Step45: Hawk Mega Demo II Earth’s sorrows

Megaaa demooooo

One year after the first mega demo, here was the second one. More people have worked on this release. The full mega demo lenght is about 20 mins.

Here is the full demo

HAWK became bigger because I met some nice guys and we decided to create something alltogether.

TEBIROD and ACES from CONCEPT joined us. CONCEPT was dead, they decided to join HAWK. TEBIROD for music and ACES for arts.

WILL also helped us. He was part of ATARI ST group 1984. They were preparing a big demo for the ST (see after in another article). I spend some times at WILL place with all 1984 members.

MANHUNTER as coder. He wanted to code some stuffs so we decided to code together that megademo. He did half of the work, I did the other half (for the code side).

The demo is composed of 8 parts. (part 5 is missing in the demo, I need to capture the whole megademo again).

When reading the ADF, this text can be found in forst sector of the floppy

«HAPPY NEW YEAR 1992 !!!! This product was coded by ORIENS and MANHUNTER Musics by TEBIROD and graphs by KREATOR,ACES,WILL,ELRIC and JOHNNY-b. HAWK (C) 27 dec 1991»

Part 1: Earth Sorrow Intro

Code

The intro of the megademo is made of multiple parallax effect. The most impressive part is done using sprites. This is the same technic used in the game Risky Woods. Sprites of a total of 64 pixels wide and 16 colors are displayed. In theory you can only display one sprite on a line, but using copper tricks you can repeat the sprite display. That’s how you can cover the whole screen horizontally. But you need to do the trick each line, so the copperlist is really heavy.

The code can be seen here. You can check the part were the copper list is generated.

I’ve been impressed by the background display in the game Risky woods. Using the action replay cartridge, I understood how they did. I reproduced the same in the Earth’s sorrows intro.

Check codetapper website for full explaination about the technic:http://codetapper.com/amiga/sprite-tricks/risky-woods/

Picture with sprite as background:

Picture without sprites:

The parallax are done using 4 patterns of 64×64 pixels in 16 colors

The patterns are:

Pattern 1 and 3 are decayed to create a non aligned effect.

The 4 patterns are mixed together with the vertical scrolling for each. The masks are used to copy the layers and the whole data is created in sprite data format. Blitter is used to construct the first 64×64 pixels bloc, then blitter is used to copy it vertically to cover the screen to the bottom (the blue part on image). The rest of the screen is covered automatically with the sprite trick.

So we have a low cost 4 planes 16 colors parallax scrolling.

I can do simple effect on it. The first one is using 3 bitplanes and the text «Now». The bitmaps are precomputed at different size to give a 7 planes parallax effect.

The second screen is displaying a big 16 colors fullscreen Hawk logo

I could have displayed a 32 colors (or 64 colors with EHB) by sharing the palette with the sprite palette.

Arts

Alternative unused version:

The logo. As it is not fully scrolling, the bottom have been cut (data saved).

test sprites:

Intro final picture is in Hires (as all the full screen pictures). That means 640x512 pixels. To acheive this, the interlacing mode is used. This is done by switching the picture each frame, displaying odd lines and even lines. That gives an effect of picture blinking.

The picture is a reproduction of from Rodney Matthews.

The title of original drawing is «Mirador».

Some researches for the intro:

Music

Earth Sorrows Theme (107 KB). Can be dowloaded here

Tebirod have done a music in order to fit the intro. I remember that he have done a first version of the music but I did not quite liked it. He was nice and did a second version, which was much better in my opinion. The music fit perfectly the intro.

Edit 2024: I finally used that alternative intro module in 2024 music disk "Mel O Dee's 2". You can check it there: (used into the intro of the music disk)

Part 2: Curse of Osiris

This demo is about egypt and pyramids. Somewhere in one of them a sacrifice is beeing prepared. The demo is divided into two parts. The first part show big copper effects and the second one is a trip into the pyramid.

