Into The Mind of Carmack

[Cyb]

Check out this small article from Computer Gaming World (.com) for a couple of John Carmack's random thoughts. Here's a snip:

Coding all by myself, there are fewer errors. But that's because I'd see and work on the engine by myself. For DOOM 3, we have five people working on it at the same time and problems are bound to come up -- and they aren't always easy to find. Between that and tightening up features for performance, it takes time. The most prudent thing at this point is to push through, fix the bugs and ship the game.

Not much covering Doom 3, but still an interesting (if not short) read. You may want to skip over CGW's sad attempt at humor intro, however.

[Vile]

"Carmack on the Tarmac
We're using this title because it rhymes and makes us feel superior to you. In reality, this is an exclusive interview of sorts with the man behind id."

Ouch, i'm crushed..

EDIT: Why couldn't they have made those new screenshots wallpaper size.. meh. Oh well, interesting read, and I also found this funny:

"There's already an officially announced game powered by the DOOM 3 engine. It's called Abducted. From what we know, it's a third-person sci-fi, horror, adventure title. Players take on the role of a human who has been -- you guessed it -- abducted by aliens. Look for Contraband Entertainment's Abducted next year (after DOOM 3)."

They forgot about Quake4 apparently.

[Sporku]

The screenshots look a little bit too bright for some reason.

[aca]

John Carmack said:

By the time [Doom 3]'s out, though, nobody will still have the GeForce FX or Radeon 9000 series cards.

A lot of people have those series of cards right now, is this an old article reposted?

[Cyb]

he's not refering to doom3 in that quote, read the whole thing:

First generation hardware really isn't for consumers, it's for the developers. I'm already thinking of the next engine and when I finally put DOOM 3 to bed, I'm going to start working on an engine that will take advantage of the hardware coming out now. By the time it's out, though, nobody will still have the GeForce FX or Radeon 9000 series cards.

he's talking about the engine he makes AFTER doom3

[Disorder]

I thought Abducted used it's own engine?

[Adam Hegyi]

Abducted is a unique blend of the best of science fiction, horror and adventure all rolled into one harrowing, immersive game. Blending state of the art real-time lighting, dynamic shadowing, and per pixel rendering all within a hi-speed environment pushed by a proprietary cutting edge engine developed exclusively by Contraband Entertainment, you will be propelled into a realm unlike anything you know!

http://www.contrabandent.com/abducted_info/index.html
http://www.contrabandent.com/abducted_info/abducted_tech.html

[Vegeta]

I don't like the way he talks about Final DOOM and Thy Flesh Consumed.

[spank]

John Carmack said:
Coding all by myself, there are fewer errors. But that's because I'd see and work on the engine by myself. For DOOM 3, we have five people working on it at the same time and problems are bound to come up -- and they aren't always easy to find. Between that and tightening up features for performance, it takes time. The most prudent thing at this point is to push through, fix the bugs and ship the game.

All programmers should start studying functional programming...

[Arioch]

spank said:

All programmers should start studying functional programming...

And all computer science theorists should shut the fuck up and get some real world experience.

[Scuba Steve]

I thought it was interesting when he said he was a terrible game designer. Calling himself a technical man, and wanting the artists and level designers to let their imaginations soar.

[myk]

John Carmack said:
To a degree we're past the hurdles of computer limitations. Back in the day, you'd advertise how many sprites you could get onscreen at once. "This game has 50 enemies on screen at once!" Being able to optimize that tiny routine was a selling point. But over the past couple games [their games], things have evolved to the point where we're not even boasting really cool technical aspects of the game any more. It's about the architecture of the game and how it's being set up. Thanks to new tools there are fewer restrictions to the imagination. Technology restrictions have been falling one after another and now games can be driven more by the creative side.

Heh... Technical restrictions are always present; like in DOOM 3, it's restricted by being set up against and used for today's video cards. Well yeah, he did say he's no design expert... what he's saying is that rendering/architectual possibilities are bigger now (which is just one aspect of game design, and not the focal one; it's machinima's main element), and that's which can certainly be a limitation on imagination as well, depending on how it's handled. You usually use your imagination when you encounter a limitation and somehow have to go around it, otherwise you'll won't need to and will tend to simply follow an existing model (such as remaking an existing game or making a game that emulates realistic physics or settings.) Carmack says games in the past were about "50 enemies on screen" and, what, now they aren't about (insert Doom3/other engine capability)? And anyway, will DOOM 3 be able to have 50 monsters on the screen when it's released, or will the game itself include encounters with that many monsters? Hey, don't tell me it's tecnically limited...

[insertwackynamehere]

At the bottom it said a new game called "Abducted" was going to use the Doom III engine, and alredy has been announced! It should come out a year after Doom III.