OrbWeaver

No it isn't

The GPL is a source code licence, it doesn't really make sense for textures (what is the "source" of a texture? The Photoshop/Gimp original project?). It might be an idea to release the code under the GPL but use a different licence for the art resource, such as one of the many "artistic" licences or Creative Commons.

That's one kitchen I won't be eating in.

Interesting, although there is obviously a disk space issue there, unless the end user recompresses the uncompressed PK4 on his own machine. OK, that's what I was nervous about. As long as there is scope for allowing TGA if it works better for a particular texture then I see no problems with using DDS by default.

Perhaps a bit late to chip in to this discussion, however a couple of points: 1) RLE-compressing TGA is a waste of time since the thing is going into a PK4 anyway. Based on some testing I did, zip-compressed uncompressed TGA reaches a smaller final size than zip-compressed RLE TGA, so the RLE-decoding/reinflation need not be an issue. 2) Although I see the point in using DDS in order to increase resolution, one needs to be mindful of using the right tool for the right job. Although DDS can look fine on noisy, detailed textures it can look ghastly on very smooth textures with diagonal lines, for example. In the latter case it might actually be better to use zip-compressed TGA rather than having to add noise before DDS compressing in order to avoid the artifacts, thus defeating the point of compression in the first place.

http://www.modwiki.net/wiki/Texturing#Comp...nd_uncompressed There is no advantage in using DXT5/3 if you don't have an alpha channel, these formats have no difference in how colour is stored (AFAIK). RxGB should be used for normals, as DXT can lead to horrible blockiness that only shows up at an acute lighting angle (look at TDS for examples). EDIT: according to kat's tutorial (http://www.quake3bits.com/htm/tutorials/create_dds_ati_compressonator.htm) it sounds like RxGB might actually be a form of DXT5 after all. EDIT2: This does indeed seem to be the case, from http://www.lucasforums.com/showpost.php?p=...mp;postcount=31

I hope they sort it out soon, without my regular dose of CommChat banality there is a real danger I might start noticing how dull my job is.

They may well have been writing that, but that doesn't change the fact that Doom 3 is demonstrably not a remake of the original, taking place in a different setting, with a different storyline and different characters. It is no more a remake of the original Doom than The Empire Strikes Back is a remake of Return of the Jedi.

I think oDDity would be a good example of something that appears and behaves like fire but isn't.

Doom didn't actually get a remake, it got a sequel. A "remake" would be copying the entire map set and storyline into a new engine, which in my view would be very boring.

True, but it would pretty stupid to assume that it wasn't going to. That is the difference between pure logic and rationality.

Err...what? In order for something such as a gas to emit light, it generally has to possess rather a lot of internal energy, i.e. heat. In the absence of any other explanation for the emission, you would be well advised to consider something that looks like a fire to be hot.

Why are people so obsessed with remaking Thief? There is a whole world of possibilities for creative level design and storytelling, and all anyone wants to do is rehash some old storyline that everybody knows backwards anyway and wasn't all that original in the first place.

Cattle is a mass noun, not a plural. You can't have "a few cattle" any more than "a few water" (not that people don't use the former, but it is incorrect).

Is it? Have you ever tried in real life?

I certainly liked the interactivity, and the gravity puzzles increase the interest a bit from the standard point-and-shoot. I have to agree on the corny dialog though, it is just embarassing when you walk around and your character comes out with all this "hold on, I'll save you" Hollywood crap. Not sure whether I will buy the game though, it seems a bit pricy at the moment (but it might come down), and I'd like to see if there are some driver updates or something that improve the performance - not that it is unplayable, but I expect better than 1024x768 from an X850 XT.

What they actually mean is "30% speed improvement if you use a particular model of card and have a 3D application which does nothing except generate cube maps all day via a particular system call that gets used about once every minute in a real game", or something.

I'm probably exaggerating a bit, for the most part at 1024x768 (no AA, 4xAF) I am getting 60 fps with occasional slowdowns into the 30s. I'd rather play at 1280x1024 though, which I can do quite comfortably in D3/Q4 but with Prey there are parts where it goes down to 20-odd FPS at this resolution.

Prey has some wonderful environments, but it runs like an absolute dog even on an X850 XT (relatively speaking - I get about the same performance as Doom 3 on my old 9800XT)

For sure there is cruft and legacy code, but are you really willing to believe that the presence of such code is causing the entire graphics pipeline to operate at 12% of its potential speed? Also, DirectX and OpenGL achieve comparable performance on the same card, so it clearly isn't the software which is limiting the speed. Maybe if the manufacturers already had the technology to improve the pipeline speed but were unable to do so due to lack of driver support, then DX10 might make a difference, but it is not going to be 6 - 8x.

Sorry, I should have said "Doom 3 does not use Direct3D for rendering". It probably uses DirectInput or DirectSound or something.

It certainly won't, since 1) Doom 3 does not use DirectX, and 2) DX10 is overhyped Microsoft bullshit which will speed up games by 10x some time shortly after Mike Tyson gains a PhD in astrophysics and sixteen singing monkeys in tutus fly out of Steve Ballmer's arse.

The ambient lighting section in that tutorial describes exactly the same technique used in Doom 3 to add ambient light to a level.

Seems to be OK now.

Actually they replaced so much stuff when writing the T3/DX2 engine that it is arguably incorrect to say it was using the Unreal engine. As I recall the only part of Unreal left was the editor, and even this had large parts of its functionality cut out.