The story so far...
   
   GL Excess is my third attempt at OpenGL, the first
   being a simple driving simulation I wrote for a classwork
   at university and the second being Rebirth saver.
   The idea of making a huge demo was born right after
   Rebirth v1.1 was released: basically I wanted to develop
   some techniques I had already included in my past
   projects and challenge myself learning new OpenGL
skills. I immediately decided this would be a multi-scene demo so that I could
focalize my attention on different techniques at different times and then put them all together in no particular order.
Well, believe it or not, I was so inspired that the main OpenGL code was done
in 2 or 3 weeks: just before falling asleep in my bed (really!) I thought of which
effects and objects I could include into each scene just to wake up the day after and
start coding what I had imagined the night before. The result was so incredibly cool
that I almost couldn't stop coding for more than 10 hours a day: you may think this is
a little selfish, but things were matching my imagination so perfectly that satisfaction
kept me sticky attached to my monitor and more than once I forgot to eat my lunch...
A great deal of inspiration also came from tutorials and textures I've downloaded
from the net but there was something lacking at this point: I suddenly realized
I would have spent the next few months composing and performing some cool
original music. And yes, this is the main reason (together with work and university)
why GL Excess was completed more than 6 months later the code was done: the
most difficult thing was getting into the mood of each scene so to display visuals
according to background music (and vice versa) and synchronizing various
soundtracks with some visual effects... man, I still can't be believe it's all done
now :-)

Development tools

But anyway, I guess you would like to know some more in-
depth information about the techniques and tools I've been
using during GL Excess development, so here we go...
- GL Excess was coded and compiled using Microsoft
  Visual C++ 6.0, some MFC code has been used for GL
  Excess Configuarion dialog. Intel IJL and Firelight
  Multimedia FMod libraries made the work respectively for
  JPEG images loading and mp3 playback.
- Most textures have been created,imported and modified with Adobe Photoshop   5.0. GL-XS logo was rendered using Ulead Cool 3d 3.0 while Softy 1.07 made the   work for True Type vectorial fonts. Clouds and landscape textures featured in
  scene #11 were generated by Terragen.
- As for instruments and sound effects recording I've been using tools such as
  Goldwave 4.19 and SoundForge 4.5. Some sound samples have been ripped
  from Maz Sound Tools 'Mazzive Injection' no.1 Instruments disc, some have
  been produced by my own mouth (you can hear me sing some sort of Gregorian
  chant on scene #4 :-)), some others were downloaded from Sample Arena.
  All electric guitar clips were performed on my Yamaha RGX820R guitar and
  processed by my loyal KORG AX30G guitar processor. On some clips I've added
  BOSS AC-2 and Jim Dunlop CRYBABY wah-wah pedal effects; the acoustic guitar   you're listening on scene #8 (fall1.mp3 clip) is a Takamine and it was played by   my friend Marco Ruzzi. Slap parts (trp1.mp3 clip) have been recorded using an
  Aria Pro 2 bass guitar. All songs were tracked using FastTracker 2.09; such XM
  files have been converted into waves using ModPlug Player 1.43 and then
  compressed into mp3 files with MusicMatch Jukebox 5.1 and Audioactive
  Production Studio 2.0.4.

   Final acknowledgments
   
   You may want to know that there's a detailed description
   of each scene in the screenshots section of the site, so
   if you feel I forgot to say something, please visit
   this page. You can also download some audio excerpts    from the audio clips page. But before I go, I would like to
   thank once again my family and my sweet girl Rosalba for
their patience and understanding. Signing off...

Paolo "Bustard" Martella