John Carmack on id Tech 6, Ray Tracing, Consoles, Physics and more

I just found a very long interview.... 10 days old, but I didn't find it posted, so here it goes.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=532

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In recent months a lot of discussion has been circulating about the roles of ray tracing, accelerated physics and multiple-GPU configurations in the future of PC and console gaming. Here at PC Perspective we have heard from Intel on the subject many times and just recently sat down with NVIDIA's Chief Scientist David Kirk to discuss the ray tracing and rasterization debate.

Many of our readers, as well as comments across the web, asked for feedback from the developers. It makes sense - these are the people that are going to be spending their money and time developing games to sell on next-generation architecture so surely their opinions would be more grounded in reality than a hardware company trying to push their technological advantages. With that in mind, we spent some time talking with John Carmack, the legendary programmer at id Software famous for Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake and the various engines that power them. What started out as a simple Q&A about Intel's ray tracing plans turned into a discussion on the future of gaming hardware, both PC and console, possible software approaches to future rendering technology, multiple-GPU and multi-core CPU systems and even a possible insight into id Tech 6, the engine that will replace the id Tech 5 / Rage title.

The information that John discussed with us is very in-depth and you'll probably want to block off some time to fully digest the data. You might also want to refresh your knowledge of octrees and voxels. Also note that in some areas the language of this text might seem less refined than you might expect simply because we are using a transcription of a recorded conversation.

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ah, more talk of voxels.... cant believe we dont have them used more yet.

wow, after reading all the raytracing articles I can only say that I am eagerly awaiting Intel's ray tracing demos using larabee.
bring it on, the competiton!

and it's also interesting to see that carmack thinks that intel may pull it off just by being faster than the competiton hardware-wise, even though raytracing is slow as hell.

John Carmack...the man is a genius...

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Originally Posted by Jacky

[..] even though raytracing is slow as hell.

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and what about postprocessing effects (like blur, hdr, depth of field, etc...) with raytracing? the realtime raytracing scenes etc. that have been shown on the web had the graphics quality from 5 years ago - totally sterile, no effects at all, which makes it look like plastic... i'm wondering if it's even possible to use postprocessing with raytracing?

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Originally Posted by Piotrsama

I just found a very long interview.... 10 days old, but I didn't find it posted, so here it goes.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=532

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I didn't post it because I figured people here wouldn't care, and besides there really wasn't anything we haven't heard from carmack before.

Oooh the voxels return!
And good timing too, since these use pure processing power for brute square root call calculations and gaussian truncating...finally someone steps up to intel :D

Lol either way - raytracing/voxel rendering: intel wins... (unless amd can magically pull a competent cpu out their arse..)!

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Originally Posted by RaZz!

and what about postprocessing effects (like blur, hdr, depth of field, etc...) with raytracing? the realtime raytracing scenes etc. that have been shown on the web had the graphics quality from 5 years ago - totally sterile, no effects at all, which makes it look like plastic... i'm wondering if it's even possible to use postprocessing with raytracing?

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Well, you could still have all your shader tricks. Some would probably have to be modified - and some will be replaced completely in a raytraced world (for example, HDR/bloom) but yeah.

Actually, the shader bag of tricks keeps growing over the years. I think very soon, you're going to be able to do just about anything with shaders, and not even have to worry about raytracing anymore.

At any rate, raytracing isn't that important. I think fully destructible environments would be more fun.

I see nothing genius about his work, he is just using simple logic to combine the benefits of Ray Tracing with Rasterisation. Use Ray Tracing for foreground effects and then Rasterisation for background effects. I am surprised it took someone so long to come up with that.

To dismiss physics so easily is his biggest mistake yet. Improved rendering of the same game only improves its looks, the gameplay remains the same.

Besides that i think he needs to update his ideology, we arent in Quake age anymore.

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Originally Posted by iddqd

Well, you could still have all your shader tricks. Some would probably have to be modified - and some will be replaced completely in a raytraced world (for example, HDR/bloom) but yeah.

Actually, the shader bag of tricks keeps growing over the years. I think very soon, you're going to be able to do just about anything with shaders, and not even have to worry about raytracing anymore.

At any rate, raytracing isn't that important. I think fully destructible environments would be more fun.