Code

The first part use a big copper list. The idea was to draw pictures using only the background color. When putting one value into one register, the electron beam moves of 8 pixels. I used that simple trick to display big pixels of 8×8. The idea of displaying pictures using not bitplane at all was fun. So I displayed pictures, and animations using that system. On top of that, I had all bitplanes free to display what I wanted. I displayed one scrolling. I also add a mask system. The big pictures are drawn using the background color. Nothing can be draw behind this. To acheive the mask system I had to make holes into the scrolling. That gave the effect of beeing behind the background color.

Nice technical idea, but the overall result feeled a bit empty.

The code is here.

A script system have been done and everything was put into a table:

;-----------------------------------------------------------------
; CODE DES SEQUENCES :
;
; 0,NN >> WAIT NN FRAMES ....
;
; 1,NN >> ANIMATION DU COPPER-MAN FOR NN FRAMES.
;
; 2,NN >> FAIT DESCENDRE LE CACHE DE FIN ANIM
; PENDANT NN FRAMES [ 256 SOUHAITEES ].
;
; 3,NN >> EFFACE LA 1 COPPER [ 1 SOUHAITE ]
; 31,NN >> EFFACE LA 2 COPPER [ 1 SOUHAITE ]
;
; 4,NN >> REMONTE LE CACHE [ 256 SOUHAITE ]
;
; 5,NN >> ANIMATION DU COPPER MAN QUI S'ELOIGNE
; [12 SOUHAITE ET CONSEILLE !! SINON ...]
;
; 6,NN >> SCROLL SINUSOIDALE (EUH TOI MEME ...)
; NN PEUT VARIER SELON TEXTE.
;
; 7,01 >> libre
; ; 8,01 >> CONSTRUIT CACHE
;
; 200,01 >> INIT ET LANCE TEXTE PRESENTATION.
;
; 201,01 >> INIT SCROLL 1
; 202,01 >> INIT SCROLL 2
; 203,01 >> INIT SCROLL 3
;
; 300,01 >> CONSTRUIT COPPER MAN.GFX
;
; 301,01 >> CONSTRUIT DEAD.GFX
;
; 302,01 >> CONSTRUIT COUCHER.GFX
;
; 303,01 >> CONSTRUIT CACHE
;
; 304,01 >> EFFACE SCROLL MEMOIRE
;
; 305,01 >> CONSTRUIT MASK 1 AUSSI 306 307
;
; 308,01 >> CONSTRUIT PETIT MASK DEAD
;
; 309,01 >> CONSTRUIT IMAGE WILL.GFX
;
; 310,01 >> CONSTRUIT MASK_WILL
;
;
; 11,01 >> INITILISE MASK DEAD
;
; 400,01 >> VIRE PLANS ET ARRETTE TOUTE OPERATION.
;
; 900,01 >> INIT 3D PART (COPPER)
;
; 901,01 >> LANCE 3D PART
;
; 15 >>
; 151 >> CONSTRUIT COUCHER DE SOLEIL
;
; 50 >> INIT NEW COPPER
;
; 51 >> LANCE DECRUNCH IMAGE 1
;
; $FFFF END OF ALL ACTIVITY. (POIL AU Z... ARF )
;-----------------------------------------------------------------
SEQUENCES: ; DEROULEMENT DE LA DMO (RADIN MEME SUR LES MOTS)

DC.W 200,1 ; SCROLL INTRO
DC.W 0,1540 ; WAIT FIN SCROLL

DC.W 400,1 ; STOP TOUTES OPERATIONS
DC.W 300,1 ; CONSTRUIT TABLES_COPPER
; DECRUNCHEE
DC.W 1,400 ; ANIM DU RUNNING MAN
DC.W 5,16 ; COPPER MAN QUI S'ELOIGNE

