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                        "Illusion" by Dune (sneak preview)
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system... ST, STe, Falcon, 1 MB RAM, RGB, 2 disx

credits.. code - evil metal, obi-wan, corbeau, terence
          gfx  - mic, jade, cortexx, redlight, casper, extrem
          msx  - deneb of fantasy, mephistow and techno, scavenger of synergy

release.. first shown on Place 2 Be Again 1994, took 1st place in the compo
          second shown on Error In Line 2oo3, not released yet...

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Do you remember this mysterious  thing?! Originally this demo  had won the compo
at the Place 2 Be Again 1994 in France but in the end it was never  released due
a bunch of bugs. Later on  the head  coder, Evil Metal  focused mainly  on their
professional division "Frontier Software" and lost the motivation  to finish the
demo and don't wanted to release the demo in the party version as well...

It was around 1995/1996 as the  silence surrounded  Dune and later also Frontier
Software and with this silence "Illusion" died somehow, at least the hope to see
this fantastic demo.

But as Dune  was reanimated  in 1998 the hopes  to safe this  demo for the Atari
community was growing up again. And  over some  strange ways the  demo found its
way to STGhost of Sector One  who started to  debug the demo  piece by piece. It
took quite a lot of time and since Evil Metal don't wanted to help out and there
were no source codes around, no comments, just nothing, this work was a horrible
job and time passed  by and  the STGhost  himself lowered  the hope of the still
anxious people a  lot as he told us, that  he doesn't thinks to finish this demo
somewhen...

Untill now... Suddenly on  Error In Line 2oo3  Chuck revealed that the demo will
be shown to the public. He  came over to me  and gave me two  disx I should copy
and when I started  them on my Falcon, I was able to see... "Illusion". The copy
he wanted to show on the big screen was somehow damaged and so I owned for a few
minutes maybe the -only- running copy of this demo  at all! Wow! And since Chuck
allowed me to make a preview of the demo for UCM, I will do so now. :)

At first, "Illusion" takes just  two disx, the rumours  in the past  always were
telling us stuff about a 3 disk demo... Who knows?! So put in the disk and reset
the machine...



The first screen... yummy...

The demo starts with an intro screen that shows a nice pixeled Illusion logo, by
Mic ofcourse, together with  the "Dune" vector, a vector  object  which presents
just a "D" in a triangle. Then the demo starts with a noisy sciene fiction alike
soundtrack and brings us a bunch of well drawn  pictures together with some kind
of science fiction story about a lonely  man in comic  style. This remined me in
some way to another Dune demo, wasn't it their part  in "World Of Wonders" where
they did another story?!

Anyway, this story with text and pictures takes quite a lot of  time and after a
while there comes up a break, showing a stylish grafix with some text. And then?
This looks wellknown to me?! Yes! The following part offers very cool grafix and
several 3d parts where you can see spaceships  flying around on the scenery. And
many  of you  might  have seen  it before, as  the  whole part  was used  in the
Frontier Software  game "Spacefighter" as intro sequence! The same  pictures and
routines, the same vectors, all the same!
Ofcourse this kicks  back the originality  of the demo a lot... too bad, even if
it was originally done for the  demo itself but then some  kind of misused as it
seems as nobody thought to release the demo in the end...

After this sequence another nice picture appears, telling us to insert disk two,
and so we did... What then  follows is a real effect  overload, packed into real
neat design (if we remember back the days where the demo was released...).

With a pumping chip  music we have  to read on  the screen, that we will see yet
another demo by Dune and  some bitmap  zooming in, saying us "let's go". This is
followed by a Dune logo  that is  mapped onto  a vector  bar that starts to turn
around its own axis. The same  logo appears later on again in an interlaced pic.
Well done pixel stuff! Yawn!

We go further with 3d dots  on blue background  that moving  around in different
shapes for a while and transforming into  a little Dune logo that moves into the
lower right  border to make  place for  more on the  screen. And then we can see
some delayed linevector  cube with some  dots jumping around in it. Then follows
a delayed line  vector rubber  cube (arf) and finishing  touches are done with a
delayed cube with a realtime beziercurve in it. What to say, especially in parts
like this you see how old the demo as  as those effects were state of the art in
the early/middle nineties on the ST.

Ok, after  another Dune logo we  get a screen with  3d bobs, followed by another
welldrawn grafic including a vertical scroller. Btw, have  I mentioned that this
goes all in a quite fast way? It goes hit  by hit, no effect lasts  very long on
the screen and also the grafix are just  shown for a few seconds and mainly just
used to make a nice transition to the next effect.

This comes along as a strange sincurve with 72oo dots  in realtime... wow. Not a
bad one, as well as  the following realtime fractal flight into an ifx fractale,
built of  6ooo dots. Other  oldschool effects are  the pipeline, just  as rubber
glenz  vectors, big transforming  glenz vectors  and again  and again those nice
ideas for  transitions between  the single  screens, as this time  two different
bitmap eyes are blinking that will be deleted with an eraser after a while.