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The thing about raytracing is that all these complicated and stunning effects just drop right out of the bad so to speak. Raytracing is so elegently simply its incredible, all the complicated shaders and reflections and refractions and various other effects come for "free" or with minimal extra coding. Because reaytracing describes how the light really works (sorta) all you have to do is model some basic equations and suddenly you get amazing results. I don't know if anyone here has ever written a raytracing engine before, but I wrote one for my computer graphics class (and i'm a EE not a CS major), and its really quite simple, obviously results were not amazing or anything (niether was efficiency), but I was able to get several object types (spheres, cubes, and triagnles(which could easily be used to make complex meshes)), but also reflection and refraction rays, shadow rays, bump maps, procedural textures etc. It really is dead simple how it works, the problem is just that the current way of hacking everything together is more efficent (but far less elegent and less accurate as well). I'm not saying raytracing will win out anytime soon, but the only thing holding it back is processor power, it beats what we have now in everything but framerates.

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Originally Posted by BrownTown

The thing about raytracing is that all these complicated and stunning effects just drop right out of the bad so to speak. Raytracing is so elegently simply its incredible, all the complicated shaders and reflections and refractions and various other effects come for "free" or with minimal extra coding. Because reaytracing describes how the light really works (sorta) all you have to do is model some basic equations and suddenly you get amazing results. I don't know if anyone here has ever written a raytracing engine before, but I wrote one for my computer graphics class (and i'm a EE not a CS major), and its really quite simple, obviously results were not amazing or anything (niether was efficiency), but I was able to get several object types (spheres, cubes, and triagnles(which could easily be used to make complex meshes)), but also reflection and refraction rays, shadow rays, bump maps, procedural textures etc. It really is dead simple how it works, the problem is just that the current way of hacking everything together is more efficent (but far less elegent and less accurate as well). I'm not saying raytracing will win out anytime soon, but the only thing holding it back is processor power, it beats what we have now in everything but framerates.

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Meh, not really. Sure, you can't have 100% accurate shadows, but who even notices that? You can't have multiple reflections being shot back and forth, but again, who cares?

I wish there was a "good gameplay" shader.

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Originally Posted by n-sanity

Oooh the voxels return!
And good timing too, since these use pure processing power for brute square root call calculations and gaussian truncating...finally someone steps up to intel :D

Lol either way - raytracing/voxel rendering: intel wins... (unless amd can magically pull a competent cpu out their arse..)!

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Originally Posted by Syn.

I see nothing genius about his work, he is just using simple logic to combine the benefits of Ray Tracing with Rasterisation. Use Ray Tracing for foreground effects and then Rasterisation for background effects. I am surprised it took someone so long to come up with that.

To dismiss physics so easily is his biggest mistake yet. Improved rendering of the same game only improves its looks, the gameplay remains the same.

Besides that i think he needs to update his ideology, we arent in Quake age anymore.

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Combine ideas.

Ray tracing for foreground, Voxels cover the background allowing fully destructible environments! :D

The problem with having two different ways of doing everything is that you have to store two sets of data for alot of stuff and have to process alot of data that will probably be thrown away later. I do agree though that ray tracing will first start out as being an overlay to what we have now, but I would say more like highlights and stuff. Maybe not even the rendering part, but the light transport or a simple version of photon mapping or the like. Not really sure what all you can do though its mostly over my head.

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Originally Posted by bigdaddy25fb

John Carmack...the man is a genius...

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John Carmack, isn't he the one claiming a storyline in game is like a storyline in :banana::banana::banana::banana:? It has to be there but noone cares about it, so no effort should go into it?

Genius my ass.

Uh, the man (if not a genius) is exceptionally smart. Knock the plot/art of id software all you want--he's not creating that. While not the deepest, most creative, or most encompassing, id games always had (and arguably still) the most technically sound engine.

I look forward to the days when my space flight can run Quake ;)

http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home

Anyone who knows anything about the video game past cannot deny the man's contributions to them.

Voxel's \o/!!! ABOUT TIME

Ray Tracing... while I feel iffy about this since it does take ALOT of power to handle, even some nice dedicated render cards for raytracing costs $$$ to do it quickly. Of course thats dependent on how much detail and that is going into it. It will be intresting never the less and can't wait to see something come out about it that we can actually see or play with to see the differences with and without it, on hardware that supports it and on hardware that doesn't support it. That will be the key factor in everything, making a statement that it looks better, and works alot faster on X hardware, overall and not some "demo".

Ok, maybe this is a stupid question, but what is raytracing? And why would HDR/Bloom be affected by it?

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Originally Posted by Jakko

John Carmack, isn't he the one claiming a storyline in game is like a storyline in :banana::banana::banana::banana:? It has to be there but noone cares about it, so no effort should go into it?

