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                          DHS SUMMER COMPETITION MEGADEMO
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system .... ST, STe, Falcon, RGB, VGA

size ...... 5oo KB

credits ... code: defjam of checkpoint, ray of .tSCc., bod of stax, blind io,
                  spex & no of escape, evl & gizmo of dhs, zerkman of sector one
            musx: d-force of fun, milhouse, mc laser of tscc, 5o5 of checkpoint,
                  baggio of wildfire, tao of cream, frequent of ephidrena
            grfx: sts of loud, paranoid of paranoia, exocet of jff, saulot,
                  marss, hylst, edo of sector one, spiny of torment

release ... 1o/2oo1

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Finally here it is, the Atari ST demo scene  all stars project! Even if the guys
of DHS didn't matched it to create a smooth multipart demo with straight design,
as announced at first, they matched it to show with their competition that there
are still  enough skilled  ST coders left  on ST, a point that you would doubt a
bit since the Error In Line party didn't offered much for ST people this year.

But the DHS compo matched it to lure the ST coding elite out of their caves with
their summer competition as well  as ST related artists and musicians. This time
without giving  them prices, no, just for the fame ;)  And finally it worked out
fine since 25 people gave  them their hands  to make it  possible to create this
semi-megademo.

Ok, as Evil wrote  in the file  coming with the  demo, it isn't a real multipart
demo at all, so the idea  of straight design can be  kicked here and I wont rate
this finally, it is more or less a slideshow...

So let's start this slideshow with the introduction. This one  offers a vertical
scroller  displaying all  the names of  the contributors, while  a  chipmusic is
playing. In front  of that scoller  in white  letters the  lyrics of a  poem are
displayed line by line and while the whole stuff is fading out to a black screen
a new chip music starts to play and a cool picture by Exocet, showing one of his
funny creatures with an Atari under his arm.

The whole show starts really with the screen that comes up now, done by Blind Io
and  called "How are you gentleman?"... fine so  far :P   This was  displayed in
white letters on  black background, followed by a black/white photo of the coder
itself, showing  him with the usual  basecap. The screen  itself features an old
theme of ST demo coding, rasterbars. But the  times as they were tumbling around
on  the screen  in one direction  are over and  so they are  zoomed, vertical or
horizontal, they're  rotating and disting. Nice  ones, old school ;)  The screen
ends with displaying "not enough time"... really?

Another picture comes up, showing a naked  woman pixeled by Edo while a new chip
music starts to  play as well, just  to introduce the Sector One screen, done by
Zerkman. On  the left border  of the screen  a nice pixeled  Sector One  logo is
displayed in red/orange colours while  some shaded 3d bobs are dancing around on
the screen, forming different  shapes and  leaving the  impression  that they're
burning.

After the usual  black break screen  another picture comes up, showing a strange
hand with a screaming mouth. It is followed by a simple screen by Bod of Stax.
It brings us  two pictures, one displayed at all  and a circle  flying around on
the screen revealing parts of the other picture. Err... not much to say about.

The next screen follows after  another black  screen that  is followed by a nice
picture about "fashion victims"... This  one is drawn  by a guy called Wee(r)do,
who is no one  else than STsurvivor. This screen cames along with a new music as
well and is Evil's own contribution.
His show starts with a nice environment mapped torrus on dark yellow background.
This one is turning around on the right side while some text is displayed on the
left one. While that text is displayed  the torrus transforms into other strange
objects, he gets edges for  example and after  a while he  fades out to give way
for some  kind of shaded  sunblobs or  something that  are dancing around on the
screen a while, and  finally the  torrus comes  back but it's delayed this time,
looks quite cool. Without any doubt this is the fattest screen so far...

A new strange  music starts to  play and a  dark "system failure" picture by STS
appears on the screen, right followed by the first screen by ESCAPE, made by No.
It is called "Weird Dithering Screen" and is  really weird. I can't describe the
shown things, I'm going of words. While a little Escape logo blinks in the upper
left corner, the screen brings some strange dithered effects, like melting blobs
and rotating and disting  logo's or something... looks really, err... weird! But
I have to  admit that  I like  the things I  can see here, even  if I don't know
right what it is, yek...