DC.W 400,1 ; Stop all

DC.W 303,1 ; CONS CACHE
DC.W 2,1 ; IMAGE DISPARAIT
DC.W 0,280

DC.W 301,1
DC.W 3,1 ; EFFACE COPPER 2 PARTIE 1
DC.W 31,1 ; EFFACE COPPER 2 PARTIE 2

DC.W 4,1 ; REMONTE ECRAN
DC.W 0,280 ; TEMPO REMONTE

DC.W 400,1 ; STOP ALL
DC.W 304,1 ; EFFACE MEM
DC.W 11,1 ; FABRIQUE MASK
DC.W 201,1 ; SCROLL1
DC.W 0,1270 ; TEMPO SCROLL 1
dc.w 308,1 ; construit mask yeux
dc.w 0,300

DC.W 400,1 ; STOP ALL
DC.W 303,3 ; CONS CACHE
DC.W 302,1 ; COINS TABLES COUCHER

DC.W 2,1 ; DESCEND CACHE
DC.W 0,300 ; TEMPO DESCEND

DC.W 15,1 ; CONS COUCHER 2 PARTIE 1
DC.W 151,1 ; CONS COUCHER 2 PARTIE 2

DC.W 4,1 ; REMONTE ECRAN
DC.W 0,280 ; TEMPO REMONTE

DC.W 304,1 ; VIDE MEM
DC.W 202,1 ; LANCE SCROLL 1
DC.W 0,1032 ; WAIT

DC.W 307,01 ; TOTAL MASK
DC.W 0,700

DC.W 306,01 ; SEE MASK
DC.W 0,1100

DC.W 305,01 ; SUN MASK
DC.W 0,700
;------------image will-----------------------------------------
DC.W 400,1 ; STOP ALL
DC.W 303,3 ; CONS CACHE

DC.W 309,1 ; COINS TABLES COUCHER

DC.W 2,1 ; DESCEND CACHE
DC.W 0,300 ; TEMPO DESCEND

DC.W 15,1 ; CONS WILL PARTIE 1
DC.W 151,1 ; CONS WILL PARTIE 2

DC.W 4,1 ; REMONTE ECRAN
DC.W 0,280 ; TEMPO REMONTE

DC.W 400,1 ; Stop all

dc.w 310,1 ; construit mask
DC.W 304,1 ; VIDE MEM

DC.W 203,1 ; LANCE SCROLL 3
DC.W 0,2500 ; WAIT
;----------------------3d--------------------------------------
DC.W 400,1 ; STOP_ALL
DC.W 303,1 ; CONS CACHE
DC.W 2,1 ; DESCEND
DC.W 0,260 ; TEMPO DESCEND

DC.W 25,1 ; CONS COUCHER 2 PARTIE 1
DC.W 251,1 ; CONS COUCHER 2 PARTIE 2

DC.W 400,0 ; STOP ACTIVITY
DC.W 304,0 ; EFFACE
DC.W 900,0 ; INIT_COPPER
DC.W 901,0 ; LANCE_3D
DC.W 0,200

; dc.w 999,01 ; end_of_all

DC.W $FFFF,0 ; FIN

There are some jokes in the text. Funny because I was the only one to see it. Makes me smile today.

The second part is a trip into a pyramid. It is a zoom of a pyramid and then a fake 3D door moving toward the camera. It is fake because eveything was drawn using deluxe paint. I copied the coordinates of each frame and then draw then in real time using the blitter (line draw + fill). The result is nice. At that time, my programming level was not high enough to do real 3D.

In the header of the source code, I’ve noted the day and hours of work. I sometimes worked on night or all day long. That was not very serious.

;—————————————————————–
;
; ** THE GREAT COPPER-MAN BY THE GREAT ORIENS ! ** (C’EST UNE FARCE ?)
;
; LE 01/03/91 …06:33 A 09:00 02:27
; LE 03/11/91 …20:00 A 23:00 02:00
; LE 06/11/91 …03:30 A 03:47 00:17
; LE 06/11/91 …22:00 A 00:09 02:09
; LE 07/11/91 …00:18 A 03:30 +[ROUTINES 3D(2* 4HEURES)] 11:12
; LE 24/11/91 …22:53
; LE 02/12/91 …17:00
; LE 08/12/91 …21:44 A 22:18
; DU 26 au 27 non stop
;
; ———
; HAWK DEMO part ORIENS number 1
; ———
;—————————————————————–