Genius my ass.

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John Carmack is also pretty much a rocket scientist, and was once considered by microsoft to be their biggest threat as their games pretty much ran in their own operating system. He pretty much does single handedly what it takes other companies years to do with a full crew.

How is he NOT a genius? :confused:

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Originally Posted by DilTech

John Carmack is also pretty much a rocket scientist, and was once considered by microsoft to be their biggest threat as their games pretty much ran in their own operating system. He pretty much does single handedly what it takes other companies years to do with a full crew.

How is he NOT a genius? :confused:

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Exactly he is a genius... He knows his stuff and makes some crazy software.

Because he is a smartass that has his own (dumb) opinion about some subjects that degrade the quality of games in the entire games industry because so many see him as a guru and take his opinions into consideration when doing their own job.

He doesn't have it all right, yet some act as if he is some all-knowing guru.

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Originally Posted by Swatrecon_

Ok, maybe this is a stupid question, but what is raytracing? And why would HDR/Bloom be affected by it?

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Ray tracing is a general technique from geometrical optics of modeling the path taken by light by following rays of light as they interact with optical surfaces. It is used in the design of optical systems, such as camera lenses, microscopes, telescopes and binoculars. The term is also applied to mean a specific rendering algorithmic approach in 3D computer graphics, where mathematically-modelled visualisations of programmed scenes are produced using a technique which follows rays from the eyepoint outward, rather than originating at the light sources. It produces results similar to ray casting and scanline rendering, but facilitates more advanced optical effects, such as accurate simulations of reflection and refraction, and is still efficient enough to frequently be of practical use when such high quality output is sought. Ray tracing may also be applied in other areas of science and engineering, such as in the calculation of radio signal paths.

source; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_tracing

heres a vid showing GT:HD which uses ray tracing http://www.gametrailers.com/player/19700.html

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Originally Posted by Jakko

John Carmack, isn't he the one claiming a storyline in game is like a storyline in :banana::banana::banana::banana:? It has to be there but noone cares about it, so no effort should go into it?

Genius my ass.

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He's right, story doesn't matter. Narrative does, but they are not the same. If you want a good story go read a book.

Game quality degradation? If this about you having bought a Physx card and the fact he doesn't like it........

Video game quality methods he's helped to improve:

-smoothing sidescrollers on the PC (Commander Keen)
-mass release of the early first person shooters providing the 3D perspective (Catacombs 3D, Hovertank)
-VGA graphics in video games (Wolfenstein 3D)
-multileveled 3D fps levels (Doom)
-modem play (Doom)
-texture mapping and wall height difference (Doom)
-semi outdoor environments (Doom)
-standardizing 3D acceleration for games (VQuake and GLQuake)
-client-side prediction in network code (Quakeworld)
-multitexture (Quake)
-moddability (Doom, Quake and its SDK's leading to a host of other games that people love and providing the tools to teach people how to make games)
-in-game command consoles (Quake)
-aiding programmers of tomorrow (open sourcing the Quake series)
-helping develop standards for video game cards with Nvidia and Ati to make development easier
-helping provide cross-portability to games (there's a reason everybody compiles Quake on everything to test its 3D capabilities)
-forcing the gaming industry to drop software rendering (Quake 3)
-organizing LAN parties for fans (Quakecon)
-directly listening to what his fans want (Quakecon)
-taking studios under its wing to help them make games (Splash Damage)
-currently branching out into all platforms (his technology runs on everything and he's still developing across a bunch of different ones. See Orcs and Elves for his handheld work)
-compression of large landscapes to run efficiently and design easily (megatexture for Quake Wars)
-forging the way on free fps games (ET and Quake Zero)


H3ll, even notables such as Bill Roper recognize his abilities:

"Carmack is synonymous with technology, and his continued work at id has kept him at the top of this field. While we pay a great deal of respect to those who actually craft the worlds and hone the mechanics of the games we play, John Carmack has carved himself a place in gaming history for creating equally compelling technology with which the ideas of designers can be realized."

http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/...61/index2.shtm

You'll also note Gamespy (which, coincidentally, wouldn't have even been founded without Quake) lists him as #3 on their top 30 influential people of the gaming industry.


If you want to knock his games, his style, or the fact that he's a "has been" go ahead. One could make a case for it. Though, nobody has to "have it all right" to be a genius. Many of the fathers of science got things wrong (ie. Dalton and the atom composition), but nobody derides their work because we can still use it even today. To deny Carmack his technical intelligence and what he has done for the gaming industry borders on ignorance.