The next screen comes  after a break that  shows a picture done by Marss showing
some Paradise logo. This  screen is  also done by Escape, or better by their new
member Spex. He  brings us a screen  called "Circling Chessboards". Here you can
see on a purple background with a white textdisplayer in the middle of the whole
thing, a  chessboard effect  circling around the screen. It isn't  a spectacular
screen, but still a nice idea.

After the screen has  faded to  black and  another  break picture cames  up with
another and new music. It  gives way for another screen, by DHS again, or better
by their  coder Gizmo. It shows a big pumpkin  on a purple background, disting a
bit and saying "DHS demo laboratories". This fades out to white and some 3D bobs
are coming up, forming  a DHS logo. The screen is quite ok, but  looks a bit too
oldskoolish.

So we go on  and after a picture of a skater, the screen  of my group mates, Ray
and Gizmo comes  up, or better Ray's  screen using a  picture by Gizmo, hehe. It
shows a 4bit  planes zoom  rotator that  looks quite nice  but is far from being
revolutionary.

But if you think that was all you're wrong, since another  picture by Marss that
comes along with new music  again, introduces  the next screen, this one is done
by Defjam of Checkpoint. As  known he's  going to  squeeze out the ST with other
fancy routines, as always. So the screen  starts with  the known Checkpoint logo
dony by myself (!) eh, some years ago, but  this time it comes to the screen not
by fading or something, nope it is build  up as 3D vector lines logo! That looks
some kind of weird since he used  a lot of lines here, not only the surfaces, no
also to make it plastic at all. Finally the logo stands on  the screen. Below of
it the member's names are formed in  delayed  linevector  letters. This  is then
followed  by a disting  zoom rotator, that is followed  by the greetings screen,
that is quite nice as well  since the single  greetings are scrolling from right
to left over the screen in single words.
But that isn't all, since another nice  effect, reminding to  the old days on ST
comes up. You surely  remember the  good old circle  scrollers that were done so
often in the past. Defjam kicks this effect to its limits, presenting it in four
bitplanes, letting him grow and jump around on the screen. Quite cool!
Last but not least the part with the credits  comes up. That screen truly rocks,
it brings a collection of different effects, in typical Checkpoint style... that
means Defjam doesn't stops after one effect, he brings more and more... cool!

Another picture comes up, unfortunately it is one of the worst in the whole demo
and done by Hylst. It shows  some girl in  manga style and leads over to the end
screen, done by DHS again. This comes along with new music and a nice picture in
the background, showing a dragon or bird or something. A really cool picture!
In front of this piccy a vertical scroller comes up... giving some info again...

Over and out...

Final words... It was a great idea to collect the competition releases to form a
               megademo but  unfortunately  it didn't appeared in the way it was
               planned once. But after all it would be a damn hard work to bring
               all the screens together into  one multipart demo, since they are
               so different in style and  design that it would  be impossible to
               fix them together in a smoth and through going design. Anyway, it
               represents the biggest ST demo  project since so  many years with
               so many contributors. I really can't  remember a demo that brings
               the work of over 2o people together in all the last years.
               If you take a closer  look onto the  screens  and  contributions,
               they're different, very different. Except on the musix front, and
               here  I have  to say that  all included musix are  well done, the
               other included  stuff shows  very stylish  things as well as very
               simple ones... But after  all the main quality  is very  good and
               brings even some effects I can't describe...

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originality...  8o % - many good effects, good competition idea!
effex.........  9o % - all the ST can bring! unfortunately some quite old too...
visuals.......  75 % - mostly very nice grafix
musix.........  85 % - the soundtracks are all very nice!
design........  4o % - some screens are nice designed, but there is no overall
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all in one....  74 % - A real good demo...
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This demo kicks out with the heavy ammount of good screens, musix and grafix the
low  quality  stuffs, but  without  them and  if there  would  be, unfortunately
impossible, through running design it would have kicked a lot more.
Anyway, without DHS' competition we never would have that demo at all! Thanx!

.tSCc.                                                                   moondog
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