ID Software new game and Engine

[Arumakani]

What do you reckon to this article? You have to scroll down to see the topic:

 

http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/steve-j...from-wwdc-2007/

[jdude]

I love ID software so much! Their always making something awesome!

[sparhawk]

Hmmm. Doesn't say much, does it? An engine where you can change the colour of anything? WOW! That sounds impressive.

 

No, really, what's so exciting about this?

[Mr Mike]

Nice to see a few tiny screenshots, I guess. You can quite clearly see the Doom3 tech in them.

 

I think the big news is the apparent limitless texture size but this is what's going on with Quake wars so no big deal. Actually, I think some guys found parts of the code in Doom3 and actually got it working to a reasonable state.

 

I'm slightly concerned about how "world" textures will impact the ability to make quality mods in the future.

[Crispy]

Yeah, megatextures sounds like the main new feature. Not terribly exciting perhaps, but nonetheless I reckon 20GB is a fairly impressive amount of texture data to cram into one scene! I can only imagine how many DVDs the bloody thing will fill when it's done though... you better hope they can do some serious compression on that 20GB! Even then, how many scenes could you fit on a DVD? Even if they can compress that texture data down to 1/100th (!) of the size, you could still only fit around 24 "scenes" on a 4.7 GB DVD, which doesn't sound like very many. Maybe the levels are built with tiled textures and they do some procedural stuff to add variation automatically on load. Would make for a longer load time but greatly reduced space requirements.

 

You can definitely tell that it's D3-derived. Check out the picture of the guy with the big broad blue hat (helmet? looks metallic). Something about his face just screams "D3" to me. Not sure what it is exactly - maybe it's something to do with their art style and the unified lighting and shadowing.

[woah]

Hmmm. Doesn't say much, does it? An engine where you can change the colour of anything? WOW! That sounds impressive.

 

No, really, what's so exciting about this?

 

That's the same thing I was thinking...

[Arumakani]

Dunno. I thought it would interest you guys. I'm not a techie so maybe I was thinking along the lines of how in future the DarkMod could use this.

 

A clip:

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?type=wmv&id=20463

[SneaksieDave]

Alternate:

 

I'm just hoping the megatexture thing isn't the main selling point of the tech. I'd like more accurate physics, unified and efficient lighting, better occlusion methods (esp. for outdoor scenes as in the movie), better AI, etc., much more than I'd like a game install to take 300Gb in textures. From the looks of the video though, it looks like they've got it going on. I notice that there might be radiosity too (I hope - see the interior of the vendor's shop), or at least some automatic way to approximate ambient light.

[PinkDot]

Hmmm. Doesn't say much, does it? An engine where you can change the colour of anything? WOW! That sounds impressive. tongue.gif

 

No, really, what's so exciting about this?

Unique texture for every surface - that is something new for sure. If it's exciting, I don't know.... It will take decades to make a game in the future if it goes in that direction...

[jdude]

Are you guys serious? Carmack says that you can carve, manipulate and change the colors or the textures on the world and models without affecting performance! That is imo amazing! If you look at the sides of the mountains you can see the potential, the mapper could carve out pieces and cut it so you never see repeating textures! You could also add a ton of detail onto your map without having to increase texture memory sizes or even touching performance! I think it sounds terrific and it looks great Think if you will, if you have a flat surface that is supposed to be the ground and it's covered in a ground texture. It would be a flat surface with pre-determined bump mapping which would repeat. Now imagine if you used Carmack's new engine, and the mapper carved up and scratched areas of that surface and manipulated the lighting on it, it would look far better, and the performance would be the same.

 

I'm excited

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

Oh, well if you put it that way, then I suppose I am excited.

[sparhawk]

Me too.

[Unstoppable]

Well I saw the engine but nothing was impressive. Need to see the game to be impressed.

[New Horizon]

Perhaps I've developed an appreciation for 'tech demos', because I thought that was damned impressive. Being able to completely build a level and then edit it 'within' the map editor? That's fantastic! No more jumping in and out of other applications for the final artistic tweaks...you can do it all in-editor, and see it all happen in real time. Carmack builds great tech, developers just need to learn how to take full advantage of it.

[sparhawk]

I don't say that this is a nice feature, but it certainly is not THAT impressive either IMO. It certainly raises the bar for modders again.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

I thought one way or another the game screen and building screen is going to merge eventually, here's a recent entry from my diary.

2/03/07 4:00 pm

How about a system for designing architecture in FMs where hardware consisting of 3D goggles connected to a laptop and usb gloves, where tracking of wrists and of gestures of fingers is implemented. Example: pinching fingers and drawing into a rectangle produces a rectangle in front with dimensions displayed, then unpinching fingers, making some other gesture, and pushing it forth to create a tunnel of a certain depth. Similarly, drawing towards oneself to fill-solid. Some form of menu on the side, hierarchical, select imperfections brush, or rust or bump map brush, add some, select colours, point to surfaces and colours are applied. Or select surfaces, then scroll finger along selection of textures on the left and see it applied to the surfaces.