Every week some new game gets politicians to hop onto their soapbox (AKA the news) and discusses the deterioration of youth that video games are causing. The latest game to get on CNN and some legal show called Nancy Grace is Edio's "25 to Life". Nancy Grace adds to the likes of Prosecutor Jack Thompson and NY Senator Charles Schumer as the group that is destined to protect our youth by trying to get this game banned. I wish someone would pay me millions of dollars to talk about stuff I know nothing about. Imagine if I got paid to write a rant like this; I'd be rich, but no one likes to hear the other side of the video game violence debate. Maybe I should just lie and say games are the downfall of our youth so I can go on CNN and make some money. Back to the game; "25 to Life" is actually a violent game with a conscience, because unlike GTA, etc. it gives you the choice to play as either a police officer fighting crime or a gangster fighting the police. Most of you probably haven't heard much about "25 to Life", well that's because it isn't out until August 16th. Isn't it just wonderful that the politicians and TV personalities are already condemning the game even though they haven't played it all? I watched Nancy Grace just to see how crazy the debate was, but what I saw wasn't a debate instead a discussion between people who all believe the same thing. Not one of them has played this game, but all could agree that the game will cause kids to kill police officers. During the "debate" the trailer and screenshots of the game were displayed between pictures of fallen police officers who died serving their country. At this point I couldn't watch anymore, because those officers gave their lives for their community and exploiting their memory to try and convey your idea is sickening. As a game developer who wants to one day become a police officer I don't believe this game should be banned or even rated mature. The game is a story of life; choose to be good or evil, and suffer the consequences. Games that let you make choices like this should be encouraged and honored.
Guess the mods didn't like the Rather joke, but to call me a troll when I made an informative statement. I mean go to Answers.com and you will see they use Google Ads.
"Interestingly, answers.com does not use Google AdSense, but commission junction that looks like it."
Really? Sure doesn't look like it. Great, an old story with 2 false facts. I didn't know Dan Rather wrote for Slashdot.
Thanks for agreeing with me, and I do agree with you that looking back on it some of the article could have been improved. I'm working on a revised version right now and will be rewriting the real-time radiosity thing along with the whole sound paragraph.
"You said graphically. Just cause you dropped that word and kept to 'dynamic' doesn't mean you're right either, the extra lag has more to do with collision detection and the behaviour of physics objects"
I was considering you actually knew something, but then I read that and realized you are just pointlessly ranting. You repeated exactly what I said. Graphically dynamic environments means things are moving, and changing places, which is the same as behavior of physic objects. You are right that the per-pixel collision detection does take more time than calculating hitboxes, but many games have had no problems with this. I think the main reason for the initial network problems (The new patch allows for up to 16 players) was because of id trying P2P. When they realized the current Internet structure couldn't produce great results with P2P they switched to client-server. It now seems after a few months that the networking code is much better.
"And well, that's just crapcore. The reason faces only sometimes appear that way is because that's how they are skinned. Only half the face is skinned, and then the texture is mirrored, Id use mirroring a lot when it comes to skin mapping as it saves memory although unfortunatley it is sometimes noticable. Excessive normal mapping? Do you even know what normal mapping is or how it works?"
Do you like being proven wrong? Just wondering, because yet again you're wrong. Look on Google, listen to Carmack's interviews and you will hear him say numerous times what the seams are caused by. As for normal mapping, yes I do know what it is. It's used to generate a similar effect to bump mapping, but instead of using a gray-scale image it uses a multi-channel image. In addition to the different in techniques, normal mapping replaces a whole normal instead of just altering an existing one like bump-mapping does.
"And what qualifications do you have exactly?"
I guess you weren't able to understand it the first time I posted. I hope you have better luck this time: 'I may not be able to program the Doom 3 engine, but my programming knowledge combined with my 3d theory knowledge allows me to do this.'
I was talking about the fact that the id fanboys and Valve fanboys are that divided. They won't give up any ground to each other similar to the Republicans and Democrats who form opinions as a party instead of an individual.
I can assure you I haven't edited anything from the original article. What Devmaster.net has done I'm not sure of, but I haven't edited it all.
You took my first quote out of context. The sentence reads: "The Source Engine has better models, especially human, but combined with the lighting and shadowing, the Doom 3 Engine creates amazing textures." The Doom 3 engine's lighting system and shadowing system renders amazing effects to create amazing textures. That's hard evidence, and even Valve fanboys will contest to that.
