GameDevGoro

I guess it'd only make sense to keep all those characteristics if they're really gonna have Garrett. But if there's no Stephen, there won't be a Garrett...

Indeed. And does he have one eye... mechanical? Is that... Garrett?

This sounds better and better! (I'm sorry, I know quoting out of context sucks, but this was pretty funny I think.) But in all seriousness, the portaling system really isn't ideal or even favored for outdoor areas which is another reason why I think id tech 4 is so restrictive in what types of games are made with it. But there's really no way to change that for our purposes (and really- we don't), but may be worth considering when we get into a discussion about why developers don't use it. All I'm suggesting is that we keep this in mind and respect why it hasn't gotten a larger audience. Now about AI: I see Springheel's post above me at the time of writing and he's very much right. It's the processing of the AI that zaps the power, not the model.

This is a good option. Actually I gave up on the idea of having an mp3 player, bought a micro SD card for my phone instead. It's just 8 gigs worth but it's good enough for me. Only thing that sucks is if someone phones you while you're in the middle of an awesome air-guitar solo...

Prey 2 isn't even released yet. I'm not saying that id tech 4 can't be modified to do these things- I'm saying it's likely it will never happen because no one gives two farts about the engine despite it being open source. Also, Brink uses a heavily modified version of id tech 4, I think it looks/works just dandy.

Sure. Were it that people actually use the engine at all. Part of this discussion is to contemplate why developers and modders choose not to use id tech4 at all. And you guessed it, without a wider adaptation and people willing to use it on a larger scale, we won't see that much change unless we do it ourselves. No one's suggesting that TDM should switch engines (other than the occasional kid that sign up on these forums and tries to motivate the developers to "put it inside crysis 3"), that would be the biggest waste of time and talent this world would ever see. Build off from what we have... not reinvent.

@nbohr1more: I completely agree with you, but there's still a few things I'd like to point out: HL2 vs Doom3 is an interesting situation- They both came out at about the same time- the same year. 2004. So I'd like to think of the situation that both stem from similar engines. Doom3 and id tech 4 follows the technology from Quake 3 and actually has some of the code still in there and Half Life 2 and Source follows Gold Source from Half Life 1 which is a blend between id tech 1 (quake engine) and id tech 2. So by that fact HL2 and source *are* at the time of release inferior to the technology shown in Doom3. But. We should ask ourselves which one of these two enable developers and modders to create the most variation in environments (this makes all the difference when a developer or modder sits down to choose an engine, it's all about the range of possibilities and what's used most often): Half Life 2 uses baked shadows and radiance, fact. But the inherit softness of this allows the organic (natural) environments in Half Life 2 to look just softer and less "plastic" as has been the gripe from many mouths concerning how Doom3 looks. You can't, however, create hard shadows with source (I know the later versions of source actually have shadow rendering from lightsources, but this is at the time of launch). You can have characters cast fairly hard shadows, but the baked maps will always have that fuzzy softness. But this isn't that big a drawback. Most lighting we see in our physical world is soft due to light bouncing and doing its thing. Doom3 has only hard shadows, hard enough to poke ones eye out. This has a very specific application. It works in Doom3, sure. It fits the mood. That's why most Doom3 mods looks so rigid and unnatural, again to use the word tossed around Doom3 so often- plastic. It doesn't lend itself well for creating environments or even characters that look organic and soft. Personally my biggest gripe is the shadowing. Shadows don't look that way. Shadows look this way when you've got extremely dark areas with strong artificial lighting. Obviously no one would want "strong artificial lighting" in an outdoor level, right? And my observations extend to other games that used similar shadowing, like our very own favorite: Thief: Deadly Shadows. The important difference, however, is that TDS never used specular maps. They faked it by using cubemaps. It worked out better I think, everything in the game looked softer and more organic thanks to this. Now if, like you pointed out, we could replace Doom3's lighting with a deferred system we could by the fact also replace the hard shadowing to something softer, but this is not something that's easily done. But it would likely be faster as hardware advances and geometry shaders can further be used to render a multitude of shadowmaps without redrawing the geometry of the world. Then we'd have something that stands a real chance if the artists are good enough, good artists are actually key why many games that are technically inferior appear in better light than others, it's easy to forget this when you get bogged down in "engine world". Last jab: Another part of why Doom3 often looks unnatural, even in environments that try to be natural and organic is that it uses a constant ambient lighting term. Modern engines often use diffuse cubemaps or spherical harmonics for this, and boy does it help. Lastly... My intention is simply to learn how engines work and get to a point where I am free to write games without necessarily using an existing engine/framework. I'd say I'm actually at a pretty good point now, but since I'm complete self-taught I'm struggling when it comes to knowledge of popular algorithms and such. I'm not really aware (unless I learn it of course) what popular algorithms do what and how, so a lot of times I've implemented something a certain way, not knowing that there's a much more efficient way of implementing it. So a lot of my learning is still in the fine print, the large aspects have mostly been dealt with. I'm right now working in UDK with a bunch of people, but I'm still tinkering with my engine.

