Archive: Quake AVS: Need some beta-testers


16th August 2005 15:43 UTC

Quake AVS: Need some beta-testers
Need some beta-testers (not more than 10) for my first AVS pack, named "Quake AVS". If you're interested, contact me, then I'll send you the pack. Why doing this? Maybe I'm a little bit paranoid, but I want this to be absolutely top secret. After watching the pack, just post your feedback (see below), then keep your mouth shut and forget everything you've seen in there until Quake AVS has been published ;) Please do not post the pack somewhere on the web and do not forward it.

So what to do for this beta-test? First, you can comment everything you want. Second thing: Please create a ranking of your ten personal top favorite presets from Quake AVS (except the intro), including a 5-stars-rating for each preset. Example:
1. aquatica (5 stars), 2. collision course (4), 3. ... and so on.
This is because I wanted to do some decent statistical analysis out of this, but couldn't get enough data yet.

Oh, btw, the pack is to be published in October 2005.


17th August 2005 09:02 UTC

just so you know, this is a hell of a lot to ask, especially for someone who isn't even willing to post the pack in the forums. truth be told, there aren't even ten people that would end up being interested enough in the pack to tell you what they thought about it on the forums anyway (unless it's really, really spectatular, which - no offense - i highly doubt). and you've got to be out-of-your-mind-perfectionist or something to be expecting to get serious statistical analysis on a set of data whose complexity rivals that of "what's your favourite colour." i don't think anyone around here is doing reviews that in-depth anymore, anyway - certainly not ten, for a beta pack.

if you seriously want feedback, you gotta lighten up and post the pack here or bring it to some of the people in irc.freenode.net:#avs. there aren't thousands of people doing this - sending it to even five people is going to ruin any veil of absolute secrecy that you might have hoped for. either deal with criticism or keep it to yourself until you publish. the pack's gonna be out at some point anyway, and if you were gonna make drastic changes to it in the beta phase, you shouldn't have been making it beta.

oh, and if you're worried about people actually stealing your stuff before it's officially published in all it's sprankely glory...yeah. we're gonna take your pack to a body shop and sell the parts for money.


17th August 2005 15:10 UTC

here here


18th August 2005 07:28 UTC

Well in my experience i have always asked one person to take a look at the pack and say his opinion and maybe a second one for a preset or two that match more his style and type of skills. This i think is a better way to assure your pack looks competitive and good enough for the public. Nowertimers when the community is pretty much somewhere else it will be hard to find 10 serius beta testers... There are just not so many people here ;)


18th August 2005 16:22 UTC

@dirkdeftly: You really know how to kick people in their asses :( Though I'm not going to post my pack, here's a screenshot from one of the better presets in the pack. And "statistical analysis", well... a mistake of mine. You might say "psychological analysis". I really need additional data, that's all, and I'd be very happy if even 5 people were interested. Guess you're not, are you?

@pak-9: Thank you again, pak-9. Spectacular pack is coming to you right now... ;)

@JaY FaTBoY: Yeah, you're right... There's not much going on here. But that's okay, because I already got feedback from some friends.

Something I've forget to mention: When creating your ranking, please do not rank two versions of the same preset, except for preset #3 versions.


18th August 2005 18:48 UTC

k send me


18th August 2005 20:16 UTC

Well the screenshot looks fairly impressive.


18th August 2005 20:23 UTC

Yeah :) It looks interesting, hopefully will be one ;)


18th August 2005 23:14 UTC

I'll review it too if you like
info.wotl[]gmail.com


19th August 2005 12:10 UTC

Well people around here are very sceptical towards new people especially when they come and act as they "own the world" :) Remember everyone thinks their first presets are awesome, but 99,73% of the time they aren't.

Your screenshot looks good though so you should easily get atleast 5 reviewers for your pack, but that's already half of the more active members around here :p


19th August 2005 13:38 UTC

@Tuggummi:

Quote:
Well people around here are very sceptical towards new people especially when they come and act as they "own the world" Remember everyone thinks their first presets are awesome, but 99,73% of the time they aren't.

Sorry, didn't know... Not that I wanted to own the world, I just thought this "top secret" thing would be funny. That's typically me :) Seems like it went totally wrong this time.