"Such as real-time radiosity lighting in HL2" I adopted Valve's definition of real-time radiosity a while ago, which is to combine normal maps with their pre calculated radiosity data on the fly. Obviously, not only am I at fault for believing this, but Valve is at fault for boasting about it in interviews, engine feature page, and their book.
"Your article is bias and based on little fact." How is my article bias? Do you really believe that the animation engine, physics engine, A.I., and model format that the Source Engine uses are worse than Doom 3? On the flipside, do you think that Doom 3's lighting is worse than the Source Engines? I'm guessing both of those answers are no, which is exactly what I'm saying.
"Why would the graphics affect network lag?" You just proved you have no idea what you are talking about. The dynamic environments in Doom 3 make for the need of more data to be sent from player to player to update when things change or move in the world. I really can't remember if I wrote that, but I don't think I did since the Source Engine does the same thing.
"Just out of interest, what's that all about?" Watch the cut scenes and you will see, because of the excessive bump-mapping used to generate nice looking models the players faces look to be split in half.
My main gripe is why on earth you think that the article is at all suitable for a development website. The article doesn't cover development at all and you are hardly an authority on good development advice"
I'll be the first to admit that the article doesn't delve deep into the very advanced topics about the technology. I didn't explain light or shadow theory, or the way A.I. is programmed. This is an article that I wanted to make accessible for all, and didn't want to write a book about it. The other problem is there is little factual information about the actual complex techniques used for each engine. I've learned I can't even trust Valve to be truthful about their engine. The reason I posted on Devmaster.net is the game review site I did some writing for a while back said it was too complex. I came across Devmaster.net and saw their engine database, which is similar to my article just in bullet points. I sent it in, and they accepted it. I would say I'm highly qualified to write an article like this. I may not be able to program the Doom 3 engine, but my programming knowledge combined with my 3d theory knowledge allows me to do this. Sure, I got a few facts wrong, but even paid journalists make errors. At least I can admit to them, and pledge to improve on them.
I believe I already commented that it looks great, but when you are billing it as Half-Life 2 than no it really doesn't. You posted a baseless claim saying I don't know what I am talking about it. If you don't think I know what I am talking about then please give examples.
That's easily one of the stupidest things I've heard in all of this discussion. Doom 3's physics are extremely basic when compared with the Source Engine's Havok physics engine. I'd list all of the features, but why waster my time. You're an obvious Doom 3 fanboy who ignores facts and just keeps saying Doom 3's great. You haven't even looked into the code yourself, and even if you were given the code you probably wouldn't be able to decipher it.
I should've added "some of the top engines". Riddick was very good, especially on the Xbox. After playing Doom 3 on the Xbox at E3 the two looked similar at first glance. I think Doom 3 will take the cake, but I'll have to wait until March to decide that. FarCry is the best outdoor scene generator in terms of distance and quality over distance. That was the big sleeper hit that came out of nowhere last year. I actually devoted a whole article on it, which should be published soon on DevMaster.net. I agree with you completely that STALKER is complete vaporware. They bit off more then they could chew by saying they could top FarCry.
Thanks for clearing up the link thing. A tag would've made it easier. Although the latest demo video in itself is very impressive, it's not anywhere close to Half-Life 2. The water was a joke with it being clear and not moving at all. The physics showed exactly what was in Doom 3. Nothing spectacular, when put up against Source's Engine. The whole city was bland, with few high-res textures and no moving vehicles or other characters. Even though it's not close to the Source Engine the demo is impressive. Good job, and keep up the hard work.
Your link isn't working. There are many things that the Source Engine can do, but the Doom 3 Engine can't. I'll name one quick thing, I know for sure that Doom 3 can't render realistic water like Half-Life 2. By the way, I wasn't calling you a racist or Klan member, but instead someone who stands up for their game no matter what.
Looking past your listings of the graphics, which you listed a few times and the GUI all the rest of your listings are irrelevant. The physics in Doom 3 are extremely limited with a material system and interactivity system that does the bare minimum. You can't compare that to the Havok physics engine by any means. Sure, the Havok physics engine is a third-party physics engine, while id brought in one programmer to do it, but what else was licensed for the Source Engine? The animation system is good when compared to most games, but once again the Source Engine easily beats it. The facial animation system alone in Half-Life 2 is amazing and allows for more lifelike characters. The animations in Doom 3 come off as limited and plastic looking. The Doom 3 editor is pretty good, and it's very useful that they decided to build it into the game allowing you to switch from design time to game time fluidly. The Hammer editor is much easier to use even if you have to exit out of it to play the game. When you see the next big name mods look what engine they use, it will be Source. The Doom 3 MOD community is incredibly small, and when compared to Half-Life 2's for content it's easily blown out of the water. Valve also holds contests and supports the mod community more. Of course, I ask myself why that has anything to do when comparing the engines.