The problem I see with IDTech 4 is definitely, as you pointed out, that the way Doom3 is doesn't exactly warrant the engine to handle a lot more. Engines like Unreal, Source and maybe even Crytek are better* (Having said that, Source, Crytek and Unreal all have their flaws that are equally unpopular.) in that they scale better to larger or smaller environments. Doom3's engine hampers itself by using an old culling method that only really works ideally in narrow corridors as seen in Doom3, most modern engines that I'm aware of actively choose to replace this method and use newer and less "effective" methods. (If anyone wants I can try to explain more thoroughly.) I'd say TDM, for example, lends itself to IDTech 4 pretty well seeing as how it is mostly indoor. But for another kind of game, like an openworld RPG or the like- IDTech 4 would be disaster. * usage of the word "better" is solely within the context. I'm not saying that one engine is better than the other. It's very important to understand that engines all have their own pros/cons and very few/none are equally balanced. Note: My unbiased view of the engine(IDTech 4) is that I wouldn't choose it. Just as I wouldn't choose any of the other IDTech engines. ID's engines are great at what they do and boy they do it fast. But part of Carmack's design philosophy seems to be to sacrifice flexibility in order to gain speed. This is a paraphrasing of what he's at one point said, his real words are something like: "If you're willing to sacrifice flexibility, you can almost always do something better" I don't recall it verbatim so for the love of good don't take that to heart, I don't really know if he at all adheres to this regarding his engine designs, but the engines he's made indicate that it's sort of true. ID's engines aren't very flexible. And I'm not one programmer to do anything magnificent with them even if I had the entire codebase sprawled at my fingertips.

Linux has been in the "not to be considered" area for the longest of time when it comes to gaming, because what most people hear about Linux is that it's just software that pirates and pimple-faced geeks use that want to "fight the system" and that it has no real value. Most of all, and the thing I've heard often, is that people refuse to even entertain the idea to sell software/games for Linux because they automatically think that they can't. Linux is free so of course the software on it has to be too, no one sitting on a free OS is going to want to pay for games and/or software. I think that after the, I'd say, wild success of HIB sort of showed the world that Linux is a viable option- bigger companies started realizing that Linux isn't just a plaything for the nerds and the "misguided", it's a real thing- ergo- a real market.

I have two brothers that swear by this show. Haven't seen it myself though... Or rather, I've seen bits and pieces here and there. Same goes for the show "Bottom" (I think that's the full title of the show). And also seen bits and sketches from that as well. Other than that: Have people here seen the show Freaks & Geeks? It was cancelled, but seriously is good fun and has a very nice atmosphere and great acting. This is IMHO the last thing Judd Apatow did that is worth a damn and has more content than "dick-jokes" (which he pointed out are among his favorite things) and other jokes that are somehow connected, in any stretch of the imagination, to a persons nether... uh... "regions". Other shows I enjoy/have enjoyed are Malcolm In The Middle, The Office (Just the US version, seen 8 seasons of it, won't watch the rest) and Flight Of The Conchords. Actually all these shows are things I rewatch again and again during my work. I'm a little psycho like that. Music doesn't always "scratch my itch".

LOL! Now *that's* funny. Oh but I came up with some other movies that I really like and it's very likely that I'll never grow tired of them: Starship Troopers Stand By Me (really great mood in this film IMO) Scott Pilgrim Vs The World aaaaand... Léon: The Professional

Haha, nah it's fine. xD The way I look has gotten me in plenty of trouble in the past, one more ain't nuthin' to it. ;P

Wow! Hostile! That's me...................

Two movies that I will never grow tired of, and I know this since I must've seen either one of them at least 40 times... It's gotten to the point where I can recite pretty much ever line after the other... :T The Shawshank Redemption and The pirates of silicon valley If you haven't seen one of them, or both. Do. They are both very, very good.

* Knock out people who are in my way / deserve it. * Save/Load when in tough spot. * Kill if cannot knock out and are in my way / deserve it. * Sometimes I like to ghost specific parts of a mission, but this is often because I feel like taking my sweet time. Pretty much like I play Thief... Or games with stealth whatsoever. ... "deserve it" is very vague, isn't it. But basically if the story points out a specific jerk- he will suffer by my hand.

