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                          ''''''  '''''          ''''''''''''''''''' 

-------- ------ ----- ---- --- -- - - -- --- ---- ----- ------ ------- --------

            Touching the Sun demo - a contribution to Demosplash 2025
                  by Virtual Vision Group & friends.

                   for the ZX Spectrum Next and clones

-------- ------ ----- ---- --- -- - - -- --- ---- ----- ------ ------- --------

    The demo is our first serious demo on the ZX Spectrum Next platform and it
helped us understand better its hardware features. It is a very interesting
machine whose power is largely in its video subsystem. Compared to a classic
ZX Spectrum, you want to avoid using the CPU for the visuals. That said, digital
music is being played without the DMA (which is used for a better purpose), so
this rule is not absolute I guess.
    We're hoping that the demo will be useful to ZX Spectrum Next community, both
as a benchmark / test case for the emulators, and also for the coders (as its
sources will be released, as usual).  Note that the demo is interactive: if you
hit "Space" you will toggle debug output, which is present in many effects 
(sometimes in unobvious places depending on the layering).
    Also, a lot of the effects allow controlling them with QAOPWS and sometimes
also ED and KL keys (for the angles). You can totally make it super glitchy if
you feel like that. Enter simulates a "kick" in the music. This is something
we just left for fun (and also to show people what _realtime_ rendering 
means :) ).
    The idea behind the demo was proposed by my (RCL) 6 year old daughter, who 
came up with a story of a person on a hill who wanted to touch the sun to gain
power, (because this is where the fairies get it too). The person was able to
touch it and did gain a lot of power from it, but it hurt them much. You can
see that story in one of the parts, written verbatim from a childspeak, and
also with some hand drawn graphics by her. Hence she gets a credit for a demo!


                              Under the hood
                             ================

    The demo only needs 1MB of RAM so it can run on any ZX Spectrum Next in existence
(including clones of course). Full support of both 50Hz and 60Hz is provided, in
part due to the fact that Demoscene projector is natively 60Hz and I wanted to
avoid the jerkiness.

  Full credits:
  - Code - RCL / VVG
  - Music - Personne Aliénée
  - Graphics - Nodeus
  - Modelling - Degrysin and RCL / VVG.
    - I (RCL) used "Low poly hand" model by Scribbletoad (https://linktr.ee/scribbletoad)
      as the initial source for the hand model (simplified and animated by me).
  - Additional graphics (a "Burning sun" picture) by Vasyl
  - Idea and some graphics - Vera 

     Demo uses ZX0 depacker by Introspec and Einar Saukas.
     Special thanks to Matt '48K' Nealy for the copper ideas!  

  Expect the sources on github shortly after the party.

 -RCL, 2025-10-31
------------------ ----- ---- --- -- -  
