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  7dUMP & The SandS present a demo called "Demoded", designed for retro PCs

 -   -  - - -- --- ------------[ DESCRIPTION ]------------ --- -- - -  -   -

  This project is our humble tribute to the demoscene spirit of around 1994.
  We tried to stay true to the tools, design mindset, and hardware limits of
  the era - assembling everything with as much period-authentic flavor.

  However,  we didn't just wanna copy the old classics  -  we pushed to make
  them slicker,  more dynamic,  with cool transitions  and tight music sync.
  Something that could've been a classic... if it dropped 30 years ago, lol.

  We hope you'll still find this product enjoyable today :)


 -   -  - - -- --- -------[ TECHNICAL INFORMATION ]------- --- -- - -  -   -

  THIS DEMO REQUIRES:

  - 486DX2 or higher recommended (demo requires 80387 coprocessor or better)

  - 570 kb of conventional memory

  - 2 MB XMS (requires loaded HIMEM.SYS)
    additional 1 MB EMS if using Sound Blaster (requires loaded EMM386.EXE).

  - GUS (with 1MB mem), or Sound Blaster/Pro/16 compatible soundcard

  - fast VGA adapter (VLB or PCI)

  - MS DOS 6.22 or pure DOS-mode of Win9x (DOS 7.0)
    with installed soundcard drivers.

  ATTENTION:

  THE DEMO USES A CUSTOM VIDEO MODE DESIGNED FOR MONITORS WITH A 4:3 ASPECT
  RATIO.   IF YOU'RE WATCHING THE DEMO ON REAL HARDWARE AND USING A 16:9 OR
  16:10 MONITOR, PLEASE ENABLE THE  MAINTAIN ASPECT RATIO OPTION  (NO WIDE)
  IN YOUR MONITOR'S SETTINGS. OTHERWISE, THE IMAGE WILL APPEAR STRETCHED.


  COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS:

    novsync   - disable Wait for vertical retrace
                (Helps boost FPS on slower PCs.)

    fps       - shows how many frames per second you're getting.
                (It's an average from the last few seconds,
                so don't expect it to be 100% real-time).


  TROUBLESHOOTING

  Demo runs too slow?

  - Got a Sound Blaster (or compatible)?
    Try lowering the mixing rate to 22050 Hz or less.

  - Try launching the demo with the /novsync switch.

  - Running under DOSBox?  Set cycles=20000 or more.

    (I also recommend using "DOSBox Staging"
    for the best visual quality)


  Demo won't start?

  - Make sure CONFIG.SYS includes:

           DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS

  - Using Sound Blaster instead of GUS? Then also add:

           DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE

  - Getting a 'Not enough memory' message? Try this:

           DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM


  - Make sure you're not running the demo from within Windows.



  SOME DETAILS:

  - Demo written in Turbo Pascal 7.0 with using inline assembler

  - Tools used for development: Autodesk Animator 1.3
    Scream Tracker 3, Schism Tracker, DosBox, GIMP.

  - Demo uses a tweaked 320x200x256 video mode @ 60Hz,
    with real square pixels. So yeah, it looks widescreen
    on a 4:3 monitor. That's expected.



  SOME FACTS ABOUT THIS DEMO:

  1. Cubes inside a larger cube (first scene):
     - At any moment, 100 small cubes are contained within the large
       transparent cube.
     - Dynamically generated palette for each individual frame.
     - All physics routines use fixed-point math and are coded in assembly.

  2. Cube dropped into water:
     - OK, a pretty standard slime cube. Though technically it's quite solid.
     - Of course, there's also water simulation with smooth gradient shading,
       plus 2048 particles.

  3. Bouncing icosahedron and text projected onto the faces of a cube.
     - Just 3D object projection onto an arbitrary 3D plane.
     - Flat-shaded polygons only, no textures.
     - Linear algebra, fixed-point math. Tons of assembly.

  4. Tunnel scene
     - Draws 192 filled circles
       (and another 192 smaller ones as highlights).

  5. Deforming bitmap
     - Nothing special, just the result of long experiments trying to create
       the fastest mapping routine.
     - In between: credits with flame-filled letters. Hope it looks cool? ;)

  6. Title part
     - "Presents" text made of particles: Explosion of 10 000 particles.
     - "Demoded" text with bump effect. Extensive optimization work.
     - Palette morphing.

  7. Bouncing balls:
     - Actually, this is not 3D (no polygonal, no raytracing).
       However, everything is procedurally rendered in real time, no sprites.

  8. Plasma. Loads of plasma.
     - Classic plasma types: regular sinus-plasma and interference twists.
     - Tons of dithering for the looks.
     - Cross-fades, cubes screen... Just tried to keep it smooth and cool ;)

  9. Flying over a field of colorful hexagons.
     - Looks like voxels, but technically not a true voxel effect
       since there's no height variation. It's either surface or hole.
       Still, I wasted a fuckton of time making it run fast enough on 80486.

  A. Dodecahedron with mirrored faces

     - Of course, it's a fake. There's not even real texturing here,
       if you know what I mean.
     - However, there are some tricky parts:
       the VGA palette is calculated for each frame.

  B. Wizard with a magic orb followed by a shadebobs effect.
     - This involves blending, blur, scale, and converting 18-bit color
       to indexed 8-bit with dithering.

  C. Cube with particles poured inside.
     - A cube filled with 1100 individual particles.
     - Each with real collision detection and bounce angle calculation.
     - Routines use fixed-point math and are coded in assembly.

 -   -  - - -- --- -------------[ CREDITS ]-------------- --- -- - -  -   -

  CODE & GFX:
                 bitl/7dUMP
  MUSIC:
                 Manwe/SandS

  MIDAS Sound System 0.40 by Sahara Surfers.

  The font used in the end titles is based on the TIC-80 system font.

 -   -  - - -- --- ---------[ LINKS & CONTACTS ]--------- --- -- - -  -   -

  7dUMP:

  You can find our other products here:

    https://demozoo.org/groups/10118/
    https://www.pouet.net/groups.php?which=1889


  THE SANDS:

  Web:    http://www.thesands.ru/
  email:  info@thesands.ru

  You can find our other products here:

    https://demozoo.org/groups/10790/
    https://www.pouet.net/groups.php?which=294



 -   -  - - -- --- --------------[ THE END ]-------------- --- -- - -  -   -


