alchemy by delabu alama         --      the info file


(if you haven't run it yet: it takes a little while to load. be patient)


what is this sh*t?

alchemy is a demo made for the flash party '98 held in argentina
probably the biggest latin party so far

delabu alama is the first mexican demo group but not the only one
so we hope that this contribution helps to increase the south
american scene. we are pretty sure that we can get to be able to
compete with the europeans... ...someday


the credits for this demo are:

        code, music and a couple of graphics and 3d objects by fac
        most graphics, textures, and cool 3d objects by manolo
        midas sound system by sahara surfers
        vbe vesa2 interface by submissive from cubic team
        pmode/w by tran
        the videoclip was taken from "Can't Truss It" by Public Enemy



the requirements to run this thing:

        alchemy likes pentiums but loves pentium II's and K6-2's
        alchemy likes at least 8 megs. 16 megs if run from Win95
        alchemy likes a fast PCI or AGP video card
        alchemy runs better in pure DOS
        alchemy works with any midas compatible sound card



acknoledgements:

        thanks to the flash party organizers for letting us in
        thanks to mazalia and drgnslyr for beta testing
        thanks to MAZ and Run DMC for the samples



some tech info:

we made the whole thing in about 10 days. maybe less. the biggest
problem was that i didn't have enough graphics and manolo showed
up two days before i almost finished the demo. he quickly made
those cool static screens, trying to hold a style, and then i
was able to finish the other half of the demo.

the demo runs entirely in 640x480x256 LFB mode, so it needs a vesa2
compatible video card or a vesa2 driver like univbe 5.x. the hi-res
screens take a lot of disk space. the demo is like 4.5 megs without
the music, but reduced to less than 2 megs after a dosis of pmwlite.

the reason we chose high resolution was because it looks so good
and far cooler than old mode 13h. dithering looks like shit in
low res modes but it can simulate more colors in hi-res (actually,
we only used dithering for static pictures).

the demo has a not-so-cool 3d engine, but that was enough for our
needs. there's no 3d scenes. only cool 3d deformations. yes, it is
kinda slow but it runs smoothly in our machines (a k6-2 300 mhz
and a celeron 300 mhz without cache). the compo machine is a
pentium mmx 233, but we hope they have a better video card than us :)

i wanted to add a z-buffer, but it would have slowed down the thing
a little and only one part of the demo would have really needed it
(the rings part) so i used good old radix sort instead.

so basicly, this demo was a product of lots of experimenting and
having fun with 3D objects. there's only one part i don't really
like, but the way i liked it was very slow.


well, for more information and knowledge you can email us:

        shadowfac@hotmail.com         or        fac@slp1.telmex.net.mx



please spread this demo without charging anything for it and without
messing up the files plz k? thnx.

                                                    FAC / Delabu Alama

