pouët.net

The making of Twisted


An Interview with

- Gargoyle of Polka Brothers -


bY: Terrox



Among scene-freaks I guess the demo Twisted is well known from The
Party IV, held in Herning in Denmark Christmas 1994. Twisted came 2nd in the
Wild Compo, and according to Gargoyle himself, he was very surprised. What is more
interesting is getting the people behind Twisted to tell us the
fact behind the making of it. I have therefore collaborated with,
Gargoyle - the coder, which now will deal with us some information
behind the stunning four-disk demo Twisted. But first both Gargoyle and I have
some negativ things about the Demo-Compo at The Party 94:



TO ORGANIZERS AT THE PARTY:

What is the point of ONLY including 2Mb chipram demos in the REAL-COMPO?
How many have an A1200 or an A4000 with only 2Mb chipram, that actually is very
interested into the scene??? I guess that is not many. So why include a Wild
Compo at all? Are we interested in seeing nice effects, or is it more likely
a competition "who can code the most crunched demo concerning ram usage" and
so on? I believe that is two very different points. So I hope the organizers
would have that in mind next year. I will come back to this, if
necessary!




Ok, Gargoyle, you may now start with a presantation of yourself. It is
up to you what to include.



Hi! I'm Gargoyle and for the time I'm 19 years old and live in the
lovely little town Middelfart in Denmark. I'm known for being a coder and I
have been in the scene for almost 5-6 years now - the last year I have been
dancing with my pals in Polka Brothers and before that I was a member of the
group Parasite and even longer time ago I was a little coder in Aero. Friends
tells me that I'm a big fan of Prince and an outstanding guy in general (ha-ha,
just kidding!) Anyway, I like to Polka and will do it forever!




What made you start thinking about making a four-disk demo? You may
also say something about the history behind it.



Well, the idea came up when I still was in Parasite. Slide and I had some
plans of making a unusal demo and soon we began to write down ideas and I
started to code a little. It was right after The Party III. We wanted to
release it at The Gathering '94 and suddenly we were in great hurry.
I managed to code almost the whole demo just before the party in Norway and
we then travelled to Norway, full of hope. Still, there was quite some work
to be done (ie. putting the whole thing on disc!) and I spend the time on the
ferry coding in a disco as it was the only place I could get some power
(People were looking really strange at me, I can tell you!) Well, as you all
know we didn't managed to finish it in time for the party so we planned to
release it at The Assembly '94, four months later. I kind of took a break
with coding on Twisted and then the time came when we were supposed to
release it in Finland, but because of some bugs on the discs it never came
out there either, and then I was really tired of Twisted!




Making such a big demo must take time that is sure. But maybe the most
important is getting motivation all the time. Who kept you finishing
Twisted?



My friends did! Slide was ofcourse a big source of motivation (you can tell
just being with him!) He always came up with more or less crazy ideas and
the time we spend together designing Twisted was so much fun! Anyway, the
other members of Polka Brothers and ofcourse Slammer/Rednex helped me throug my
Twisted period, and I can tell you for sure that there were times where I
was so close to drop the project - I was simply too tired of it!



Now you, Gargoyle, have said some words about the history. Maybe it
is on time getting some facts of the making of Twisted (just since that is
the headline - nah). Would you first present the team and say short
what they did?



Ok, first we have Slide. He made the music for Twisted and came up with some
of the ideas and designed some of it. He also did some graphics e.g. fonts,
the pictures on the bugged cubes etc.
Vandrup did the raytraced loading-logo and the Polka logo in the end.
Pixie was the man behind the mega-animation (900 frames! hand-drawed!) and he
also painted the zombie-like face (as the matter of fact he painted himself
as he saw himself in the monitor).
Colin made the Twisted-logo and "the tunnel with vectorobjects flying out of
it" There is one left. Who might it be? Right, the coder. Well, I did the code
and the design together with Slide + ideas. Five hard-working guys eh?



After watching Twisted an unknown number of times, I still can`t say
what I think is the most fashionable with it. What do you, as a
coder, think is the most stunning?



