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It's place in the Black Lotus opus.
The Revision 2014 winning Amiga demo from The Black Lotus (TBL), 'Rift' got a conversion to the CT60 Falcon, which was officially released at Sillyventure 2014 last year.
My involvement with 'Rift' goes all the way back to Revision 2014, when we failed to see it at the party, due to a decision by the party organisers to delay this to the end of the competitions. I was made aware at quite an early state, that a Falcon port was being made, by no less a personage than Kalms himself.
In contrast to the other TBL Falcon '060 ports, rather than a third party (Mikro) doing the honours, Kalms did this with the same tools. So we get the benefit of additional work done since the initial 'party' release for the final version.
We're taking a slightly different approach to this one. Rather than doing Rift as a straight review, we're considering its overall place in the TBL Canon? So considering some presentational, aesthetic and technical considerations of the various TBL demos, and where Rift fits in with these.
Firstly, let's consider 'Rift's ancestors briefly.
'Perfect Circle' can be considered as the prototype of the later releases, appearing to great effect at Mekka Symposium 2001. It was an early version of their 3D engine, but promising, with one scene (the spinning tree) reworked for Ocean Machine later on?
'Little Nell' was the first TBL production that I encountered up close and personal. It was Mekka Symposium 2002, I was at that party, tired and pissed off, having had no meaningful sleep whilst I was there. To say that I didn't appreciate other people's company is possibly the understatement of this issue of Maggie. Then Little Nell appeared on the big screen.
And that slapped me awake. (The never-ending PeeCee demos drove me back under again, but hey-ho.)
Then there was a new demo for the new Easter party in 2003. 'Magia' won Breakpoint. This was a more 'stop and start' approach, not as flowing as their later demos, but there is a mermaid that looks sort of familiar in later demos!
The first one which came to us as a Falcon port was 'Silkcut' from Breakpoint 2004. This was another standout even with the increasingly dominant PC orientated scene. With fresh new scenes, (The texture mapped snowy mountains!) Like the other TBL releases, in a world of object shows, the artistry stood out.
Then we got a port of the best of 2005, namely 'Ocean Machine'. TBL opted for a change of mood. The demo was mellower, with its standout moment being the ribbon dancer.
The climax of TBL's adventures on the Amiga seemed to come with 'Starstruck'. This was felt to be an 'ultimate' or final, as in 'end of history' demo for the Amiga. I felt emotional watching the Falcon port version, as it felt like it was the end there too. However, the Amiga scene soon got over this, and other people made cool demo shocks for the brain in the following years. However, Starstruck still remains at number eight on the all time top Pouet charts. So there must have been something special about that one.
These were five exciting years. Since then, TBL had a few adventures elsewhere, going to the dark side in 2008. Since that time, there was silence from TBL until 2014, where we come full circle to the story of Rift at Revision 2014.
So we're at 2014, there's this brand new demo, and look, it's even made it to the Falcon.
When seeing this in the wider context of the back catalogue above, it is apparent that Rift is a 'typical' TBL release that fits in perfectly at ease with the others. There is an evolution of the effects and coding to achieve these. It is clear that any further gains from the '060 side of things needs more effort as the easy 'wins' have been already taken.
An apt summing up of the TBL style might be "Grandiose Incoherence." There are many top of their class individual scenes, but you never get a consistent theme for a demo.
However, after an intense evening spent watching their back catalogue, many common elements are passed on through succeeding generations of demos.
There is some kind of artistically depicted female there, often in the form of dancing ladies. The use of noise and glitching was first used in Starstruck and reappeared in Rift. The demos are liberally splattered with Decepticon logos. TBL have a fondness for trees and forests. They gain deep satisfaction from fractals.
It's almost as if the demo scene public expect these things to be there, and TBL, as audience pleasers, are happy to oblige them.
Running the latest iteration of whatever dark secrets TBL have thrown at the 68060, 'Rift' is of course the best of the bunch, technically speaking. It is the (current) culmination of the journey started back in 2001 with "Perfect Circle'.
We're going to take a look at the standout scenes in this demo, and see how they stand in the Black Lotus overall scheme of things.
After the start of the demo, the first notable scene kicks in at around 1 minute, it consists of some neon creator credits and simple effects marching up a dark damp street. This is relatively lo-fi but a bold and audacious establishing scene, setting up the rest of the demo to come.
At 1 minute and 12 seconds, we are offered a sparse but exquisite tableau. Never has a texture of marble been so perfectly realised. It's as if we're in the Parthenon, or a small part of it anyway. This also seems to offer something new, not seen before from TBL?
It is to another demo from another famous Atari crew perhaps, that inspiration is taken. A walk around a derelict room from 2 minutes and 13 seconds. Has the Dead Hackers 2006 adventure on high end hardware, 'Derealisation' been giving ideas here? A fanciful suggestion, I know.
A voxel landscape generally has to get in somewhere. We've got an exuberant example of a fly-through from 2 minutes and 25 seconds, It's a summer version of the famous snowy mountain scape of Silk Cut!
It's time to bring on the dancing girl, with a ballerina doing her beautifully choreographed thing from 4 minutes and 4 seconds. This one is left bald and untextured, seemingly lo-fi in comparison to the Ocean Machine ninja lady, but as a scene, this carries it off effectively and smoothly.
The ending consists of an artfully petalled single rose opening in desolate waste ground at 4 minutes and 44 seconds. This is reminiscent of of the tree at the end of Ocean Machine. It recalls some of their other plant based adventures with a camera view spinning around it.
So, after having sat through Rift, and a whole bunch of other Black Lotus demos, We can conclude that Rift has been self consciously mugging its heritage since 2001. Perhaps it's come around to the start in a 'Perfect Circle'? That is not said as a bad thing though!
Anyway, thank you very much for this, and may TBL come back a bit sooner with more in the future.
CiH - For Maggie 25th Anniversary, Oct 2015.