The origins of caulk

[Dragofer]

When looking at historic ships' manifests (lists of passengers, cargo and so on) I saw that ships would bring one or two 'caulkers' with them as part of the crew. That made me curious about what's actually meant with 'caulk', the pink substance we know from DarkRadiant. As per dictionary.com:

 

2.

to make (a vessel) watertight by filling the seams between the planks with oakum or other material driven snug.

So you'd hope the ship caulkers would properly caulk the entire ship as otherwise they'd get leaks and the... performance would sink. That's a way to think about the purpose of the caulk material.

[demagogue]

Yeah, Carmack liked the submarine metaphor thinking about internal and external leaks, so I can believe that's why he named it that. Aside from supposedly helping performance, they can serve to close off any accidental tiny leaks if you just plaster the whole outside with it, and maybe that was its original intended purpose.

[SteveL]

Cool, I never thought to find out what it meant. That's a good name for an invisible sealant.

 

Caulk is good for performance because it isn't rendered at all by the engine, it generates no triangles to be drawn. Our "caulk sky" and fog tricks conspire to make it look like caulk surfaces are somehow drawn, which is confusing, but in fact neither is drawn on the caulk surface, which doesn't exist as far as the renderer is concerned. In both cases you're seeing an image in the background, not the caulk itself.

[Deadlove]

I use caulk often at work (plumbing jobs). Never knew Carmack used the word for covering leaks. Simple but effective. More awesome gaming trivia for the mental filing cabinet.

[demagogue]

Cool, I never thought to find out what it meant. That's a good name for an invisible sealant.

 

Caulk is good for performance because it isn't rendered at all by the engine, it generates no triangles to be drawn. Our "caulk sky" and fog tricks conspire to make it look like caulk surfaces are somehow drawn, which is confusing, but in fact neither is drawn on the caulk surface, which doesn't exist as far as the renderer is concerned. In both cases you're seeing an image in the background, not the caulk itself.

This must be why it works with the oculus to draw a distant sky when a normal sky texture would render it close up in 3D. It's not really redering the brush's surface at all, just 'placeless' sky in its place. Thank goodness because that was a sticky problem that now has a quick fix.

[Sotha]

"The Origins of Caulk" sounds like an extremely rare occult book someone ought to steal from an eccentric noble, who collects bizarre things.

 

Mapping bugs might bite, gotta get some insect deterrent...

[Xarg]

Eccentric collectors of extremely rare books don't tend to fare too well under your care... don't do it! Pre-crime!

[demagogue]

"The Origins of Caulk" sounds like an extremely rare occult book someone ought to steal from an eccentric noble, who collects bizarre things.

It would be if you tried to explain it in that world, or in ours if you think about what is the caulk behind our own reality keeping it from springing leaks to the nether dimension.

 

The occult mapping prize still should probably go to dromed naming its markers fnords, though. I'll let y'all google that if you don't already know what they are.

[ERH+]

"The Origins of Caulk" sounds like an extremely rare occult book someone ought to steal from an eccentric noble, who collects bizarre things.

 

Mapping bugs might bite, gotta get some insect deterrent...

Game editor always reminds me this frightening experience of falling through walls of designed reality into endless nothingness. I have this feeling that if I let gravity pull me beyond some kind of limit xyz value, something very very bad will happen. And I don't even know this value. Or don't know if it already happened. Have you ever tried to imagine that whole world around have only paper thin surface, and nothing beneath? Break or pass by it by accident, or just behind a corner where you not supposed to be, your perception refused to "draw" further (hall of mirrors effect).

Edited April 19, 2016 by ERH+

[demagogue]

Sounds like the way a friend of mine described going crazy on a ship thinking just under the thin surface of the water was unfathomable depth miles into the black abyss. Or in a plane, the thin layer of aluminum separating normal life from the shreiking winds of the stratosphere. Or something. It'd really freak him out but I've never been phased by it.

 

I'm much more attune to mysticism (or the experience people call mysticism, I don't think it's actual magic), like reality inside or behind reality. Like if you're holding a knife and somebody tells you a murderer killed somebody with it. It's the same physical knife, but now it's imbubed with some kind of black energy you can suddenly feel in it. I like how games give us a good analogy to think about that, since in the game world there really is the sourcecode embedded in things we can't see it, but you sense its presence.

 

Well this discussion has gotten strangely metaphysical.

[Bikerdude]

Can someone remind me how I get a fog light on the fog on caulk..?