I would have preferred to have lyrics sung in Greek.
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 20:18:41 by la_mettrie la_mettrie
I am speechless. What a tour de force!
rulezcdc added on the 2023-08-07 20:19:46 by Paralax Paralax
Not bad.
added on the 2023-08-07 20:43:19 by AntDude AntDude
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.
added on the 2023-08-07 20:50:49 by aMUSiC aMUSiC
The music is fine, especially the singing from the walking guy, but I haven't been impressed by ASD visuals for years now (too noisy) especially after examples like "Wind Under My Wings", although that music was great.

No, I yearn more for the "Lifeforce" and "Happiness / Bend" days of ASD visuals and better music.
added on the 2023-08-07 21:15:31 by Foebane72 Foebane72
Breaking new ground! Although I love a lot of what is going on in this demo I find it a bit repetitive at times, but perhaps that's just me...
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 22:12:14 by Daniel Daniel
An outstanding piece of art.
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 22:30:55 by slayer slayer
A lot of good cuts in this and transition ideas.. pretty seamless, in some places a bit underwhelming (point cloud specifc scenes) but a lot of big scenes / effects too. The guy was annoying after a while though. Which elements are volumetric pointclouds with remeshing and are there some clever comping here with 2.5D pointcloud stuff or just plain video? All very well disguised if so.
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 22:32:31 by dv$ dv$
I don't get the story, but who cares. This is awesome!
rulez added on the 2023-08-07 22:55:00 by orange orange
Quote:
Which elements are volumetric pointclouds with remeshing and are there some clever comping here with 2.5D pointcloud stuff or just plain video?


Everything is in 3D. The first part with the pointcloud/splines/skeleton face is only pointclouds/splines, the later parts full geometry (indices/uvs etc). There is no 2.5D. The first part with the splines is the "heaviest" cpu part as it is calculating a lot on the fly (the physical like threads waved from hands and head) but it's well parallelised etc so it's not very heavy.
The albedo texture of each frame is also exposed to the shader - it "refreshes" at a random interval (at a ratio of about 1:8) which helps the random spastic movements in the shading. The texture is upscaled internally and the main effect of the weird dithering is simple:

output = vec3(1.0) * sin ( UV.x*1000.0);

That is, the default texture is replaced by horizontal lines. It works because the UV mapping has patches rotated in space, therefore looks like thatched lines that meet at random points. The frequency of the sin is also controlled by the default albedo texture. Add shadows, some AO, and lots of postprocess and it's close to the effect on the screen.

Alll other lighting and particles is deferred, and most of the background and certain elements of the scenery (moons, bridge, water) is effectively 2D in postprocess. There is a special shader to recolor everything in HSV space based on velocity of elements - you see it more clearly in the first part where the fast moving hands are purple. There is a bit of raymarching here and there (both "inside eye" scenes and all volumetric lighting in the tunnel).
added on the 2023-08-07 23:08:28 by Navis Navis
I rushed -- RUSHED -- here to leave this comment as soon as I saw it: Navis, this is one of your finest works, if not your very finest, and a shining example of what the demoscene represents. What a wonderful, wonderful surprise.
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 07:15:21 by trixter trixter
just. wow.
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 07:15:28 by spiikki spiikki
So, I think it's the best ASD demo made. Two things did for me: 1) The geometries were not glitched to the max: there was some genuine worry that this would get twitch stream banned, proving it. This allowed enjoying the body expressions and dancing in a way that I have not experienced in a demo before (or at least not that I remember). The kind of appreciation for the human body that one gets from a modern dance performance. 2) I just don't like strong lead electric guitars with a ton of distortion. Something about them just screams "listen to me!!!!" which prevents me from focusing on the whole. So, for me, their absence was a good thing.

I missed the seminar - I hope asm will put it online/available!
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 08:04:35 by pestis pestis
One of the best.
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 09:14:03 by eimink eimink
wow! excellent. congrats! welcome back!
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 11:28:31 by bartman bartman
A giant demo from Greek gods :)
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 14:24:19 by NokoNoko NokoNoko
Such a fantastic piece of art, i'm truly in awe. Brilliant.
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 14:56:47 by darya darya
Wtf?

Different, fresh and awesome!
My only (very small) nitpick being that it could have been just a tad bit shorter.

What a demo!
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 15:45:26 by Puryx Puryx
awesome, and what makes it special comparing to modern time music videos is that it runs realtime on a computer
ps.at first I thought the guy is wearing stockings because of the dithering
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 17:22:45 by gorgh gorgh
Quote:

ps.at first I thought the guy is wearing stockings because of the dithering


:D I mean why not ...
added on the 2023-08-08 17:36:11 by illusion illusion
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
added on the 2023-08-08 18:01:25 by aMUSiC aMUSiC
So beautiful.

About the duration, I don't find it too long at all. There's so much content to carry it through.
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 19:19:48 by chavez chavez
I loved every second of it! Didn't think it was too long at all.

