At that time, computer graphics was often a choice between tricks or nothing.
You could say it's still true, a lot of graphics in AAA console/PC games could be called fake same way. Precomputed physics and such. That subsurface scattering? Fake. Soft shadows? Fake. Fluid dynamics? Fake.
Although, Amiga could have rendered that in real time too. Just two bitplanes and a smallish area.
My memory of the era is that no one would have thought they were actually 3d rendering in real time: that was Just Not Possible.
I'll point out that once they finally, FINALLY made a memory card for the Commodore 64, that plugged into the megabyte-per-second DMA port, there was a similar bouncing ball demo done for the C-64. Purely by loading whole frames into the memory card and blasting them onscreen as needed, like a page flip.
Yep. Every computer of the era ended up with a boing ball clone - it was just that iconic. [0]
Re:The Amiga Boing Ball Explained
by Doctor_Fegg on Monday August 22, 2016 @05:51AM
(#12335162)
Here's one for the Amstrad CPC, where you can see the ball actually being drawn in all its 16-colour palette glory:
And if you notice, only the Amiga Boing Ball was in stereo. :)
Re:The Amiga Boing Ball Explained
by supercoder on Sunday August 21, 2016 @09:54PM
(#12333658)
All computer graphics, or at least anything that performs at a reasonable speed, are a "trick".
That demo was my introduction to the Amiga. Whenever I met an Amiga fan later in life I would picture that demo in my head.
Adult, programmer me knows all too well that demos are marketing material, aka "lies you can't be sued for", but really faking 3D rendering is pretty low even by marketing standards. I am extremely disappointed.
This kind of screws with the memories of some interactions I've had with old fans over the years.