Interview of Rhino from Batman Group (March 2011)
Rhino from
Batman Group is the main programmer behind the very impressive
Batman Forever demo. I was curious to know more about him, as also get details about this production.. He kindly accepted to answer my questions, hope you will enjoy the read!
1. Hi Rhino! Can you quickly present yourself? (country, past productions..)
Hi NoRecess. Well, my name is Alejandro and I'm from Spain, I'm 33 years old and I started programming with Amstrad Basic when I was 11
2. You are famous for your Batman Vuelve demo on Amiga OCS/ECS (16-bits). Why a sequel 15 years later.. on a 8-bits platform?
Well, there are many reasons, after a long time working for money, I needed to do something for love to the art. Another good reason was my friend, sister's husband and also
Batman Group member nicknamed "
Batman", who provoked me with the
c64 demos and the eternal debate about which is the best 8 bit machine.
3. How much time did you spend programming the demo?
It was a very interrupted work, I started in early 2009, so are 2 years and 3 months! of which have been many months off due to personal and family life, so I have not recorded continuously, but could be almost a year.
4. Which tools did you use?
I used
WinAPE,
Arnold,
Netbeans,
Promotion,
Photoshop,
Arkos Tracker,
YMCruncher,
KitAY,
CPCDiskXP,
Discology,
Art Studio, a binary editor, and own tools from
Arnoldemu and me (I do not think I miss anything
5. What are the biggest technical challenges you encountered while creating this demo? Was mastering advanced graphical technics (CRTC..) the biggest challenge?
Well, actually I think
CRTC is a chip easy for programming and, today, well documented. I recommend everyone learn CRTC and master it, the
Grimware page can be very useful. I think the hardest part is to devise solutions to carry out an objective using all the needed available capacities of the machine. But I will tell you more about it, after.
6. You had hard times finding an available musician. Why did it take so long ?
I think really there are not very much active CPC musicians, it is normal for a small scene, and I understand that someone new like me, who knew no one in this scene, may have trouble for this purpose. At first,
Dj Uno was making the musics, but finally he had not time to finish it. Then, I had the demo almost finished but without musics :/Fortunately,
Optimus and
Paulbrk helped me to contact with
Factor 6 and
Yzi, although they were not from the cpc scene.
7. Still about the music, Targhan is not listed in credits. Does it mean Factor 6 did not use Starkos/ArkosTracker? Is that case, which tool did he use for composing the tune? On the programming side, is it a custom audio player?
Factor 6 used
Starkos and
Yzi Arkos Tracker Well, I must say that
Targhan helped me a lot at first, when I had little idea about the sound on CPC and he is mentioned at the greetings/acknowledgments, like
Grim and others. About audio player I modified the ayc player routine from
kitay to get a selectable constant cycle usage, and to play samples while music.
8. In one of the screens, you clearly make attacks to Vanity team. They do great demos after all. What are precisely your rants against them?
Hehe, I have not problems with
Vanity, but I think using
watch and learn as slogan, may have consequences, because anyone can take the hint. I think they have much to say yet, and now it's time to demostrate it.
9. I have been highly impressed by your animation system (the bats & flying 3D chip in the intro, the rotating Batman sign, the 3D cubes..). Can you tell us a bit more about it?
CPC-side, is it full software rendering? Does it make heavy use of precalculation?
Of course, I can say it was a different concept. Normally we think about the screen as a bidimensional space (x & y), my alternative was think as a bidimensional system (x & time).
10. What is the part you are the most "proud" in this demo? Why?
Let me expand on this so that readers can understand me.
In my opinion, there are two different approach to make a 8-bit demo.
The first one is, basically, try to make the best possible effects with an aesthetically pleasing design, and to achieve it is often necessary suit well to the hardware of the machine, or doing those techniques that the coder manages better. The result of this kind of demos is usually an excellent technical performance but low in message content and profundity, because there are not intended to convey anything beyond pure aesthetic beauty. The creator of these demos is strongly conditioned by the apparent limits of the machine or their own personal limitations and prejudices, and, ultimately, the machine imposes its "limits" and determines the work, machine is who heads to the coder about what can and can not do. The creator does not attempt to give more profundity to his work because he is misled by the
apparent limitations that machine shows and thinks it could not be done. This represents, symbolically, the triumph of Machine over Man, and a very poor and primitive demomaking concept even for 8 bit, in my opinion.
Edge of Disgrace or
From Scratch are two of the highest peaks of this kind of 8 bit demos. They are beautiful works of craftsmanship, but not works of Art for me.
For the second approach, you first must to have something to tell, an inspiration or idea, a message to convey. Then it is needed to do a script or storyboard in a similar way as you would for a movie or a comic. And finally, examine the hardware and the "limitations" of the machine in order to get a worthy performing your story, your message across to the viewer. This approach often forces to find alternative technics, to break with the past to find new ways and get to shape the story in the machine, is rarely achieved, but when achieved, the limits (apparent) of the machine are broken by the will of creator. This is what I tried to do in this demo. Batman Forever is, above all, the story of a comeback, like the wonderful comic
The Dark Knight Returns by
Frank Miller, but also a story of redemption and justice, expressed on the literary genre of "demomaking"
, and then, because it is a demo, there is also time to show some nice effect and to beat some record.
There are not a separate part, I am proud to achieve my main goal with the set... (Sorry for the rambling philosophical, btw)
11. This is your "first" demo on Amstrad CPC. Was it hard for you to master the platform? What were your information sources, cf. sites, documentation..?
I did a little intro and several routines in the early 90's also (100% Z80)
About the question, It was not very hard really, by the help of pages like
cpcwiki,
grimware and
cpcrulez mainly. And, of course, the real master
Arnoldemu.
12. With the amount of required work to meet the new requirements you just set with Batman Forever, can we consider this demo also being your "last" demo for the Amstrad CPC?
I really do not know yet, it all depends on how events elapse. Just need inspiration, will and determination to do it again...
13. Finally, this is free topic for you: do you have some additional thoughts or whatever to say?
Just to thank all the comments received these days and the good reception.
End of Interview. Thank you a million
Rhino for your time answering these questions, that was interesting !
(όχι μόνο αυτό, αλλά ο Μπέηλ χρησιμοποιεί και το αγαπημένο μου joystick της εποχής, ένα 