And the seminar about the demo was as inspiring as the demo itself.
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 20:14:02 by OUTRON OUTRON
Pretty amazing. I also thought about video anims but was soon convinced they were cleverly adjusted 3d models. When I first saw the demo and with the title related to Sisyphus myth, I couldn't but think about the rise and fall of an artist star. It seems it was not your first intention but fits well anyway and totally fulfill the sisyphus myth ;).
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 20:42:57 by ok3anos ok3anos
State Of The Art - Next Level
rulez added on the 2023-08-08 23:10:25 by RufUsul RufUsul
what a wonderful demo. note to myself, not to browse pouet.net when drunk.
added on the 2023-08-09 04:06:05 by randomi randomi
Amazing work!
:D
rulez added on the 2023-08-09 17:44:03 by TomS4wy3R TomS4wy3R
Wonderful. Is 1920*1200 supported ? Isn't available in the launcher and I can't precisely see if there's some distorsion.
added on the 2023-08-09 18:44:05 by atlan atlan
Pretty much what others already pointed - it's on the verge of genius and snooze fest (typical ASD to me :) Quick improvements - sacrify the second act, and give us the 4 minutes cut. It's just too long and too repetitive, I catch myself pushing forward on youtube. Please, do not be enemies of a designer - typography choices are co coder-like :) As impressive at the first sight it as, I will not see myself voluntarily seeing it again. Lukewarm up.
added on the 2023-08-09 19:25:36 by AzzaroMWI AzzaroMWI
See, I even forgot to click it...
rulez added on the 2023-08-09 19:26:24 by AzzaroMWI AzzaroMWI
What an awesome comeback-surprise! That tunnel at the end sealed the deal for me. I take fast paced in-my-face effects over artsy composition any day of the week, but this demo has it all.
rulez added on the 2023-08-09 21:10:48 by Duckers Duckers
I hope a day i will achieve that technical level, and that level in art
rulez added on the 2023-08-09 22:34:39 by med med
Wow. Great modern ASD demo.
rulez added on the 2023-08-10 19:11:32 by raer raer
WOW, ASD never disappoints.
rulez added on the 2023-08-10 20:31:21 by Tigrou Tigrou
from the beginning to the end a smile filled my face, after a long time a true pixel magic appeared in my monitor
rulez added on the 2023-08-10 21:10:38 by SX1Freak SX1Freak
...and the music, the spirit of jarre and floyd is present
added on the 2023-08-10 21:55:34 by SX1Freak SX1Freak
outstanding!
rulez added on the 2023-08-10 23:47:58 by valsary valsary
This is pure art. I have watched it again and again. more and more details! Hat off. Best demo in 10-15 years on the PC for me (for its time)! Outside the "for its time"-element maybe the best demo ever? Grats!
rulez added on the 2023-08-11 00:06:09 by Proteque Proteque
Incredible demo that take you from the very first second until the end.
The style and direction are very original and refreshing, for sure the best ASD demo and probably a new milestone in the demo.
I hope this one will raise the interest for the high-end competition, and I guess everybody here already hope to see you competing in the demo compo next easter :D
rulez added on the 2023-08-11 01:27:00 by rez rez
This prod has grown on me a lot. I particularly love the way the visuals react with the beat, and the music has become one of my favourites. ASD FTW!
rulez added on the 2023-08-11 08:56:48 by Foebane72 Foebane72
music is simply exceptional, does anyone have full lyrics
added on the 2023-08-11 09:58:59 by randomi randomi
@randomi, amusic posted them a bit up
added on the 2023-08-11 10:52:55 by wrighter wrighter
Also, they are in the comment tag of the MP3 :-)
added on the 2023-08-11 11:27:33 by Sesse Sesse
Amazing. Thank you for bringing the true demo art to 2023.
rulez added on the 2023-08-11 13:50:55 by Skynet Skynet
Amazing!
rulez added on the 2023-08-11 15:01:22 by ghandy ghandy
Completely crashes the graphic driver (what does not happen that often): RX 6700XT (latest drivers), i5-12600k, Win11.

Saw it on YT anyway. Okay for me.
added on the 2023-08-12 19:01:29 by peturba peturba
Probably the best PC demo. Sadly it does not work on my AMD GPU :)
rulez added on the 2023-08-13 01:20:02 by Paaris Paaris
High quality data and presentation with great compositions. Really feels next level. Thank you!
rulez added on the 2023-08-13 10:20:47 by warp warp
Just another time ASD has absolutely blown my mind and lifted the bar for demo making ...
rulezcdc added on the 2023-08-13 14:54:17 by iTeC iTeC
Great demo! One of the most pleasurable aspects of this demo is its ability to induce similar immersive experiences (like the tunnel part) as did many older great demos.
rulez added on the 2023-08-13 16:17:50 by lancel lancel
Outstanding demo! Great work guys!
rulez added on the 2023-08-13 18:29:01 by TMA TMA
Wow, awesome!
rulez added on the 2023-08-13 19:56:26 by tifeco tifeco
That's gotta be the cheesiest ASD demo
added on the 2023-08-14 10:31:07 by MsK` MsK`
wtf did i just watch??
some moments are brilliant, some i cant decide if they are brilliant or laugh out loud terrible, and the rest just raise so many questions. how did a europop music video get cut in here? why do the statues twitch like they are having a seizure? why is there a 3d scanned tunnel? does that old water effect have to be in every asd demo? are we still "rendering lit 3d with point sprites" like it's new, > 10 years after it was? is it cheesy or actually brilliantly subversive (the flashing eyes/turning to skulls suggested the latter)?

it follows the familiar ASD direction route of putting random things together with clever transitions to make it seem like it's coherent - and it creates some good moments. but honestly, i think this needed a slightly stronger designer+director hand to make the "wtf" actually make sense and make the narrative come out. as it is, i end up asking "is there a narrative at all (is it just random scenes)" rather than "what is the narrative/point".

great work with the volcap, that feels new in a demo. way nicer than 2.5d/kinect and offers more possibilities than skinned rigs. i also really appreciate the production value in going out and shooting this material for a demo. (ignore the filesize haters.)
i also really like the hashed line look. some nice glitch fx, some really nice uses of the volcap meshes for effects, with e.g. connecting them with polygons, or running particles off them.

