(Disclaimer: This posting is likely of no interest to people outside of the demoscene :)
The small tool kkapture by ryg of Farbrausch is the only sane way to get a video dump of demos, intros and similar stuff. By grabbing all video and audio output directly from their respective APIs (OpenGL/Direct3D and WinMM/DirectSound) and simulating a fixed time base for the client application, it produces perfect-quality smooth video files suitable for Blu-ray Discs, for example. kkapture doesn’t alter the demos in any other way, though – in particular, the screen setup code from the demos is left untouched, with the result that it’s not possible to kkapture most demos in resolutions higher than the display currently attached to the computer. I did a little modification to kkapture’s code that changes this and allows things like 8-megapixel kkaptures.
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It was the end of an era: On April 2-5, 2010, the last Breakpoint demo party took place in Bingen. After 8 years of partying (6 of which I personally participated in), the main organizers decided that they need a break, so 2010 was the final event. Fitting to that situation, the party had the motto »like there’s no tomorrow« – and having a party like there’s no tomorrow is indeed what the visitors did :)
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As you may or may not have noticed, my latest intro won the PC 64k competition at Evoke 2009. Unlike my previous demos and intros, it actually featured a few effects that go beyond fixed-function rendering or per-pixel lighting. For all who are interested in how it works, I’ve written this small article that explains how each of the eight effects in the intro is done, as well as some general insight into the creation process of the intro.
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The is no such thing as easter. There’s only Breakpoint.
Happy Breakpoint!

This 1984-inspired text is from one of the bigscreen slides from this year’s issue of world’s largest Demoscene-only party: Breakpoint in Bingen am Rhein, Germany. As every year, the party takes place during what non-sceners call the easter weekend. And as every year, some friends and I were there, too.
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Like last year, I’d like to give some recommendations what demos of 2008 are worth watching. As usual, this reflects only my personal opinion. That means if you totally love MFX demos, you won’t like my selection ;)
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I know it’s a little bit late, but anyway, here is my small party report from this year’s Evoke. Like every time, the atmosphere and ambience was excellent and we had very much fun at the party, but there were also some disappointing aspect about it.
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Yesterday, The Ultimate Meeting 2007 ended, so it’s the right time to review the best and most interesting demos of 2007. Read on for a short summary which demos I would personally recommend to someone interested in the scene.
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It’s again time for Evoke, and since Evoke features the best (read: most frequently working) Internet connection, I’m again able to write a live report. So, if you read these lines before Monday, August 13, 2007, watch out for updates :)
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It’s easter again, so it’s again time for world’s biggest demoscene-only party: Breakpoint. No need to mention that Kakiarts was again present at this awesome event.
As with the Evoke 2006 report, this one will be a »live« report. So I’m appending content to this entry during the party.
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Yesterday and today, I finally did something I was planning to do for a long time: Writing some code for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the computer I »used« in my childhood. I was too young to write assembly code back then (but I did write a good share of BASIC), but since I’m becoming more and more interested in old-school computing due to my demoscene experiences, turning back to the beloved machine was the logical thing to do. The 256-byte effect I wrote is nothing special – it’s just four scrolling coloured stripes: The Spectrum logo. But although the effect is simple, I’m quite proud of it. After all, it’s the very first Z80 assembly code I ever wrote!

• Download the tape file and the source code: stripes.zip (2.9k)
• If you don’t have a 48K ZX Spectrum, get an emulator! I recommend ZXSpin or EmuZWin for Windows, RealSpectrum for DOS and FUSE for Unix.