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What would be the Killer Demo Effect?

category: general [glöplog]
Hmm... I bet all these have been done somewhere before...
1.) Actually generating animation or something, while the previous effects are running... The demo would be playing and slowly catching up to the demo-engine. So, sorta like what used to happen in oldskool demos, on a grander scale.
2.) Marching Hypercubes
3.) 2D/3D effects. Like, you're rotating around in a scene and then it suddenly turns into a 2D image, that then rotates at the apparent same rate, and then after either a full or half-spin, turns into 3D again.
4.) Draw a fractal that sorta looks like a tunnel, and then actually use that as a tunnel, and each interlude between effects segment would be going down one of those branches.
5.) Some combination of Paradise is coming by RGBA and Beyond by Conspiracy. I guess what I'd like to see is an extended version of the "Genesis Effect" animation from Star Trek II, as a demo effect.
6.) Anything that fakes you out as to what medium it really is- make it look like it's a snapshot, then start moving around in it. Or, turn it into a wireframe. Or remove a building...
7.) I like demos with classical music (32 degrees in the shade, Still Sucking Nature). Not sure if that even counts as an effect.
8.) A really nice explosion effect. One of the breakpoint demos had some pretty decent ones.
added on the 2005-04-20 03:29:12 by crusader crusader
Hmm... I bet all these have been done somewhere before...
1.) Actually generating animation or something, while the previous effects are running... The demo would be playing and slowly catching up to the demo-engine. So, sorta like what used to happen in oldskool demos, on a grander scale.
2.) Marching Hypercubes
3.) 2D/3D effects. Like, you're rotating around in a scene and then it suddenly turns into a 2D image, that then rotates at the apparent same rate, and then after either a full or half-spin, turns into 3D again.
4.) Draw a fractal that sorta looks like a tunnel, and then actually use that as a tunnel, and each interlude between effects segment would be going down one of those branches.
5.) Some combination of Paradise is coming by RGBA and Beyond by Conspiracy. I guess what I'd like to see is an extended version of the "Genesis Effect" animation from Star Trek II, as a demo effect.
6.) Anything that fakes you out as to what medium it really is- make it look like it's a snapshot, then start moving around in it. Or, turn it into a wireframe. Or remove a building...
7.) I like demos with classical music (32 degrees in the shade, Still Sucking Nature). Not sure if that even counts as an effect.
8.) A really nice explosion effect. One of the breakpoint demos had some pretty decent ones.
added on the 2005-04-20 03:32:30 by crusader crusader
oh dear. Oops.
added on the 2005-04-20 03:32:59 by crusader crusader
An effect that acually smells good. (sorry, I've no idea. I just thought I'd say something stupid as per usual)
neat caustics, phisically correct fluids that look like fluids instead of rocks, shitloads of metaballs doing interesting things (like NOT taking the shape of a t-1000). global ilumination... all of them at decent speed under ubber resolutions with fsaa turned all the way up... oh, and it has to fucking GLOW!
added on the 2005-04-20 07:29:43 by panoramix panoramix
sofokles, yup, it was too funny and motivating to read ;)
added on the 2005-04-20 08:35:21 by _-_-__ _-_-__
@Patrick:
The voxel foot in Plan-B (MS02 i think) both looks and smells good.

@panoramix:
Don't you people ever get tired of glow? PC 3D is much too shiny and sterile as it is, you should try doing something a little less smooth around the edges.
added on the 2005-04-20 09:14:43 by doom doom
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added on the 2005-04-20 09:39:28 by havoc havoc
A wild demo that invloves a crate of rabid wolves being opened during the greetings.
added on the 2005-04-20 11:23:49 by Shifter Shifter
Interesting thread.

Well,. I was wondering about the scene in this domain, I am watching the same effects all over again in 3d accelerators while there are some great ideas for new impressive effects that could be achieved, but they are just too hard to implement. I guess that when the deadline is close or you have an older demoengine or tool, it's easier to use your existing stuff with some diferrent design than code entirelly new originall effects.

