Matarazzo: Please give us a short but informative introduction of yourself!

Adam: My name is Antti Rita. I am 20 years OLD unemployed computer nerd. I live in Jyväskylä, which is a small city located in central Finland. I like to draw and do 3D-modelling with computers, I also like to design demos and organize things. In demoscene I'm better known as Adam of DualCrew-Shining.

Matarazzo: Now, tell us how you picked your handle "Adam".

Adam: Well, it's a long story. I started to use handle "Adam" in the beginning of 1997. Before that my handle was "Blank". That time many of my "real life" friends were in the scene too and they called me Blank instead of my real name Antti. I got fed up, when I started to hear "Blank" from people who had nothing to do with the scene. So I decided to change my handle to something which begins with A and is harder to pronounce in Finnish than "Blank" was. Nowadays everybody calls me Antti, 'cause "Adam" doesn't fit in to Finnish mouths so easily And other reason was that at the same time my scene hobby got maybe a bit more serious, so I wanted a new fresh identity to start over with.



Matarazzo: How long have you been an active scener,and how long have you been using your computer to make gfx?

Adam: I began watching demos sometime between 92-93, but I really got in to scene after visiting Assembly '94. After that party I was totally sold. I only wanted to be in the scene, it was the coolest thing there existed at the time I have been making computer gfx from the late 1994 when I decided to be a graphician.



Matarazzo: Was it a natural choice for you to become a graphician in the scene, or did you try music, code or ascii also?

Adam: I have always liked to draw, when I was kid I made lots of comics and drew other stuff. Before I knew nothing about scene, I had tried little DPaint but done much more composing with NoiseTracker. But when I decided to enter the scene I knew that it must be graphics. But I was awfully bad at the beginning, it took me some years to figure out how antialias works and how to do shading and stuff. I have never tried ASCII and for code, at the beginning I really tried to start coding, but I couldn't understand a thing about it Now it's perfectly clear that I could never be a coder, I'm glad that there are guys to do that part for me

Matarazzo: How long are you planning to stay in the scene?

Adam: I'm not planning anything. I just live day by day. Only time will tell, but I don't see any reasons for totally quitting. I stay as long as it feels good.


Matarazzo: What was your first computer and what equipment have you got today?

Adam: I got my first own computer as a christmas present in 1991. It was Amiga 500 with fast memory expansion. Back then I was a real gamefreak and my parents decided to buy me an own computer, because I was spending all my time with my friends places playing with either C-64 or Amiga. In 1994 I bought myself Amiga 1200. Nowadays it has 030/50 turbocard in it with 16MB of fast memory, 1,4BG HD, Commodore 1083S video monitor, Wizard 3-button mouse and 33600 modem. I also have Pentium 200 MMX, which I bought in November 97. It has 32MB of memory and it's already maybe a bit outdated.

Matarazzo: What do you like the most, New School or Old School?

Adam: For me old school is demos between 91-94. Some people might consider old school as before 90, but I have seen very little from that era, only some classics like TRSI megademo and some other stuff. So oldschool for me is 91-94, the time when I spend my honeymoon with the scene. Demos from that time still give me good vibrations. I love them very much "The new school" if one can say so, although is the one that I wan't to do demos with. I'm very interested in new programs, techniques and equipment. I want my demos to look fresh, modern and invent new things. But otherhalf of me loves oldschool and retro. It's also fun to do some old school stuff every now and then. Like we did with Zymosis guys, Zymosis Megademo which is OCS early-90's styled 64k intro with that perioids look. I did the graphics for it with fake handle The A500 scene is not doing were well at the moment, but I hope there will rise a new generation of A500 sceners. There have already been some signs about it. Groups releasing OCS stuff and OCS compos at some parties. I'm also into C-64 demos very much. I have even started to do some C-64 graphics lately The power lies in the past, the old school should be studied and respected more. One can learn many things from the past demomakers.

Matarazzo: What do you think about todays demoscene?

Adam: It has gone very professional like. Demomaking is harder than ever. Coders gotta have complete 3D engine, graphicinas must learn complex programs like 3DS or Lightwave to do big 3D scenes which is much bigger job than one can imagine. In the past it was enough to have a nice logo and a font for scroller and glenz vector in the middle of the screen. Nowadays some group might spend half a year completing huge 3D story based demo. The standards are so high that groups can't release stuff very often, it simply takes so much time to do anything that qualifies. At the same time part of the fun has disappeared. And for newcomers it's harder and harder to enter the scene. Afterall it's huge project to code for example some 3D engine. I just hope that trends will go more for simple things, innovative effects and design than for this huge 3D crap Anyway I respect very much Nerve Axis's or Mellow Chips work. They are very talented and hardworking guys and deserve their placements on charts, but part of the fun has disappered with these 3D demos. It seems that people are not even enjoying watching them.