The texts

WELCOME IN OUR WORLD. NO LONG SPEECHES WILL BE MADE …SO ENJOY THE SHOW. YOU STILL THINK THAT COPPER EFFECTS ARE ALL BORING ????? LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT THIS …

AS YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTICED , MORE THINGS CAN BE DONE USING COPPER AND COLORS . LET’S TRY SOME OTHERS. TOTAL COPPER , NOT VERY EASY TO READ ??????? ACTIVATE SEA COPPER, BETTER NO ???? BUT I PREFER THE …… SUN COPPER. THIS DEMO IS CALLED CURSE OF OSIRIS …. SOMEWHERE IN A FAR LOST DESERT LAND , A SACRIFICE IS NEAR TO BE DONE … THE TUNE YOU ARE LISTENING TO IS A TYPICAL RITUAL SONG …. OSIRIS IS LOOKING AT YOUR SOUL , BEWARE OF IT … MAGIC CAN BRING US INTO THE PYRAMID.

Art

Nice font by ACES as far as I remember and then an illustration by WILL.

The copper arts:

This was a reuse of our first HAWK demo with the running man. I added some elements in the back.

Unused skull animation:

Music

TEBIROD created a nice music as usual. Curse of Osiris (142 KB). Can be downloaded here. At end you can hear a sacrifice and a woman shouting. Very nice ambiance.

Part 3 : «Domination» Picture

Picture drawn by KREATOR. High resolution picture 640×512. Inspired from a Frank Frazetta picture.

Original drawing by Frazetta

Part 4 : «Sea of copper» (Plasma demo)

This part have been coded by MANHUNTER. It is based on what we call «copper effects». The effect is quite classical for that time, but the wave and the color were nice.

Part 5 : «Tigers queen» Picture

Picture drawn by KREATOR. High resolution picture 640×512. Inspired from a Frank Frazetta picture.

Original drawing by Frazetta.

As you can see, lot of our pictures were inspired by known artists. At that time, the bosses of inspiration were Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo.

Part 6 : «Math Creatures» (3D demo)

This part have been coded by MANHUNTER. This is a demo showing 3D objects. Some of them are animated and transform during the demo. I did not saw the code for that. Anyway the objects and morphs were nice.

Part 7 : Greetings

This part have been coded by MANHUNTER. This is simple sinux scroll and equalizer. If you press both mouse button before the execution of that demo, you’ll see a different text (the «fuckings»). I did not had the source code but I found the texr by saving raw memory using winuae (SHIFT+F12 to display debugger the «S memory.raw $20000 512000»

