A new interview with Tim Willits

[Disorder]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/doom3/preview_6026019.html

On singeplayer:

I've had a number of great experiences recently, but one of the best happened just the other day and really brought together a bunch of the cool new elements in Doom III. I was making my way through one of the more lab-type areas of the game and started down a hallway. As I got about halfway down the hall, one of the zombie scientists approached from the next room. I was low on ammo and health and wanted to lure him down the hall, away from any other enemies in the next room, so I retreated to the previous room and waited. As he moved down the hallway, the light behind him was much stronger, so he cast a long shadow that moved ahead of him--I could see him coming just by his shadow. When he was finally in front of me, I shot him square in the chest with the shotgun. He just happened to be standing in front of a window to another room, and the force of the shotgun blast blew him back through the window and down a short set of stairs.

On multiplayer:

Never before in a multiplayer game have players had to worry about their shadow and whether or not it has revealed their position, or been able to shoot out lights so they can hide in the darkness.

Miscellaneous:

We've felt comfortable for a while now saying that we'd be done with the game in 2003, and we still hope to have it out this year. That said, we won't release the game until we are happy with it.

We have put together a trailer that will be playing in the Activision booth, but we won't be showing the game to the press or general attendees. You can expect to hear from us from time to time and see little pieces of the game between now and when we ship, but we also don't want to spoil the game for people, so we're trying to hold back some surprises.

Read, idiots.

[grimiv]

how thick can i lay it on please

[Linguica]

You're forgetting the NEW SCREENSHOT!!!

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/doom3/screens.html?page=74

You know... I don't want to say that it looks "ugly" because it doesn't, but between this and shots of Deus Ex 2 I think FPS graphics are entering an awkward phase. They're getting to the point where they're pretty darn realistic -- but they're not. They almost look like a crappy rendered game cinematic from 1995 or something. Everything looks like it's rubberized or something. Now I saw Doom 3 at E3 last year, and it looked crazily good in person, but in screenshots it honestly looks like an ugly cinematic from eight years ago.

[Disorder]

Linguica said:

You're forgetting the NEW SCREENSHOT!!!

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/doom3/screens.html?page=74

You know... I don't want to say that it looks "ugly" because it doesn't, but between this and shots of Deus Ex 2 I think FPS graphics are entering an awkward phase. They're getting to the point where they're pretty darn realistic -- but they're not. They almost look like a crappy rendered game cinematic from 1995 or something. Everything looks like it's rubberized or something. Now I saw Doom 3 at E3 last year, and it looked crazily good in person, but in screenshots it honestly looks like an ugly cinematic from eight years ago.

I think it looks really good. Plus, when you see it moving around it always looks a lot better. By the way, the screenshot isn't entirely new because is has been in a magazine before. However, this is the first time they've released it on the internet.

[Goat]

"We've felt comfortable for a while now saying that we'd be done with the game in 2003, and we still hope to have it out this year. That said, we won't release the game until we are happy with it."

That sounds to me like hes hinting that it wont even be released before 2004!!! The context is hinting that theyre not even sure if it is. Man this brought my day down. thanks a lot for shitting on my whole afternoon, Disorder featuring Tim Willits

[Disorder]

Goat said:

this brought my day down. thanks a lot for shitting on my whole afternoon, Disorder featuring Tim Willits

Heh, don't look at me, I'm just the mailman bringing you the news.

[AirRaid]

Bastards. I can't view the Screenshot(s) on gamespot.

[Alientank]

Damn it, this game better come out this year or I'll be extremely pissed

[Goat]

Disorder said:

Heh, don't look at me, I'm just the mailman bringing you the news.

wasnt it always the messenger that was killed for bringing bad news back in the middle ages?

[Naked Snake]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/doom3/screens.html?page=74

Why is he storing pumpkins in his pants?

[Zaldron]

BBG said:

Why is he storing pumpkins in his pants?

Penis envy anyone?

Ling : it's kinda like a trade-off. While these new shading techniques are nothing short of revolutionary as far as real-time applications go, they're pretty ancient CG-wise. Phong, the shading method that calculates light intensity in a per-pixel basis, was designed by Wu Tong Phong in 1973, and it has been deemed "ancient" by 3D packages for about 5 years. It totally blows away pre-rendered lighting conditions in motion, but it's totally unable to process the subtle differences in skin tones thanks to lightrays coursing through skin layers of varying thickness (sub-surface scattering); or calculate the highlight distortions present in any surface with a diminute pattern of irregularities (anisotropic materials); or blur out reflections based on distances (anisotropic reflections); or even composite several highlights of varying dimensions and intensities to simulate varnish-on-wood or drool-on-flesh conditions (multi-layered materials). All features easily replicable with a copy of Photoshop and some talent.

But yeah, screenshots totally kill this game's graphics. What's really interesting is that the Radeon 9800 and the GFX are kind of a bar for videocards. They're both capable of rendering everything I just mentioned (even if it takes them a hundred passes) at the expense of speed. As shader-related features go, we're pretty much done for now.

[BNA!]

Zaldron said:

As shader-related features go, we're pretty much done for now.

Most likely - there's only more step to go:
Completely free programmable GPU's with no fixed instruction sets and / or proprietary IHV / API extensions.
Whatever is happening there in the next two years will most likely stay with us for quite some time, so I hope Carmack and others are able to make themselves heard on the various advisory boards they're in.

Everything from there on will be a speed increase or decrease depending on the output quality you want to achieve.

The rest needs to be done by innovative mathematicans who need to explore more efficient algorithms for radiosity, ray tracing, sub surface scattering, motio blur, depth of field... you name it.

Clearly I'm pretty "excited" about the idea of being able to accomplish realtime and offscreen rendering with one and the same engine.

Propper translation tools for renderman shaders or the various 3D packages surface material attributes and we're all set in a glorious future of gaming and CGI.

[Dingus Khan]

I don't care if it doesnt come out until 2004. If it's the best fucking game ever made, then i'm sure it will be worth the wait. I'm sure it will be. Doom 1 or 2 might beat it out, but it will still be worth it even if it were two years from now simply because it's Id software, and it's fucking Doom.

[The_Aeromaster]

He hit the nail on the head...
it's fucking Doom.
When D3 hits the shelves, don't anybody fucking move.

[Rotting Corpse]

Dingus Khan said:

I don't care if it doesnt come out until 2004. If it's the best fucking game ever made, then i'm sure it will be worth the wait. I'm sure it will be. Doom 1 or 2 might beat it out, but it will still be worth it even if it were two years from now simply because it's Id software, and it's fucking Doom.

Damn right!

[DooMBoy]

That chainsaw zombie has rather large testicles O_o

That said, I think the new screenie looks rather nice, not at all like some CG intro from 95 or 96.