Matarazzo: Are you a regular partyvisitor?

Adam: Yes, absolutely. We have very good so called "party scene" in Finland. So far I have visited 28 parties, which only 4 of them abroad.

Matarazzo: Which is the best party you have been to?

Adam: Abduction '97 was great because of the weather, relaxed atmosphere, good friends, excellent cannabis and I also won the gfxcompo there, which was nice. Also the Porno I in Hämeenlinna was very nice and there is some legendary party stories about it. And I won gfxcompo there too, but it was more like joke competitions only there. Other good parties to mention, all three The Parties I have visited, they had very good sceneish atmosphere there. Remedy '98 in Stockholm, Sweden was also very nice and sunny party. Assembly '94 ofcourse, because it was my first party ever and Amiga scene really dominated there. All 3 Demolitiom parties in Finland have also been very nice and Skenery '96 which I participated organizing has already gained legendary status atleast in Finland. There is too many good parties to mention all, but those were probably the most memorable ones.

Matarazzo: Which is the worst party you've been to?

Adam: The worst... hmm, I have to think. For some reason I didn't like Abduction '96 very much, maybe because I didn't know too much people back then. I haven't liked Motorola Inside parties very much, though the finnish Amiga folks praise them all the time. But I don't find sitting in the dark hall configurating PPC tower machines and singing Amiga hymns very enjoyable. I prefer drinking and having good time outside with good friends.

Matarazzo: Nowdays you are in DCS. What other groups have you been in before DCS?

Adam: Well not too many. I was in a small friendship based group called Zymosis before joining DCS. Infact i'm still a member of Zymosis but it's not that serious with them. I'm also a member of great finnish party group called HiRMU which consist many famous people behind fake handles. And oh, I was in Kinky too for a short perioid.

Matarazzo: I understand you got a great deal to do with DCS's demodesign. Tell us about that.

Adam: Yep, well my opinion is that the graphicians are the ones who should design and direct demos. And to make good demo you can't share the designing part with many people with different opinions and point of views. I'm kind of perfectionist when I work on something I want to take full responsibility on things and tell how everything should look etc. And I have atleast tried to direct all the DCS productions I've been involved. Though it's sometimes very hard for me to cooperate with coders. They are quite often like from different planet when it comes to designing. I'm still learning all the time. Every day I understand more and more about coders mind It's very important to know as much as possible about the technical side also when doing demo design.

Matarazzo: What is your relationship with the new rising group Loveboat? I have noticed you have participated in their productions.

Adam: Well, they are all my very good friends and Muffler and Speedo are also a double members of DCS, so I have helped them out every now and then. The TP8 demo Raybong was really a fast emergency patch, done in 2 days as their organizer Desmoines wanted to release a prod there to announce the born of the new group. They were really in need of graphics and I spended my Christmas eve and day doing stuff for them And at the same time I was a bit stressed with our own TP demo. I'm probably cooperating with Loveboat in the future too as they don't have any active graphician in their memberlist at the moment.

Matarazzo: Can you tell me about your TP8 demo Phenomenon? You seems to have done great deal of work for it. Are you disappointed as it ended up only 4th?

Adam: Naah... Past is past. Now we are heading for completely new challenges. Phenomenon was a big flop, we probably tried a bit too much. At the time Shape was in the army and couldn't code very much, so it was a bit too hasty patch. I got so many ideas which were left out the demo afterall because we run totally out of time. But we learned many things from that too, like don't show the same 3D scene for over 3 minutes

Matarazzo: What do you like the most, hi-res or lowres painting? Please motivate.

Adam: It depends, I haven't made anything in over 640*256 resolution. Lores is my favourite, 'cause there the pixels are equilateral squares, but I noticed that you get used to 640*256 resolution quickly too. But lores is nicer, as there is fewer pixels to place and you can spot errors in lores much more easily too. To develop a good technique lo-res is very usefull.


Matarazzo: I've seen some nice cliparts from you. Are cliparts a good way to get famous?