This is a real hard one! I have seen Twisted so many times that I almost hate
it by now, but one thing I still like is the way the whole demo is timed to
the music. Another thing I like is that it's so fast, you don't look at the
same effect for several minutes which is really a thing I hate in most demos.
There is not much to say about the code in general, I did most of the code
in Febuary-April which is 8 months before the release of the demo -
so it's quite old! And that was one of the reasons for almost releaseing it
before the Demo-Compo at The Party IV, because I didn't thought that it had
a chance. Not after watching the demos from VD, Sanity and Bomb! So I was
quite surprised that I won the second prize in the Wild-Compo. I had to
compete in the Wild-Compo because of the stupid rules about not being
allowed to use fast-memory.



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Do you think your last answer would be different if I asked another coder
or maybe a non-scenemember? If you are brave enough you may also include a
short argument.



Fact is that I have asked several non-scenemembers that question. I
have showed Twisted to them and asked what they liked and didn't like. Most
non-scenemembers like the speed and the way it's timed to the music and
ofcourse the animations, but they don't understand when something is hard
to code - they would say it looked boring - especielly girls are of that
opinon! So, there are some effect they like and some they don't! Anyway,
I get their point. If I did a fullscreen texturemapped cube with
Gouraud shading in 8 bitplanes running full framerate - they would say that
is looked boring and when you think of it.. it really does, right? They
like to watch stuff which gives a meaning, demos with a message!



About other coders.. eh? Some of the coders I have talked to like the demo, some more
than others, but if I asked some of the real hardcore-coders (like Chaos) they
would say, that the demos was in lack of quality code - as the matter of
fact, that was the answer I got from Chaos! (I am surprised, TRX) But they
all seems to like the design. Which makes my heart shine (ha-ha!)



What equipment was used making Twisted?



I used an A4030 with 2 chip and 2 fast + Asm-One and Vlab for the movie-parts.
I guess the most important thing was the tons of tea, coffee and
cigarettes!!!



("Nenes" = NEw-NEver-Shown)
Well, I have always been very attracted to good and innovative
effects, which means fast and stunning "nenes-routines". I will now
write some cue, and you may write information to each cue. In order, they
are cronoligical:



Twisted Logo:

Ehh, well.. It breaks my heart to say this.. But it's an ray-traced anim!
It consist of 8 frames and that about all I can say about this!



MultiVideo-Table:

Not very hard either, I coded a routine to put some perspective in the
pictures I digitized from video and that's it!



"Simple"-tunnel:

As you put it, It's a rather simple tunnel with an animation of Cat (the old
dancer from Prince's band "The Revolution") in the
background!





Red Plasma (Stolen from Virtual Dreams "Full Moon"?):

You can't say I have stolen this one? People have been stealing vector-cubes
for years then! I got the idea of how to make it (It's not very hard to
code!) and coded it because I think it looks good. It's pretty close to
flames isn't it?



Nenes-plasma:

Well, actually this is almost the same effect as the flame-plasma, I just
added a vector-object. This routine was the latest one I coded in the demo
as a replacement for a vector-world, which was meant to be there instead -
but vector-worlds are kind out of fashion, aren't they?



Face-wave-rotation:

It's just another one of those copper-rotates, with a little
twist!



Texture-Cubed and planed rotation:

(Which bugged on my A4030 40Mhz CPU)

I knew this one would come.. There are two major bugs in the demo. This part
and the part with the tunnel and objects. I spent hours at The Party trying to
fix this one, but I failed.. (I just don't think I can bear it any longer?)
The routine worked just fine at home, so I was quite surprised that it
bugged at The Party, anyway I have solved the problem by now - and I'll
release a bug-free version soon (late January or start Febuary) together
with a HD-installer, so you don't have to change disc all the time.
I had the choice between releasing Twisted at the Party and ignore the bugs
or never release it.



Logo-Transforming:

I not quite sure what routine you mean here? If it's the animation, it just
an animation! (make sense eh?) But anyway it's a big one and I think that
Pixie did a great job drawing it! 900 frames.. prew! however, I did a little
routine to pack it.



Circle-Scroller:

Just another vector-object. This is here mainly of design
reasons..