For example metaballs. One of their best uses is still in that melting gold logo in the DOS software demo, Fulcrum by Matrix. I was thinking for example about a voxel (even with low detail of voxels) water rendered with metaballs, like for example breaking the glass in an aquarium and the water goes out harshly, or objects made of small voxel crystals, breaking in realtime in diferrent random ways each time the demo is running and there are more ideas I have written down. The problem is who can implement them and how's the speed.

There was an old discussion in csipd which started when Trixter said that a 486 is enough for every demoeffect of the future or something. And then a discussion continued with people pointing out examples of killer future demoeffects that I think I haven't come to see yet in current demos. There were ideas of caustics and breakin objects made of crystal matrices among them. I think the thread was called "Change of Direction" or something, found it on dejanews. During that time, the CPU power that would be needed for such effects was far ahead, perhaps it still is for some of them, perhaps not. With some tricks it might be possible, oder?

But the problem is that most people code easier stuff and concentrate on design. And most of the times there might be a killer effect in a demo that I don't recognise, for example where the hell is that watery movement in Aphorism for the Masses that you mention? (Hidden somewhere behind the noise?! ;). I'd prefer a killer effect to be clean and be purely shown without those blended design images hiding it. It depends on what the coder wants the audience to concentrate on. Overall design or a plain effect..
added on the 2005-04-20 12:52:20 by Optimus Optimus
@Preacher & krabob:
You are right, I think it would be very hard to come up with groundbreaking new discoveries in the field of computer graphics. ;)

My point was that if you can not do this, then try a different way of distinguishing your effect. Whatever it turns out to be, you may of course sweeten its appearance by applying all the filters and shading you want, but the true core has to be something novel in order to qualify as a killer.

By the way, we are talking about "killer effects" here. A demo is more than just the sum of its effects, so it can certainly be interesting even if it does not contain a killer.
added on the 2005-04-20 15:11:40 by Hyde Hyde
actually codewise one of the most "killer" things i saw was Nadir's and Moons' "voxel-polygons" in Reanimator and Robotnik
added on the 2005-04-20 15:22:03 by Gargaj Gargaj
gargaj: I remember the cube from reanimator. It quite literally made me fall off my chair when it got played at TP95.

added on the 2005-04-20 16:42:00 by Shifter Shifter
Make love, not war.
added on the 2005-04-20 17:16:55 by doom doom
the ultimate killer effect would probably be very realistic simulation, with realistic rendering, physics, sound generated by physics etc.. playing with the mechanics underneath that could produce amazing things. But such things are some way off still.

As to design/effect... personally, the stuff that pleases me most, is where a scene is designed, and the effects are used to complement the scene in a subtle way, instead of the effect being shown, and the design being put ontop. Or alternatively, where some real experimentation has gone into the effects, to make something new and interesting, and the design makes a good setting to show it off in.
added on the 2005-04-20 17:38:32 by psonice psonice
i want to view realtime animations made with the stereogram technik like this picture :
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because it can be cool to make a 3D universe in this style, with moving textures and moving objects

the ultimate killer effect for me must be unlike the reality, no need to copy the reality (i see reality everyday), i prefer to enter a dream
I want to be a tomato.
added on the 2005-04-20 18:18:00 by xeron xeron
A full 3d Plasma with ALL the properties of the oldskoll 2d kind would rock.
added on the 2005-04-20 18:55:18 by madcrow madcrow
@Optimus: The ASD demo I mentioned containing the wireframe water was Ambience for the Masses released at The Gathering 2005.

(Aphorism for the Masses was released at Breakpoint the very same weekend!)

I remember demos from the old Atari scene where user interaction was a common thing. I think interactively flying around in various demo scenes would be a nice addition to current productions. But that goes against the music video idea ...
added on the 2005-04-20 21:36:40 by ManJIT ManJIT
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added on the 2005-04-20 22:13:18 by EviL EviL
PC CPU speed is killing the scene. That's why I'm coding GBA.
And I don't care about how old the effect is or how much that the demo lacks design, I just want to see something that's a break-through codewise.
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added on the 2005-04-20 22:37:27 by jeenio jeenio
eh how about *not* static meshes (and not metaballs and co either).
added on the 2005-04-20 23:21:04 by skrebbel skrebbel
how about the next big effect from lobstarrs? HYPNO-GLOWE!!!!
added on the 2005-04-20 23:58:17 by kusma kusma

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