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I suspect if anyone had thought through this it would be John Carmack. His game design skills can be called into question. His 3D engine skills are second to no

by hartror 10y ago

I suspect if anyone had thought through this it would be John Carmack. His game design skills can be called into question. His 3D engine skills are second to none[1]. [1] As an individual. I suspect why we haven't see as much from him since Quake 3 is that his skills don't scale to a team.

ralfd 10y ago
> I suspect why we haven't see as much from him since Quake 3 is that his skills don't scale to a team. He did other stuff like rocket design and all that VR/Oculus Gear stuff
joakleaf 10y ago
> I suspect why we haven't see as much from him since Quake 3 Not quite accurate. Since Quake 3 he made Unified lighting and shadowing (for Doom 3) and Megatextures (for Quake 5 and Rage). I can't really think of any other major paradigm shifts over the last 10-15 in game graphics engines. There are lots of little improvements everywhere, but they seem more evolutionary than the revolutionary steps we saw in the 90s (textureMapping, raycasting, BSPs, PVS, lightmaps, Sorted edge rasterization, bilinear filtering, bezier-surferaces, shaders, unified lighting/shadowing and beam trees, etc.).
- NTripleOne 10y ago
  Let's be honest though, did anyone actually like megatextures? From the consumer's point of view, all they ever did was have bad AMD compatibility and streaming issues on every platform.
  - MLR 10y ago
    I think for Rage it was an idea ahead of its time, but they're still used in the new Doom which doesn't seem to have the same issues and has been praised for good optmisation.
    - Zardoz84 10y ago
      I saw these technique on the original Unreal Tournament.
      - Aeolos 10y ago
        The original Unreal Tournament was not using megatextures. There was simply no hardware support for that.
    - jsheard 10y ago
      I believe the new Doom still uses virtual textures to an extent, but they seem to have given up on the idea of using it to apply unique texture assets to every surface in the game as they did in Rage. Without globally unique textures Megatexture goes from a paradigm shift to just an implementation detail, unfortunately.
  - SCdF 10y ago
    Rage was gorgeous. The game was terrible, but it was incredibly pretty, mostly because of megatextures. Some pundit (TotalBiscuit?) referred to it looking like a moving painting, and in places it really was that breathtaking. Again, the game was unfortunately a few fun sections interspersed with really un fun things, but that has nothing to do with the tech. (FWIW I ran it on AMD and it had major problems, and then a year or so later it was perfect. AFAICT they patched most of the issues away on PC)
    - NTripleOne 10y ago
      Personally, I didn't think Rage looked all that - I thought it was muddy and bland (and not in the good, post-apocalyptic way) and graphically as mediocre as the gameplay.
  - psyc 10y ago
    >Let's be honest though, did anyone actually like megatextures? Phrased this way, this question makes no sense to me. Perhaps you mean specifically the art in Rage. Virtual texture memory strictly increases the capacity for detail, realism, and/or expression.
    - NTripleOne 10y ago
      I meant as a technology in general, given that they pushed it so hard as a killer feature of the game and it ended up being the reason most people couldn't play it.
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  >I can't really think of any other major paradigm shifts over the last 10-15 in game graphics engines. Deferred shading is a pretty major paradigm shift compared to forward rendering and it's within ~10-15 year range (it wasn't practical on pre MRT hardware which was shader model 3 ?) along with plenty of screen space effects like SSAO.

by hartror 10y ago

ralfd 10y ago

> I suspect why we haven't see as much from him since Quake 3 is that his skills don't scale to a team. He did other stuff like rocket design and all that VR/Oculus Gear stuff

joakleaf 10y ago

> I suspect why we haven't see as much from him since Quake 3 Not quite accurate. Since Quake 3 he made Unified lighting and shadowing (for Doom 3) and Megatextures (for Quake 5 and Rage). I can't really think of any other major paradigm shifts over the last 10-15 in game graphics engines. There are lots of little improvements everywhere, but they seem more evolutionary than the revolutionary steps we saw in the 90s (textureMapping, raycasting, BSPs, PVS, lightmaps, Sorted edge rasterization, bilinear filtering, bezier-surferaces, shaders, unified lighting/shadowing and beam trees, etc.).

NTripleOne 10y ago
Let's be honest though, did anyone actually like megatextures? From the consumer's point of view, all they ever did was have bad AMD compatibility and streaming issues on every platform.
- MLR 10y ago
  I think for Rage it was an idea ahead of its time, but they're still used in the new Doom which doesn't seem to have the same issues and has been praised for good optmisation.
  - Zardoz84 10y ago
    I saw these technique on the original Unreal Tournament.
    - Aeolos 10y ago
      The original Unreal Tournament was not using megatextures. There was simply no hardware support for that.
  - jsheard 10y ago
    I believe the new Doom still uses virtual textures to an extent, but they seem to have given up on the idea of using it to apply unique texture assets to every surface in the game as they did in Rage. Without globally unique textures Megatexture goes from a paradigm shift to just an implementation detail, unfortunately.
- SCdF 10y ago
  Rage was gorgeous. The game was terrible, but it was incredibly pretty, mostly because of megatextures. Some pundit (TotalBiscuit?) referred to it looking like a moving painting, and in places it really was that breathtaking. Again, the game was unfortunately a few fun sections interspersed with really un fun things, but that has nothing to do with the tech. (FWIW I ran it on AMD and it had major problems, and then a year or so later it was perfect. AFAICT they patched most of the issues away on PC)
  - NTripleOne 10y ago
    Personally, I didn't think Rage looked all that - I thought it was muddy and bland (and not in the good, post-apocalyptic way) and graphically as mediocre as the gameplay.
- psyc 10y ago
  >Let's be honest though, did anyone actually like megatextures? Phrased this way, this question makes no sense to me. Perhaps you mean specifically the art in Rage. Virtual texture memory strictly increases the capacity for detail, realism, and/or expression.
  - NTripleOne 10y ago
    I meant as a technology in general, given that they pushed it so hard as a killer feature of the game and it ended up being the reason most people couldn't play it.
rubber_duck 10y ago
>I can't really think of any other major paradigm shifts over the last 10-15 in game graphics engines. Deferred shading is a pretty major paradigm shift compared to forward rendering and it's within ~10-15 year range (it wasn't practical on pre MRT hardware which was shader model 3 ?) along with plenty of screen space effects like SSAO.