@JaY FaTBoY:

Quote:
Yeah It looks interesting, hopefully will be one

Thanks. But due to the fact that I'm not a native speaker, I'm not 100% sure about what you meant ("will be one"). So if you're in, just send me your adress via private message.


20th August 2005 10:32 UTC

send to me @ expellidilition.at.gmail.com


20th August 2005 14:51 UTC

Already 6 beta-testers. 4 betas to go... ;)


21st August 2005 09:00 UTC

well that sucked, i thought i was getting quake avs ... -.- (now that its source has been released maybe i could?)


21st August 2005 14:05 UTC

I said: "Just turn the file into an exe". Means: Rename the "source" file (which actually is an EXE), then it should look like this: "qforce - quake avs 0.95b.exe" Didn't that work?


22nd August 2005 11:20 UTC

review mailed


23rd August 2005 16:29 UTC

Sorry for the late reply (even though i promized quick feedback :p), but i got hung up playing Diablo 2 ;)

Anyway...

I like it! Lots of cool stuff going on and some great new ideas here and there. Your style is also quite fresh even though you use a lot of effects, haven't checked that thoroughly, but are you absolutly sure you can't optimize anything anymore? If you could squeeze a few more fps it would be great which brings me to the bad point of the presets, the framerate limiter. Now personally i prefer as high fps as possible, but some presets do require low fps, this however didn't seem to be the point in these presets and most of them i liked more without the limiter. Again that's mostly personal preference like colors, you'll atleast get points for being the first one to effectively use it on presets.

Well some words on preset-to-preset basis.

Intro
I know you didn't want the intro to be commented, but i just want to say that even though i had doubts about the quality of this pack this preset relieved me of my bad thoughts and i knew i was in for some quality AVS experience :)

audio explosion 3 / 5 stars
A lot of people will diss this just because it uses FurewurX which sort of are the curse word in AVS by the "more experienced" people. I like the preset overall, but it's not awe-strucking yet.

fireflower 1 / 5 stars
Not my cup of tea, i've just seen (and made) this kind of presets too often to really say anything positive about it.

deep scan 3.5 / 5 stars
Heh, "interfaces" on presets can either make or break it, here they aren't too bothering, but the preset itself is a bit so-so. Oh and without the limiter, much much better.

bass sphere 2.5 / 5 stars
Not to keen on the colors, but i quite like it otherwise, if it just weren't for those sides caused by the movement it would be a lot better.

dark angel 2 / 5 stars
Looks a bit better than fireflower, but nothing to really oggle over about.

into the darkness 2 / 5 stars
The framerate limiter does work here, though i would raise it by 5 ;) Don't really like the ring+star and the colorfade, a starfield render when tweaked right could work better.

tunneling 1 / 5 stars
Gah, i just have this profound hate for the moving particle render... Anyway, blue is cool, but this preset doesn't seem quite up to par with the rest of the pack.

space channel 4 / 5 stars
Now the pack starts kicking off :D Again disable the limiter and this preset is good to go, i quite enjoy your layering work here, gives it a nice feeling of depth.

blood star 2 / 5 stars
Nice foggy feeling, but the pink just doesn't work here, at all. Don't like the color clip effects that much either. A good base for v3 which i like the most of these versions and which i would give 3 out of 5, the rest are 2 stars.

sunburster 4.5 / 5 stars
I am diggin the colors :D A very cool preset which i like a lot, just comes to show that even simple (technically speaking) things can be extremely cool.

collision course 5 / 5 stars
I gotta admit, this preset really sucks you in when it flies on fullscreen just wish it would be aspect ratio corrected though. Out of the two versions i like v1 a bit more, but both tweaks are cool.

aquatica 5 / 5 stars
:drool: Im a sucker for blue and the overall execution of this preset is great.

nanobot explorer 4.5 / 5 stars
Feels like you got carried away with the whole "journey" thing here, but this is different enough from the collision detection ones. I like v1 & v2 the most. Mouse control in presets is something people either love or hate, i hate it, because i don't think it deserves any purpose other than testing out your preset yourself. I just like to watch my visualizations most of the time, games are different of course though... but i digress...

starpulse 5 / 5 stars
Very energetic and love the stars you added (this is a tweak of the intro, right?) and it's blue (again ;)) The other versions are nice enough variations, but i prefer the first one the most.



