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                           "HMMM..." by ESCAPE
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system... Falcon, 4 MB RAM, RGB, VGA (1oo Hz)

size..... 99o KB on harddisk

credits.. code - no of escape
          grfx - no of escape
          musx - 5o5 of checkpoint

release.. ERROR IN LINE 2K1 - ranked 1st in the Falcon demo competition

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Since my good old SC 1224 burned away on ERROR IN LINE party  and my VGA monitor
doesn't like the demo too much (sometimes it runs, most often not) I had to wait
longer time untill I could start to write a review. Now we have nearly September
and I'm at home with a flu, so I have a lot time for computing, hehehe.

My daughter left the home for  school and I dragged my Falcy to  her (my old) TV
set to check  out all the  stuff  again... No (...) question  what demo I loaded
first, eh? Before I start with the review let me write some shit around it.

As it should be no secret anymore, this demo was the true burner on the EIL 2K1,
it appeared  out of nothing, runs on  REAL plain Falcon (it  doesn't even need a
FPU for example) and overall it has won the competition. So what? In my eyes the
first place was more than just fair, because of the following points...

- After all the discussions held in the  Atari scene, about standard Falcons and
  the need  for more RAM and turbocards, this  demo showed up that the so called
  "standard Falcon" isn't far away  from be kicked to its very  limits. It shows
  for example  that complex  effex in higher resolutions don't require definitly
  better hardware to run smooth...

- About all the MP2/3 discussions, and  I really like  MP2 soundtracks, it shows
  up that it  is still  possible to  create cool  atmospheres with  the good old
  tracker  musix and  esp. the use of  tracker modules  helps to save resources,
  because as always is known, the MP2/3 stuff needs a lot of memory, not only on
  harddisk but most in the RAM and in  my eyes it  can't be the  true way to say
  "We will use MP2 only, so go ahead and buy a RAM card!"...

- Overall this demo brought back some of the old (blabla) Atari coder spirit, to
  torment the old hardware to its very limits instead of hunting for accelerator
  cards, co-processors and RAM extensions. I know  that I have to divide all the
  demo makers into  different groups  and I  also accept  the meaning  that some
  people need that equipment to  do the things they  especially want, apart from
  running for coding records, but to build their own definition of digital art.
  But that is the point, the old spirit, reminding to  older Atari events as the
  standard Falcon was set as compo equipment and not anyone could use a hardware
  config he wanted... and so all were  sitting in the same  boat and must try to
  squeeze out the rest of the given possibilities... Hope you  understand what I
  try to write here with my humble english ;)

Ok, enough shit written... Let's start this (very late) review...

It was damn  long time very  silent about the  ESCAPE guys, or better around the
FESKE brothers (because NO's productions always appearing with 5o5's music). And
even I saw him coding on last years UNCONVENTIONAL party, and even if he brought
us some nice EIL remining intro this year, no one expected a real demo release.

And than came "Hmmm..."... Hmmm? Hmmm! A quiet strange name but maybe it is some
kind of thought that comes into your mind after watching this demo, who knows?

The demo starts  with that short  sentence, printing "hmmm..." in  white letters
onto the screen with a blinking cursor and the special keyclick noises and hmmm,
suddenly the blinking curser changes  into a filled vector cube while a rambling
technoing music starts to  play, and while  the music is  going much harder, the
object starts to transform, just in a way as long thorns suddenly growing out of
each side of  the cube, all  in a nice  environment  mapping, in  blue  and grey
shades...  and while you always could still see the rest of the little cube, the
screen flashes and the object turns into a complete thorns  star, env. mapped as
well and besides in a fairly high resolution also with a very remarkable speed.



The screen  flashes and  jumps to the  beat and gives way  for some wobbling and
melting texture, known from  some older ESCAPE production and  the blinking goes
on, right  to the  beat, bumm tschack... gimme epileptical shocks man!! Then  it
gives way to the ERROR IN LINE logo, known  from older intros  and the homepage,
but this  time it  comes away  as vector  object and, you  guessed it, in mapped
style.

After the logo disappeared some strange and big  env. mapped vector object comes
up with some motion blur effect, looks real  stunning. The music makes some more
strange steps, the  screen flashes  and a bunch  of many little vex objects, you
know the style already, as the env. mapping must have infected NO's brain in all
phases, comes up, motion blurred  again, changing from some kind of vector balls
to that little thorny stars. Those things but not only turning  around, nope, in
style of a classical roto zoomer they're zooming back and forth again and again.
After another hard flash the screen turns black and the music stops...

