Archive for the 'motion graphics' Category
Check out gmunk’s new showreal, amazing as usual.
The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual motion graphic presentations that run in real-time on a computer. The main goal of a demo is to show off programming, artistic, and musical skills.
I first was made aware of the demoscene back in the early nineties when a friend lent me a floppy (fnar) disk for my amiga and told me to check it out.
I think it was called Acid Jesus or something along those lines and it totally blew me away. I never imagined that my humble little amiga could produce anything that visually exciting on a 880k disk. The graphics and music where better than anything produced by the large software houses at the time.
The demoscene first appeared during the 8-bit era on computers such as the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum, and came to prominence during the rise of the 16/32-bit home computers (the Atari ST and the Amiga). In the early years, demos had a strong connection with software cracking. When a cracked program was started, the cracker or his team would take credit with a graphical introduction called a “crack intro” (shortened cracktro). Later, the making of intros and standalone demos evolved into a new subculture independent of the software (piracy) scene.
For me, the independent and underground illegal beginnings of the scene share parallels with that of graphiti, and in its own right this mostly unknown art subculture is as valid as any artform out there. It may not have had the same impact as Graphiti on mainstream culture, but for me growing up it was as influential as any art form could be. It introduced me to motion-graphics and computer visualisation and it also was influential in getting me into electronic music.
Fast forward to 2008 and the scene is still very much alive, with coders making demo’s still for all platlforms still including the old 8bit and 16bit computers of the 80/90s.
Of course with technology taking massive leaps since then so have the demos.
Below are my current top 11 of these motion graphic code based masterpieces. A deserved art-form in its own right and I for one hope the scene continues to grow.
11: Sincere by The Black Lotus
10: Receptor by TBC
Drum and Bass visual treat.
9:Demoscene Outreach Reel
A montage compiled by NVision and is an excellent example of modern day demos. Many of the clips featured here will feature down the rest of this page.
8:Midnight Run by ASD
Really like this one because its not your normal demo with the obligatory camera down wobbly tunnel rave video cliché’s.
7: Stargazer by Andromeda & Orb
6: Final Audition by Plastic
5: Media Error by Fairlight , cncd & Orange
4:FR-042: Debris by Farbrausch
This really should be at number one but for some unknown reason. Even to me. Its not.
The astonishing fact about this demo is that its complete unzipped state its size is only 177k.177K! - Its really pushing programming to the limits that lazy game studios just don’t bother with these days. Listen to the music, watch the video and then answers on a postcard exactly how this is 177k. I’m going with witchcraft personally. Anyway watch, scratch your head and enjoy.177k??!!! download if you go to their website they explain how its done if you really need to know.
3:The Seeker by Still
2:Lifeforce by ASD
Brilliant demo this, but the music has some incredibly dodgy moments including a wailing rock out guitar moment that for a minute had me thinking I was watching a Michael Bay film, right at the climactic moment where he likes to reach cheese critical mass. Normally with some angled jaw wooden actor diving down an explosive corridor in slow motion to save a baby who was inexplicably in harms way. Get passed that though and there are some wonderfully conceived and well visualised moments in this demo that mixes after effects style 2d motion with traditional Demoscene 3d.
1: Only One Wish by Fairlight & The Black Lotus
Fairlight have been around since I can remember and this demo, with sceners The Black Lotus, is my current favourite.
All above videos are available to download in their binary executable format for viewing in real-time on a PC. www.pouet.net and www.scene.org have them all to download.
Links for the Demoscene:
www.capped.tv
www.scene.org
www.nvision2008.com/
www.pouet.net
www.demoscene.tv/
http://still-scene.org/
www.farbrausch.de/
Whilst vegtablising myself in front of the TV last night I caught an advert for Carphone Warehouse; who obviously deem minimal techno mainstream enough now to put in there ads(Ohh the grannies will lub it!). I kinda liked the tune in the background so hopped on-line to find out what it was and in my research managed to dig up this on youtube.
The track is called Hitchhikers Choice by Minilogue; it’s video is pretty much the same as the advert so I assume a lazy ad exec thought, wow that’s cool, I’ll get these guys to make my ad then pass it off as my idea! Job done.
It’s stop motion using a white board and the Swedish artist ljudbilden has a blog which can be found here
Regardless of lazy advertising executives the original video and tune are great. So here it is.
Enjoy.
Minilogue - Hitchhikers Choice
Rob Chiu of The Ronin directed this amazing short for Digital Kitchen and the 12th Annual Webby Awards. Check it out Here and read more about it at Motionographer.com
Some really great work here you should check out.
Maxim Zhestkov is a 22 year old director and designer based in ,ulyanovsk Russia and has made some incredible abstract motion graphic pieces as well as 3d designs all primarily in grey scale. Check.