I can't believe you think that Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 rank even in the plot department. You must have really missed the story elements in Half-Life 2 or maybe you didn't even play it. The story is an interesting and epic one. People have been angry at Valve for not including a conclusion, because of how good it was. To Doom 3's credit it had a story, but the story was non-existent during gameplay and had the same depth as the back of a cereal box.
My head's out, trust me, I double-checked. As any student who's taken biology knows that the term "half-life" is the time required for the radioactivity of material taken in by a living organism to be reduced to half its initial value. It's funny how you call me a Valve fanboy when I was more than fair to the Doom 3 engine. I'm actually more of an id fanboy and stood outside a Bestbuy for 5 hours to get my copy of Doom 3 at midnight. You come off as an id fanboy who hasn't even taken a look at the Source Engine. I prefer Counter Strike 1.6 to CS:S, but you should try both, because you would fit in with the majority of players. Of course you would have to go across enemy lines and play a game mod built with Valve's tools.
On its own it is pretty powerful, but can't compete with Half-Life 2's scripting system. That is a good point though and is a bright spot of the engine.
Did you even read the article? Probably not, because looking at your other comments it seems you just make an uneducated smart-aleck comment. I would like constructive criticism and respect like many Slashdot users have shown. Maybe you're bitter, because all of your points are contradictory. I would have liked to see the code, but I was a couple million dollars short. Half-Life 2 is revolutionary for its story-telling and the way it brings all of the greats elements of games together into one package. I'd like to know in your opinion what else is there to look at in the Doom 3 Engine other then graphics code and maybe GUI code?
Thank you for reading my article and taking the time to comment on it, even if those comments were sometimes a bit harsh.
As the author of this article I was happy to see my first article Slashdotted. Some of you came off as pretty harsh, but I can see where some of your criticism is valid. I'm not a crazy fanboy of either company, I'm not getting paid by Valve to write this, and picking at my spelling mistake of using "then" instead of "than" are ridiculous. I simply submitted the text article and the nice editors at Devmaster added the pictures, title, and summary. One of us should've probably caught the mistake, but it's easy to overlook. Whether I picked the Doom 3 Engine or the Source Engine I would've been flamed. The debate is similar to the Republicans and Democratic parties where you just can't win. I don't think anyone can rightfully say with an unbiased view that the Doom 3 Engine is a more complete engine then the Source Engine. Once you get past the graphics the rest of the engine just can't compete with what's out there today.
The article was originally one of my.plan entries, which I submitted to DevMaster.net. I'll admit looking back on it I made a few errors like saying the original Half-Life used Quake 2 when it mainly used Quake 1 code with some Quake 2 code. Someone mentioned this is a common myth, which I somehow adopted at the time. I was aware that the original Quake Engine was used at the beginning of development, but thought Valve switched to Quake 2 after deciding to redo most of the game. I wasn't able to listen to the Half-Life 2 sound, because I didn't play it at a computer with speakers. Since writing the article (I wrote it in mid-November) I've listened to the sound and still agree that are equally good in the sound category. I tried not comparing the actual sound clips, but instead the way the sound is able to resonant.
I tried my best to compare the engines as best as possible without comparing the actual game's content. I used the SDKs to try and do this, but it still came down to in-game content for stuff like character models. Someone said that Doom 3 can achieve Half-Life 2 quality models, but that is completely untrue. The engines use different methods for creating character models, which gives each engine its own distinguishable type of model look.
I only compared the Source Engine and Doom 3 Engine, because those were the two people had been taking about. The discussion has been up for debate on forums all over the net, which is clearly seen by reading these comments. The Unreal 2004 Engine is a great, flexible engine, but it wouldn't have been far to compare it with the others. I did write a FarCry article, which should be published at DevMaster.net soon. If you want to read it now it's up on my site.
I appreciate the constructive feedback, because it lets me know how to revise my writing style for my next article. Like I said before this was my first article, and I made a few mistakes. I'll make sure to not repeat those when writing my next article, which will compare Unreal Engine 3 with Oblivion's graphics engine.