Adam: I don't know if it's good way to get famous. But it takes 10 times less time to draw a nice clipart than to do a fullscreen picture. I like doing cliparts. For the beginning I found hi-res (640*256) painting difficult, but now I have even started to like it. So you can expect some more cliparts from me in the near future. I rarely have enough patience to finish any full screen pictures, so cliparts suit me very well.

Matarazzo: How long time do you spend on doing a picture or a clipart?

Adam: It varies very much. I consider myself as a slow worker. I put too much time planning and testing things than doing the hard pixelling work. Maybe I'm a bit lazy. I can draw some clipart in 2 days if I work all the time. But it's very rare that I spend more than 15 minutes painting at one time. Fullscreen picture always takes more than 2 weeks. When working with photoshop it's completely different thing. It's many times faster than pixelling but you can't achieve the same level of detail. Or at least I haven't yet



Matarazzo: If you had to say one weakness you have as a graphician, what would that be?

Adam: There's too many weaknesses I am very bad painting human figures they are always the most difficult ones for me. Making palettes and colors is very hard. It takes really much time to make a good palette and I'm never satisfied. I could adjust the colors forever. And I'm fucking too lazy

Matarazzo: Are your pictures available on the net? If yes, say the adress.

Adam: Not at the moment. I haven't made any webpage yet, but I'm seriously considering doing one containing some kind of portfolio with some other stuff too than pixelled pictures.

Matarazzo: What program are you using when making your 2d pictures?

Adam: For pixelling DPaint 5, sometimes PPaint 7.1 too. I have tried to use Brilliance, but never learned how to use it Little ImageFX and ADPro for image manipulating and quantization. Photoshop and Fractal Design Painter for 24bit painting and making textures etc.

Matarazzo: ...and for your 3D?

Adam: Lightwave is the only program I have had guts to learn. Little LW 5.0 on Amiga, but nowadays mostly LW 5.6 on PC, because of the speed. I should also get my hands on some other 3D packages, like 3DS but I'm so lazy when it comes to learning a complex programs.

Matarazzo: Are you using a digitizingtable?

Adam: No. I would like to try out one, but at the moment I don't have money to buy that kind of equipmemt. I am really interested in 24 bit working with table with pressure.

Matarazzo: What`s your opinion about copying/redrawing pictures, is it okay or not?

Adam: Copying is perfectly ok. You can't make up the whole image from your head. Everybody needs references. All the classical painters painted from living model. Boris Vallejo, Frazetta all use models. When it comes to copying ready artworks it's a different thing. One should include also the name of the original author in those cases. For the start it's neccessary to look and copy techniques from some talented artists. Ofcourse I value 100% own pictures more, but in the scene they often lack much quality when compared to copies.

Matarazzo: Do you think there are too many womenpictures around?

Adam: No. Woman is a very hard figure to paint and it's always nice to look at There is probably never enough good woman pictures. But it's very rare to see any decent ones nowadays. But I prefer more artistic kind of images than photorealistic pictures.

Matarazzo: Are you working on any picture/clipart right now?

Adam: Yes of course, I'm always working on several projects, but it's very rare I manage to complete any. Well one thing I can say for sure, because I have promised to do it and I have strict deadline. I am designing graphics and GUI for a brand new diskmag coming out soon. Watch out for it! Hopefully I get some fullscreen pics released too at some major parties in the near future. And some DCS productions coming out too for sure.

Matarazzo: What are you doing in 10 years ?

Adam: I hope I'm working as a professional computer artist for some 2new media or games company and they pay me a good salary And I have a beautifull wife 2 kids and a dog... no! huh I can't imagine my future longer than 2 years at maximum. Now I'm heading to study some net multimedia next autumn, if they let me in that is.



Matarazzo: Any last words?

Adam: Greets to all my visually gifted friends in the scene! Come to Remedy '99 meet you there! Special kisses to (only graphicians included this time) Leunam, Vent, Tempest, Optic, Cheetah, Thor, Unreal, Bonzaj, Judas, Nomad, 'B, Markus, Madd, Caro, Pam, Wrec, Boost, Kidlove, Bay T, Rzb, Damaq, Mike, Mezon, Doc, Fluffy, THG, Chavez and you Matarazzo and all who I can't recall just right now. Peace!

Matarazzo: okej ADAM thanks for taking your time. Keep rocking!

Adam: Thank you! I will.

Interview performed by Matarazzo