This demo brought forth a new particle engine, reworked 3D routines, and a new title effect wrought from particles and texture-light detection.
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We built a system to automatically generate texture coordinates for 3D objects, an effect for drawing titles using particles, redesigned some of our 3D rendering routines, and implemented a basic particle engine.
We also made several improvements to the rendering pipeline, including an intermediate post-processing step that allowed us to manipulate the entire image before sending it to the screen, a bit like using a second framebuffer. This opened the door to special effects such as real-time texture diffusion and radial blur, although it came at the cost of a slight loss in image quality.
The sound engine also received several tweaks and a major code restructuring. Although it wasn't used in this demo, these changes would eventually allow us to mix sounds in real time.
I still remember the day Trace called me and said: "Hey, merlucin, you should make a demo for ifparty. We'll be there too!" At the time, Trace was part of threepixels.
We took first place (which wasn't particularly difficult, since we were the only contestants). Threepixels also won first prize under exactly the same circumstances, but with a 4K intro. Trace hadn't lied when he said threepixels (basically just him) would be there. He had simply forgotten to mention which competition they were entering!
Jokes aside, Trace helped us a lot with the initial design of the demo, creating plenty of graphics and adding his touches here and there. This was the first of two occasions on which he collaborated with us on a demo. The second came with Die Änderung.