Stunning-Nenes-Tunnel:

(Unfortunately the objects over the tunnel is bugging, and flicker the screen extremely)



I had never seen this bug before the demo-compo. When I stood up in the
control-room and saw the bugs I started yelling at the organizers because
I thought it was their fault (cabels or so?) After some seconds I realized
that it could only be my code. The reason was bad discs, so simple is that
and unfortunately a version with that bug was spread! Anyway you can be sure
that it's fixed in the final (also HD-installable) version!




Coordination-Picture-Music-Part:

I just timed the whole thing to the music, that is!



Ray-Traced-Face-up-from-Ground:

Again I hate to be the one to tell you! This is an animation! It's taken
from Terminator II. (Yeah, but in Terminator it was Ray-Traced. Row,
row, TRX)



Video-Part:

(Cut from Snowwhite, Lawnmover Man, Terminator etc)

There isn't so much to say about this either. I coded a routine to display
the animations in a way so that I could save some memory by having the
pictures in a smaller size and then I just grabbed some sequences from
different movies. Each sequence is of 50 frames!



That was some words from Gargoyle, about his own coded demo. Do you think
people like it, and have you got much respons from others? Why/why
not?



I KNOW people like it.. (am I being selfish here or what?) Well, I don't know?
I hope that people like Twisted, it would suddenly make it worth making the
whole thing. I have got some respons from people asking about the final
version - not much else.



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As you are a Dane, what is your true opinion on Static Bytes EuroChart. Do
you think there might be some corrupt charts?



My true opinion on the EuroChart. I like it! I think that Static Bytes is
doing a good job. Maybe the charts are not reflecting the true skills of
the people, but how popular they are? At least I think so. I don't know if
some charts may be corrupt - it can only be stupid people who are not skilled
enought who cheat on charts...



...I'm not that interested in the charts. I would love to see myself in them -
but they are not the reason for me going on in the scene. Making demos is
a hobby not a job! If I didn't think it was funny - I wouldn't do
it!



Your favorite coder, and what make you chose him?



There are alot! I like Dr. Skull because of his technical good code, I like
Slammer/Rednex because of his good ideas and design and I like Airwalk for
his line-tunnels! (Hi Jesper!)



The most underrated coder? Why, do you think?



I don't know.. Me? Just kidding! I think that Slammer should arrange higher
in the charts and the same goes for Crash/Argon!



Now some not-that-serious and fiction questions, straight from my imagination:
If I asked you making a BBS-Demo for a Norwegian Elite-Board, would you do
it?



I have a politics that says that I'm always willing to help other people
(I sound like an angle, right!) No, but ofcourse I will do some small
productions for other groups if they really need it - but you shouldn't
expect much (But wouldn't people die for the Polka-style?) As a matter of
fact I'm going to do some small things for other groups in the
future.



Lets say Lord Helmet died of over-working next week, who do you think will
take his 1st place at the EuroChart (me excluded - hehe)?



I don't recall any main-editor chart in the EuroChart so I guess you mean
Diskmags. Well, I think that if R.A.W suddenly died (well, a lot of
people thought they were) I think that Upstream would have a good
chance.



If I say that Beppe is dead. Would that make any sence to you? Why
not?



I have no idea what-so-ever of what Beppe is. Is it some kind of internal
Diskmag-thing? And why don't I know? Well, mayby I'm stupid? (noticed here
how I answer a question with another question!) (I think you are
doing well, TRX).



If Jesus was told to take all sinner, why do we have to go to
church, begging not to be punished for our faults?



I don't believe in God!



Well, I don`t either. Thanks for the answers. I wish you good luck with
your hopefully, further productions. I hope you reach high upon the chart.
If it is something you would like to add, do it here:



I just hope that people will continue making demos. Personally I'll
try to make more productions with a message, i.e. intro/demos that tells
you something, and not only shows you my newest routines. My intro "Alone"
is an example of this. Actually it is the first part in a trilogi called
"Three feelings". My next big demo will be something new, trust me!
At last I would like to thanks Terrox for interviewing me and all the people
who helped and motivated me to get Twisted done! See you all in my next
production...





_ Gargoyle/Polka_Brothers