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Originally Posted by shiznit93

He's right, story doesn't matter. Narrative does, but they are not the same. If you want a good story go read a book.

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It's really not that black and white, story and narrative fade into eachother. Without creating a sense of purpose, a player can have loads of fun but still wonder why certain things need to be accomplished and why they can't be accomplished in another way.
John Carmack's games fail in this sense. Understandable, after seeing his comments about the importance of a good storyline in games.

I felt a sense of purpose in Quake & Doom, it wasn't deep, there weren't massive conspiracies or big plot twists that had me wondering what was next.

The :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana: hit the fan and I got a big gun, and it was fun as hell...

Some of us play games to escape for a little bit, and escaping to a place where I have to pay attention to plot details doesn't always lead to an enjoyable experience.

If I want to think I read a book, if I want to shoot some zombies I fire up a game.

Concerning story, I don't think it *has* to be there for a good game, but it deffinitely can add an extra something. I enjoyed Doom and Quake and Half Life and all those shooters and TBH the story is not much in any of them. But I also enjoyed a game like Deus Ex which has a good story and the story actually adds to the game play and gives you a feel of purpose. But I also think the statement that "story is a game is like story in :banana::banana::banana::banana:" because TBH I don't play games for the story I play for the gameplay and I want just enough story to tell me what I'm supposed to do, but not so much that it gets in the way. If I am looking for great storytelling a book or movie would be the place to go.

very nice read... very interesting...

and the funny thing is, yet again i got the impression hw mfgs try to push a standard without even checking with the people who have to work with this standard if it makes any sense to them :lol:

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Originally Posted by DilTech

John Carmack is also pretty much a rocket scientist, and was once considered by microsoft to be their biggest threat as their games pretty much ran in their own operating system. He pretty much does single handedly what it takes other companies years to do with a full crew.

How is he NOT a genius? :confused:

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Because as much he is good at programing he is just as bad at everything else. iD engines where something years ago, today none cares much as people are able to make their own engines that fit their needs better. As the most famous OpenGL developer his other ideas to do with games are making things worse for overall game industry plus the OpenGL groups. Sure games look better but the gameplay hasn't evolved since Quake 1. I am sorry but no matter how you look at it "Pretty colours" will only keep me entertained for few minutes the rest of the time gameplay has to keep me hooked. I completed both Doom3 and Qauke4 and i wouldn't be able to tell you what happens in them, the story line was so entertaining that i forgot it completely.

So yea he is a good programmer but that is not that impressive these days. When he made his name IT industry was quite small compared to what it is today. He is yet to do anything impressive these days, all interest in iD Tech5 is that it is platform independent.

Well, his favorite id game is Quake 3, and that is why he is making Quake Live. He likes the pure insane fast action. No other game has that. All the Counter Strike and CoD and MoH "realistic war sims" are too slow. The characters move a lot slower and die a lot easier. Before you re-equip, deploy and walk to the combat zone, it's 5 minutes later. For him it's all about going in there and killing as many mofos as fast as possible. That's why Quake 4 never really caught on, it was slower than Quake 3. That's why Quake Wars didn't work, it was too complicated. Pure and fast killing simulator, that is what he is all about. Complaining that it doesn't have much story really IS like complaining about the story in a :banana::banana::banana::banana: movie. You are there to get the action and when you are done you are done and you feel good. Who cares how the sheep got there : ) It's just a different kind of a game. Killing simulator. It's like complaining that Bioware games are too complicated and have too much talking. They are about the story, action comes second. Or complaining that "there is no way he would have survived that" in an action comedy movie. His vision of a perfect game is a pure killing skill test. That's why he likes Quake 3 the most. Besides, these days he makes the engine, and that's it. Why bash him when it's the other parts of id responsible for the story and other stuff. I remember long time ago he was so sad that he didn't study "the inner architecture of the 486 coprocessors more" because it would make Doom 2 run a little faster. That's dedication. Show some respect to the man for what he is and don't slam him for what he isn't. It's like telling Ali he's BS because even tho he can box, he might not really know how to solve e=mc2..

heh, did i just write all that? : )


and someone said he didnt post this because he thought people wouldn't think it's anything interesting.. wot? His interviews / keynotes are the definition of interesting!

