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Doom 3 Source Released
alteveer writes "Just like Quake 3 before it, the Doom 3 source code has been released to the public (minus rendering of stencil shadows via the 'depth fail' method, a functionality commonly known as 'Carmack's Reverse')."
Carmack has raised the bar for the game industry once again.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Yes but you'd be better off learning by assembling a simple program than reverse engineering a big one.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
Even if nobody created anything new, the ability to keep the original ID games up to date with modern systems is more than enough.
It's funny you mention Modern Warfare 3 since that game's engine is based on id Tech 3, an engine id Software open sourced before, just like they are doing now with Tech 4. "The engine was first used for Call of Duty 2 in 2005 under a proprietary license of id Tech 3 created by id Software in 1999, as at this time, the engine was a heavily modified version of the Quake III engine. The engine did not have an official name until IGN was told at the E3 2009 by the studio that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would run on the "IW 4.0 engine". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IW_engine)
Here are a few link to lists that answer your question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_3#Projects_based_on_the_GPL_source_release
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_2#Games_based_on_the_GPL_source_release
This is hardly an authoritative source, but it does give some historical insight (from 2009) into why Carmack's Reverse had to be removed from the Doom 3 source release: http://newenthusiast.com/carmacks-reverse-still-an-issue-20090409489
It took Carmack a considerably shorter time to come up with that engine than it took for id's art department to make a game out of it. And that game isn't even good. Seriously id Software needs to refocus on one thing, making great engines with tech-demo games (Doom 3) or great games with outdated engines because all they are doing now is tech-demo games with outdated engines (Rage). The id Tech 5 engine was first shown at the WWDC 2007, RAGE was released just a month ago. So there's a four year disparity. Also, the engine (or at least, RAGE) lacks features like HDR, which are present even in the (old, but updated) Source engine.
This doesn't seem to be a problem since the base GPL v3 license explicitly allows replacement of Section 16:
7. Additional Terms.
"Additional permissions" are terms that supplement the terms of this
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Additional permissions that are applicable to the entire Program shall
be treated as though they were included in this License, to the extent
that they are valid under applicable law. If additional permissions
apply only to part of the Program, that part may be used separately
under those permissions, but the entire Program remains governed by
this License without regard to the additional permissions.
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The Dark Mod, a Doom 3 total conversion which turns the game into something similar to the "Thief" series games, will now be able to optimize and fix render, AI, and physics. This is a day for celebration! www.thedarkmod.com http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dark-mod
I've worked extensively with the Quake 1 and 2 sources (I ported them both to Pocket PC, which required rewriting a lot of the computationally expensive routines from floating point to fixed point math, as the ARM processors of that era did not have a FPU). I can say that no, you're not going to learn anything that way. The code has few if any comments at all, the routines are optimized, the data structures are optimized, tons of preprocessing of data happens both at the content level and during load time, plus any other trick Carmack could throw in there to increase performance. Unless you wanting to follow the path of execution as it relates to a specific data set or type of rendering, just to see the exact techniques used (obviously knowing specifically what you are looking for) then you're not going to learn that way.
Better known as 318230.
You can read the substituted implementation here: https://github.com/TTimo/doom3.gpl/blob/master/neo/renderer/tr_stencilshadow.cpp https://github.com/TTimo/doom3.gpl/blob/master/neo/renderer/tr_shadowbounds.cpp I won't pretend to fully understand it but it does seem to be an implementaion of shadow volumes.
From the tone of your post, it sounds as if you are dubious about the point of companies releasing their source.
I find that depressing. Once a studio has released a game, patched the worst of the bugs, and moved on, disbanded, been bought up, that game is effectively dead. Sooner or later, some new hardware or software update will poke a hole in it, it will become impossible to run, and it will sink into the abyss taking all its fun and charm with it. The only way to keep hold of your old favourite games is to preserve your old computer, like an embalmed beige corpse in a crypt under the stairs, exhuming it once in a while to fill a void left by the abscence of anything even remotely similar in modern games.
For me this game would be Dungeon Keeper, for you, I bet there is a 90% chance there is something you can fit in this story.
My point is, id is a good sport releasing source code, but ALL games should release their source eventually. Once they have been sold in their millions, they are, in spirit, public property, and like a park or a road or a shopping centre, they need people to maintain them, until they have been able to live out their full lifespan gracefully.
Now if you need me I will be under the stairs, slapping my imps...
If anyone is interested I've created iodoom3 to follow on from the ioquake3 project my team put together.
Let me know what you'd like to see in a modernized Doom 3 Engine!
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!