overall it's still a thousand miles above other demos. if there's a future for the pc demo as a relevant artform, it probably looks a bit like this.
rulez added on the 2023-08-14 13:21:00 by smash smash
Basically it is nice, but for me it suffers from what a lot of ASD demos have: Unbearable lenght in between. Everything splashes along at a admittedly high quality, but for me it just get's boring at some point, because it doesn't feel like there is some kind of climax. Had to start twice to make it through. Liked the musical style this time much more than of other ASD demos, but this is just personal preference.
added on the 2023-08-14 13:31:24 by Raven^NCE Raven^NCE
Hey - didn't really think we would hit 100 comments on pouet these days, but it is a pleasant surprise!
In the past I got some flack for explaining the thought process and symbolisms of our demos, but this one is rather different in scope so I'll try to give it a shot. After all, written words stay forever, and it will be a fun read for me to come back in a few years time. I'll do a more technical how-to on youtube at some point in the future too, reflecting my lost presentation from Asm. I generally think it's a good idea for (some) demos to have a clear plan and narrative arc as it helps to build content easily and is more digestible (yes even at 8 mins! ).

So here is my interpretation and how the demo was framed as such before any code was written -

The demo is split into various segments, all taking place during a single night.
It starts with my most favourite sequence from Lifeforce (and end of For your love) with the bell ringing. And shifts quickly into that night.

* Birth - the female character raises from the ashes - she is eternal. She is the "unattainable", the desire, the destination. She flashes her true shelf - the skull. We then move to the male character:

* The start of the journey - that's the playful part, the beginning of a journey is always cheerful and light. Think of epic poems, lord of the rings etc. It's early days and the dangers of the destination are still unknown.

* The interplay - from the moment of the female character appearing, Sisyphus is moving in a place surrounded by threat (narrow bridge). It is subdued to start with (when he walks "above ground") but it becomes more pronounced with time. The first epiphany comes with the Christian halo as he turns to face the camera. From that point the two characters interchange, as if one blends into the other and himself is beginning to crack (skin peeling, thorns by his sides). She is controlling his moves and steps as if he is connected to her "steam-engine" like snappy movements. The final zoom into eye takes us to:

* The inner workings of Merope - which exposes the extent of her presence (interstellar/universal/the dome of all his world), and her attractive, perilous and shape-shifting nature

* The final ascent - the climax of the story where Sisyphus (as per original story) reaches the climax at the top of the mountain/hand of Merope and sees the things for what they really are (and has a final epiphany alone in the stars, while he may consider his vanity), before the

* Descent - the tunnel part, falling through impressions of the "things from a normal life" (as inspired by the intro to Starstruck by TBL, and used many times in ASD demos before, from Metamorphosis to Monolith).
The final ascent and descent resolves into a cacophony of colour, sound and time, as time reverses for some flashes

* The final fate - Sisyphus is entangled and captured as he falls through the Hades. The process repeats (forever?) as he starts walking again towards the bell while the dawn starts a new day. The moon fades into the skull to reflect that she will be ever present to lure him to this ever-repeating cycle

Beyond that, the symbolisms of the other elements that link with this story would be -

Bell tower - the unreachable ideal, open to interpretation. It could be the call to make another demo, or to transform yourself to whatever your true nature wishes to be. Up to you!
Butterflies - Hope
Skull and Moon - The true nature of Merope behind the beauty, which is futility and demise

It's sad that this guy cannot escape but that is the nature of the original story of Sisyphus. We just added the part where he has a "reason" to climb the mountain - the inescapable attraction of Merope (like another Sirene in the myth of Odysseus), whatever she may represent to the audience.

--

Beyond that, any technical conversation is wholly appreciated and welcomed by me; but do remember something that most of us are beginning to realize. We (ok I - lets talk personal) make demos via programming because I don't have the knowledge and skills to make a "story" or some "nice visuals" in any other way (in some other art form, including of course animation). Ok and also partly for heritage and sentimental reasons. At the end of the day, I would assume that you watched the video. I don't care much that the code is terrible or we reused it before, as long as it (kind of) looks good-ish and (most importantly) we had great fun making it. Oh and fun presenting it to the scene, and all the good things that come with it - on pouet, especially, exchanging ideas and improvements !
added on the 2023-08-14 17:55:25 by Navis Navis
Cool! Like watching an 80s music video, but with a few touches of the future.
rulez added on the 2023-08-14 20:40:18 by stijn stijn
I have very mixed feelings about this.

This demo has a brilliant art style like the moment shown in the screenshot, shows excellent and detailed animation, an aspect that is rarely done well in the demoscene, and overall a professional level of polishing. It's also a demo that does benefit from being watched in real-time, which is always a plus (I appreciated that it worked mostly fine on an RTX 2060 Super, because the YouTube capture is pretty much unwatchable, and the recommended 3070 meant I wouldn't have been able to watch it before some time.).

But at the same time, the direction is all over the place, jumping from one style to another without clear motivation, and suffers from repetitive parts dragging for minutes and which other comments have already pointed out. Moreover, v3nom's question about why he is clothed but she is naked is a valid criticism.

I'm also left wondering if some of the effects, like fluids, are performed live by the demo, or just exports from Houdini.

All in all, I can't but thumb up for the quality and for the work (especially capture and, again, animation), but the show left me cold and the pop style music didn't help.
rulez added on the 2023-08-15 00:49:21 by Zavie Zavie
the "fluids" are all realtime, the only precached thing is, of course, the volumetric animations.