Greetings

«WHAT ARE YOU SEEING ??? HERE !!! PASS YOUR PATH !!! TO READ OR NOT TO READ !!! BECAUSE ITS TIME FOR GREETINGS þ!!! DESERVED GREETINGS GO TO OUR FRIENDS AND FOLLOWING GUYS… EUREKA, THOMAS LANDSPURG, INTOX, WINNIE, KICKMAN, DINO, SWOLY, LABYRINTH, CORSAIR, MOBY, SKREW, SPLITTER, DAUBMAN, WOOKIE, JBG, CHRIS, HYBRID, NUNO, MISTER M, SAI, BOOMBOOM, ALL 1984 AND PENTAGON MEMBERS ON ATARI, AUROR AND THE THITAN. AND TO THOSE DUDES AND CREWS, COZ WE LIKE WHAT THEY DO… MITHRANDIR AND AIRBRUSH FROM ACME, BRUNO FROM ANARCHY, REWARD FROM SCX, BJORN A. LYNNE, MANIACS OF NOISE, TIP, FIREFOX, MANTRONIX FROM PHA, SHINING, ANDROMEDA, PMC, TSB, ZERO DEFECTS, CONCEPT. AND TO THOSE GUYS AND SOCIETIES FOR THEIR GREAT ARTWORKS… DAVE JONES, DANIEL SILVA, RUNE GRAM MADSEN, RICHARD APLIN, ROGER DEAN, RODNEY MATTHEWS, TIM WHITE, BORIS VALLEJO, ACHILLEOS, TOBIAS RICHTER, PSYGNOSIS, BITMAP BROTHERS, TEAM 17. AND TO … STEVEN SPIELBERG, JAMES CAMERON, STEPHEN KING, WES CRAVEN, SAM RAIMI, JOHN CARPENTER, RON HOWARD, HANS ZIMMER, DANNY ELFMAN, VANGELIS, TANGERINE DREAM, STAR TREK TEAM, NUMBER 6, THE BLUES BROTHERS, KEVIN COSTNER, SEAN CONNERY, ROBERT DE NIRO, DUSTIN HOFFMAN, KURT RUSSELL, ROBIN WILLIAMS, FOREST WHITAKER, MEL GIBSON, CLINT EASTWOOD, MICHAEL J. FOX, EDDIE MURPHY, DAN AYKROYD, BILL MURRAY, JAMES BELUSHI, DANNY DE VITO, ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGER, HARRISSON FORD, BRUCE WILLIS, ROGER MOORE, SIGOURNEY WEAVER, JULIA ROBERTS, CAROLE BOUQUET, KIM BASSINGER, BRUNO CARET, COLUCHE, ALBERT DUPONTEL, LES INCONNUS, ANTOINE DE CAUNES, DJANGO EDWARDS, MARK KNOFLER, LEVEL 42, ART OF NOISE, QUEEN, PETER GABRIEL, PHIL COLLINS, STING, PAULA ABDUL, SKYCLAD, SEPULTURA, METALLICA, IRON MAIDEN, SLY, VICTORIA PARIS, SODDOM HUPSINE, MARILYN JESS, BRIGITE LAHAIE, ALBAN, VMD, ZARA WHITE, TORI WELLES, BATMAN, IRON MAN, THE 4 FANTASTICS, X MEN. END OF TRANSMISSION… ÿ

And the alternative text (press right mouse button before the part launch)

