This page contains a selection of my demo scene related work. Click on a link below if you want to go directly to a subsection:
information - truecolor graphics - low-res handpixelled graphics - demos
What is the demo scene then? If you want a thorough explanation, try PC Demos Explained, although it is a bit outdated.
But to put it shortly, the demo scene consists of young people organized into groups which compete in the art of creating realtime multimedia presentations, i.e. demos. Demos combine realtime 3D graphics, 2D effects and bitmap graphics into one fluid presentation that is synchronized to music, somewhat similar to music videos. (But realtime is really the keyword here; a demo is never just a prerendered animation.)
I've been part of the demo scene for over four years, using the nickname Saffron. In that time I've released quite a few standalone pictures as well as participated to some complete demo projects. Currently I'm a member of two demo groups: The Black Lotus (TBL) and Sunflower, which I joined quite recently. TBL is an established group which has built a reputation as one of the best-known crews on Amiga and PC over the years. Sunflower on the other hand is a new team that brings together people from demo groups like Pulse, Bomb, Orange, Pygmy Projects, Matrix...
The artwork on this page was created mostly for demo scene graphics competitions or for use in demos and other productions. All of my newer work is made in 24-bit color using Metacreations Painter. However, you can also find some of my older images here, which are in a low resolution and were handpixelled (drawn literally pixel by pixel) in DeluxePaint IIe, an old DOS program by Electronic Arts. They use 256 colors or less and were designed for the 320*200 MCGA mode, so they look somewhat distorted (vertically squished) in typical Windows resolutions. I've scaled the images to 640*400 for easier viewing.
I use photographic reference to a varying degree, usually black&white newspaper images. This doesn't mean I would use scans though - these pictures are drawn from scratch on computer.
(click thumbnail to view full-sized)
"Constant"
2000
"Shun"
1999
Placed 2nd in the graphics competition at Takeover'99 in Holland "Prince Bruno"
2000
Made for Virtuelt Kaleidoskop artdisk by Level-D Records untitled
2000
Sunray title
1999Starting picture for Sunray, a demo scene magazine (distributed as an executable file) "Smoking Miles"
2000
Sunray interface
1999
User interface background image for Sunray. This is a 3D rendering with added 2D elements Issue logo
2000Contour zoomer detail
1999"Second from Surface"
1999Placed 4th in the graphics competition at Dialogos'99 in Germany untitled
1998Contour logo
1999
"Nursu"
1999
Placed 2nd in the graphics competition at Plutonium 2 in Finland
(click thumbnail to view full-sized)
"Sequential Jesus"
1998
8-bit (256 colors) "Miao"
1997/1998
8-bit untitled
1997
5-bit (32 colors) untitled
1996
4-bit (16 colors) "Katka"
19978-bit. Placed 3rd in the graphics competition at The Gathering 1997 in Norway.
Here are two download sites for Contour, a 3D accelerated demo by TBL for which I did the graphics:
Contour on ftp.scene.org (Finland)
Contour on acid2.stack.nl (The Netherlands)
We released this demo in June 1999. I created all the graphics and textures for it, and I spent a week in Holland working with the four programmers on finishing the demo under an extremely tight schedule. Well, not everything worked out perfectly so the demo was left in an unfinished state but at least the graphics work is mostly complete.
It requires Direct3D hardware acceleration, and because of various technical reasons it can't run on 3dfx Voodoo chips at all. Therefore an NVidia Riva TNT/TNT2 based card is strongly recommended for watching (although Matrox G200/G400, ATI Rage 128 and S3 Savage 3D should also work, but might exhibit some visual flaws). Having a lot of memory (96+ MB) might also help avoid performance problems...
Below are some initial designs for the credits part of Contour (click on a thumbnail to view larger version):
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Last updated 19 May 2000.
Copyright (c) Pauli Ojala