Overall a very cool and fresh pack with some great ideas and good execution on most of them. I think this pack will be accepted well by the rest of the community too :)
And hopefully my reviews weren't too detailed to give out any secrets even though i posted this here :p


23rd August 2005 21:39 UTC

diablo 2 :p i hate it now. way too probability-calculus thing for me. nice review by the way :)


24th August 2005 14:08 UTC

i'm interested

framesofreality@yahoo.com


24th August 2005 19:49 UTC

Okay, 3 betas left... ;)


About the beta-test

You guys got me wrong: Commenting the intro is appreciated. I wanted you to make a 10-presets "ranking" (= "preset charts"), i. e. ten presets ordered by top favorites, and THAT should exclude the intro. For Tuggummi, this may look like this:

1. aquatica (5/5) = preset he likes the most
2. coll. course v1 (5/5) = preset he likes second-most
3. starpulse v1 (5/5) = preset he likes third-most
4. sunburster (4.5/5) = ...
...
10. fireflower (1/5) = preset he dislikes the most

Such a ranking would give me much more information than just giving a certain amount of stars or points. (I think this is called 'ordinal measure')
Second thing: You may as well post your review here. I think this is a little bit better than via mail, because thereby I can write decent answers and don't have to repeat for each review. Giving out secrets by posting your review is not such a problem, as long as you don't attach the pack ;) As said, this "top secret" thing was rather meant to be funny.


@ Tuggummi:

Would've been okay if you've said something like "I had to shoot my way through Half-Life 2". But Diablo 2? Eh... nope. Absolutely unacceptable :p

Framerate & Framerate Limiter APE:
Well, Tuggummmi: No. The Limiter stays where it is. Hey, I mean, I'm not tweaking my movements like d=d*0.945, so it looks perfect on my machine, but different on others! But I'll rethink at the framerate limits (esp. for "into the darkness"), and I'll do my best to increase overall fps. Besides, I think space channel really needs the ape, because it requires constant framerate; otherwise there would be a slight stuttering in scroll movement.

About your rating:
Weird, but mostly I feel exactly the same way you do. Of course, I'm a blue addict myself (sorry Warrior of the Light, but space channel has to stay blue ;). Also, I absolutely agree with you and with WotL that the first half of the pack is just too weak for a decent pack, I'll explain this below. I don't like deep scan and fireflower that much, too, but, well, these presets are to stay, because some people really like them.
All your favorites are also favorites of mine, except nanobot explorer, which is quite "okay" for my taste - just like blood star v3 :) And imagine, collision course v1 and starpulse v1 are my favorite versions!
Feels like I've found my alter ego (Hi there :D). One last thing: Due to my suspicion that the quality of some presets is highly music dependent, I'd like to know what sort of music you've been using for this beta-test.

Miscellaneous:
starpulse: You've guessed, it's an intro mix :)
mouse control: Alright, it was just poor little me fooling around with getkbmouse... I'll keep it anyway, maybe someone likes it.


@ Warrior of the Light

A load of advices with good intentions you gave me, but I'm afraid I simply have no time to realize them. This will be my first and also problably my last pack, at least for the next 3-4 years, 'cause so much work in 'real life' is waiting right now. Sorry for this, but I just have to leave the AVS world. Maybe hanging around on the forum for some time, helping out here and there...

sunburster: In my opinion, the preset looks slightly better with song info turned on, due to the fast counting numbers on the right.

nanobot explorer: Now Tuggummi likes it, too. What the hell is that? :S


N00bish presets:

Sorry for bothering you with these n00bish ones. They were made like years ago and I hate them too, but let me tell you this: They all have passed quality control! That means: Some people in the world really like them. To give an example, here's the ranking from one of my non-AVSer betatesters:

1. into the darkness (5/5)
2. fireflower (5/5)
3. tunneling (5/5)
4. sunburster (5/5)
5. aquatica (5/5)
6. collision course v2 (5/5)
7. nanobot explorer v3 (4/5)
8. blood star v3 (4/5)
9. starpulse v3 (4/5)
10.audio explosion (4/5)

Something really strange is going on here, isn't it? How can this guy love tunneling more than aquatica? So one day, I said to him: "Hey, come on, dude, what's wrong with you? Tunneling really is one of my beginners presets!" But, no chance, he still loves it.
What I'm trying to say is: If you don't already have watched presets (or something similar, like modern art) for years, you would simply have to love those n00bish things. I myself still remember that tunneling was one of the first presets which caused me to "fall in love" with AVS ;)
Furthermore, fireflower is the typically female preset: Betatest tells me that women simply LOVE it - even if the one responsible for it does not (anymore). I've got to keep it anyway, since it's my mum's favorite ;)
That's why I just can't throw my n00bish presets away. To the contrary, Quake AVS will contain even more n00bish stuff! (YES...). Well, if you don't like them, just hit 'u'. So this is going to be some sort of a "common people pack" rather than some overall high-end stuff.