(the only other game that i can think of as anything close to his style is Serious Sam.. again.. pure. fast. action. kill A LOT. big gun... and a lots of people had fun with that one too)

EDIT: and haha saaya, "hw mfgs" = hard ware mother fuggers? :D

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Originally Posted by -thc-(cZ)

Well, his favorite id game is Quake 3, and that is why he is making Quake Live. He likes the pure insane fast action. No other game has that.

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All the Unreal Tournament games have this.

Carmack is getting a little notorious as of late of being a sayer and not a doer... :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Swatrecon_

All the Unreal Tournament games have this.

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You are right. Sorry, somehow I forgot about Unreal, because I never really play them.. They come very close, since they evolved at the same time as Quake did. I hear the last one has vehicles and stuff tho, so it kinda lost it's purity too no? Anyway, another reason to thank Carmack, without Quake Unreal might have been years late : )

(also, the first Unreal mainly competed with Quake in graphics, not the story)
(AND therefor had lots of Quake in it, thank the Johnny boy : )

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Originally Posted by -thc-(cZ)

You are right. Sorry, somehow I forgot about Unreal, because I never really play them.. They come very close, since they evolved at the same time as Quake did. I hear the last one has vehicles and stuff tho, so it kinda lost it's purity too no? Anyway, another reason to thank Carmack, without Quake Unreal might have been years late : )

(also, the first Unreal mainly competed with Quake in graphics, not the story)
(AND therefor had lots of Quake in it, thank the Johnny boy : )

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The past 2 (maybe 3? I only played the last 2) have had vehicles, but they don't really lose anything from it, it maintains the fast-paced action. All the vehicles are either fast or powerful or both. In UT3, they added a more epic game mode with massive maps and 64 players and vehicles, and that's pretty cool.

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Originally Posted by Syn.

Because as much he is good at programing he is just as bad at everything else.

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You don't say... Maybe that's because his part IS just the engine programming? So what does "everything else" have to do with him?

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iD engines where something years ago, today none cares much as people are able to make their own engines that fit their needs better. As the most famous OpenGL developer his other ideas to do with games are making things worse for overall game industry plus the OpenGL groups.

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His engines are generally untouchable at their time of release. Technologically speaking IDTech4(doom 3 engine) wiped the floor with both cryengine 1 and source. All 3 engines weren't touched much by other companies. Most companies stuck to Unreal engine 2/2.5x due to it's console abilities while the doom 3 engine was a bit too overzealous for consoles at the time.

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Sure games look better but the gameplay hasn't evolved since Quake 1. I am sorry but no matter how you look at it "Pretty colours" will only keep me entertained for few minutes the rest of the time gameplay has to keep me hooked. I completed both Doom3 and Qauke4 and i wouldn't be able to tell you what happens in them, the story line was so entertaining that i forgot it completely.

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What does that have to do with the engine programmer? Again, Carmack has nothing to do with the gameplay side, only the engine. Modders have proven that idtech4 was capable of whatever you really wanted to do gameplay wise...

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So yea he is a good programmer but that is not that impressive these days. When he made his name IT industry was quite small compared to what it is today. He is yet to do anything impressive these days, all interest in iD Tech5 is that it is platform independent.

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You haven't paid much attention to developer buzz, have you? When carmack speaks, the entire industry listens... idtech5 is presently the most promising engines coming from ANY studio, and it's not just because it's platform independent. It's because it pretty much removes the performance block from the art team!

They can add whatever amount of detail they please, without worry of it introducing graphical or physics clipping at any point in a level. As in, IT REMOVES THE ENTIRE DEBUGGING PROCESS AFTER ADDING YOUR DETAILS! Now, that may mean nothing to you, but anyone who's ever dabbled in 3d knows how big of a pain it is to attempt to debug after adding all art to your level, you've got to go over every inch(which most companies fail to do, thus flickering textures throughout the game when you stand in certain spots) and make sure nothing happens. A tiny texture at the start of a level can cause a crash in a corner near the end that you'd never even think to stand in with most engines... Not with IDTech5.

Now, think about this.... Every inch of every map can be 100% unique, with no worry about any loss of performance due to it, at obscenely high resolutions, with every inch reacting properly to the lighting of the map and displaying proper shadowing, with only half the normal debug process as you no longer have to test with each texture added, running with no problem on current hardware REGARDLESS OF PLATFORM!... It took 10 days to make the demo for the first showing of it, and it ran flawlessly. Less than a week later that had a demo of it looking almost 3 times as clean running even smoother without issue!

