Second Reality by Future Crew. Amiga A1200
 

Hello all.
In the nineties, a Swedish programmer asked me to make a conversion in four channels of the famous song of the demo "second reality" of the PC group "Future crew".
I remember that he sent me some effects and I was able to see some routines of the PC demo on a standard Amiga 1200 (2mb chip) without accelerator or fast memory just like the PC demo.

I remember seeing the part of the two glenz vectors, the tunnel of dots and something else. But at that time, we did not have internet and we all communicated by letter. He disappeared and I never heard from him again. I wrote him twice more with advances of the conversion of the module in 4 channels but never again did I know anything about him. I don't remember handle (Nick) or group, also I don't remember his real name. The letters were lost at my parents' house and I write this to make an appeal if someone from Sweden remembers someone who was programming a version for the Amiga of "Second Reality" PC demo.

I leave a video of the conversion to four channels that I made at that time. BTW, I never finished it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-JBYW25jfM

For what it's worth. That is a very good Mod remake of the original.

You should finish it, so someone can make the Demo :D

I'm not 100% sure if will be possible make a pixelperfect/framerate conversion in a stock A1200 020/14.

The rotozoom and final gouraud vector part are complex. It need an oldschool asm-demoscene-expert-coder and that kind of people are very few nowadays.

maybe that was the reason why my old friend abandon the project.

for example, seems the PC-demo rotozoom effect is 320x240 2x2 256col. fullframe. Chaos did it in Roots 2.0 (min:2:10) 2x2 but 16 col. and 256x256. hmmm...
can be done I think. I dunno really, I´m not a coder.

Can any programmer give his opinion if it would be possible to make an exact recreation of both colors, and framerate, as of resolution in an stock A1200?

It would never be a 1:1 conversion, but if the essence is kept, I think it's a great project to get into! One of the main things about SR is the music and you have done a great job here converting it :) I don't think resolution or number of colors matter on every scene.

For reference, check these two C64 remakes:
Second Reality!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-Crwct7U0c

and Desert Dream (my fave):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55x-mTrXLto

thx Akira, btw our brothers of Atari ST also made a conversion


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwV-Gz0_Nhc

Why make yet another Second Reality port when there already is Desert Dream which clearly was an inspiration for the Future Crew coders?

TRue that.

I agree StingRay.Just asking out of curiosity.

What PC spec did Second Reality need to run smoothly, just like an Amiga demo? I bet whatever it was, the Motorola equivalent is MORE than a stock A1200. I've seen plenty of high-end Amiga demos that could improve on SR in their sleep, so why not aim higher?

Because SR is one of my favorite demos of all times? :)
The graphics, 3D stuff etc. is also amazing, but the sound track is what makes it stand out to me.

So Estrayk, if you decide to complete that mod conversion at some point, you better do it perfect. :crazy

I think it was originally run on a 386 but the framerate on the 3D stuff scene was not too high, so you probably needed to use a mid-range 486 to get it up to a decent framerate. That is comparable to an 040/060 Amiga, so a far cry from a plain A1200.

Not pixel perfect, but the A1200 would make for a much better platform for a port, than the Atari ST.

I only see the final city part as the biggest problem to get running on A1200, all other parts should be possible to some degree to get running at a somewhat accebtable resolution and framerate.

The Rotozoomer in Roots 2.0 is in 1x1 256col. But it have some other limitations, like needing a 16x16pixel texture.

Colors would be no problem, as AGA have 256colors, but some parts might need to degrade the resolution or framerate a bit (Rotozoomer, Plasma cube, voxel waves)

Regarding Desert Dream vs 2nd reality:
Both are great demos, but i don't think one can replace the other. And yes, 2nd Reality have been portet way to much, but it would still be nice to have it running on an Amiga.

Some parts run like crap on a 386 and even a low-end 486, so it definitely is aimed for a higher end 486 (I think a 486dx2/66 was used as compo machine at Assembly '93 where the demo was displayed). And to be honest, the codework in Second Reality isn't very impressive, the only thing (for me) that makes it worth watching is the music.

Britelite, you're an AWESOME coder! I see your name appear in many demos in the last decade or thereabouts, and they're so memorable! Maybe you could tackle Second Reality for higher-end Amigas?

Why on earth would I do that? There are so many better demos on the Amiga, so there's absolutely no point in a Second Reality port to our beloved platform. I'd rather spend my time creating something of my own.

Yes, I remember that on machines earlier than a 486DX2 there were slowdowns here and there.

But talking about full screen rotator on Amiga.. Sanity demos contain some great near full screen effect but with "distortion".

I've never dissected the code but maybe some form of "boxed" shear and transpose? (sure done with blitter and/or copper tricks)
Certainly can be much faster than passing every pixels through a rotation matrix.

[EDIT:I only ask because I should do a little 1x1 rotozoom on A500 and I wonder what is the best way :p
and yes, i'm really off topic..]

I didn't mean to offend you, as I think I may have done already, but sorry. I wouldn't want to insult a local celebrity. :)

I'm not offended, I just don't get the logic of requesting an Amiga port of this particular demo

I would take look here: https://github.com/AxisOxy/Planet-Rocklobster

And read the part about the rotzoomer.. it even have source included.

Yeah, I know and appreciate very much Planet Rocklobster.

I had never looked before at the techniques used in this rotozoom, intriguing code that does double shear, scaling and some blitter/copper tricks. Very interesting but very specific. Anyway awesome code ;). But I do not know if it can be good for what I want to do. Practically, as I have guessed, to make the code fast, a true rotation math should not be used but some kind of "substitute".

Thanks for the tip and for reminding me of this great demo! :great