Slashdot Mirror
Every week some new game gets politicians to hop onto their soapbox (AKA the news) and discusses the deterioration of youth that video games are causing. The latest game to get on CNN and some legal show called Nancy Grace is Edio's "25 to Life". Nancy Grace adds to the likes of Prosecutor Jack Thompson and NY Senator Charles Schumer as the group that is destined to protect our youth by trying to get this game banned. I wish someone would pay me millions of dollars to talk about stuff I know nothing about. Imagine if I got paid to write a rant like this; I'd be rich, but no one likes to hear the other side of the video game violence debate. Maybe I should just lie and say games are the downfall of our youth so I can go on CNN and make some money. Back to the game; "25 to Life" is actually a violent game with a conscience, because unlike GTA, etc. it gives you the choice to play as either a police officer fighting crime or a gangster fighting the police. Most of you probably haven't heard much about "25 to Life", well that's because it isn't out until August 16th. Isn't it just wonderful that the politicians and TV personalities are already condemning the game even though they haven't played it all? I watched Nancy Grace just to see how crazy the debate was, but what I saw wasn't a debate instead a discussion between people who all believe the same thing. Not one of them has played this game, but all could agree that the game will cause kids to kill police officers. During the "debate" the trailer and screenshots of the game were displayed between pictures of fallen police officers who died serving their country. At this point I couldn't watch anymore, because those officers gave their lives for their community and exploiting their memory to try and convey your idea is sickening. As a game developer who wants to one day become a police officer I don't believe this game should be banned or even rated mature. The game is a story of life; choose to be good or evil, and suffer the consequences. Games that let you make choices like this should be encouraged and honored.
I was almost sure CliffyB told us it was third-person, which is how it looks in the trailer. Is it first or third?
Guess the mods didn't like the Rather joke, but to call me a troll when I made an informative statement. I mean go to Answers.com and you will see they use Google Ads.
"Interestingly, answers.com does not use Google AdSense, but commission junction that looks like it." Really? Sure doesn't look like it. Great, an old story with 2 false facts. I didn't know Dan Rather wrote for Slashdot.
Thanks for agreeing with me, and I do agree with you that looking back on it some of the article could have been improved. I'm working on a revised version right now and will be rewriting the real-time radiosity thing along with the whole sound paragraph.
"You said graphically. Just cause you dropped that word and kept to 'dynamic' doesn't mean you're right either, the extra lag has more to do with collision detection and the behaviour of physics objects"
I was considering you actually knew something, but then I read that and realized you are just pointlessly ranting. You repeated exactly what I said. Graphically dynamic environments means things are moving, and changing places, which is the same as behavior of physic objects. You are right that the per-pixel collision detection does take more time than calculating hitboxes, but many games have had no problems with this. I think the main reason for the initial network problems (The new patch allows for up to 16 players) was because of id trying P2P. When they realized the current Internet structure couldn't produce great results with P2P they switched to client-server. It now seems after a few months that the networking code is much better.
"And well, that's just crapcore. The reason faces only sometimes appear that way is because that's how they are skinned. Only half the face is skinned, and then the texture is mirrored, Id use mirroring a lot when it comes to skin mapping as it saves memory although unfortunatley it is sometimes noticable. Excessive normal mapping? Do you even know what normal mapping is or how it works?"
Do you like being proven wrong? Just wondering, because yet again you're wrong. Look on Google, listen to Carmack's interviews and you will hear him say numerous times what the seams are caused by. As for normal mapping, yes I do know what it is. It's used to generate a similar effect to bump mapping, but instead of using a gray-scale image it uses a multi-channel image. In addition to the different in techniques, normal mapping replaces a whole normal instead of just altering an existing one like bump-mapping does.
"And what qualifications do you have exactly?"
I guess you weren't able to understand it the first time I posted. I hope you have better luck this time: 'I may not be able to program the Doom 3 engine, but my programming knowledge combined with my 3d theory knowledge allows me to do this.'
I was talking about the fact that the id fanboys and Valve fanboys are that divided. They won't give up any ground to each other similar to the Republicans and Democrats who form opinions as a party instead of an individual.
I can assure you I haven't edited anything from the original article. What Devmaster.net has done I'm not sure of, but I haven't edited it all.
You took my first quote out of context. The sentence reads:
"The Source Engine has better models, especially human, but combined with the lighting and shadowing, the Doom 3 Engine creates amazing textures."
The Doom 3 engine's lighting system and shadowing system renders amazing effects to create amazing textures. That's hard evidence, and even Valve fanboys will contest to that.
