The Popular Demo
Description:	fr-025: The Popular demo by Farbrausch
Download:	fr-025_popular.lha       (TIPS: Use the right click menu if your browser takes you back here all the time)
Size:	9Mb
Version:	1.0
Date:	09 Oct 26
Author:	Farbrausch
Submitter:	kas1e
Email:	kas1e/yandex ru
Homepage:	https://www.youtube.com/@OMEGA12001
Requirements:	Working setup with mesa.library
Category:	demo/scene
License:	Other
Distribute:	yes
Min OS Version:	4.1
FileID:	14125
Videos:
Comments:	0
Snapshots:	0
Videos:	1
Downloads:	1  (Current version)
	1  (Accumulated)

  fr-025: The Popular Demo
  AmigaOS4 port (c) kas1e
  ========================

  ABOUT
  -----

  Once again, we're back to  Farbrausch, who created  many quality demos and
  intros over  the past ~20 years. This  time it's "The Popular Demo", which
  some of us  may remember from the  Breakpoint 2003  party, where it took a
  well-deserved 1st place.
  
  Initially, the demo used Direct3D 9 with kkino 1.66 / Werkkzeug1, so I had
  to rework it to use OpenGL (Mesa in the case of AmigaOS4).
  
  Original credits:
  
  fiver2: direction, visuals.
  chaos: code.
  wayfinder: music.
  sarah hill: character rig, animation & choreography.
  giZmo: character design, modelling and weighting.
  mike may: vocals.
  tiberius: character bones.
  phaser: additional graphics.
  jeff oxborrow: recording.
  ronny: pre-recording.

  For more info, visit the demo's page on pouet.net:

  https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=9450


  AMIGAOS4 PORT
  -------------
 
  While the sources of fr-038_theta and fr-041_debris  are open, the sources
  of fr-025_the_popular_demo weren't, so I had  to take the original Windows
  executable for  analysis. I found out  that it used  ordinary UPX packing,
  which  I easily  unpacked, and  found fr-025.kk  inside, containing  scene
  graphs, procedural recipes, animations, and embedded assets.

  Then, using a disassembler, I reconstructed the loader, playback logic,and
  rendering  bits, and  rewrote them in portable C++ using OpenGL instead of
  the original DirectX 9.Textures and meshes are still generated at startup,
  so we don't have any additional data files coming with the demo, which, in
  turn, means it takes a some seconds to  prepare the data  before the  demo
  starts.

  Once I got it working on x86, I added the relevant endian changes, only to
  find  out that the speed wasn't as good as expected. So, I moved character
  skinning, particle  calculations, and other suitable animation work to the
  GPU,  added  batching to avoid  many  small  draw calls in favor of fewer,
  larger ones, reduced repeated allocations of temporary buffers, got rid of
  GCC's  emuTLS in favor  of a faster  alternative, removed unnecessary SJLJ
  exceptions, and minimized the binary size to just 2.6MB by removing unused
  C++ baggage.

  In the end, on an X1000 clocked at 2GHz with a Radeon RX 570,we get around
  200-350 FPS.

  If you want to run it in windowed mode, use the --win parameter, or simply
  double-click or press Alt+Enter to switch between windowed and  fullscreen
  modes, and, as always, the FPS is shown in the window title when you're in
  windowed mode.


  COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS
  --------------------

  Usage:

      fr-025_popular [options]

  Options:

      --windowed
      --window
      --win
          Start in a window. Fullscreen mode is used by default.

      --width N
          Set the window width.
          Default: 1280

      --height N
          Set the window height.
          Default: 720

      --vsync
          Enable VSYNC (default off)

      --no-audio
          Disable music

      --help
      -h
          Display the command-line help and exit.


  RUNTIME CONTROLS
  ----------------

      Alt+Enter / Left mouse-button dbl-click
          Toggle fullscreen and windowed modes.

      Escape
          Exit the intro.

  (c) kas1e 09.10.2026