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The Technology Behind ID's Games
orac2 writes: "The current issue of IEEE Spectrum has an article on the groundbreaking technology behind iD Software's games, from the days of Commander Keen through to Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Graphics technologies covered include the original 2-D buffer trick that made side-scrolling games on the PC feasible, as well as the more modern Raycasting and Binary Space Partition Tree techniques. Carmack is quoted extensively."
Basically, what I got out of this article was that John Carmack is almost single-handedly responsible for all of my non-productive time over the past 10 years. Thanks John!
Our Carmack, who art in Texas,
hallowed be thy textures.
Thy software come, thy games be done,
on my b0xen as it is at E3.
Give us this day, our daily FPS.
And forgive us our camping,
as we gun down those who camp against us.
Lead us not into a spawn site,
but just give me the damn BFG.
For the gaming market, the GeForce,
and the booth babes are yours, now and until payday.
Crap!, I've got mod privs right now, but I can't find my -1, Fawning!
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
It takes the mod points and rubs them in its skin.
Else it gets the hose again, doesn't it precious.
So you're a disciple of Quake 3 too?
Not to troll or anything -- but it did seem quite amazing. I keep thinking he was like 27 or some such.
...right...?
:)
Well, it's not as if 31 is that old... I mean, I'm 31, and I'm not "old"...
Carmack is only 31? Damn, I better get to work.
Search first, ask questions later.
Oh really, is that so? Hmm, where did I see that, oh right, IN THE ARTICLE.
Profiting from improvements in computer speed and memory, Carmack began working on how to draw polygons with more arbitrary shapes than Wolfenstein's trapezoids. "It was looking like [the graphics engine] wouldn't be fast enough," he recalls, "so we had to come up with a new approach....I knew that to be fast, we still had to have strictly horizontal floors and vertical walls." The answer was a technique known as binary space partitioning (BSP). Henry Fuchs, Zvi Kedem, and Bruce Naylor had popularized BSP techniques in 1980 while at Bell Labs to render 3-D models of objects on screen.
(emphasis mine)
Perhaps READING THE ARTICLE would have saved you the trouble of trying to show us how smart you are.
Everything's stolen these days. Take the FAX machine. Why that's nothing but a waffle iron with a phone attached!
</abesimpson>
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Why people worship him, especially now, is beyond me.
Well, ummm, you have a go then. Particularly at the 1996 stuff - you have a P75 and 8Mb, render a 3d texture mapped scene at 20fps.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
I'm running SimCity 3000 Unlimited for Linux on my ev56 Alpha via "BinTrans".
In the local book-hoarding conservatory, land was allocated to construct the statue after-which there are currently 1,200 pigeons pirched ontop of John Carmack's head.
However, all the people in surrounding areas started chanting Bible verses about John Carmack being a false-god and allegations of idoltry spread. A vicous court-battle ensued and the property-owner decided to accept immunity only if the Statue of John Carmack was publicly destroyed with a BFG-10,000,000.