1991's vector Amiga 500 demo

I just discovered that someone posted a video capture of an old demo I wrote in 1991.

This is funny to look back at these things which now really seem so retarded...

But this was good time. I remember I coded the whole thing in assembly code in my bedroom after school...

The demo showcases few things:

1) bird flock. Birds are flying. the physics of the birds is computed depending on how fast their wings are flapping and depending on their orientations. These birds have a short perception of their neighbours and could adjust their flight according to the others or according to some target.

2) Character animation. I integrated in this demo an editor that allowed me to edit and build a whole sequence of animations on various skeletons. Then the demo was of course able to interpolate smoothly between key positions...

3) camera tracking. I could tag in the animation sequence which target the camera had to lock on.

4) Music. I integrated a sequencer; sampled few instruments and wrote a song (I think I got the inspiration from a Lenny Kravitz)

At this time, the challenge was to write things in full assembly code. But the Amiga computer was such an amazing computer that I really enjoyed this time (although I am not sure I would write in assembly code nowadays... ;-)

Some good friends from a computer-club pushed me to participate to a demo contest that I won... I guess thanks to this, the demo got posted and could be found on the web.

Anyhow, this was great personal experience that I would recommend to any young guy eager to start in computer-graphics: stay few days in your room; work on ideas from top to bottom and get out of the room only when you're done ( and don't listen to anybody who would tell you that your idea isn't worth it or is already done by someone else ;-)