Really well done. It's a bummer that source code are rarely released for demos.
For me one of the best of all times is Second Life [1], by Future Crew. Developed in 1993 nonetheless, it was a big breakthrough at the time, with almost 10 minutes of animation, and in early x86 hardware. Source code available [2].
Demo source code is not often released, but there are many exceptions. For example, if you're interested in 4kB intros, look at this: https://github.com/in4k
Since 4kB intros are typically done in a shader, you can also look at https://www.shadertoy.com
For Ctrl-Alt-Test specifically, we put our source code on GitHub (but not the most recent productions)[1]. The tool to minify shaders is also on GitHub[2].
So I think you can get a pretty good idea of how we did it. If you have any question, feel free to ask. I can give more details here, or it can be part of a future blog post.
Thanks for sharing! Your F – Felix’s Workshop[1] is pretty impressive, and specially for the 64KB category. Thanks for publishing the source code[2] as well.
Given that the demoscene evolved from the cracking/warez scene, there is an implicit notion that if you want to figure out how something works, you should inspect it yourself with a disassembler.
Most of those early demos were hand assembled anyway, so the "source code" is a bit of a vague statement. You might be getting a bit more structure/comments in the original .s file but maybe not. Most of those demos required heroic program shrinking to fit in memory, and that's almost always a disaster for readability.
You typically join (or form) a group because you get along with them. I'm in five groups, some with some pretty great releases (not mine), and I'm a pretty shitty graphics coder.
In fact your phrasing "elite skills" made me chuckle a bit, it sounds like the kind of thing a 16 year old would say in 1994 :) (no offense intended)
I think most people don't release source code because a) it's just not really part of the culture, b) the code is shit and c) people want to make demos, not READMEs. I mean, in the end this is about art and expression as much as anything. Electronic musicians don't usually publish their music software source files either. There is not really any elitism behind this.
c) is also why write-ups like this one are so uncommon. (Cool stuff LLB!)
For me one of the best of all times is Second Life [1], by Future Crew. Developed in 1993 nonetheless, it was a big breakthrough at the time, with almost 10 minutes of animation, and in early x86 hardware. Source code available [2].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFv7mHTf0nA
[2] http://fabiensanglard.net/second_reality/index.php