Stella's review of The wind under my wings and comparisons

I got Stella to do another interview after watching "The wind under my wings" (yes, she watched it without even twitching. Her attention span is, still, longer than us youtubers).

Notice:

• The total silence after my question "what was in this demo"
• Her making fun of my Greek accent (it was one of these rare occasions when I spoke to her in English, which she found quite amusing)
• What happens at the end of that demo? "Wow and colors"
• Her revealing that she likes both demos equally: wind and iconoclash

Here is the file.

The wind under my wings and Iconoclash

We got some very mixed (more like negative) reviews for our latest demo "The wind under my wings" at pouet. This is understandable, as I have mentioned before the audience for demos like that is quite small. Let me come back to this issue after I give out some details on the concept of "wind":

• I've been trying to make a demo exactly like that for maybe 7 years. This is more time than for anything else we ever planned. To be precise, this production started my interest in trippy ambience and controlled noise; but I had never been able to transfer that into one of our productions. "eon", "aphorism for the masses", "walls of eryx" and "captive" were steps towards "the wind under my wings". I'm happy that I have resolved this even if it took so long. The future is open for further experimentation.
  
• There is an underlying theme, very obscure (and it is even more if you haven't seen "Iconoclash" yet, which I'm sure you haven't): "The wind under my wings" continues the "rupture/chameleon" saga, in which the hero/avatar is chased away from this world into the unknown. Rupture/chameleon left us at complete destruction (presumably death), after a journey through the real world (objects of the real world functioning as they should, motorcycles run, helicopters fly etc.). Twinned Wind/Iconoclash demos continue in the "ether-world", or what I imagine lies further. Lets call it the spiritual universe where memories and thoughts are all messed up as in a dream.
• Wind/Iconoclash more or less describe the same thing (with some cross-referenced elements) but with some important differences, other than the style and computer graphics techniques: while Wind is futuristic and expresses despair and anxiety, Iconoclash belongs to the past: it is gothic/baroque and depicts horror and confusion.
• The choice of music (with the vocals) for Wind has already found lots of enemies. I believe it helps to create the element of anxiety I described above. Maybe the same would have happened with an ambient/noisy track - but that would have been quite predictable.
  

I find it much easier to immerse into "Wind" after having watched this demo (as you would expect) hundreds of times. Maybe it is that the brain needs to work out the patterns and rhythm slowly, one step at a time. Some demos need that, require your full attention and your devotion.

What started as an awkward attempt to break a 7 year curse has grown up considerably inside me. Maybe it will grow on you too.

Live from Euskal 2010

I've been here at the Euskal encounters 2010 for the past 3 days, enjoying good weather, good company and good food. If you have never been there please do so, maybe next year or the year after; the place is mind-blowing huge! there are activities and computers eveywhere, although, sadly, the scene area is a shadow of its former self.

We presented a demo too:

http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=55418

Don't mind the critics, this is a very good demo indeed; (yeah, a thumb up from me too, we did a pretty good job with Amusic and his gal). It looked clean and focused on the big screen (unfortunately on a 4:3 aspect ratio) and gave me the warm feeling you get inside you once you see your production with the public.

I understand this is not for everyone, but I'll be more than pleased to see a rating of approval from certain people.

Clean-cut types who like their demos with phong and textures, suck your thumb... and wait.

Demo for Euskal finished!

So let's see what is in there:

• One day demo, I took a day off work to do some tidying up in my house but ended up doing the demo instead. It is the fastest production since EON.
  
• Based on an idea I had about geometry generation through subtractive synthesis: shapes are generated through CSG "boolean intersection/difference". I wanted to do this since watching Medium ages ago.
  
• No loaded textures, all (very simple) textures that you see are generated on the fragment shader.
  
• Only a couple of meshes loaded and used as "noise" rather than geometry.
• Hard camera cuts, hard visuals, not a very pretty sight.
  
• This demo is not for everyone. It will either come first or last in the compo. I personally rank it very highly amongst our demos so far. I love this demo.
  
• Pouet thumb prediction for first 6 months: 110 thumbs up, 25 thumbs down. Oh and 3 cdcs. You know you want to ! :-)
  

We still need some music for it though... but we'll get there shortly after music for "Iconoclast" finishes.

Parties!

I have now purchased plane tickets for Euskal encounters and Assembly. I'll be giving some sort of lecture at Assembly too so come and see me if you are around.

I'll be bringing one demo for each of these parties too.