|
Xtatix - Unlimited Millennium - Oldskool vs. Newskool - Size Matters - Infinite Beyonds - Complete List - FAQ
|
a rather cumbersome collection of demos in video format Logo designed with FuturaBlack, transformation to ASCII courtesy of Text-Image.com.
Xtatix - in shortXtatix is a collection of demos in video format, comprising four DVDs. Not a collection of the best, nor the most recent, nor any preconceived selection. Just demos.What's this?Xtatix is a demopack, a collection of demos. The name comes because the demos have been static-fied, so instead of serving them in executable format, they've been captured into video; and those videos are what you will find in this pack. I thought of making some kind of ub3r-l33t name like static movement or capturing me softly, but I liked more the way Xtatix sounds, a mix between statics and ecstatics. Plus it's simpler. I also thought of making some ub3r-l33t hardcore intro menu, with rotating 3-d cubes and a background 4ch module... But instead, you have these lousy html pages. Which IMHO, serve better to the demopack!If you don't know what demos are, they're a form of multimedia art which is created and rendered in real-time, by a bunch of artists and programmers who are part of a rather not-so-underground subculture called demoscene. I suggest you to check the Wikipedia entries on demoscene and demos. Why and how?Note: you can skip this blurb and go to the last paragraph of this section!In 1993 I watched a demo called Panic, by Future Crew. Damn, was I shocked! I thought it was as good as any music videoclip you could see in the MTV. And it was being done in real-time, right there, somewhere inside my poor 486! Until 1995 or 1996, I was closely attached to the demoscene, not as a creator, but as a mere consumer of demos. After that, work, social life (I used to have one, you know) and other hobbies kept me away from the demoscene. Some times, a demo would fall in my hands and I would watch again amazed... And I would think again of my favorite oldskool demos, but I didn't have anymore the OS or hardware to run them. I thought it would be great to watch all of them again. Although I did heard of MindCandy, it was not until the end of 2006 that I got a glimpse of what it was (actually it was the last day of the year!) and I was, 14 years after, shocked again when watching some of my favorite old demos: Panic, Second Reality, Cronologia, Dope, Crystal Dream II, Stars... In March 2007 I started to have more bandwidth, and more free time, so I searched for more demopacks. I really wanted more! I found that the huge FTP server at scene.org had a bunch of demopacks, some in DVD format such as the Demo or Die! series. I was shocked (no, I'm not abusing of this word) to see what the current generation of demos was capable to do, and it was none else than .the .product the one who made me start to compulsively collect demos again. In a matter of days, my 800mb very oldskool collection of demos and mods expanded to four DVD's with demopacks and archives (like the whole Hornet archive), six video DVDs of demos, and a couple of gigs of captured demos in AVI and other video formats. Having the demos was nice, but I remembered what happened with my old demos. In a few years, the hardware and OSes might be different enough so the demos can't be viewed again, the same situation which currently happens with yesterday's demos. Plus, some of the new productions didn't want to run in my ghetto PC, because the newest generation of demos really needed beefy hardware! So I wanted to have a good stash of captured videos. I thought that video DVDs are nice, but they are a pain in the ass to make, so you're more or less left with what has been selected. So I started to collect videos. Scouting inside scene.org and searching in Pouët.net I found dozens of videos! So in a few days I painfully downloaded about 60gb of videos from hundreds of demos. You don't need to get Xtatix to have these videos. As I said, they're freely available in scene.org and Pouët.net. Well, at least 95% of what I found was either looking at the scene.org FTP file list, or following the links at the production pages at Pouët. Most of the ones found in Xtatix have a video link in the corresponding Pouët production page. For those which don't, use your imagination: get a good FTP client and dive into ls-lR at the root of ftp.scene.org, explore the webs of the groups who made the demos, use Google. Another option is to make the captures yourself (which is uber-satisfying). You can use tools like .kkapture or DOSBox, which are probably what has been used to make all these video captures. So what's inside?What you have here are four folders correspondint to four data DVD's, which have a collection of more than 300 demos captured in several video formats: AVI (mostly XviD or DivX), MPEG-1 or MPEG-2, some WMV (ick!) and I think nothing else except one single QuickTime MOV. Almost all of these videos can be played in pretty much any computer which has the needed video codecs (use a codec pack if you have problems, for example XP Codec Pack is a good option). Almost all of these videos (except maybe WMV) can be played directly in any DVD player attached to