Mike Moore - #
Saw this very well choreographed diabolo routine yesterday on the tube of yous:
https://youtu.be/3JdT4fDi4iI
Using a projector and tight choreography to create some interesting visual candy.
That was excellent. I found myself totally ignoring the actual diaboloing and focusing on how the movement of the diabolo worked with the background.
I wonder if the same effect could be achieved with a kinect (or other leading motion sensing input device).
How much of the light/computer effects were live and how much was added in post-production?
That's a very good question. I'm inclined to think that it is all live and just very well choreographed. There are a few places where the effects are not fully aligned, and where the performed 'etches out" a triangle shape the projected shape has straight edges, but his diabolo motion is curved.
Although the sections where he moves rapidly across the stage with the screen projecting trails are almost too good to be true.
Anyhow, the overall effect is pretty amazing.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
On the video the creator commented that there was no tracking/camera, all was prerecorded!
Very impressive!
Mike Moore - - Parent #
I'm inclined to believe them, too, as they have a handful of dance/other similar acts like this one.
This style of performance seems to be his speciality. I love this one:
https://youtu.be/IALr6M2NXsE
Reminds me of the 'mega demos' you used to get on the Amiga and Atari computers!
Little Paul - - Parent #
juggling/demoscene link - Andy "Shorts" Fraser used to write Amega demos.
Cool, I used to write Amiga demos too, under the name Dr. Strange. I loved that computer, the customer hardware was amazing.
On a related note, I read "Racing the Beam" a little while ago. The book takes a look at the highly creative (and hacky) way developers squeezed every last ounce of processing power, and memory out of the Atari VCS. The way games like PacMan were implemented were absolute genius. I would highly recommend reading it.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Racing-Beam-Computer-Platform-Studies/dp/026201257X
I'm almost tempted to get myself a VCS emulator and give it a whirl!
Little Paul - - Parent #
Thanks, sounds like my sort of reading - I assume the title is a reference to the vertical blank interrupts which happen between drawing the bottom right pixel of one frame and the top left pixel of the next frame - I remember something about having to copy video memory around during that period to prevent flickering when animating stuff.
I seem to remember some HBI mucking about going on as well in Atari demos (I was an Atari guy rather than an Amiga guy) to change screen modes and pallets to get more colours than you were supposed to be able to display at once, and/or to remove the borders in some display modes.
But this is all stored in neutrons which haven't fired properly in about 20 years...
Little Paul - - Parent #
Arf at autocorrect of neurones to neutrons
Yes, your neutrons remember correctly. The title does indeed refers to the small 'window' of processing that the programmer as available to them within the vertical and horizontal blank periods.
The console was such a programming challenge, that there are still a few people actively developing for it. The new and updated Pacman is an incredibly impressive clone of the arcade machine of the same era:
https://youtu.be/dAYuBcuvIww
Little Paul - - Parent #
I've got a copy of the book winging its way towards me now, I'm looking forward to diving in to it.
Having watched that video, youtube suggested I might like "Zippy the Porcupine" which is a version of Sonic running on the Atari 2600 - which I was really quite impressed by, as I don't think there were many (any?) scrolling platformers for it originally.
https://youtu.be/5zeV-yi-iY4
That looks amazing!
Re: scrolling platformers, I think you are right. There were quite a few scrolling games like Defender and Star Wars on the Atari 2600, but I don't recall any platform games.
Sadly I never owned a 2600. My first computer was a BBC micro. A 'scroller' that sticks in my memory is Firetrack:
https://youtu.be/8bxdd2_qrpg
A great game. Although a technically more interesting scrolling game of this era was PaperBoy with its near-unique diagonal scrolling.
I must be getting old, I just don't see the creativity in computer games these days. They are more like Hollywood films, big budgets, and generic concepts. The really gaming era was all about creativity and squeezing as much as you could out of the hardware.
Yeah ... I'm getting old ;-)
Little Paul - - Parent #
Cor! I'd forgotten about firetrack, it was the music that brought it all back.
I'm with you on modern games, although I think there's a wider spread of innovation in the casual/mobile gaming market than there is in the console/pc game market - certainly in gameplay terms, but the whole "push the machine further than it was supposed to go" thing seems to have gone.
Apart from in some areas. I got in to reading about/watching microcontroler demos recently. These are a couple of my favourites:
https://youtu.be/sNCqrylNY-0
https://youtu.be/sCN1bqRG-7o
And of course
https://youtu.be/s1eNjUgaB-g
That last one is all precomputed, and the music is overdubbed - but I like it because the "compiled" demo is just an audio file which is played into an oscilloscope in XY mode - no Z input required. Very clever ideas :)
Yep, definitely a lot of innovation in the casual market (I quite enjoyed playing one tap quest for about 20 minutes last night, which is about how long I want my gaming to last). There are *a lot* of clones to wade through but that's no real change. There is also a good bit of squeezing going on too: https://js13kgames.com/
I must be getting old, I just don't see the creativity in computer games these days. They are more like Hollywood films, big budgets, and generic concepts. The really gaming era was all about creativity and squeezing as much as you could out of the hardware.
You're right I think about the big name games but there are loads of smaller games coming out that enthuse me as much as stuff like Nodes of Yesod and Spindizzy did back in the day. If you want big games with wit and imagination as well as colour (no more grimy greys and browns please) then Nintendo still manage to pull that stuff off with as much joy and enthusiasm as they ever did.
Brook Roberts - - Parent #
Plenty of games with creativity around these days I think - the big budget games less so but plenty of smaller PC games. It's not perfect, but do you think this say about the games that have been in the humble bundles?
On another note, someone organized an 'Amiga Day' a few days ago:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/amigaday/
Lots of great nostalgia popping up on Twitter and Facebook :-)
Coo, that's a bit special. I'm in danger of losing my ability to snarkily claim that, "I can count the number of interesting glow routines that I've seen on my fingers".
Little Paul - - Parent #
I've just made the time to watch that video, and I like it - a lot.
Any chance any future BJC organisers would like to book him for a public show for me so I can watch it live?
Not sure that would work as well live, I think it needs a specific viewing angle.
Depends on how close to the surface projected on he is. The closer to that, the wider the viewing angle can be.
I'm not convinced that what we're seeing here is "live". There are places where a trail or effect obscures his face, and not in the way that I'd expect if it was front-projection. And if it was back projection, then how did that happen? I'm calling post-production, at least partially.
That's not to say that I didn't like it. It was great!
In some of their other videos there seems to be a crowd watching them... The guy also says that it's not edited - not sure how much that means though...
Since the routine is choreographed to music I think it's easily possible to get the timing right with a pre-made video and no post-production.
I agree - my feeling is that this is very very well choreographed. You can see the odd imperfection and misalignment. If it were post-production, they would not have added these imperfections.
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