Yeah, god I wish some people would understand this logic. Hundreds(probably an overestimate, could be much much less) of indie game developers get f00ked through C&Ds every year but they never understand that you can't create a sequel to final fantasy, zelda or super mario no matter how free a game it'll be in the end. Mods and total conversions however are a bit of a gray-zone for me. I don't really think a fanmade extension, reimagining or remake as it is would hurt an IP in any way as long as it is clearly pointed out that it's just that and not an official licensed product. (It's just sad if the IP holder is genuinely scared that the mod will by far surpass the original game ) So in most cases it just seems like corporate wet-blankets come along and ruin the party for some ambitious project. But. Still- since everything about IP is wrapped so tightly it's often not even the game companys legal right to make any decision like that, and yeah. It's a damn bummer, but I guess there's no real point in arguing it. (... I'm not the greatest at these things, so maybe I'm waaaay off here. This is how I've come to understand it anyhow.)

I'm not easily declining this offer. You see- I'll just be straight and flat out. ... I've got a room... And one connecting little entryway... It's a decorated room though... It's obvious I should make a little more before handing it to you, seeing as how the story, as it is, isn't even unfolding. Should I really send you that? Edit: And to my defense. I have been very busy.

You gonna make me answer that? Haha. But yes, it'd be something along those lines if I were to go at a steady rate of school, work on my game project, work on some other stuff and then squeeze a bit of TDM mapping into the last half-hour of the day... It'd take a few years. @ Bikerdude: Yeah you know, I would take you up on that, were it that I'd actually have an entire level to work with that just needed the rough edges sanded off etc etc. I really hate saying this but, after all these years I'm coming up short with this mission... It's still going to happen to wrap up the series. *sigh*

Oh wow it was a long time ago I saw this thread. But yes. I'm slowly... veeeeery slowly, creeping almost, working on the second part. I unfortunately don't have a lot of time right now though, school and other stuff, so I'm not entirely sure how this would happen in a time-frame that isn't spread out through the next few years...

Well... I'm a part, part, very part* electronic musician. I make like.. Ambient tracks and different types of electronic music just as a way to relax. I did play the guitar a few years back, never got into it that deep. But I am planning on buying a bass guitar... for that funky stuff. I try... That's the gist of it. Edit: Also, as for electronic music I've now moved over to just using tracker programs to make music. I'm mostly interested in making chiptunes, so it's all that I need right now. * = I want to dedicate more time for it, but I've got like 3 other "hobbies" I really love doing so balancing time is a bit of an issue...

Oh neat! This is the type of stuff games use when they don't use CSG (or similar) like Dark Radiant does. So yeah, It's a damn fine idea. All of the Elder Scrolls games (don't know about Arena, but Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim) have dungeons and interiors built in such a way.

Oh. Well thanks! Animation is the real problem right now though. If I could get animation working I'd be able to make that into the game I intended it to be. *wistful sigh* Now back on track, Diego: I really hope you can make this into a full-fledged game. It sounds like it could be very interesting. Also: You know what, I had the same idea a while back, but I figured it didn't work out practically because the calculations would be massive when dealing with a lot of AI characters.

Wow this is very, very cool, Diego! I'm glad to see Unity being used for something other than 12 year olds making "CoD But better". Oh, stealth game- many a time have I tried to create one too. *sigh*

@Loa4ever: Yeeeah! Celldweller is a beast! Love his stuff.. Do you listen to Blue Stahli also? (His buddy and sometimes co-worker.) But yeah... I used to be a big metal head (with the long hair and black clothes and stuff) but then I discovered that I just can't like one kind of music and ignore the rest (due to genre differences and the usual crap cliques usually complain about) and I started seeing a pattern in other music that I tended to like in metal and I started listening to more and more electro/techno music. Electro music is pretty much the largest chunk I listen to nowadays. This is usually because the music is monotone (and often lyric-less) so I can easily work to it. But it doesn't stop there, I listen to pop, RnB, Hiphop, Ambient, Classical(sometimes), Rock, Punk, Black metal, Techno metal, Noise, Dubstep, UK Bass, Moombahton, Death metal, Thrash metal, Heavy metal, Chiptune, 8-Bit, Hardcore, Gabber, Emo, Screamo aaaaaaaand pretty much whatever else there is. Let's just say I listen to everything becaaaause: I think that: If the song is good, the song is good. No need to worry about genre or anything of the sort, can't deny what you like, right?

Well yeah, true... But I was really only talking about me and no doubt other people like me who have never intentionally clicked on an Ad in their life. So if I'm super sure (which I am) that I won't even look at Ads, much less click on them- then I'm going to go ahead and block them, they weren't going to get my business anyway.