Something about the final version:

- a lot of code tweaking
- lots of n00bish stuff
- at least one new "decent" preset. Not as good as aquatica or something, imo, but quite okay. Not blue, but still qforce-typical style :)
- if you liked starpulse, then you DEFINITELY have to check out quake avs final, because it now has a key you can press to start a huge... eh... well. No. Just download the pack ;)


24th August 2005 22:40 UTC

Just one small comment.. with n00bish I didn't neccesarially [sp] mean old-looking. Old stuff can look good.
I meant the details you'd only see when you know all other options to deal with a certain problem/thing you want to do. Those things only come with (even more) experience.

And yea, perhaps I am expecting a too professional approach. For me, the render+water+colorfade=oil thing is awful because I've litterally seen hundreds of presets like that. I'll always give low ratings for that.
To someone who hasn't ever seen an AVS preset before, it could rock his world.
It's just different points of view.

Okay, my review:

------------------
Overall: Decent presets

Watched them all on an Intel Celeron 1.7GHz machine with a 300x300 windowsize


Intro (3.5/5)
Personally I prefer the text not to shake.
My alternative: Put the Dshift above that effect list.

Audio Explosion (1.5/5)
Aargh. no. Sorry.
the Fireworks APE simply does not look cool. Ever.

Fire Flower (3/5)
Great preset thanks to that movement. Should have been horrible without it.
really feels 'organic' now. It's a really static (non-dynamic) preset though.

#3 Deep scan (4/5)
I really like this one.
#3 Bass sphere (2.75/5)
heh the classic bubble and an oil colorfilter.
A typical preset that would look nice if there weren't already like 500 presets made like that
#3 Dark Angel (3.5/5)
Ah. the same sphere again. A lot better than the previous one though
#3 Into the darkness (3.25/5)
Don't use Ring and Osc. Star. They can both be better made with a superscope.
I just love those orange flame thingeys though
#3 Tunneling (2.25/5)
Too oldschool (n00bish) for my taste.

Space Channel (4/5)
Some great scopework here. I Really like this one too.
A bit more differences in the colors would look better though. It's so.. blue.. like this
To see what I mean, set the tint of the last scope (not in the text EL) to 150 or 170 instead of 160

Blood Star (3.25/5)
go for number 3

Sunburster (3.75/5)
Good preset - you left the music info on by default by the way

Collision Course v1 (4.25/5)
v2 whites out with loud music and v1 looks (a lot) better. Dump v2

Aquatica (4.25/5)
Almost indentical to Sunburster when it starts, but with these awesome sparks around the center.
I love this one second-best from the pack.
I'm not so fond of the r=cos(r*3) movement, it's been overused over the years. try r=cos(r*3.2) or something like that.

NanoBot Explorer (4.5/5)
Best preset in the pack. Gotta love those bubbles
Aqua, vena: the red circle doesn't follow the mouse in manual mode.
Monster: I prefer v1

Starpulse (2.75/5)
The intro but different



Overall:
As you said yourself on the forum on dA, you're indeed an 'advanced AVSer'
You're quite good at coding your own movements and scopes.

A lot of presets, however, show that you haven't created that many presets.
You're using quite a few methods several times (that little movement/shift onbeat thing for instance looks the same in 80% of your presets).
Using an effect 2 times is okay if the effect is really cool, but not more than 2, or else it may get boring.

Note that text is always windowsize dependant. This would result in that all presets only look good in one specific windowsize.
For me, the song info text from left and right were put over each other.

There's a lot of differences in the quality of the presets. Some are awesome, some others should just have been left out because they drag te average quality down.
It feels like you've been rushing to get to get to 10 different presets and get it released, at the cost of qualty. Better take some more time the next time.