"Such as real-time radiosity lighting in HL2"
I adopted Valve's definition of real-time radiosity a while ago, which is to combine normal maps with their pre calculated radiosity data on the fly. Obviously, not only am I at fault for believing this, but Valve is at fault for boasting about it in interviews, engine feature page, and their book.
"Your article is bias and based on little fact."
How is my article bias? Do you really believe that the animation engine, physics engine, A.I., and model format that the Source Engine uses are worse than Doom 3? On the flipside, do you think that Doom 3's lighting is worse than the Source Engines? I'm guessing both of those answers are no, which is exactly what I'm saying.
"Why would the graphics affect network lag?"
You just proved you have no idea what you are talking about. The dynamic environments in Doom 3 make for the need of more data to be sent from player to player to update when things change or move in the world. I really can't remember if I wrote that, but I don't think I did since the Source Engine does the same thing.
"Just out of interest, what's that all about?"
Watch the cut scenes and you will see, because of the excessive bump-mapping used to generate nice looking models the players faces look to be split in half.
My main gripe is why on earth you think that the article is at all suitable for a development website. The article doesn't cover development at all and you are hardly an authority on good development advice"
I'll be the first to admit that the article doesn't delve deep into the very advanced topics about the technology. I didn't explain light or shadow theory, or the way A.I. is programmed. This is an article that I wanted to make accessible for all, and didn't want to write a book about it. The other problem is there is little factual information about the actual complex techniques used for each engine. I've learned I can't even trust Valve to be truthful about their engine. The reason I posted on Devmaster.net is the game review site I did some writing for a while back said it was too complex. I came across Devmaster.net and saw their engine database, which is similar to my article just in bullet points. I sent it in, and they accepted it. I would say I'm highly qualified to write an article like this. I may not be able to program the Doom 3 engine, but my programming knowledge combined with my 3d theory knowledge allows me to do this. Sure, I got a few facts wrong, but even paid journalists make errors. At least I can admit to them, and pledge to improve on them.
I believe I already commented that it looks great, but when you are billing it as Half-Life 2 than no it really doesn't. You posted a baseless claim saying I don't know what I am talking about it. If you don't think I know what I am talking about then please give examples.
That's easily one of the stupidest things I've heard in all of this discussion. Doom 3's physics are extremely basic when compared with the Source Engine's Havok physics engine. I'd list all of the features, but why waster my time. You're an obvious Doom 3 fanboy who ignores facts and just keeps saying Doom 3's great. You haven't even looked into the code yourself, and even if you were given the code you probably wouldn't be able to decipher it.
I should've added "some of the top engines". Riddick was very good, especially on the Xbox. After playing Doom 3 on the Xbox at E3 the two looked similar at first glance. I think Doom 3 will take the cake, but I'll have to wait until March to decide that. FarCry is the best outdoor scene generator in terms of distance and quality over distance. That was the big sleeper hit that came out of nowhere last year. I actually devoted a whole article on it, which should be published soon on DevMaster.net. I agree with you completely that STALKER is complete vaporware. They bit off more then they could chew by saying they could top FarCry.
Thanks for clearing up the link thing. A tag would've made it easier. Although the latest demo video in itself is very impressive, it's not anywhere close to Half-Life 2. The water was a joke with it being clear and not moving at all. The physics showed exactly what was in Doom 3. Nothing spectacular, when put up against Source's Engine. The whole city was bland, with few high-res textures and no moving vehicles or other characters. Even though it's not close to the Source Engine the demo is impressive. Good job, and keep up the hard work.
Your link isn't working. There are many things that the Source Engine can do, but the Doom 3 Engine can't. I'll name one quick thing, I know for sure that Doom 3 can't render realistic water like Half-Life 2. By the way, I wasn't calling you a racist or Klan member, but instead someone who stands up for their game no matter what.
Looking past your listings of the graphics, which you listed a few times and the GUI all the rest of your listings are irrelevant. The physics in Doom 3 are extremely limited with a material system and interactivity system that does the bare minimum. You can't compare that to the Havok physics engine by any means. Sure, the Havok physics engine is a third-party physics engine, while id brought in one programmer to do it, but what else was licensed for the Source Engine? The animation system is good when compared to most games, but once again the Source Engine easily beats it. The facial animation system alone in Half-Life 2 is amazing and allows for more lifelike characters. The animations in Doom 3 come off as limited and plastic looking. The Doom 3 editor is pretty good, and it's very useful that they decided to build it into the game allowing you to switch from design time to game time fluidly. The Hammer editor is much easier to use even if you have to exit out of it to play the game. When you see the next big name mods look what engine they use, it will be Source. The Doom 3 MOD community is incredibly small, and when compared to Half-Life 2's for content it's easily blown out of the water. Valve also holds contests and supports the mod community more. Of course, I ask myself why that has anything to do when comparing the engines.