They cut the development process in half(or less) and allow the art team and game programmers to work at the same time rather than one then the other. You want to tell me that's not a big deal?... To make it all the more impressive, he built the engine himself. Did what no other TEAM could do, all by himself. :up:

Meanwhile, heralded companies like valve are still using source which still can't even compete lighting and shadows wise with carmacks LAST engine, and they have a whole team working on updates to their engine!

Carmack's still hands down the best in the industry, deny it all you want, but there isn't a single programmer in any company that can touch what he does.

DilTech - that is right on

again - you can compare - Counter Strike vs Doom 3: Doom 3 engine was far superior (esp. lighting), released earlier. The art teams did a better job with CS textures, but the bells and whistles go to Carmack, the art part is not his fault..

Or compare Crysis - Doom 3: Doom 3 needed the best gfx card at the time, but scaled well after that. Crysis, being made by many programmers compared to one person Doom 3 engine doesn't fare that good at all.. His mind was made for this and he does it the best.

Although (once again) Carmack said how disappointed he feels about having a "helper" with his last engine and "not seeing every last piece of code" for it yet after Doom 3's release.

He could just drive his ferrari aroun and not give a damn, but he cares. Most of his latest speeches have very big portions of them dedicated to mobile platforms - why? He thinks it might help the novice engine makers get their foot in the door, because he knows it's almost impossible otherwise with todays budgets and long cycles for cutting edge stuff..

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Originally Posted by STEvil

ah, more talk of voxels.... cant believe we dont have them used more yet.

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We use them in CT - Computed Tomography. That's how the radiologist can view the body in 3-D projections.

Does Carmack really program the engines all by his lonesome? No. He has people that work with him. You people are hailing him as some sort of god. He has a team to help him just like any other engine has a team working on it. Get over it.

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Originally Posted by Swatrecon_

Does Carmack really program the engines all by his lonesome? No. He has people that work with him. You people are hailing him as some sort of god. He has a team to help him just like any other engine has a team working on it. Get over it.

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not back in the day he didn't when he...

You like FPS games? IF so you have Carmack to thank, even if he isn't on the cutting edge now what he did back then should be impressive enough to earn your respect.

shouldnt the title be id tech 5? thats the next one, idtech4 was doom3-quake wars

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Originally Posted by KoHaN69

shouldnt the title be id tech 5? thats the next one, idtech4 was doom3-quake wars

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He is talking about the next-next engine the one that is still in planning stages i.e iD Tech6.

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Originally Posted by BrownTown

not back in the day he didn't when he...

You like FPS games? IF so you have Carmack to thank, even if he isn't on the cutting edge now what he did back then should be impressive enough to earn your respect.

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Time goes on, Cramack is now a project leader and others work under him. As i said before this is not Quake 1 era we have moved on a lot since then. I respect him when it comes to creating innovative new tech but when he taints all his work with his old-age-elitist geek attitude i loose all respect for him. Its always easy to talk about what could be or what can be, but most of the time things aren't the way they should be. He can do so much more but he doesn't because he thinks games are like :banana::banana::banana::banana:.

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Originally Posted by DilTech

You don't say... Maybe that's because his part IS just the engine programming? So what does "everything else" have to do with him?

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Maybe because his so quick to stick his nose in and give us his opinion about everything else?

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Originally Posted by DilTech

His engines are generally untouchable at their time of release. Technologically speaking IDTech4(doom 3 engine) wiped the floor with both cryengine 1 and source. All 3 engines weren't touched much by other companies. Most companies stuck to Unreal engine 2/2.5x due to it's console abilities while the doom 3 engine was a bit too overzealous for consoles at the time.

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iD Tech4 had only one impressive feature, its shadow tech. On all other parts it fell short compared to other engines out there. It was an OpenGL engine and yet it struggled to go multiplatform.

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Originally Posted by Gamespot

There's a good game in Quake 4, but it's buried under several layers of highly disappointing graphical performance issues.

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Originally Posted by DilTech

What does that have to do with the engine programmer? Again, Carmack has nothing to do with the gameplay side, only the engine. Modders have proven that idtech4 was capable of whatever you really wanted to do gameplay wise...

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What mods?

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Originally Posted by DilTech

You haven't paid much attention to developer buzz, have you? When carmack speaks, the entire industry listens... idtech5 is presently the most promising engines coming from ANY studio, and it's not just because it's platform independent. It's because it pretty much removes the performance block from the art team!

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Is that why he announced iD Tech5 at the all important game developer conference called Apple Worldwide Developers Conference?