The guy is dressed because thats the natural depiction of humans in films, doing normal things like walking and singing. The lady is naked as she is etherial/other worldly and beyond time/space to be depicted in clothes (much like an ancient statue). I dont think she would look particularly *bad* in certain clothes here, but I prefer her showing her curves.
added on the 2023-08-15 02:04:18 by Navis Navis
I would say it looks (and sounds) impressive, in lack of better words. And I love the starry backgrounds in some of the later scenes.
rulez added on the 2023-08-15 12:48:55 by Hyde Hyde
Translation in German:

[Hades]

Zurück auf den Grund gerollt
der Stein steht still
Meine vorherige Iteration
wartet dort bergauf

[Sysiphos]

Ich habe keinen Sinn gemacht
Oh, ich weiß es nicht
Meine Unschuld
ging an dem Tag verloren, als Ι in mich hineinschaute

Von Jungen zu Mädchen
und wieder zurück
Es ist so intensiv
dass ich zweifle, ob du mich sehen kannst

War ich so
oder wurde ich gemacht
eine Rolle zu spielen
in jedem Kapitel meiner Reise

Von oben nach unten
tief unter der Erde
eine dornige Krone
mein Preis für den Blick über die rote Linie

[Hades]

Zurück auf den Grund gerollt
der Stein steht still
Meine vorherige Iteration
wartet dort bergauf

Die Gefahren deiner Reise
eine Menge, aber weit auseinander
Nöte und Versuchungen
meine Geschenke, wenn du gehst

Und sobald du die Baumgrenze überschreitest
verschwindet der Felsbrocken
eine sich wiederholende Prophezeiung
um all deine Ängste zu bestärken

Dein Schicksal hat sich entschieden
vor zehn Jahrhunderten
ruh dich jetzt eine Minute aus
und dann geht's wieder runter

(Merope)

Leben in kreisförmiger Bewegung
rulez added on the 2023-08-16 07:06:40 by strahlentechnik strahlentechnik
This is a great artistic symbiosis of tech, visuals, music, direction. One of the demos to show to non-sceners when they ask about the scene (if you want to scare them off instead, use Kevin). Also, it tickles my urge to obtain a ToF camera and mess with it.

One minor point of criticism: If there is rhythmic music and a person dance-walking along to it, it hurts the flow if that person is not walking in sync.

My two cents on the size "controversy": Why would anyone assume that this would be somehow easier to create if the delivery format was video? Start up Blender and somehow magically get this kind of content out of it? :D
This was probably easier to create as a demo, sculpting it in custom code so to speak, than it would have been using ordinary 3d content creation tools.
rulez added on the 2023-08-16 08:57:59 by jco jco
ASD have been my favourite group because of the visual flow and design. Now they took it to another level and added more coolness in the mix.
rulez added on the 2023-08-16 11:03:38 by Zplex Zplex
Quote:
My two cents on the size "controversy": Why would anyone assume that this would be somehow easier to create if the delivery format was video? Start up Blender and somehow magically get this kind of content out of it? :D
This was probably easier to create as a demo, sculpting it in custom code so to speak, than it would have been using ordinary 3d content creation tools.

Hmmm i don't like it when my words (if you refered to those) are placed out of context. I never said it was an easy job! As we can all read it involves lot's of data and work. So all credits for that.
My personal opinion (we can all have one right?) is that when 'realtime' production gets bigger than a rendered version you could ask yourself what the benefit is of running the demo. (Lot's of people already watch the youtube version, so we already loose a bit on the realtime execution).
And creating an astonishing 'static' movie with great effects is still a great achievement. Lately i watched the new SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE CGI-movie (which comes at around 200Mb for 8 minutes) which uses also very nice visual effects and is to me an homage to all creative masterminds in the industry (and lots of code is responsible to render such a movie...it's not drawn frame for frame)
So what's my point?.....when sizes of demos exceeds the rendered version....what's the real difference between a cool CGI movie or the cool huge 'realtime' running demo? To me the idea that a rendered version is bigger than an actual demo is part of wow experience. Otherwise stated....what is the limit? Is a 2TB demo running for 10 minutes the way to go? Size doesn't matter right? I guess if that's the case it's time to use those cool skills for movies instead.
added on the 2023-08-16 11:57:03 by davince davince
Quote:
My personal opinion (we can all have one right?) is that when 'realtime' production gets bigger than a rendered version you could ask yourself what the benefit is of running the demo.

This rests on the assumption that the rendered version is indeed smaller than the demo archive. In this case, the YouTube 1440p encode is about 1.1 GB. My own 1440p capture (on which I used considerable amounts of time and processing power to approach the fidelity of a realtime run) is 2.7 GB.

I can pretty much assure you that with current compression technology, you will not be able to make a sub-600 MB video version of this demo that matches its fidelity (although of course, if you accept lower resolution and/or a blocky mess, you can get to almost whatever file size you want).
added on the 2023-08-16 12:41:45 by Sesse Sesse
The answer is that I would personally have zero hesitation to deliver this as a video only, but the traditional competition rules for the demoscene state that it must run realtime. A few hundred people in the world may know that this was programmed and it was hard, but for me doing it in any other way would be harder (actually impossible). It s ok, I get the point but dont hate a production (generally speaking of course, not specifically this one) for their size, we re now past that. Same goes for unreal notch etc. although we can discuss the merits of using engines, and thats a different conversation.

It was a lot of fun compressing this down to what it is now, I learned a lot of things and leveraged this at work.
added on the 2023-08-16 12:53:03 by Navis Navis
The comparisons are pointless. You can make a video of this that's pointlessly small and looks like crap, or you can take any single production in existence and make an upscaled lossless video that's of an arbitrary size.

Quote:
what's the real difference between a cool CGI movie or the cool huge 'realtime' running demo?
The fact that it is, in fact, realtime. Without the quotes. Nowadays you're absolutely free to watch it either as a rendered video or a realtime executable.

Quote:
Size doesn't matter right?
It matters if it matters. It does matter in size limited competitions, of which there are plenty.