«YES, YES, YES !!! WHAT ARE YOU REALLY LOOKING FOR ??? TO READ OR NOT TO READ !!! BECAUSE ITS TIME FOR FUCKINGS!! þ FIRST A LITTLE MESSY TO THOSE LAME CRACKERS CREW. YOU MIGHT BE ENOUGH INTELLIGENT TO UNDERSTAND THAT WHEN YOU CRACK A GAME, YOU COULD WAIT FOR FEW DAYS TO SPREAD IT. IT WOULD MAKE PEOPLE BUY IT AND SUPPORT THE TEAM WHO MADE IT. I WOULD TAKE FOR EXAMPLE THE VERY WELL KNOWN RANDOM ACCESS CREW ….. YES, THEY CRACKED ALL GAMES VERY QUICKLY AND I THINK THEY WERE VERY PROUD TO BE FIRST ….. THOSE MEN STOP CRACKING AND STARTING TO PERFORM GAMES. THEY HAVE DONE THE GREATFULL SILKWORM IV BUT THIS GAME WAS CRACKED AS SOON AT IT WAS FINISH AND EVERY ONE GOT IT. SO THAT WHY YOU SILLY CRACKERS SHOULD THINK AT ALL WASTE YOU DO. SECONDLY, I WOULD FUCK ALL GUYS WHO MAKE MONEY BY SELLING GAMES AT HIGH RATE. IT THINK THEY ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAT CRACKERS. SO FUCK YOU ALL SELLERS AND CRACKERS, ESPECIALLY QUARTEX. NOW, THIS IS THE STORY OF THIS DEMO CALLED EARTH SORROWS !!! HAWK WON WITH HIS FIRST MEGADEMO AT THE CYCLONE DEMO PARTY IN AUGUST 1990. THE STORY BEGINS ONE YEAR AGO. WE STARTED TO CODE SOME ROUTINES FOR A TRACK DEMO, SOME DAYS BEFORE THE END OF 1990. THEY WERE 3 CODERS MOTIF, MANHUNTER FROM THE BRAIN TRUST AND ORIENS FROM HAWK, 2 GRAPHISTS KREATOR FROM HAWK AND SWOLY FROM THE BRAIN TRUST, 1 MUSICIAN TEBIROD FROM CONCEPT. BUT MANHUNTER AND MOTIF JOINED SILENTS FR AND SWOLY JOINED DEVILS. THE PROJECT OF THIS DEMO STOPPED SOME WEEKS AFTER THE BEGINNING OF 1991. AFTER, MANHUNTER LEFT SILENTS FR AND JOIN REBELS FR. IN THE SAME TIME, ORIENS TRIES TO CONTINUE TO CODE SOME PARTS WITH A NEW OTHER CODER, EUREKA FROM CONCEPT. FINALLY, MANHUNTER LEFT REBELS ONE WEEK BEFORE TO SPREAD HIS DENTRO, STAY ALONE SOME WEEKS, AND DECIDED TO JOIN HAWK. ORIENS AND MANHUNTER RESTART TO CODE FOR THE EARTH SORROWS DEMO IN OCTOBER 1991. IN THE SAME TIME, ELRIC DIGITALIZER, ACES GRAPHIST, AND TEBIROD MUSICIAN, JOIN HAWK. FINNALY, THE DEMO WAS BORN AT THE IRIS NEW YEAR CONFERENCE AT CHRISTMAS 1991. THE PLASMA PART FROM MANHUNTER IS ENDED SINCE FEBRUARY 1991. THE COPPERMAN PART FROM ORIENS IS ENDED SINCE APRIL 1991. THE EQUALS PART FROM MANHUNTER IS ENDED SINCE AUGUST 1991. THE INCONVEX PART FROM MANHUNTER IS ENDED SINCE SEPTEMBER 1991. BUT ALL THIS TIME WAS NOT LOST BECAUSE THE DEMO IS NOW, BETTER. THE CREDITS GO TO MANHUNTER AND ORIENS FOR CODES, TEBIROD FOR MUSICS, ACES, KREATOR, WILL, AND JOHNNY B FOR GRAPHS, ELRIC FOR DIGITALIZATIONS. AND NOW, 2 SPECIAL MESSAGES FROM TEBIROD. WALT, TA MERE, LA PUTE EN SHORT SUR UN TRAPEZE, ELLE SENT LE VIN. MOBYCYCLETTE, JE T AIME. ÿ ALLRIGHT, YOU HAVE FOUND THE HIDDEN TEXT IN THE EQUALS PART, BUT NOW, SEARCH TO ACTIVE IT DURING THE DEMO !!!»

Part 8 : Credits «Sweet dreams»

This is credit part. Nice music and photo of each of us.

Code

Nothing complex here, only nice music module with digitized pictures of each of us. Code is here.

Art

Graph by WILL.

Here are the screens for each of us. Young and brave 🙂. You can notice ManHunter playing with a Nintendo GameBoy. It was released in 1989.

Alternative picture of Elric. He sadly passed away in march 2023. Rest in peace my friend.

Silly picture 🙂 «A sheep + will = a Donkey».

Music

Still TEBIROD with Cold Days (44 KB).

Unused art

Here is a graph that have not been used in this mega demo. Not finished, but surely not much space left on floppy disk.

Conclusion

Making this mega demo was a huge amount of work and it was a pleasure to work with so many talented people. I have very fond memories of it and it is certainly the biggest production I have done in my career as a demo maker. As you read in a previous article, I spent a lot of time programming on the Amiga and missed a year of school. After that, things improved and I was able to resume a normal course of study. Programming was a true passion, and I then made it my profession. I am still a programmer today, and it is a pleasure.

Cool demos of that time

Here are some cool Anarchy demo of 1991

Anarchy / Bruno’s Music Box 3 (august 1991)

I really love the music of that music disk

1991 Anarchy / 3D Demo (december 1991)

1991 Anarchy / Seeing is believing (december 1991)

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