What now? Is it over... naaah, just  preparing  the next  part, new  music - new
luck, eh? A strange mostly red coloured  texture comes up, wobbling in some real
cruel style, right to the silly samples of the music, jerking together when very
special  samples  coming up, like some  guy who has  fear to get a hit  onto his
mouth ;)  Real cool idea!

A delayed environemt mapped vector comes up, turning around a bit and giving way
for another stunning effect: two thorned stars turning around each other and the
thorns are always stretching into the direction of  the opponent, wow! Those are
turning around a while and  make place  for some  env. mapped big  torus that is
motion blurred as well, hmmm...

And another  cool effect comes up, the screen  turns blue  and after a while you
can see the edges of some vector  objects, it looks like they are trying to come
through the blue color, like  they're hided  below some  silk or something. Very
good looking one and not seen in that way so far... This is followed by some big
wobbling texture  that turns out to be some "HM? hmmm..." logo after a while, as
the distorsion isn't as big anymore.

Bam, suddenly the music stops again, gives with a black screen the break for the
next part. And as known, the music goes on after a short pause in another style,
coming along with some golden coloured env. mapped vector  that is morphing into
a star with  very long thorns and back and into a phat  star again, right to the
beat of the music. After all the dark atmosphere so far, this is brighten up the
whole scenery for some seconds.

Next comes up some dots tube or maybe  dots volcano, also animated to the music.
The screen twitches to the music again and gives way to some  transparent vector
object, but still mapped! Cool stuff, even if the object  seems to be a bit lost
on the screen because of its  medium size and the  dark background. Anyway, some
texture comes up, together with that transparent vectors, and starts to move and
zoom in and out, later on the texture changes and even distes while roto zooming
around... huuu, and always with that vectors in the foreground.

Ofcourse it's time for another break, bringing new, stomping  music and new fast
effects. Some cube  comes up in  style of old line vectors, but  with the change
that his lines are build of env. mapped vector bars... This thing moves around a
while, changing  colours to  the beat of the music, faster and  faster until you
see the whole  thing from the  center of the cube. The screen  blinks faster and
faster.... aaah... techno... ugh, ugh!

Some env. mapped torus is  coming up again, changing to transparence  and starts
to transform after a  while and is removed  from the screen  again, making place
for one of the most spectacular  effex. From the lower border a thorn is growing
into the center of the screen, and while some strange samples  coming out of the
speakers, the  whole thing grows and grows, becomming  branches and branches and
finally we have some env. mapped vector  tree, completely build of thorns on the
screen. It moves around then and changes the colours to the beat of the music.
Looks really cool, even if it is slowing down a bit at the end...

At next some disting and melting texture comes up again, followed by a stairway,
build of  the known vectors, that goes transparent  as well  and with  the music
after a while some little  sprites or  dots, dunno, are jumping downstairs. That
is a real great  effect, esp. since the music  helps to build  up a very special
atmosphere in here! Wow! Right  after that  the screen turns  black again and in
the lower  left corner a very small Escape 2oo1 logo  let you know that the show
is over... hmmm...



Final words...

What to say?! A real genious  demo! Without  any doubt  that demo  builds up the
biggest atmosphere so far! But far away from all that colourful and happy things
it is dark and cold, sometimes  also very  ambient. The effex  are just state of
the art, the massive use  of env. mapping in different variations (delayed, with
motion blur effect, animated and even transparent) doesn't break up in the demo,
the high  technical standard  goes through  untill the very  end. Also the style
goes hard through the whole demo, killing any thoughts onto the  spring with its
dark and  cold colours and objects. The  music by  5o5 is just marvellous, again
and again changing but always  matching to the demo, going  from technoing parts
to  mellow and ambient  parts, spreading even  some real cold  feelings together
with the visuals. Another point  to mention is the heavy  use of timing, flashes
and shaking screens that give the demo some more kicks... After all  I just miss
some more  bitmap grafix but maybe  they had looked  missplaced in  the demo and
destroyed the cold ambience... To put it into one sentence: That demo rocks like
hell on earth, destroying any life in your machine!

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originality...  9o % - yes, env. mapping isn't new, but the way they showed it...
effex.........  9o % - vector overload, env. mapped, animated, transparent...
visuals.......  7o % - only very few pixels, but nice textures and colours
musix......... 1oo % - ambient-dark-noise-core-techno-something! real stunning!
design........  9o % - straight style, timing, jumping flashing screens, colours
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all in one....  88 % - a killer demo, spreading a real destroying atmosphere!
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.tSCc.                                                                   moondog
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