I can imagine that you could get the size down here as well by reducing the amount and quality of the data used to produce the visuals. Would this make it a better? Absolutely not.
added on the 2023-08-16 12:58:19 by Preacher Preacher
Quote:
Lately i watched the new SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE CGI-movie (which comes at around 200Mb for 8 minutes) which uses also very nice visual effects and is to me an homage to all creative masterminds in the industry (and lots of code is responsible to render such a movie...it's not drawn frame for frame)

newsflash, those 8 minutes of video probably had 10s of gigabytes (if not more) worth of data / assets, which is kind of the point what a demo does, it renders assets at real-time. you're comparing THAT with a compressed and offline/pre-rendered video file?
davince, I did not refer to your comment in particular. this "what's the point of a demo if it's larger than X" thing has been brought up a lot, not only with this demo.

in my book, the fact that the demo does render in realtime is mighty impressive.
stupid analogy: it's more impressive if you deliver the factory that constructs the car instead of just the car.

navis confirmed my assumptions that coding the thing was likely easier than alternative approaches. I have made the same experience with many of my demoscene prods. Animating "Geiler Hydrant" in traditional fashion in a generic compositing/rendering software would have taken so much more time. So, custom tools/code help productivity - and if the result runs in realtime, you gain bragging rights in weird subcultures like this one :D

The non-interactivity is of course a weird demoscene quirk unbeknownst to the uninitiated. The magic is all there in the circuits!
added on the 2023-08-16 15:43:46 by jco jco
I'm done with this discussion as most of the reactions (except Navis himself!) seem to believe I'm a complete moron without any knowledge or simply can't understand what i was saying.
added on the 2023-08-16 15:51:07 by davince davince
@jco Thanks for reacting in normal way....my frustration was more against maali, Preacher and a bit Sesse ;-)
added on the 2023-08-16 15:58:26 by davince davince
davince, you statet it quite clearly:

Quote:
you could ask yourself what the benefit is of running the demo.

answer: the amazement of understanding what's going on under the hood. similar to watching a let's play of a game on youtube vs. playing the game. only, in case of a demo, there are only cutscenes.

Quote:
what's the real difference between a cool CGI movie or the cool huge 'realtime' running demo?

answer: the difference is that the cool CGI movie usually can not be rendered in realtime, especially not on consumer hardware.

Quote:
Is a 2TB demo running for 10 minutes the way to go?

answer: absolutely, if the 2TB are put to good use.

Quote:
it's time to use those cool skills for movies instead.

comment: navis did, it also renders in realtime, and it's pretty small size for what it's displaying.

"if it's not a 64k, what's the point" and "if you can watch it on youtube, what's the point". there is no real point to it. demos are a weird technical form of art.

if I run a demo on my computer, instead of watching it on youtube, I get a feeling that is similar to enjoying a live performance instead of listening to a recording. the fact that I have a vague understanding of the gazillions of calculations being coordinated at light speed at the very moment I'm watching it changes my perception in a meaningful way.

noone forces anyone to share the sentiment, though.
added on the 2023-08-16 16:06:33 by jco jco
Quote:
Quote:
Size doesn't matter right?
It matters if it matters. It does matter in size limited competitions, of which there are plenty.

I can imagine that you could get the size down here as well by reducing the amount and quality of the data used to produce the visuals. Would this make it a better? Absolutely not.


This was my initial point. Thumbing down a production because of a self-imposed limit that is not actually a compo rule just feels really weird to me. Again, you also need a lot of RAM, nobody ever complains about that.
added on the 2023-08-16 16:28:28 by okkie okkie
It's like thumbing down a demo because it doesn't have the color blue and all demos should have the color blue.
added on the 2023-08-16 16:29:14 by okkie okkie
I don't know for you folks but Navis replied to this correctly and all you could do at this point of the conversation is ask who tf is davince.

Stop
Arguing
On
Pouet.
Bring back the good old "make a demo about it or stfu" argument.

(As far I'm concerned, it could be someone training his AI, guy has cred? use your real handle then, else, passez, basta.)
Quote:

answer: the amazement of understanding what's going on under the hood. similar to watching a let's play of a game on youtube vs. playing the game. only, in case of a demo, there are only cutscenes.

You forget that i watched demos for over 30 years, so i know the history and yes i was amazed because i understand what a machine could do......and demos went always beyond that capability by using clever trickery.
I was also very amazed by watching Luxo Jr. in 1986/1987 and although it was a movie I did understand that a computer had to render that first...but the lightning and shining...i saw the future at that moment.

Quote:
answer: the difference is that the cool CGI movie usually can not be rendered in realtime, especially not on consumer hardware.

But when realtime becomes a lineair process (no interaction) and when music is synced to visuals beforehand (i get the impression that is the case here) what is left of realtime....streaming 2TB of precalculated data is perhaps equally realtime as a videoplayer reading his stream of data and turns it into visuals?

Quote:
answer: absolutely, if the 2TB are put to good use.

I'll stick to C64 and Amiga then.

Quote:

comment: navis did, it also renders in realtime, and it's pretty small size for what it's displaying.

He did for sure, but it's not small size. 600MB for 8 minutes is simply not small. Have you seen Batman Rises on Amiga 500? just 2 floppies (1600KB) on 7Mhz hardware.

Quote:
demos are a weird technical form of art.

Agree on that for 100%

Maybe demos should not compete with movies. The larger the demo gets, the more it has to become a sort of (video) player. Streaming (precalculated, hence the size) data and convert it to screen as it's main task.
Why? because something needs to handle that amount of data efficiently so that leaves less and less (cpu) time to do other realtime trickery.
So to me in the end an ever increasing demo morphs itself into a videoplayer and they can not be called a demo anymore. I rather play a modern game which a) looks closer to a movie every new generation. b) makes instantly clear its realtime as I control the camera!
I don't get that instant feeling with modern unlimited windows demos as i just simply click the youtube link and don't bother downloading the 600MB to run it.