-> screenshots of part 2 <-

Then we see a nice  little butterfly  pixeled together  with some psycho spiral,
you  know  those things  in  the  sixties, where a  strange coloured  spiral was
painted onto a round thing  and turns all  the time, a bit psychedelic... but...
the effect in the demo doesn't looks that much psycho...

And, as this is a french demo, we need some manga or anime stuff too, such as...
Dragonball! Together with a small logo  we see a big vector  ball jumping on the
screen with little stars and spots mapped onto its side. So we go on with a nice
filled vector representing a diamond with a lot of different coloured faces that
moves  around  on  the screen. Very  nice effect, followed  by some  short shown
unlimited vectors that are moving forwards and backwards on the screen.

We  go on  with a "psycho plasma", very  weird  effect, followed  by 4 RGB balls
flying  around on the screen, building just  one in the end  that gets overlayed
with a nice round picture  by Jade, that then making  place for 15 little vector
cubes that are turning around on the screen overprinted with "system disruption"
and after another small vector cube flies and explodes, the screen stays purple.
Finished?! Naaaah, just pressed reset...

Please wait loading the next level... says a picture and then we go further with
a filled  vector tunnel  in  one frame. This one  looks quite  nice again and is
coloured very soft and offers a little different tunnel look than all the todays
textured  tunnels. Together with  this effect  a wellknown Scavenger  chip music
starts  to play, arf. So far  the musix were original  and now? Too bad, even if
the music is still nice but it was already in those times used far too often...

A little grafic tells us that the following effect would have taken about 2,5 MB
in datas if it was precalculated  and then we  see some  kind of spacefighter in
filled vektor grafix  flying around  on the screen, while  right and left bitmap
grafix are  vertical scrolling  that gives  the whole scenery  a touch of moving
downwards.

At next we  get... glenz vectors again, this time  it is a  quite big one with a
little one in its middle, nice but ooouldschool, but what are you waiting for in
a demo from 1994?! ;) The upcoming rubber glas vector looks a bit cooler then...
This  one is  followed  by another  filled  3d part, at  first we  see some flat
vectors and  then one  of mic's  cool grafix again in the background with filled
vector stuff like  balls  and cubes. While the vectors are not the real beaters,
the grafix  just look marvellous  again, as  well as  the next  picture  that is
overfaded by some "lets do some mapping"... really?

And we see texture mapped vectors, at first a little space ship and then a cube.
They're moving quite  fast but with the restriction  that the screen looks a bit
boring in plain black and  the objects are  very small. But if we remember back,
in the past, texture  mapping effects were  quite seldom on the ST, esp. texture
mapped vectors that were turning around all axis'.

The  next  effect is  quite strange, is called "plasmoid cube" and  shows a glas
vector with  some kind of a one plane plasma on the side or behind it. Looks not
that  bad. And we  get a last  great grafic  then  showing  some kind  of dragon
monsters and... a glasball rolling  over the picture. This effect was well loved
on  the Falcon  at those days and... hum, atm I  don't remember a nother ST demo
with that effect at those times, maybe I am wrong, but I really doubt it to have
it seen before on ST.

-> screenshots of part 3 <-

Then the  demo suddenly stops, the music  plays on but there  is no other way to
leave the demo as to reset. That is also the reason for not releasing it already
as the end part is still not fixed.

So let's hope the demo  will not make  another long odyssey before it will reach
the long waiting public.

final words... "Illusion" was at the time it  was thought to be released without
               any doubt a  top demo on  the ST. Today it  looks a bit dusty but
               what do you think to  see in a 9 years old demo? Furthermore this
               demo turns out to be one of the last -really- big projects of the
               "old" Atari ST scene. It  features a  bunch of  effects that were
               state of  the art at  those days  as well as  some "filling" ones
               that also weren't smashers  at the time the demo was released but
               the overall impression  is still some kind  of marvellous and the
               reason is clear... the bunch of very stunning  artwork as well as
               the obvious try to design the  demo in the  straightest way. So a
               lot of grafix and effects  were just used to make a transition to
               the next part. The musix are  quite cool as well even if the last
               one is an  old hut. But in the  end I doubt  this demo would have
               saved the  starving ST scene  at those times... today it's just a
               nice present and I just  want to thank  the guys who dragged this
               mysterious demo into the light again...

___ratings______________________________________________________________________

visuals.......  9o % - many many good grafix by mic (!), jade and cortexx
audio.........  75 % - sample sound in the first part, nice chip musix
effects.......  5o % - 1994... vectors, dots, glasball, texture mapping...
design........  8o % - "old amiga design"?! quite straight, good transitions
originality...  6o % - no real new effects even for 1994, but grafix overload

___Overall______71_%____________________________________________________________

I really can't and wont do a "retro review" and looked at this demo with todays'
eyes, it is still nice to watch but after  the stuff we could  see in "Posh" the
effects of "Illusion" are mostly looking damn outdated, sorry, it's the price of
time... but again, the pixel score is top!

_.tSCc.__________________________________________________________moondog_o5/2k3_