Keep creating presets - it shows that you've got some great potential. Creating more presets should also shave off some of the n00bishness here and there.

Overall rating: 3.75/5


25th August 2005 06:46 UTC

Alright, totally accept that :up: ;)

May I have your ranking now? ;) Just to make it complete.


25th August 2005 20:25 UTC

hmm well, the highest score goes to #1. Do the math


26th August 2005 19:19 UTC

Well you send me them even tho I didnt want them so I'll just be honest: Boring typical noob presets 1/5. But -1 for all this secrecy and an unnecessarily convoluted ranking system so 0/5


27th August 2005 08:02 UTC

Helpful as always. :P

Well, I'm certainly curious about these presets now. It's not too late for me to get in on this, is it?


27th August 2005 12:32 UTC

Originally posted by PAK-9
Well you send me them even tho I didnt want them so I'll just be honest: Boring typical noob presets 1/5. But -1 for all this secrecy and an unnecessarily convoluted ranking system so 0/5
Thanks for watching Quake AVS. Are you sure you don't like any of those? I admit, my pack is extremely noobish. But as Tuggummi said: "even simple things can be extremely cool"

27th August 2005 12:38 UTC

Originally posted by Warrior of the Light
hmm well, the highest score goes to #1. Do the math
Very confused right now :confused: Looks like some heavy miscommunication... Okay, I give up.


@ StevenRoy: You're in! :)

2 betas left.

27th August 2005 14:12 UTC

then what ranking are you talking about?


28th August 2005 16:15 UTC

Okay, look here, this is what you gave me:

POINTS - PRESET
4.50 - nanobot explorer
4.25 - collision course, aquatica
4.00 - space channel, deep scan
3.75 - sunburster
3.50 - dark angel
3.25 - into the darkness, blood star
3.00 - fireflower
2.75 - bass sphere, starpulse
2.25 - tunneling
1.50 - audio explosion

Quite a lot of information. However, I can't add it to my existing set of data, because some presets have the same amount of points. For example, I need to know if you like collision course more than aquatica, or the other way round, and the same thing for space channel / deep scan, and so on. Here's an example of a complete ranking:

RANK - POINTS - PRESET
01 - 4.50 - nanobot explorer
02 - 4.25 - collision course
03 - 4.25 - aquatica
04 - 4.00 - deep scan
05 - 4.00 - space channel
06 - 3.75 - sunburster
07 - 3.50 - dark angel
08 - 3.25 - into the darkness
09 - 3.25 - blood star
10 - 3.00 - fireflower
11 - 2.75 - bass sphere
12 - 2.75 - starpulse
13 - 2.25 - tunneling
14 - 1.50 - audio explosion

To save space, you may write that as follows:
1. nanobot explorer (4.5), 2. collision course (4.25), 3. aquatica (4.25), 4. ...

shuuu... Got it?


28th August 2005 17:24 UTC

Well, If I gave them equal points, then it means that I like them equally.
If you really want a top-10, put the equally rated presets in alphabetical order.

I can't always like one better than the other since a lot of presets are different from the start.


29th August 2005 13:35 UTC

I see. Well, then I'd say everything's alright :)


10th September 2005 21:05 UTC

Hint for all beta-testers: Please post your reviews before
October 1st, 2005
because this is the release date for this pack.

To get this right: You don't need to comment at all (of course it's appreciated though), all I need is your rating.


11th September 2005 00:42 UTC

Sorry I've taken so long to reply. Anyway, I'm having trouble downloading the file. If you would like, try sending it again to eheiney@gmail.com.


11th September 2005 01:10 UTC

Okay, here's what I think...
Intro: Am I the only one having the problem where the preset gets bright spots that grow and grow until the entire screen is filled with white and nothing can be seen any more?

Audio Explosion: Yeah, that's explosive all right. The movements and the occasional shaking really make it work.

Fireflower: Nice colors. I'll agree, though, that the overall shape is too static.

Deep scan: You're definitely going for a look there. It's fun to watch for a few seconds, but doesn't really work as an actual visualization.

Bass sphere: That is rather nice, although it does tend to get too bright at times.

Dark Angel: I like it... Although it took me a while to realize that the shape changed over time. Then I liked it even more.