a normal TV (or to a 50" plasma screen, or to a 100" projector...)All the videos have been selected using a simple filter: what I think it can be interesting enough. For a moment I thought of really making an archive of every single demo in captured video format, saved for future generations... But I don't have the resources to make such project. So I kept what I found to be interesting, noteworthy, or simply not-to-be-missed/a-must-have into four different compilations. Instead of every single piece of crap I've found (and trust me, I've found a lot!) I chose to make a rather small (but still big) selection so people don't need to painfully search and download stuff from several places. Given the amount of work it took me, and the current space and bandwidth considerations, I think this collection is worth spreading around. You can find a lot of different kinds of demos: from full sized demos to 64kb and 4kb intros. Mostly they're from DOS or Win32 demos, although there are plenty of other platforms: Amiga, Atari Falcon, and some rarities like a Spectrum ZX demo. There are demos from 1992 and from 2007, although the bulk is rather recent. There are almost complete collections from specific groups, and lots of compo winners from big or small parties. And although I don't consider them "demos", strictly speaking, I've also put some interesting Wild demos and videos, when I thought they showed good programming and design skills (rather than only video composing skills with some 3d animation program!) I think it's a rather heterogeneous selection which has elements to please almost everyone. The videos have been renamed properly (so you know what are you going to watch!) and a list of all of them can be found here for easy reference. Video quality range from decent to awesome, but also includes a few badly ripped videos (if I put my hands on the bast who ripped Mindcandy at 32khz!!!!) or some watermarked images. Sorry for those. Ok, tell me more!You can find the four Xtatix demopacks in the internet. Right now their home is at www.eligeotravez.net/xtatix where you can find more information on where to get it, and probably a torrent to download them. Also try a search for "xtatix" at Pouët.net and maybe you'll find them (instead of some old Amiga intro!)Although each demopack follows a theme or trend, I have to confess that the distribution of demos between them is quite stochastic. While there are some ideas of where to put what, it's kind of fuzzy logic. I've also tried to distribute the quality among the volumes, so all DVDs have classics, winners, recent productions, etc. Maybe the 2nd suffers a bit due to the variety of platforms and their limitations, and maybe 3rd too due to the size limititon. So please don't be too hard if you think some demos should have been in another DVD... In fact, it doesn't really matter where are they, because I think of Xtatix as closely connected selections, not as independent collections. I'd rather have them all than only one. Xtatix 1st - Unlimited Millennium contains current generation demos. They show what today's hardware and programming skills can do, along with refined design and original concepts, which are common signatures of recent productions. All of the demos are from 2000 to today (although I think the millennium started in 2001). Xtatix 2nd - Oldskool vs. Newskool has a rather awkward selection of heterogeneous platforms and productions. They show what has been done, and what is being done in old hardware, ranging from Amiga and Atari to low-end PCs. You can see the difference between an Amiga intro done in 1996 to another one done in the same hardware but ten years later, or witness the l33tness of making a ZX 4k intro or a Playstation 2 demo. Xtatix 3rd - Size Matters contains a selection of intros which show what can be done when space is a strong limitation, and when every byte counts. Most of them are 4kb and 64kb intros, although you can find a few odd-size intros, like 20kb or 1kb. Some of the intros have no sound, or have really awful music, but watching what can be fitted in such a small size is always a great... Shock! Xtatix 4th - Infinite Beyonds is the most heterogeneous selection of oldskool classics of some significance, compo winners, breakthrough performances, and extremely interesting productions. I didn't just put here all which didn't fit in the other demopacks, I saved some of the best demos to make this selection as good as it could be (without hindering the other selections). Check also the Xtatix complete list. For the rest, please read the Xtatix FAQ and check the lists. Final wordsI'd use 1st and 4th to give good background ambient to any party or gathering. I'd use 3rd too if the party has computer geeks or freaks. I'd definitely use 2nd if the party has oldskoolers and veteran demofans, or very old computer geeks with broad minds. Each volume is about five hours long, if you can watch all videos.I have nothing else to say, except that I hope you all enjoy the demos! |
Created and released in April 2007 by Pi. This info page was last updated in December 2009.
Xtatix - Unlimited Millennium - Oldskool vs. Newskool - Size Matters - Infinite Beyonds - Complete List - FAQ