The Visualist

Unplanned, I went to the show of Moderat (Modeselektor + Apparat + Pfadfinderei) in Montreal. And they crafted a pretty good scene experience. Pretty solid minute by minute show, very progressive. Modeselektor and Pfadfinderei have collaborated before and you can see that clearly.
My first impressions (somehow important) where that the music has some resemblance to Boards of Canada (great), and the visual, except being mostly based on abstract real footage, reminded me of the good old demoscene time in its progressive style (please stay with me reference below ).

Here is the teaser of the show : http://www.vimeo.com/3837671

The video just teases you but if it works you can find all the videos of the show with previews on iTunes : here.
And there is a DVD available at retail (who uses that, now ? )

So about the demoscene, here is one of the best intros of the kind : Rise by Mindforce and Park studios

Here’s a little playlist, including some of the best Halcyon work and Kosmoplovci, there is no youtube video of minimalanimal, at your own risk ). There are much more so feel free to complete it.

I’ve been surprised again, TBC has pushed the limits. They did a demo, that fits in less than 1kb (1024 characters), music included. I really don’t know how they did it, because in my last experiments, a while ago, even initialization of 3d and sound did not fit into 1k.

Just enjoy the show :

Don’t forget to comment on pouet.net. Runs ok on Vista but the first 2 scenes are a bit slow on my laptop So be sure you have a class A video card.

For those interested in the technical details, most of the geometry is based on fractal formulas, these are classic 3d fractals. I don’t know how the music is done (generated or pure midi), or how the lighting is done, but it has 2 colors and a fog effect, it could be a shader, based on the hardware requirements.
It seems to use D3DX, a library provided by the Direct X SDK, that could help with mathematics or graphics calls. But just linking (even dynamically) with the library takes quite a few bytes.

The gathering and breakpoint 2009 where happening this week-end. The first demo that was noticed is Rapture by ASD (another gem from the amazing group ASD). It features a unique rendering. To run the demo prefer a lower resolution with higher framerate because the main effect is a bit detail destructive, but the animation is quite good. Here is the video :

Last week, I got some big news from my friends Francis and Thomas that founded Diplabs and Dipmedia based on the Smode technology. The results of this sample shows how smode can be used to project an image on real volumes to create an “augmented reality” scene.

Very nice result (thanks to the material and lighting properties that reality offers for free ) with a great audio/video sync by Albin. Good job guys.

The concept is not new, but the final look is stunning, and better than other things I’ve seen before ! It could be the beginning of a new era for dipmedia, if you want to contact them for business opportunities contact@dipmedia.fr.

For those who never heard of Smode before, it’s a technology that is used to combine building block of visual effects in a very flexible and powerfull way. The technology first started for demomaking (I did 2 demos with it), then thanks to great evolutions it became a tool for VJing (I did a live show with it), then it turned out as a technology for much more, look at dipmedia web site. What’s next ?

Mirror’s Edge DLC Pack is really good looking for anyone interested in abstract visuals.

Mirror’s Edge – DLC Trailer.
I’ve always been wondering how an abstract game would do in the market even if pushed with big marketing.