Into the Darkness: Not bad. Reminds me a little too much of other presets I've seen, though.

Tunneling: It's much better without the framerate limiter. More variety in color would help, but the blue/cyan scheme is nice too.

Space Channel: I love this one! I would like to see a version with slightly more variety in color, but it also looks great with just the blue.

Blood Star: I like v3 best, but none of them really seem that great to me.

Sunburster: It doesn't work very well with quiet music (change v*v to v in the scope), and it needs to be faster, even with the framerate limiter turned off. Otherwise, it looks very cool.

Collision course: I like v1 more, but I think it looks even better with the convolution filter disabled.

Aquatica: That one's a winner!

Nanobot Explorer: All versions have the same problem the intro has with the whole thing turning white. All four look better with the convolution filter disabled. V1 looks best, but it'd still work better as a game than as an actual preset.

Starpulse: Doesn't work; it turns white like the intro. The first version starts out looking okay, though, for a few seconds.

Here are my rankings:

First place: Aquatica
2: Space Channel
3: Dark Angel (The best of the "preset 3" set.)

Sunburster
* Bass sphere (Does this not count since it's an alternate version of "preset 3"?)
Collision course (v1)
Fireflower
Audio explosion
* Into the darkness (Another "Preset 3")
* Tunneling
Nanobot Explorer (v1)
Starpulse (v1)
* Deep scan
Last place: Blood star (v3)


11th September 2005 08:52 UTC

@Denkensiefursich
Well, I'm having a lot of trouble with gmail.com; they don't accept my installer. I'll give it another try; if that doesn't work, maybe you could send me an alternate address without @gmail.com?
Oh, and you haven't taken too long btw. Almost everyone who's beta-testing my stuff has taken "too long", I kinda got used to it ;)

@StevenRoy
I'm glad you enjoyed the pack (even my beloved noobish ones :D) Thank you very much for reviewing!

The screen whites out probably because you've been watching the presets on a resolution significantly smaller than 400x300. I already know about this issue; I was just too lazy to figure out how to make bump intensity resolution independent.:rolleyes:

Forget about the title "preset #3". When naming the presets, I thought nobody would really like them, so this was meant to be a voting about which one to be included in the final version. But now there's no voting anymore, they'll all end up in Quake AVS, and you can choose anyone from those.

About my rating system
Yeah, Pak-9 was right... dump my shitty ranking system. Dump ordinal measure! Instead: Just give points like Tuggummi and WotL did.;)


11th September 2005 18:04 UTC

Why the f*** is it that bump is unable to get windowsize?? :mad: :mad: :mad: -> wishlist: bump intensity resolution independent.


11th September 2005 23:18 UTC

try searching for aspect ratio correction.


12th September 2005 03:28 UTC

Well I don't know what to tell you, qforce. I got the attachment, changed the filename, but still couldn't open it. If you're really searching for a review from me, try zipping all the presets up and re-resending them to me. ;) If not, sorry, but I'll just have to wait for the official release and hope the installer works.


12th September 2005 10:17 UTC

can i see anyway? do you need another tester/reviewer? if you do mr_nudge(at)hotmail.. yeah


12th September 2005 10:43 UTC

@ Mr Nudge:
You're in! :up:

Btw, everyone's welcome, AVSers as well as noobs, even if it doesn't seem so ;)


1 beta left and I want YOU for beta-testing!


12th September 2005 11:44 UTC

@ Mattfury:
Couldn't find anything on aspect ratio correction for bump trans. However, the presets are fixed now :) (Used the register to get what I needed)


24th September 2005 20:43 UTC

In case you didn't know...

RELEASE DATE:
October 1st
= Next saturday


Next week is your last chance to get the beta left-over and/or to post any reviews or ratings concerning Quake AVS beta. Everything submitted after release is useless and will always be. :cool:


25th September 2005 14:13 UTC

Well, if you still need another beta-tester i could do that. But i don't think that my rewiew/critcism will bring you that much new input, since you already got feedback from many of the forums 'regulars'. Anyway, if you still want to have another opinion, mail your pack to: ineffable.the<at>gmail.com.


2nd October 2005 00:34 UTC

Quake AVS is out now!

Click here.

Couldn't release it on saturday, because my internet connection sucked. But finally it's there, so I hope you enjoy play... watching it. ;)