But hey.....i enjoyed the visuals and huge shoutout to ASD, Lifeforce is my favorite, but my interest in new windows demos scene will be lost.
added on the 2023-08-16 16:56:38 by davince davince
Quote:
This was my initial point. Thumbing down a production because of a self-imposed limit that is not actually a compo rule just feels really weird to me. Again, you also need a lot of RAM, nobody ever complains about that.


There only one (1!) thumbsdown....and it's not mine, so you use multiple comments about people (only 1) giving a thumb down. Just let that person be....maybe he/she didn;'t liked the music or had a bad day.

Please try to understand my point and try to explain why i'm wrong when I state that increasing size eventually will kill the (windows) demoscene as it will morph into a movieclip. A 20GB windows demo running 10 minutes will not make a better demo....it just contains more (precalculated data) that is streamed to you monitor and no cpu cycles are left to do more stuff.
added on the 2023-08-16 17:10:03 by davince davince
Quote:
while beautiful at times, there's just too much sin in it for my liking

Found the thumbsdown....it wasn't the size....
added on the 2023-08-16 17:11:15 by davince davince
Quote:
Please try to understand my point and try to explain why i'm wrong when I state that increasing size eventually will kill the (windows) demoscene as it will morph into a movieclip. A 20GB windows demo running 10 minutes will not make a better demo....it just contains more (precalculated data) that is streamed to you monitor and no cpu cycles are left to do more stuff.


Well, everything you say here is wrong, and you clearly know nothing about modern PC development, so there's that. And idd, you didn't thumb this one down for the size, but you did thumb-down Mechasm for the size, I got confused there.

I'm done now tho, do whatever you want, won't stop me from finding the reasoning dumb.
added on the 2023-08-16 17:15:59 by okkie okkie
Oh I enjoy the occasional forum debate, especially if it leads to more attention and popularity for this great demo here!

Talking about demos being video players: Check out 9 Fingers on the Amiga! (not judging!)

Catching PC demos "cheating" by simply playing back a video should be easy enough to detect by taking a close look at what the demo puts onto the screen at 8k/144fps.

okkie, please stay!
added on the 2023-08-16 17:50:20 by jco jco
Quote:
Well, everything you say here is wrong, and you clearly know nothing about modern PC development, so there's that. And idd, you didn't thumb this one down for the size, but you did thumb-down Mechasm for the size, I got confused there.

I'm done now tho, do whatever you want, won't stop me from finding the reasoning dumb.

Am I the only one to find your reactions really childish? You ignore the questions or don't understand them, but won't go into details but just throw in your famous words: "everything you say is wrong" "clearly know nothing" "your reasoning is dumb"
Oh wow, you are very proud on yourself i guess.
Oh and then there is your fu about the thumbsdown....but you simply say you where confused and then it's solved. Think you will do good in politics.

@jco: yes 9 fingers and SOTA are kind of videoplayers but consider the machine it's running on 7mhz 500KB using 1 or 2 floppy-disks (800-1600KB) producing between 3-4 minutes content. To capture that on video in a digital way would be nearly impossible back then...or otherwise stated.....the machine would not be able to play it's own movie. That's also the point i'm trying to make.
added on the 2023-08-16 19:03:15 by davince davince
@jco and davince: seriously, how about stopping this discussion instead of spamming the comment section.
It's not spamming as long as comments are related to this demo. If I were to indulge in discussions about unrelated demos on unrelated platforms, it would still not be spamming, it would be off topic, but still about demos. Opinions about which opinions are valid mixed with various insults belong into trolling territory. Links to bitcoin investment scams could be considered spam. Repeating the same statement over and over again without adding anything new to advance the argument could be considered spam too.

Be that as it may: If a demo ignites a bit of debate, why not have it in the comment board of the demo, as long as it doesn't derail and comments remain reasonably polite?

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.
added on the 2023-08-16 22:38:55 by jco jco
I think davince is a lamer :D
My sincere apologies for placing multiple comments as I do agree this is not the place or time. I tried to be humble and respectful to the demo-scene(can't say this was mutual). With some comments I felt the need to defend myself over and over when words got out of context. It had been better if I simply ignored those. So I'm sorry for that.
added on the 2023-08-17 13:26:19 by davince davince
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.
added on the 2023-08-17 14:45:18 by aMUSiC aMUSiC
Wonderfull ! thanx a lot !
rulez added on the 2023-08-17 22:47:32 by yogib33r yogib33r
Quote:
My own 1440p capture (on which I used considerable amounts of time and processing power to approach the fidelity of a realtime run) is 2.7 GB.

thanks for making it available (as a prod extra-link) :)
added on the 2023-08-18 18:11:56 by wullon wullon
As a music (hah, amusic) video, maybe it's too long. As a demo, I think it's fine.. maybe you could shorten up a couple parts but you wanted to get all the effects and storyline in there. But this is where, after a few decades of growth, I hoped the level of demoscene talent would be by now. It also takes imagination and creativity, which they have in droves. It feels miles above the other compo entries, particularly the ones with "look, we managed to do the thing that (Unity/Unreal Engine/Notch) does". I wanted to reply to the whole filesize argument above, but.. I just can't. It made my head hurt.

