Carmack Expounds on Doom III

Rainier Wolfecastle writes: "Non-high-end-comp-owning geeks rejoice! GameSpot is reporting that John Carmack has confirmed that Doom III is Xbox-bound. Carmack said that id is totally commited to bringing the game to Microsoft's console with its visual splendor intact. Best of all, the game could be available on the Xbox as soon as May next year." And Warrior-GS writes: "John Carmack gave a two-hour presentation about Doom 3 and engine technology. GameSpy reports on the presentations and analyzes Carmack's comments and how they apply to the future of gaming. There is also a look at the demo of Doom III"

Comments

Listed to the Address

[IronTek]

The folks here managed to record the audio of carmack's speech despite the "no audio, no video" policy (who knows how they snuck it in!).

enjoy!

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

Before anyone accuses Carmack of selling out to Microsoft, please keep in mind that his wife is really hot and he owns his own aerospace company. He doesn't have to sell out to anyone.

API?

[Sivar]

Does this mean that JC (John Carmack, not the other one) has caved in and will be using Direct3D, or can he use OpenGL without Microsoft throwing a fit?

Re:API?

[NanoGator]

I doubt that department of MS would even care. Just because it's MS, doesn't mean that the XBOX department has any interest in 'evil plans to take over the world'. The goal of that department is to make money. If they sell a million copies of Doom III on the XBOX, then it doesn't matter if ID uses OPG, D3D, or Logo.

Rendering - two generations from done?

[Animats]

From what Carmack is saying, we're about two generations of graphics card technology away from being done. This is encouraging. But there's an assumption that you have a controlled game world, where the world model doesn't overwhelm the graphics pipeline.

There will still be scaling issues, where the world is big and a lot of it is contributing to the image onscreen. Level of detail processing can help, but there are situations where you have to examine an excessive amount of geometry. One of the worst cases is a detailed city street, where you can see many blocks ahead and there are lots of trees, signs and whatnot that can obscure surfaces further away. Doing that well requires grinding through a lot of geometry. An insane amount of CPU time went into those long views down streets in Toy Story. All those houses have full detail. Game designers currently avoid such situations. Most driving games are laid out so that you never look down a really long street. And fog is your friend. It's still going to be a while before we have architectural-flythrough quality for long views in urban areas in real time.

Then again, a background process rendering billboards of distant street sections...

Re:Rendering - two generations from done?

[John Carmack]

My comment specifically regards the "shelf life" of a rendering engine. I think that an upcoming game engine, either the next one or the one after that, will have a notably longer usable life for content creation than we have seen so far. Instead of having to learn new paradigms for content creation every couple years, designers will be able to continue working with common tools that evolve in a compatible way. Renderman is the obvious example -- lots of things have improved and evolved, but its fundamental definition is clearly the same that it was over a decade ago.

This is only loosly related to the realism of the graphics. I don't think a detailed world simulation that is indistinquishable from reality will be here in the next decade, except for tightly controlled environments. You will be able to have real-time flythroughs that can qualify as indistinguishable, but given the ability to "test reality" interactively, we have a lot farther to go with simulation than with rendering.

John Carmack

Re:OpenGL

[CheechBG]

disclaimer: I do not own an XBox. I sell them, have played extensively with them, but do not as of yet own one.

I don't see the point of FPS's on XBox. Granted, I've played Halo, got through most of the beginning levels, but it still nags at me that I could be a order of magnitude better at it with a simle keyboard and mouse.

Now games like DOA3, NFL 2K3, stuff like that, rightly deserves to be on a console, it is easily (and in the case of the former, recommended for play) on a gamepad. Give me a keyboard and mouse option, and I'll be a happy guy.

Re:PS/2?

[NanoGator]

"i heard that it will be available for ps2 but gfx wont be as good as on pc/xbox because ps2 isnt powerful enough..."

I'm going to have to defend Mr Emir here. What he said is not flamebait, it's the truth. The pS2 has bottlenecks that render it impossible to achieve the same visual quality as the XBOX with this game. It's too RAM heavy. It's widely known that the PS2's texture buffer is very slim compared to XBOX or even GameCube. The fact that it doesn't have texture compression doesn't help it either.

The PS2 could get a version of it, but it'll definitely be noticably worse than the XBOX version. Call it flamebait if ya like, but I find it ridiculous to believe that anybody'd disagree with me. The PS2 wasn't built for that!

FPS on consoles

[forkboy]

Am I the only one that absolutely HATES playing an FPS on a console? I don't understand the popularity that games like Halo, Half Life and Quake have had on various console systems...it's just not the same level on control if you're not playing with a mouse and keyboard. Maybe I'm just too stuck in my ways to learn a new method of control, but I simply can't enjoy those types on games on consoles.

The only games I can enjoy on a console are platformers (Sonic, Jak and Daxter, etc), sports games, racing games, and fighting games (mortal kombat, virtua fighter, etc)

So, is it just a matter of getting used to the controls for FPS-type games on consoles or am I do I actually have a point?

Stop before writing that post!!!

[Brian_Ellenberger]

Before someone writes that smug, self-righteous, "there have been no gameplay advances in years" post let me head them off at the pass by saying two words.

Your wrong.

I can't believe the incredible about of really good and *different* 3d shooters I have played in the past 3 years. They are too numerous to mention. There is Counter Strike's complete revolution of internet play (buying weapons instead of them just laying around, asymmetric goals, mission based play, etc). There is System Shock 2's and Deus Ex's mixing of shooter and RPG. There is the Thief's series and Deus Ex's use of stealth (more in the Thief series obviously but you could go through a good bit of Deus Ex w/o firing a shot). One of my favorite 3d shooters of the past couple years is Jedi Knight II which is the most immersive games I have ever played. I felt like I was a Jedi. The list goes on and on.

So before you comment on the supposed sad state of gaming, try playing some games first.

Brian Ellenberger

Re:Stop before writing that post!!!

[nEoN nOoDlE]

and all of them are variations on

"You have moved into a dark place. It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

Re:uh, no

[flacco]

Take off your "I hate MS" T-shirt for a minute and think about it.

Well, there is a "Death to Bill Gates" t-shirt on underneath...