I have something to say }:-)

[sty]

Oh, and I lied when I said I was going to my mum's just before Christmas, I was actually in Seattle with the Crew performing an early version of Neon at the Xbox team Christmas party. It was ace

I'd love to hear how they responded to that show. I'm assuming that to many of them the concept of performance light synth must have been completely new?

We responded perfectly - there was at least one person in the crowd (me!) who bought Trip-a-Tron.. and who remembers it with great affection.

Yak - if you're ever in Mil-D again, post something up here - I'd love to say hello!

Welcome on board

(the formal welcome party will be along soon with your sheepie

Glad to hear that it went down well, so what have people internally (ie. within the XBox team I suppose) been saying about it since they first saw it? Any gossip or news to share with us here?

[romanista]

It's been severely tested with different kind of music from teekno to classic and so on ...

[/quote]

i'm very interested how the classic would work, although i always said that classical music is in a trippy oinstrumental sort of way actuall quite similar to techno...

so more difficult would be watching something like errr mariah carey with it, how would that work?

[PVB]

We responded perfectly - there was at least one person in the crowd (me!) who bought Trip-a-Tron.. and who remembers it with great affection.

Yak - if you're ever in Mil-D again, post something up here - I'd love to say hello!

Welcome on board

(the formal welcome party will be along soon with your sheepie

Welcome Simulant, to the fluffiest forums on the net!

[Ratsoap]

Man, the vid is awesome, and the new site looks really nice. Well done to all of you!

[Kid Dynamo]

I’ve been a big fan of Jeff’s work ever since I was a kid… I can’t claim that I’ve played with every product, or spent hours marveling at his code, but I’ve enjoyed the hell out of everything llamasoft I’ve ever laid hand or eye upon… and I’ve always felt, like many of you I’m sure, a little special that I really appreciated the work, and maybe understood exactly what Mr. Minter was going for.

I had been ridiculously excited for Unity… and I was sorely disappointed when the project was cancelled… but Jeff’s explanation of why it had to happen, why it just wasn’t feasible or pragmatic, made sense… and clearly he was more upset than I. But pragmatix be damned, Microsoft?!?! XBOX 360?!?! WTF Man? There’s no need for me to sum up what’s wrong with MS and their gaming ambitions, this is a smart crowd… and I don’t expect my opinion to mean a ton to anybody, particularly not to Jeff as I’m sure he’s thought this through and weighed up what is most important to him, but I have to say: I’m pretty damned disappointed in him. I no longer feel like I have that admittedly slightly sick fanship understanding of the guy… I can only think of one reason he'd make such a product for MS… a big reason, but not a good one for any artist.

will the new lightsynth involve any micro-purchases? maybe extra colors?
I'm sure the product will be great, i'm sure they all are, and I really do wish you the best of luck, sucess, and fortune...
but with one fan less.

[beerman]

I can only think of one reason for making a product for MS…

Because they asked him to?

[Sir_LANs-a-lot]

Hello.

Welcome to the forum.


I understand that Jeff pointed out in a previous post that the reason Neon was incorporated into the new Xbox was because Microsoft gave him the opportunity to produce something nice for it.

As he said, both Sony and Nintendo know his work and what he does. Perhaps they decided that it wasn't what they wanted for their respective products. Fair enough, that's their perogative. But there's no need to be disappointed simply because the guy has achieved a 20 year dream in getting something he firmly believes in and crafts lovingly delivered into a mass audience.

I'm pleased for the guy and his crew.

[duskcrawler]

I fail to see why anyone would be disappointed with Jeff developing a light synth for Microsoft and the X-box.

Let's get real here: Light synths are always going to be a niche product that not many people will ever buy let alone see. With the new light synth being an intrinsic part of Xbox 360 millions of people will have access to it and I would imagine most people who buy this console will play a cd and therefore see the new light synth in all it's glory.

Any programmer would give their right bollock to have their software in the firmware of the Xbox 360 and anyone who has a gripe at Jeff for providing this for Microsoft needs their fucking head examined.

Good on Llamasoft I say. For a small development team to get a huge idea on a console that will be huge is, well HUGE!

[Kid Dynamo]

don't get me wrong, i'm not looking for a fight here, or even mild contention. I just wanted to voice how I feel about the situation (i just found out this morning) and this seemed the place to do so. Many people work for MS... it's fine... that's life... i just didn't expect it from Jeff.

to be as fair as i can, I should say that perhaps I feel much more strongly than most about competition in the video game console market... I'm a BIG nintendo fan.

[TFO]

don't get me wrong, i'm not looking for a fight here, or even mild contention. I just wanted to voice how I feel about the situation (i just found out this morning) and this seemed the place to do so. Many people work for MS... it's fine... that's life... i just didn't expect it from Jeff.

to be as fair as i can, I should say that perhaps I feel much more strongly than most about competition in the video game console market... I'm a BIG nintendo fan.

