From what I garnered from John Carmack's.plan updates and Quakecon presentation, they plan on rendering everything in-game for Doom 3. In fact, he mentioned future endeavors into using Renderman shaders in games, a definite move away from FMV and towards game-engine cutscenes.
Correct. The patent expiration is 20 years. This makes a lot of sense, considering their patent will run out next year. The suits probably noticed this, and figured this was their last chance to milk some profit out of the patents.
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From what I garnered from John Carmack's .plan updates and Quakecon presentation, they plan on rendering everything in-game for Doom 3. In fact, he mentioned future endeavors into using Renderman shaders in games, a definite move away from FMV and towards game-engine cutscenes.
Correct. The patent expiration is 20 years. This makes a lot of sense, considering their patent will run out next year. The suits probably noticed this, and figured this was their last chance to milk some profit out of the patents.