Slashdot Mirror
Where Carmack Goes Next
JayZee writes "The guys at Shugashack have word on John Carmack's plans now that Quake3 is
finished. He's going to be looking into cyberspace virtual realities, and even better he's
going to be working on open source projects like glx
much more! " Well, that's a nice mix: Free Software projects and realizing cyberspace realities, combined with a man who can make them happen.
This is good news. Since the early 90's, when VR suddenly went from being the latest buzz to being a dirty word, any projects that have tried to investigate new advances in VR tech have either been doomed to budget failure, or have had to cloeak the project in other terms such as 3D visualisation, or such.
:-).
:-)
It takes someone like Carmack, who having completed 3 rounds of Quake (if you get my drift), have the time, inclination, clout and reasons to put some heavy duty effort into getting some real cool "3D visualisation" technology into the hands of Joe Schmuck (that's you and me
.. either that or perhaps the militay will hand us some of it's offshoots
A little planning goes a long way...
I'm not going to overanalyze Carmack's words and try to figure out what he's going to sink his fingers into next, but I will point out this little line in his plan. A lot of people on Slashdot flame MS as a user environment, as a development environment, and as a networking environment, but Carmack does indeed use NT for the majority of his development (and not because he's locked into it). It just goes to show everyone that they don't need to be tied to one OS just because they use one OS.
Mark troll, flamebait, whatever.
First off for those people thinking carmack is selling out and not going to create another game... your on drugs. Carmack is one of the fastest and best programmers out there. Did everyone forget that GLquake was created in one day on a bet that he could not port quake over to using OpenGL in one day?
Carmack just sees things different then everyone else and he wants to see if its possible to do some pretty sweat stuff. The really awesome thing that no one is even noticing is that carmack and id have million of "followers" if you will. With carmack doing some side work on opensoure projects this means only good news for the world of opensource because now the people who are hacking quake and quake2 and quake3 might think about getting involved in some opensource stuff which will be nice. Also note that carmack loves to do research and loves to just go and hide away from everything and everyone and just code for days and weeks even on things he finds interesting... its definitly fun to do if you can find the time to get away.
Good luck with research carmack can't wait to see what you come up with. It always ends up being exciting.
--MD--
--MD--
I think that Carmack and company are actually more of an open source company than we give them credit. No, it may not be directly dealing with source code, but I think it deals more with knowledge with this company.
:) That's why I'm willing to put the $40 into QIII, because Carmack and company is a software firm I can trust to put something back into the community after they have made their millions.
id Software has always pushed the limits of 3D software and hardware acceleration, and they've also given a *lot* back to the community. Yes, they make money off of licensing their rendering engine, but (from what I hear), the id engineers are always willing to talk to you about how they accomplished certain tasks.
Like a true geek, Carmack is proud to show off his algorithms to the rest of us - and he's not worried that someone's gonna go off and copy it and patent it and make him pay for his own inventions (like some patent-grabbing idiots out there). (BTW - if id patented their rendering algorithms, how much do you think the value would increase in today's market? Two fold?)
id may not be Open Source in terms of giving all their source code away, but they give a lot of *knowledge* back to the community that keeps them swimming in dollar bills
I guess I was rambling a bit much there, but that's just how I feel...
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Let me add some thoughts for those people who may not be heavily involved in the game industry (or, more specifically, the 3D engine side of the game industry). I'm going to say this in a positive way, without any complaining. Do you know:
1. Who wrote the incredible 3D engine for Descent 3, released a few months ago? (This game is flashier than Quake III, technology wise).
2. For that matter, who wrote the 3D engines for Descent 1 and Descent 2?
3. Who wrote the ultra-fast engine for the soon to be released Slave Zero (a Windows demo was released this past summer).
4. Who programmed 1989's multi-processor 3D arcade game, Hard Drivin', which was so groundbreaking it even made it into the color plate section of many graphics texts?
5. Who programmed the 3D Hard Drivin' inspired games Stunts and Stunt Driver, which were released for the PC before Wolftenstein 3D and Ultima Underworld? (These were "drive anyway, do anything" games, not "follow the track" games).
6. Who conceived and wrote the engines for the following popular racing games: The Need for Speed, Daytona, Ridge Racer, San Francisco Rush, and Hydro Thunder?
What's interesting is that none of these people are one hit wonders. All of them have stayed in the game industry and made huge contributions. But who do you hear about? Carmack and Sweeney. They may be the golden boys of publicity, but they're not alone in terms of technical prowess by any means.
Hey, >I didn't say "virtual reality"... I tend to agree with your assessment. VR is a term loaded with high-enthusiasm / low-results connotations. We have worked with a few VR companies in the past, and I have always found them to not have finishing ability. So much of the VR world (and much other academic style research) is high concept, but sketchy on the details. Most VR experiences are heavy on the "You are in a virtual world!!!!", but don't spend too much time on exactly what you are supposed to be doing there. Can you poke and prod to find interesting things? What happens when someone pushes you? Can you dodge something effectively? Are the controls linear, or integrated over time? etc. I think that one of my strengths is a blend of idealism and pragmatism that has resulted in good results over the years. In any case, of the half dozen things I listed, I am clearly not going to be able to do all of them, so it may be a moot point... John Carmack