Without anymore more quotes in this reply i just have to finish off with. iD Tech5 looks average and i don't really care about improved developer experience as i as the consumer, the person that will actually play the game, get very little benefit from it in terms of gameplay. Therefore if the benefits of the engine are not carried over to the consumer they are completely pointless. Which means that Carmock is one of most stupid geniuses currently working in game industry.

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.en...6/dsc_5205.jpg

An example of an engine that is already available:
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images..._screen004.jpg

Source Engaget & Gamespot

F**k i hate people hating on someone they know so little about because of something another idiot said :|

Carmack, the godfather of the shooter (think doom and quake and castle wolfenstein...) as we know it today, doesn't oversee the artistic side of games (the story, art, etc) - he is the man that makes the engine.

Stick a 300hp v6 into a ferrari and you have a beautiful but relatively slow car. Stick a scramjet into a civic and you have carmack's creations (figuratively speaking :D).

To clarify, the engine coming out next is tech5. The article is about tech6. That is the engine AFTER this one. The picture you see above is that of tech5.

Voxels are a nice duo together with rasterization because both are heavily reliant on pure mathematical computational power. These can be easily interfaced, which carmack knows. I'm looking forward to firing railguns at mirrors and hitting some poor dude behind me XD

And yes, i realize a railgun irl is a magnetic/pheumatic weapon which uses magnetism to accelerate ferrous projectiles, but in quake it fires a glowy green ray :D (well you can choose from 10 colours but green roxors teh soxors).

That's a picture of early UT3. Fail.

Syn, the first doom 3 showing was at MACWORLD conference & expo...what's your point?

Them showing at an apple conference isn't too surprising, they've done it on a few occasions after all.

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Originally Posted by n-sanity

F**k i hate people hating on someone they know so little about because of something another idiot said :|

Carmack, the godfather of the shooter (think doom and quake and castle wolfenstein...) as we know it today, doesn't oversee the artistic side of games (the story, art, etc) - he is the man that makes the engine.

Stick a 300hp v6 into a ferrari and you have a beautiful but relatively slow car. Stick a scramjet into a civic and you have carmack's creations (figuratively speaking :D).

To clarify, the engine coming out next is tech5. The article is about tech6. That is the engine AFTER this one. The picture you see above is that of tech5.

Voxels are a nice duo together with rasterization because both are heavily reliant on pure mathematical computational power. These can be easily interfaced, which carmack knows. I'm looking forward to firing railguns at mirrors and hitting some poor dude behind me XD

And yes, i realize a railgun irl is a magnetic/pheumatic weapon which uses magnetism to accelerate ferrous projectiles, but in quake it fires a glowy green ray :D (well you can choose from 10 colours but green roxors teh soxors).

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So you are saying he was the one that created the Quake\Doom games. But then you argue that he is never involved with anything else but the engines the game where made on. So tell me again why is he the godfather of shooters when he was not the one that created them? According to your arguments so far.

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Originally Posted by Swatrecon_

That's a picture of early UT3. Fail.

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So? It still shows how much higher quality model's are compared to next gen iD tech that is yet to be released, unlike UE3. Which was just the closest example i had at the time.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DilTech

Syn, the first doom 3 showing was at MACWORLD conference & expo...what's your point?

Them showing at an apple conference isn't too surprising, they've done it on a few occasions after all.

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Because of what you said. Unless offcourse i am mistaken and conferences like WWDC are much more game developer oriented then ones like GDC. Show me proof of other developers bowing at Carmacks feet when he presented them with iD Tech5.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DilTech

You haven't paid much attention to developer buzz, have you? When carmack speaks, the entire industry listens... idtech5 is presently the most promising engines coming from ANY studio, and it's not just because it's platform independent. It's because it pretty much removes the performance block from the art team!

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Now if you don't mind to actually reply to all points that i posted so far like i have replied to yours.

Quote:

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So you are saying he was the one that created the Quake\Doom games. But then you argue that he is never involved with anything else but the engines the game where made on. So tell me again why is he the godfather of shooters when he was not the one that created them? According to your arguments so far.

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Syn: Carmack built the engines (graphics/rendering/AI mostly, sound and networking secondly). He had a hand in the content the engines ran as well but without Carmack there would have been no engine for Commander Keen, Wolfenstien, Doom, Quake, etc to run on. Nobody said he wasnt involved in their creation either, only that he was the creator of their base engines.

carmack know's his :banana::banana::banana::banana: for sure, went over my head a couple of times in that article. To bad most of his games dont have good story though, they are memorable at least!