Kudos for the amazing soundtrack, direction, and coding that doesn't kill a last-generation GPU. I even felt a bit of Purple Motion-style chord progression in the music. But this is Future Crew-level talent extrapolated 30 years ahead.
rulez added on the 2023-08-18 20:51:51 by phoenix phoenix
Quote:
But this is Future Crew-level talent extrapolated 30 years ahead.

I'd rather say Spaceballs instead of FC. In a number of ways, this is 2023's State of the Art. Starting from the obvious "digitized actual people" to the fact that for me the demo got progressively less "epic" (as in let's say Lifeforce) on my multiple rewatches but more and more revealed itself as being of the "one thing done right" variety. Which is absolutely a good thing.

Funnily enough there's also the same kind of controversy that SOTA had, as in people going "this is not the way", be it the use of prebaked data or file size or whatever, and in both cases the correct response is to Fuck The Haters. :). If we apply the same criterion to the file size as we did in the olden says, aka it should fit on one or two pieces of removable media, we're still nowhere near.

Other than that, most people already pointed out what's great about this, and I can agree to all of them.

(and as a sidenote, can I point out how funny it is that Smash and Navis both went "it's messy, I don't know if I really like it, but if that's the state/future of the scene, I'm in" at each other this year? That's like 2010's but we're all adults now :D )
rulez added on the 2023-08-19 00:36:14 by kb_ kb_
Massive!
rulez added on the 2023-08-19 09:09:13 by DickThunder DickThunder
looks very cool, but I don't own a pc that can run stuff like this. The best I can use is M1/Arm64 MacMini 8GB...but this demo does not run on Apple Hardware...
I really like it, sometimes it looks like a "music - visualizer"... some scenes remind me of the excellent deftones music - video https://youtu.be/M3ChUFzJqTM... the most and by far best thing is that it's clear and sharp/detailed and not blurry and clouded with fog! Nice work guys!!!
rulez added on the 2023-08-19 18:19:43 by drzeissler drzeissler
...but you visuals are by far better!
deftones should have worked with ASD on that remix-video! :)
Quote:
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 wasn't aware of that, well done and bonus thumb for courage! I can relate from personal experience. It will get easier the more you do it ;) Balance is a stylistic question too. If you compare 80s tunes to modern ones, the difference is very apparent...
I also remember many times when I got completely lost in details like 1dB differences in compressor thresholds and things like that :D with vocals it's even weirder. Best give your ears and your mind some rest then. Result is great as it is, I was just trying to nitpick some points where improvement might be possible. Intonation correction didn't feel uncanny imho, you got the tools, why not use them... cheers!
added on the 2023-08-19 23:52:50 by jco jco
"The picture itself towards the depth of the codes is enough to fuck a man's brain. One must imagine Sisyphus demo-ei."

probably Albert Camus, if he were to become an absurdist demoscener.

Amazing stuff yet again from ASD
High regards
rulez added on the 2023-08-21 23:52:05 by Volantis Volantis
I'm freakin stunned after watching this, amazing work, ASD are amazing. <3
rulez added on the 2023-08-23 07:50:57 by spacedog spacedog
Beautiful work as always. Great write-up on blogspot too. Thanks Navis & aMUSiC!
rulez added on the 2023-08-23 20:30:38 by Alopex Alopex
With all this controversy going on i barely dare to post my comment here, but if Pouet isn't the place to do so, then which is?

This is extremely impressive. It clearly shows the effort and dedication put into this and i simply drown in the sheer amount of details it keeps throwing at me. If there is a reason to run a demo in a 4k resolution, it's got to be this.
A true piece of art.
That said, it does seem to lack focus, at least in the middle part, where i start to feel lost. This is most probably intentional and it might only be me, but having no clue what i am actually supposed to make of all the visuals and vocals did have its impact on the "wowness" of this master piece.

Is this amazing? Oh yes! Is it art? Among the finest. Is it the future of demos? It probably is. Will i watch it again? No.
rulez added on the 2023-08-24 10:23:42 by Paranoid Paranoid
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.
added on the 2023-08-25 05:43:55 by aMUSiC aMUSiC
That (aMusic's blog post) was an interesting read, thanks!
It's hard to add anything new to the gobs of comments in here so I'll just say thank you :)

And thanks to Sesse for the huge-ass UHD capture; between my old GTX1060 and craptube it was just what I needed to properly admire the demo at home!
rulez added on the 2023-08-26 16:32:00 by dojoe dojoe
Awesome production! Put my GTX 970 on its knees, but I loved it :D
rulez added on the 2023-08-27 18:52:47 by gligli gligli
nice work!
rulez added on the 2023-08-27 21:28:26 by blackpawn blackpawn
Every demo of ASD is a masterpiece of art. This one is really beautiful. Thanks a lot ! Wow.
rulez added on the 2023-08-28 07:55:40 by Thadoss Thadoss
wow
rulez added on the 2023-08-28 15:49:31 by jimmi jimmi
A masterpiece indeed. Also, I really like that kinda "art honesty" here, in a meaning that sometimes I would even question the design choices here and there, and I'd say it's a first time happened to me while i was watching ASD demo =)

And thanks a lot for the making-of post, btw!
rulez added on the 2023-08-28 19:07:12 by ton ton
I need to rewatch if to catch all the symbolic meanings but even without that this is 101% ASD quality. I was worried there may be no more ASD demos as with Navis' demography one could say, I've shown everything.

Good it's not the case here and it was worth waiting for another ASD demo, regardless of time function required to see it delivered!
rulez added on the 2023-08-29 12:59:06 by hollowone hollowone
yes!
rulez added on the 2023-08-30 21:56:11 by a-move a-move
Totally redefines de wowfactor concept. excellent. re-takes LifeForce theme back from 2007, and introduces a new concept of narrative demo. Expansive, overhelming. Technically a demo , and artistically a video-piece by itself. Congratulations to Navis and Amusic tremendous effort, doubles the result in a magnificient masterpiece, also above the standards of ASD.
rulez added on the 2023-08-31 12:00:37 by JaK JaK
MASTERPIECE!!!
rulez added on the 2023-09-01 17:46:49 by DanDMG*SA DanDMG*SA
Solid
rulez added on the 2023-09-02 22:19:08 by Frequent Frequent
It's definitely an ASD's new stuff. Several unexpected twists and motifs I heard somewhere (in a good way, of course).
Several parts are too stuttery on my end (AMD Ryzen 9, RTX3080).
rulez added on the 2023-09-03 16:29:51 by 0b5vr 0b5vr
Oh my
rulez added on the 2023-09-03 23:47:00 by willbe willbe
Raising the bar once again.
rulez added on the 2023-09-15 09:58:40 by mrdoob mrdoob
Reminds me of spin in a good way. Next level stuff right there! :)
rulez added on the 2023-09-17 09:07:50 by Defiance Defiance
Insanely good!
rulez added on the 2023-10-08 13:14:18 by Cosmocat Cosmocat
Quote:
Also ran nice in my PC with RTX 3060 (8MB).


I was running it on my RTX 3060 with 12GB (!) of VRAM, but it still froze 2 times for around 2-3 seconds. It could be a RAM issue, but I'm not entirely sure.

What about the demo? HOLY SHIT. I mean, the comments above say it all, don't they?! Like Gargaj said, it's flabbergasting, how this looks nothing like something out of the demoscene, but instead looks like a crazy modern music clip. To think that all of this is rendered real-time is shocking, considering its filesize. Yes, it's no small demo, but look at how much stuff ASD managed to pack in! No more words, only admiration
rulez added on the 2023-10-21 05:09:42 by looper231 looper231
As an addition to my comment above. I think the midsection is a little dragged out. It starts of really strong, but kind of keeps going in the same "sense" and you're left wondering when will it "evolve"... Really hard to explain, honestly. I'm with Gargaj as well.

And you can't forget the Lifeforce references :-)
added on the 2023-10-21 05:15:04 by looper231 looper231
OMG ! What a Demo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can´t stand it.... WTF !?? Insane and great !!
rulez added on the 2023-11-02 19:37:51 by chico72 chico72
another master piece
stunning and impressive! the only minor point: editing some light flashes and beat syncs away + cutting some content could make it even better. nevertheless, you laid an awesomely high bar <3
rulez added on the 2023-11-12 22:29:28 by krl krl
Legendary... One eyecandy after another.
rulez added on the 2023-11-16 11:46:01 by anticore anticore
OMG!
rulez added on the 2023-12-27 19:04:13 by Olympian Olympian
Beautiful in every aspects. Except probably the vocals that really sound like ultra-FXed vocals so to hide the truth. With a good singer and shiny vocals it would have made a true difference IMO. Yet that's an impressive demo.
rulez added on the 2023-12-30 23:36:03 by oxb oxb
This is astonishing.
One can really see the amount of work that must have went into this and the result is extremely good.
ASD at its best.
rulez added on the 2024-01-23 19:50:50 by NinjaKoala NinjaKoala
A late thumb for this masterpiece.
I wasn't prepared for another ASD demo hitting me like this. so much greatness in this one.
i am not quite sure how this relates to the actual tale of sisyphus. isn't he a bit upbeat for a guy who is the epitome of ironic punishment?
and yes, it is too long but it is also packed with soo many ideas in visuals, music and art, enough for at least three demo of the year awards. impressive even judging on an ASD standard.
love the use of lines, the giants, the guy on strings, the shadow people, the seizure girls.
a demo for the ages.
rulez added on the 2024-01-31 23:05:41 by fiver fiver
Should have been twice as long.
rulez added on the 2024-02-03 18:58:25 by thec thec
This demo is probably one of the best examples of music video-esque artistry that the demoscene deserves. The seamless integration of visuals and sound creates an experience that transcends mere storytelling.

But that ending... It felt like a jolt, pulling me out of the immersive experience that had been built up so carefully throughout the rest of the demo. Maybe if they had stuck with the tone and pacing established earlier, it would have felt more cohesive.

Regardless, it's clear that the creators put a lot of thought and effort into this project.
rulez added on the 2024-03-30 02:33:58 by rudi rudi
ASD quality
rulez added on the 2024-03-30 22:03:06 by fiveofive fiveofive
not running on Radeon 6800 (16GB VRAM!), 7900. any chance this'll get fixed in the future?
added on the 2024-03-31 01:23:18 by plonk420 plonk420
Pure awe all the way. And that fractal blooming of foetoid figures. :-O

Just can't get over that "Sisyphus" latinised spelling. Must have been artistic choice.
rulezcdc added on the 2024-04-06 15:08:36 by Krill Krill
Some parts are very artistic, but that cheezy singer... Hilfe!!!
added on the 2024-06-11 22:02:26 by sim sim
I actually don't like the style nor the music, and historically not fund of ASD demos in particular, but this .. is art - the kind that's hard to explain why you like it but it's magical. Nothing technical that hasn't been seen before, but artistical, it's just another level.

I'm really not into things that are too artsy, usually it has to be in your face and aggressive - but this is to me, breathtakingly magnificent and one the best things I have seen in years.
rulez added on the 2024-06-11 23:53:22 by dwarf dwarf
I want to run all demoes on my pc 7900x cpu + 7900 xtx gpu..please fix
added on the 2024-08-06 14:56:23 by noXLar noXLar

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if this prod is a fake, some info is false or the download link is broken,

do not post about it in the comments, it will get lost.

instead, click here !

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