Wac A Demo by Trailer Park Demos [web]
"Wac A Demo"
by Trailer Park Demos
created with the Werkkzeug 1.200
requirements
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Windows
DirectX 9
3D graphics card
sound card
monitor
speakers
90 seconds of free time
the concept
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Upon learning that Chaos had publicly released his "Werkkzeug1" demotool, I immediately downloaded to see what hid behind some of my favourite scene productions. Those first moments of discovery were inspiring: This tool could be used to create something decent for Pilgrimage 2004.
The initial concept was nothing more than a collection of trapdoors opening and closing, with demo objects floating in and out. But my roommate suggested some sort of antagonist was needed. After mulling this over for a few hours, I honed in on the idea of creating a "Wac A Mole" parody using traditional demoscene 'effects.'
Initially I had five effects -- cube, torus, spikeball, particles, and a Visualice-esqe object -- but cut it down to three for practicle reasons. (The "V" object looked too ungainly when animated in context, and the particles seemed out of place.)
the music
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The main theme is an original composition, but imitates Scott Joplin's ragtime style somewhat convincingly. The secondary theme is 100% Thom-esque, so now you know what I sound like when not copying other people's styles.
Structurally the soundtrack follows ternary form, but without traditional repeats. The manuscript score does actually contain said repeats, but were removed because the "Wac A Mole" concept doesn't hold up for any reasonable length of time -- 90 seconds is more than enough!
On a side note, if you're interested in what 'software' I used to compose the music, it's call pen and paper. Good enough for Beethoven, good enough for me!
the graphics
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The Werkkzeug's modelling tools were a big inspiration to create "Wac A Demo."
My previous 3D experience consisted of nothing more than fiddling with AutoCAD two decades earlier, and a few hours messing with modern tools numerous months ago. I found both instances to be somewhat frustrating.
However, Werkkzeug's operator concept was a natural way for me to create models. It felt like building with Lego, a favourite pastime in my youth.
The first object designed with the FR demotool was a hand, soon followed by the hammer used in "Wac A Demo." Overall, the experience was a success.
Texturing was a bit trickier. The operators were easy enough to use, but my knowledge of various blending concepts, terms, and uses is very thin. Trial and error was the name of the game from start to finish.
However, one niggling complaint is the abundance of RGB values. (Not just in texture operators, mind you...) Using RGB to select colours often results in a guady, unbalanced look -- something worth avoiding. To compensate, I ran GIMP 2.0 in the background and used it's HSV sliders, then copied the resultant RGB numbers into Werkkzeug. (To be honest, Werkkzeug does have an HSV operator, but for the most part everything's RGB.)
So far so good, right...?
Well...
My heart sank once I started to animate the demo. Setting up the frame, following action between edits, even doing something as simple as reversing the camera angle was nightmarish.
Instead of 'start' and 'end' values, Werkkzeug uses something called 'amplify.' This adds a number to a start number, which sounds basic, but if one wants to animate all three axes, one must either 'amplify' by the identical amount for XYZ, or define separate animation channels with separate operators. Consequently, animation of "Wac A Demo" tripled the number of operators used during modelling and texturing. (Curiously enough, a pocket calculator was my best friend during this process.)
Another serious issue is timing. Werkkzeug assumes 4/4 metronomic timing, which is fine for run-of-the-mill techno music, but not much else. The "Wac A Demo" soundtrack features 2/4, 3/4, and 5/4 signatures, along with phrased timing. As a result, syncronization is a little loose.
My personal preference would've involved having the waveform plotted at screen bottom with timing points generated by clicking/moving a cursor. (Incidently, the existing timeline cursor exhibited frustrating behaviour, always snapping back a few seconds after releasing the button.)
But despite my whining and complaining, Werkkzeug is still a pretty damn fine tool. I'd really like to thank Chaos and Co. for releasing it to the undeserving public. It's no surprise Farbrausch has made some of the best demos to hit the scene.
For more info on Werkkzeug, visit http://theproddukt.com/
things that didn't make it
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-- animation of marquee lights --
I managed to accomplish this in the desired on-off-off pattern, but framerate dropped from 240 fps to 30 fps on my X800 Pro. A different method was tried: Same result. A third method: 2fps!!! Ouch...
There probably is some way to do this efficiently, but Hell if I know.
-- jack in the box --
Originally I wanted the demo to end with the cabinet 'whack panel' flipping open to have a jack-in-the-box pop up, pause a bit, then let the hammer grow large and whack the entire cabinet. But creating and animating this would've taken me past the Pilgrimage 2004 deadline.
-- mirrored marquee --
My "Wac A Mole" reference photo featured a mirrored marquee. Render-to-texture would've handled this effect, but no attempt was made out of fear of migraines.
-- Better cabinet title --
The text on the cabinet is lame-o. I blame this on not properly understanding various graphic blend functions.
-- joke score display --
The first and second parts have the score display working as intended. However, the third part was to show various demo-related three-letter acronyms. (eg. ogg, mp3, dll, jpg, png, etc...) Sounds simple enough to impliment, but actual practice turned up some esthetic faults.
The first compromise was having to use capitals for line height reasons. Second was getting big letters to fit the score display spaces whilst keeping smaller letters pleasingly centered. I eventually scrapped this idea altogether and fell back to the simple backwards counting you see now.
~Thom (AKA "thom")
September 16, 2004
http://pouet.net/user.php?who=1224
tip o' the hats to...
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- pouδt.net gl÷ppers
- pouδt.net gl÷perators
- ps for all his wonderful pouδt.net improvements
- Gargaj for being super friendly above and beyond the call of duty
- everyone who's made a demo/intro I felt worthy enough to show publicly
- Shifter for the "I use Optimus posts in place of Lorem Ipsum" comment
- scene.org and the scene.org staff
- kb, simply because his soft-synth rules hard-core
- The Edmonton Art Gallery for showing interest in the demoscene
- anyone I know in real life
See you in the next demo, guest starring Dale, The Master of 2D!
*** Please distribute "Wac A Demo" with this readme.txt file intact. ***[ back to the prod ]