Some people are really hating on Jon Carmack - meet the guy at quake con in real life and see if you have the same opinion of him. He really is a intriguing character - truly special. Everyone who doesn't have their facts straight shutup and do it better then JC. come back and talk after that. Contribute something rather then talking smack about someone who never did anything to hurt you.

yeah i saw the vid when he launched id5, and was just blown away by how much of a true geek he really his, i love it :D

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Originally Posted by STEvil

Syn: Carmack built the engines (graphics/rendering/AI mostly, sound and networking secondly). He had a hand in the content the engines ran as well but without Carmack there would have been no engine for Commander Keen, Wolfenstien, Doom, Quake, etc to run on. Nobody said he wasnt involved in their creation either, only that he was the creator of their base engines.

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So what does this mean then:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by n-sanity

Carmack, the godfather of the shooter (think doom and quake and castle wolfenstein...) as we know it today, doesn't oversee the artistic side of games (the story, art, etc) - he is the man that makes the engine.

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That's just one of the replies that state that he only makes the engines.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrkram

Some people are really hating on Jon Carmack - meet the guy at quake con in real life and see if you have the same opinion of him. He really is a intriguing character - truly special. Everyone who doesn't have their facts straight shutup and do it better then JC. come back and talk after that. Contribute something rather then talking smack about someone who never did anything to hurt you.

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If you think i am "some people" then let me repeat something i said earlier. I respect Carmack for the things he comes up with none else has the balls or clue to create. However when he mixes his geekish opinion with his work all that he creates is misused and wasted away. That is when i loose all respect for him.

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Originally Posted by Syn.

If you think i am "some people" then let me repeat something i said earlier. I respect Carmack for the things he comes up with none else has the balls or clue to create. However when he mixes his geekish opinion with his work all that he creates is misused and wasted away. That is when i loose all respect for him.

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The man's not allowed to have an opinion? Him having an opinion completely nullifies his work?


Wow.

Holy SHHHT!!!

I just reliased that John Romero and John D. Carmack are two different people! :shock:

So John D. Carmack did not make this:
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/7984/biatchadxh3.jpg

John D. Carmack rocks! :D

video:
http://www.quakezero.com/

sign up for beta:
http://www.quakelive.com

John D. Carmack is someone who actually cares about microstuttering, we need more people like him on the hardware front.

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Originally Posted by Swatrecon_

That's a picture of early UT3. Fail.

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Except it'll runs on a 6600/7600/8600GT and scales 5x better than UT3
Have you seen how great idtech5 looks on a macbook pro?? that pos has an 8600M gpu!!

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Originally Posted by shiznit93

He's right, story doesn't matter. Narrative does, but they are not the same. If you want a good story go read a book.

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Exactly, the day other game maker learns the difference will be a great day. Game makers put soo much (in an often pathetic story) that narrative gets put on the backburner to rehash. The best example is all the LOTR ripoffs rpgs with stocky men, Elves and Orcs in them with a flimsy pretext doomsday on the menu. Half Life 2 actually has a pretty bad storyline, but they put so much into the narrative it works brilliantly for me.

My fav recent game CoD4, was completely along this vein. For a great game its all about the time and place, not what people say or do about it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Syn.

That's just one of the replies that state that he only makes the engines.

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The reply states he does not oversee the artistic developement. More correctly he does not control it. He does create the engines. No part of the statements made say anything about him not having a hand in development in many features which are not directly related to the engine.

As for his opinions he is allowed to have them given that he is doing more to develop the rendering power of gaming engines than anyone else these days.

I recall when I was young and came over from US to Europe, PC gaming was virtually unknown in most of Europe or Asia which I went to after that, but US had it all starting up way further. No one wanted to game PC, you looked at it and compared it to SNES or Jaguar or Saturn, whatever was around... until around the time Carmack started. People, including me, started dropping Consoles for PC, not entirely, but I was satisfied with the progress and aims of the PC market and saw it one day progressing to outclass Console: surivival of the fittest. PC gaming started becoming big around Europe and Asia (incl. UK) and much bigger in US those days, and for that, Carmack was one of the most major pioneers.
He knows far more than me about games, he's too much an expert compared to me, so I respect his informed opinions as this is his day and night job. The only ones I may disagree with are "forecasts", "projections" and "estimation" which are based on data even we may have. Still, it is good to hear his opinions out, if they never leaked a word, it would be dull and boring and people would be gagging to hear what the hell they're thinking and their opinions. :p: