Unreal is a demo

Demo (computer programming)

A demo is a non-interactive multimedia presentation made within the computer subculture known as the demoscene. Demogroups create demos to demonstrate their abilities in programming, music, drawing, and 3D modeling...

 created by Future Crew

Future Crew

Future Crew is a now-defunct Finnish demogroup who created PC demos and software, active mostly between 1992 and 1994.-History:The group was founded in 1986 by PSI as a Commodore 64 group, before moving to the PC demoscene in 1988; other members included, over time, Trug, Wildfire, Pixel, ICE,...

 in 1992.

System requirements

The demo states that "[it] requires a 386

Intel 80386

The Intel 80386, also known as the i386, or just 386, was a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors and were used as the central processing unit of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time...

 computer [and] runs perfectly on a 486

Intel 80486

The Intel 80486 microprocessor was a higher performance follow up on the Intel 80386. Introduced in 1989, it was the first tightly pipelined x86 design as well as the first x86 chip to use more than a million transistors, due to a large on-chip cache and an integrated floating point unit...

/33 MHz [PC] with Tseng Labs

Tseng Labs

Tseng Laboratories, Inc. was a maker of graphics chips and controllers for IBM PC compatibles, based in Newtown, Pennsylvania, and founded by Jack H-N Tseng....

 SuperVGA". It supports various sound cards, such as the Sound Blaster

Sound Blaster

The Sound Blaster family of sound cards was the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, until the widespread transition to Microsoft Windows 95, which standardized the programming interface at application level , and the evolution in PC design led to onboard...

, Sound Blaster Pro and, in a later version, the Gravis Ultrasound

Gravis Ultrasound

Gravis UltraSound or GUS is a sound card for the IBM PC compatible system platform, made by Canada-based Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd...

, which became the default choice for the demo.

The demo was made to run in standalone versions of DOS

DOS

DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...

 (up to 6.2), and will not run reliably under Windows 95 or later. However, it has been proven to run under the DOSBox

DOSBox

DOSBox is emulator software that emulates an IBM PC compatible computer running MS-DOS. It is intended especially for use with old PC games. DOSBox is free software....

emulator

Emulator

In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...

, albeit with an error in one part.

Credits

• Programming by Psi and Trug.
• Graphics by Pixel
  Misko Iho
  Born May 9, 1975 in Helsinki as Mikko Iho, Misko Iho is a Finnish commercial film and music video director.-Life & work:From 1992 to 1994, Misko was a part of a now-defunct computer demo group, Future Crew, as the graphic artist named "Pixel"...
  
  , Gore, Psi, Trug, Abyss and Dr. Venkman.
• Music by Skaven
  Peter Hajba
  Peter Hajba also known by his demoscene nickname Skaven, is a Finnish musician and graphic artist.Despite having no formal training, he has won numerous awards for his music, including winning the Assembly music competition in 1993, 1995 and 2002. His most recent project is with Remedy...
  
   and Purple Motion
  Jonne Valtonen
  Jonne Valtonen is an award-winning Finnish composer, arranger and orchestrator. He is renowned for his contributions in the field of demoscene and video game music.- Life and early career :...
  
  .

History

Unreal was created for the first Assembly demo party, held in Kauniainen

Kauniainen

Kauniainen is a small town and a municipality of inhabitants in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland. It is surrounded by the city of Espoo, in Greater Helsinki...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 in July 1992. Because the organizers were unable to hook up a PC to their projector, it had to be shown on a TV screen. It won first place in the PC

IBM PC

The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...

 demo competition, defeating Overload by Hysteria. The demo was released to the public in August.

In December 1993, version 1.1 of the demo was released, which added Gravis Ultrasound support and fixed various bugs.

In January 2003, Unreal was captured to video for the MindCandy Volume 1: PC Demos DVD.

Synopsis

The demo is classified as a megademo, in that it consists of several parts, loaded separately, with different music for each part. The soundtrack, made by Skaven

Peter Hajba

Peter Hajba also known by his demoscene nickname Skaven, is a Finnish musician and graphic artist.Despite having no formal training, he has won numerous awards for his music, including winning the Assembly music competition in 1993, 1995 and 2002. His most recent project is with Remedy...

 and Purple Motion

Jonne Valtonen

Jonne Valtonen is an award-winning Finnish composer, arranger and orchestrator. He is renowned for his contributions in the field of demoscene and video game music.- Life and early career :...

 in an early development version of Scream Tracker

Scream Tracker

Scream Tracker is a tracker . It was created by Psi of Finland's Future Crew It was coded in C and assembly language. The first popular version of Scream Tracker, version 2.2, was published in 1990...

 3, was a mixture of styles, including orchestral, cinematic, new wave, and ambient pop (the "demomusic" style inspired by artists like Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre).

The demo contains the following parts (usually separated with a screen presenting the title of the following part):

• Introduction, with a starfield and a rotating Finnish flag
  Flag of Finland
  The flag of Finland , also called Siniristilippu , dates from the beginning of the 20th century. On a white background, it features a blue Nordic cross, which represents Christianity. The state flag has a coat of arms in the centre, but is otherwise identical to the civil flag. The swallow-tailed...
  
  .
• Two sets of scrollers, weaving over and under an image of columns. This part was shortened in version 1.1. (music: "The White Tiger" by Skaven)
• "Worldvector", a 3D animation scene with spaceships flying around a city on top of a cube in space. (music: Purple Motion)
• "Vectorballs", ball-shaped sprites (a.k.a. "bobs
  Blitter object
  A Bob was a graphical element first used by the Amiga computer. Bobs were hardware sprite-like objects, movable on the screen with the help of the blitter coprocessor....
  
  ") morphing into various shapes. (music: "Lavender Hill" by Skaven)
• "Sinusbobs", coloured discs (which always face the screen) weaving in a Lissajous
  Lissajous curve
  In mathematics, a Lissajous curve , also known as Lissajous figure or Bowditch curve, is the graph of a system of parametric equationswhich describe complex harmonic motion...
  
  -pattern. The text "Apparently this is possible" blends over, testing the ability to fade in graphics on top of the vectorballs. In this part, more balls will appear on faster CPUs. (music: "Lavender Hill")
• "Wormhole", a funnel
  Funnel
  A funnel is a pipe with a wide, often conical mouth and a narrow stem. It is used to channel liquid or fine-grained substances into containers with a small opening. Without a funnel, spillage would occur....
  
  -shaped hole sucking its texture to the middle. The effect is accomplished with just palette rotation. (music: P.M.)
• "Shadebobs", a classic effect where rectangles additively blend over each other in various colors. (music: P.M.)
• "Colors", a showoff of a new video mode called "Mode X
  Mode X
  Mode X is an alternative video graphics display mode of the IBM VGA graphics hardware that was popularized by Michael Abrash, first published in July 1991 in Dr...
  
  ", which is essentially a "fake" High Color mode. The text first says "This is Real", accompanied by colored spots, then it changes into "This is Unreal" and the spots smoothen out into perfect gradient. (music: P.M.)
• "Realcolorplasma" is also a Mode X effect, where a Perlin noise
  Perlin noise
  Perlin noise is a computer-generated visual effect developed by Ken Perlin, who won an Academy Award for its use in the motion picture Tron...
  
   plasma keeps colorcycling. (music: P.M.)
• "Realplasma" is the reiteration of the previous effect, only with sinusoidal plasma. (music: P.M.)
• "Something" shows a still handdrawn picture with first a scroller announcing the effect, which is a 3D vector-dot field on a complex Lissajous-like pattern, followed the 3D-animated letters "FC" flying across the screen. Like the "Apparently this is possible" part, more dots will appear with a faster CPU. (music: Skaven)
• "Texture" is one of the first texture mapping
  Texture mapping
  Texture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
  
   parts in a PC demo. It starts with a spinning cube, followed by pictures of FC members mapped on squares. The squares are distorted in different directions. This part is notorious for moving at wildly different speeds on different CPUs. (music: P.M.)
• "Landscape" showcases one of the popular attitudes in the demoscene at that time - showing an effect, then adding an extra twist to it. The effect starts with a simple scroller on the bottom, followed a rising landscape composed of vector dots, which eventually starts to scroll and revolve around the Y axis. (music: P.M.)
• Finally, the credits, a vertical scroller with the creators behind each part of the demo, as well as greetings. (music: "Realms of Chaos" by Skaven)

Notable firsts

• First PC demo compo winner at Assembly.
• First demo to play 8 channel music, mixed realtime. (preceded by Fishtro by the same group, with the first demo soundtrack of more than four channels)
• First PC demo with a scene of multiple, independently moving 3D objects. Similar scenes had already been done in Amiga demos and PC games.
• First PC demo to use more than the standard 256 VGA colors by modifying the VGA color palette repeatedly within a single screen refresh.

External links

• Unreal on Pouët
• [ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/mirrors/hornet/demos/1993/u/unreal11.zip Unreal] on Scene.org
  Scene.org
  Scene.org is a non-profit organization, providing the currently largest demoscene file repository. It was founded in 1996 by Jaakko "Mellow-D" Manninen, though originally it existed as ftp.fm.org, an FTP-server for releases from the group Five Musicians. In 1997, it re-opened as Scene.org...