OrbWeaver

The Source engine is basically lower-tech than the D3 engine (with a couple of exceptions, such as the ability to use dynamic cube maps to produce real reflections), but by using pre-rendered static shadows (like T1/T2 did) it takes load off the GPU and allows very large scenes to be displayed. The D3 engine by contrast does everything dynamically, which requires MUCH greater performance from the hardware. You can have expansive outdoor areas in D3, you just have to build carefully and accept that it may require tomorrow's hardware to run smoothly.

The system oDDity seems to be proposing is similar to the luck systems used in certain pen-and-paper RPG games, whereby your luck would decrease with each successive use. It's very effective at discouraging risk-taking behaviour, but it's certainly not realistic.

I wonder how that's going. Last I recall their most recent great leap forward was deciding on a tagline.

There is little or no difference at the implementation level between "massive views" and "massive detail". It is merely a matter of scale. All the engine cares about is how much rendering work it has to do. Whether that is because a single room contains lots of detailed objects, or because you are looking out over a large vista of low-poly objects is not all that important.

No, but whether they would be able/willing to enforce and whether they have anything that they CAN enforce are two different questions, and I believe it is important to understand where the line is drawn. I would never intentially violate copyright or advocate doing so, but in many cases you can do things that people assume you can't without violating some IP right or other. IP companies have been very successful at stirring up a cloud of FUD around anything IP-related so that people genuinely believe that even using the word "Garrett" in conversation would be actionable (even if your name is Garrett, it is a fairly common surname after all).

That's a problem with employer culture as well. My employer does not push me to work more than my contractual hours, but they do seem to have this expectation that my life's dream is to work for them, and I will play all their games, move up through the grades etc. Actually all I want is a stable, stress-free job where I don't have to structure my entire personal life around "business needs". I'm not interested in competition or strutting around like a ponce, I just need to pay my bills and purchase food (and the occasional graphics card update hopefully). Being a contractor is actually quite appealing because of the independence (and of course charging by the hour), but I doubt it would have much stability.

Because we don't have access to the renderer until Doom 3 is open-sourced, which will be a couple of years at least. What you are describing is basically streaming LOD (Level of Detail) which would require a major rewrite of the scene processing code.

It wouldn't be illegal to create an FM that just used the names, as long as you didn't try to cross-import any Thief series assets into the mission. Mere names are not substantial enough to be protected by copyright, they have to be trademarked which requires registration and a fee - something Eidos almost certainly haven't done with "Keeper" or "Garrett".

It is true in some places - one of the things I often hear from people who have visited "poor" countries is how friendly and relaxed the people are, compared to western countries where they are stressed out trying to hold down their jobs and "get ahead". Fortunately in the EU there is an absolute maximum of 48 hours per week set out by law, unless you "opt out". If anybody asked me to work 60 hours a week (or even an extra hour for free) I would just laugh in their face.

Of course it has. Even a professional musician has good days and bad days, and with a number of skilled musicians involved, having a bad day while your opponent has a good day could make the difference between winning or losing.

The only difference between Constantine's sword and the regular sword was that Constantine's did not have a visibility penalty when it was drawn. Much as I would have loved a zombie-killer, it had no extra killing powers whatsoever.

Not only that, but 1) You can't just walk out and change jobs because you don't really like what you are doing, if you have bills to pay and you don't know how easy it will be to find another job (which might end up being just as bad if not worse). 2) Most people can't do the things they enjoy doing professionally, due to lack of demand or just lack of skill. I would enjoy doing level design all day but there aren't enough jobs that require this, too many people who want to do it and most of them are better than me. 3) Many of the enjoyable things that CAN be done professionally either don't pay very much or are unstable and have no job security or guaranteed income (such as being a musician).

If I were a multimillionaire I would do just that. Unfortunately most of us are not multimillionaires, and have to indulge in the aformentioned drudgework in order to feed and clothe ourselves.

I never found looking at other people's maps to be particularly instructive, as it usually involves being faced with a totally incomprehensible mishmash of brushes and objects with no easy way of discovering how each part was built. I find it easier to work up from the basics by following a tutorial and experimenting. What I have found useful is using the r_showSurfaceInfo cvar while playtesting, which allows you to point at something an immediately see what model it is and what texture is applied. You can then look up the model in a 3D app if desired, examine the individual textures or whatever.

Society should concentrate on improving the quality of the years we have, not trying to endlessly extend them. When you spend 5 days out of 7 in an office just to make enough money to stay alive, what the hell do you have to gain from a longer life?

No thanks. Isn't 80 years of pointless daily routine and endless busywork enough for these people?

Don't worry about it. You will never have to concern yourself with matrix transformations when using Radiant for ordinary editing.

That's not an issue with style, it's an issue with quality. It goes without saying that several mappers working on a project must all have a similar level of competence at mapping otherwise the end result will be very patchy.

Who said it's not possible? It IS possible as far as I know, you just have to edit three values rather than 1 (to scale in X, Y and Z respectively).

I don't think you SHOULD be able to do this - I always found it ridiculous in Thief when you were in a completely dark room but could pick up and read a book just fine.

It's certainly no worse in D3 than in T3Ed, it's just that rescaling in the 3D app is generally the better solution in any case. Nevertheless, there ARE things that are better in T3Ed, such as the entity browser/menu (which is absolute crap in DoomEdit and top of my priority list of enhancements for DarkRadiant).

I think somebody did manage to do this on D3World by using the rotation matrix to perform a scaling operation. I don't know how well it worked though, normally I would recommend getting the size correct during the modelling stage.

The FPS is low, this is mainly due to the total lack of visportalling and the fact that the entire map is illuminated by a giant shadowcasting light. I believe the physics for the water is done via a volume brush, the surface is in fact two flat patches - one to do the reflection and one to do the distortion. This is no longer necessary now somebody (I think pbmax) wrote a combined shader that does both.

Search for After The War on D3World.

I believe that in TDS everything (including material exports) is done through the closed-source Max 5.1 plugin, meaning that for Max 5.1 users it is exceedingly easy, while for everyone else it is impossible. Moving to Doom 3 with its open formats may seem like a hassle if you are used to having everything done automatically, but the openness and flexibility is much more important. In particular there is nothing stopping someone from creating an all-integrated export plugin for their 3D app of choice.