At the end of the day, how many companies produced for the XBOX? How many companies produce stuff that runs under Windows? Are you disappointed in all of them too?
Whatever your personal feelings for the Evil Empire (and I am no fan of M$ business ethics at times), an artist has been given an opportunity to show his art. No-one here has sold their soul.

Oh, and welcome to the forum kid dynamo. I remember an old song of that name...

[Kid Dynamo]

I remember an old song of that name...

bullshit, no one remembers that song.

[gilesgoat]

I’ve been a big fan of Jeff’s work ever since I was a kid… I can’t claim that I’ve played with every product, or spent hours marveling at his code, but I’ve enjoyed the hell out of everything llamasoft I’ve ever laid hand or eye upon… and I’ve always felt, like many of you I’m sure, a little special that I really appreciated the work, and maybe understood exactly what Mr. Minter was going for.

I had been ridiculously excited for Unity… and I was sorely disappointed when the project was cancelled… but Jeff’s explanation of why it had to happen, why it just wasn’t feasible or pragmatic, made sense… and clearly he was more upset than I. But pragmatix be damned, Microsoft?!?! XBOX 360?!?! WTF Man? There’s no need for me to sum up what’s wrong with MS and their gaming ambitions, this is a smart crowd… and I don’t expect my opinion to mean a ton to anybody, particularly not to Jeff as I’m sure he’s thought this through and weighed up what is most important to him, but I have to say: I’m pretty damned disappointed in him. I no longer feel like I have that admittedly slightly sick fanship understanding of the guy… I can only think of one reason he'd make such a product for MS… a big reason, but not a good one for any artist.

will the new lightsynth involve any micro-purchases? maybe extra colors?
I'm sure the product will be great, i'm sure they all are, and I really do wish you the best of luck, sucess, and fortune...
but with one fan less.

Dear Mr ...,

the dream of Jeff was to made lightsynth available and enjoyable for
as many people as possible including you.

He worked off his tits for 20 years following this dream, made something
that people could enjoy and find happiness in it, share the beauty he found in lightsynth
with anybody else.

"Why it had to happen ?" .. well .. "bad luck" let's say .. and/or someone
not believing so much in that dream like we were .. but anyway no fame no blame .. things happend, not
always everything goes smooth and such ..

When Unity got cancelled and such we all were sad and really not knowing
what to do .. not really last .. with "nothing else to do" with a broken dream
once more again and a lot of sadness around especially for breaking the
dream of other people too that believed so much in us ...

We tried to knock at some doors, nobody stayed with "hands in hands" waiting
for things to come down from the sky ...

And they all knew very well at that moment what we were doing and
working on, we had some "potential possibilities" but they all were "maybe we could" ...

All this started to happen because a nice guy, that did not even know us
very well saw Neon and understood the vision, someone that simply looked
at it and excited at his beauty said "We gonna have this !" ..

We were two stinky coders in a barn in Wales with a dream, make beauty .. and someone that
did not even know us well trusted us and our dream .. and loved this
dream too ...

Other people had the opportunity to see and "touch" this dream .. yet ..
nothing happened ...

MS believed ... MS got excited too .. MS liked it a lot too and liked our dream ...

Should have said "no we don't want to do it with you" and miss the opportunity
to spread this beauty to as many people as possible ?

They trusted us .. and they genuinely loved this stuff to bits as we do ...

"Not a good one for any artist" ? Should an artist then make art and keep
his painting hidden in a safe so nobody can see them ?

You say "... a big reason" .. I know what you mean .. and you are deadly
wrong if you thing that someone came to us wawing big cheques and we
did all this because we wanted to make huge money .. money really been
"the last thing" we tought at ...

Xbox 360 is lovely piece of HW .. it's very good and we saw the big potential
in it allowing us to make Neon what is now and we wanted to do it as best as possible.

And I tell you what (my personal opinion) it's been really nice to work with
MS and their people, it's 9 years I work on projects and such and I really
saw very few times a project running and followed this way with competent
people understanding very well what we are working on and supportive too.

Anyway .. Neon is here .. soon available .. there will be more to come ..

This is just the beginning and is going very well

[aureole]

Was nice to be having a conversation in the lab with a few people who excitedly mentioned that there would be a visualiser on the XBox360 and described the vid they'd seen as "a reason just to own an XBox on it's own".

[Kemper_Boyd]

Was nice to be having a conversation in the lab with a few people who excitedly mentioned that there would be a visualiser on the XBox360 and described the vid they'd seen as "a reason just to own an XBox on it's own".

Make sure they see the other video Acronym posted, IMHO it's even
spiffier than the first.

[Kid Dynamo]

gah with the defense... gosh. look, it's fine, seriously, I offer my sincerest congratulations to you and the whole team.

maybe it's not about money, maybe no one else was interested, maybe Gates is really a great fella to play some cribage with... wouldn't change my main point here: I am disappointed.

the dream of Jeff was to make lightsynth available and enjoyable for
as many people as possible, including you.

it doesn't include me... it specifically excludes me. Me and alot of other people who really value what llamasoft does...