I can't believe you think that Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 rank even in the plot department. You must have really missed the story elements in Half-Life 2 or maybe you didn't even play it. The story is an interesting and epic one. People have been angry at Valve for not including a conclusion, because of how good it was. To Doom 3's credit it had a story, but the story was non-existent during gameplay and had the same depth as the back of a cereal box.
My head's out, trust me, I double-checked. As any student who's taken biology knows that the term "half-life" is the time required for the radioactivity of material taken in by a living organism to be reduced to half its initial value. It's funny how you call me a Valve fanboy when I was more than fair to the Doom 3 engine. I'm actually more of an id fanboy and stood outside a Bestbuy for 5 hours to get my copy of Doom 3 at midnight. You come off as an id fanboy who hasn't even taken a look at the Source Engine. I prefer Counter Strike 1.6 to CS:S, but you should try both, because you would fit in with the majority of players. Of course you would have to go across enemy lines and play a game mod built with Valve's tools.
On its own it is pretty powerful, but can't compete with Half-Life 2's scripting system. That is a good point though and is a bright spot of the engine.
Did you even read the article? Probably not, because looking at your other comments it seems you just make an uneducated smart-aleck comment. I would like constructive criticism and respect like many Slashdot users have shown. Maybe you're bitter, because all of your points are contradictory. I would have liked to see the code, but I was a couple million dollars short. Half-Life 2 is revolutionary for its story-telling and the way it brings all of the greats elements of games together into one package. I'd like to know in your opinion what else is there to look at in the Doom 3 Engine other then graphics code and maybe GUI code?
Thank you for reading my article and taking the time to comment on it, even if those comments were sometimes a bit harsh.
.plan entries, which I submitted to DevMaster.net. I'll admit looking back on it I made a few errors like saying the original Half-Life used Quake 2 when it mainly used Quake 1 code with some Quake 2 code. Someone mentioned this is a common myth, which I somehow adopted at the time. I was aware that the original Quake Engine was used at the beginning of development, but thought Valve switched to Quake 2 after deciding to redo most of the game. I wasn't able to listen to the Half-Life 2 sound, because I didn't play it at a computer with speakers. Since writing the article (I wrote it in mid-November) I've listened to the sound and still agree that are equally good in the sound category. I tried not comparing the actual sound clips, but instead the way the sound is able to resonant.
As the author of this article I was happy to see my first article Slashdotted. Some of you came off as pretty harsh, but I can see where some of your criticism is valid. I'm not a crazy fanboy of either company, I'm not getting paid by Valve to write this, and picking at my spelling mistake of using "then" instead of "than" are ridiculous. I simply submitted the text article and the nice editors at Devmaster added the pictures, title, and summary. One of us should've probably caught the mistake, but it's easy to overlook. Whether I picked the Doom 3 Engine or the Source Engine I would've been flamed. The debate is similar to the Republicans and Democratic parties where you just can't win. I don't think anyone can rightfully say with an unbiased view that the Doom 3 Engine is a more complete engine then the Source Engine. Once you get past the graphics the rest of the engine just can't compete with what's out there today.
The article was originally one of my
I tried my best to compare the engines as best as possible without comparing the actual game's content. I used the SDKs to try and do this, but it still came down to in-game content for stuff like character models. Someone said that Doom 3 can achieve Half-Life 2 quality models, but that is completely untrue. The engines use different methods for creating character models, which gives each engine its own distinguishable type of model look.
I only compared the Source Engine and Doom 3 Engine, because those were the two people had been taking about. The discussion has been up for debate on forums all over the net, which is clearly seen by reading these comments. The Unreal 2004 Engine is a great, flexible engine, but it wouldn't have been far to compare it with the others. I did write a FarCry article, which should be published at DevMaster.net soon. If you want to read it now it's up on my site.
I appreciate the constructive feedback, because it lets me know how to revise my writing style for my next article. Like I said before this was my first article, and I made a few mistakes. I'll make sure to not repeat those when writing my next article, which will compare Unreal Engine 3 with Oblivion's graphics engine.