33 ms·

no one? There are quite a few developers like him. Sure, he's one of the first and most famous, but having worked in the game development space for a while, I

no one? There are quite a few developers like him. Sure, he's one of the first and most famous, but having worked in the game development space for a while, I can safely say that there are people quietly writing equally, if not more impressive graphics engines.

phoboslab 16y ago
I think one reason why Carmack still sticks out, is that he set up his company in a way where he can still "play" with new techniques every day. I suspect that not many other programmers have this kind of freedom. Also, not many other graphic engine programmers have their own company. They might be as good or better as Carmack, but they are hidden under layers of corporate obscurity. The guys at Crytek who invented SSAO come to mind - most of the time SSAO is credited to Crytek and not to individual people (which is a shame, imho). ( SSAO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Space_Ambient_Occlusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Space_Ambient_Occlusion )
elxrr 16y ago
What about Epic's Tim Sweeney?
- CamperBob 16y ago
  Sweeney's a strong, innovative player in his own right, but the fact is, he got his start by chasing Carmack's taillights from one E3 to the next. JC was doing this stuff back before you could Google how to do it, or buy a book at your local B&N telling you how to do it. That counts for a lot. So does his consistent willingness to bring the fire down the mountain and hand it to the masses.
  - snprbob86 16y ago
    I think you're not giving Sweeney enough credit. He basically invented modding with ZZT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZZT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZZT Additionally, post Quake 3, the team at Epic routinely chose better design tradeoffs for real world games. This includes both performance tradeoffs and spending of engineering effort on production needs (like a solid level editor). Hence the popularity of the Unreal 3 engine.
    - CamperBob 16y ago
      Yeah, I don't think there's any question that Epic owns id in the production department. That was true from the beginning.
albertzeyer 16y ago
Just curious: Who do you have in mind? Is there some source code I can see?
- snprbob86 16y ago
  Mostly people who are not and would not like to be famous. Sorry, most of the code is proprietary.
  - albertzeyer 16y ago
    I cannot say much about people who don't show themselves and seem to not exist. Or who may be high skilled but where I cannot see the code. Isn't it always like this that if we evaluate someone as very good or even being one of the best that we mean of all people we know and where we can evaluate the skills? The best way I can rate someones skills is by reading his code. Just seeing the result makes it much harder to evaluate how intelligently it was written. Small exceptions are graphic engines which can do stuff which was never possible before in such a radical new way -- Carmack also did this a few times but in most cases, the code was also released a few years later. (Only exception I know was Commander Keen. But it was obvious that he introduced something very clever and new here. And it was also not unknown how he did it after those games were released.)
cubicle67 16y ago
Carmack is the original. He's been writing class leading graphics engines since the days of distributing software via discs in plastic bags. He wrote the first side-scrolling engine for PCs (long before they were called that) back when it was considered impossible. He made people sit up and take notice of Shareware He wrote the engines for Commander Keen (2d platformer) Wolfenstein (3d) , Doom (3d with variable height floors/walls), Quake (full 3d), Quake II (coloured lighting etc) etc etc He's one of a very small number of people who were writing groundbreaking code right at the beginning, and are still writing groundbreaking stuff. He's constantly made his code public, as much as possible He loves fast cars; how does a 1000hp twin turbo w/24psi of boost Testarossa sound? (that was 11 years ago) He founded a company that builds and flys some serious rockets. real ones. Seriously, if that doesn't make you a coding god, what does?
- potatolicious 16y ago
  Not only that, while he's not the only talented graphics developer out there, he is one that has consistently brought something revolutionary and new to the table. id Tech 5 is going to introduce the entire concept of megatexturing - the grand unifying theory of geometry, just as Doom 3 was the first major engine to implement a unified lighting model. This is going to have major implications for both content production and rendering, and is exciting as fuck. Carmack's impressiveness is not only in his ability to write kickass looking engines, but also his ability to lead the pack in completely rethinking the sort of things most devs take for granted.
  - modeless 16y ago
    Nitpick: As the name implies, megatexturing solves the problem of texture memory management and rendering, allowing essentially unlimited texture detail on any object. The problem of unlimited geometry detail is still unsolved. Carmack has hinted that id Tech 6 may tackle the geometry problem using voxels instead of polygons, and id actually demoed a voxel rendering system at SIGGRAPH 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpEpAFGplnI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpEpAFGplnI
    - 16y ago

phoboslab 16y ago

I think one reason why Carmack still sticks out, is that he set up his company in a way where he can still "play" with new techniques every day. I suspect that not many other programmers have this kind of freedom. Also, not many other graphic engine programmers have their own company. They might be as good or better as Carmack, but they are hidden under layers of corporate obscurity. The guys at Crytek who invented SSAO come to mind - most of the time SSAO is credited to Crytek and not to individual people (which is a shame, imho). ( SSAO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Space_Ambient_Occlusion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Space_Ambient_Occlusion )

elxrr 16y ago

What about Epic's Tim Sweeney?

CamperBob 16y ago
Sweeney's a strong, innovative player in his own right, but the fact is, he got his start by chasing Carmack's taillights from one E3 to the next. JC was doing this stuff back before you could Google how to do it, or buy a book at your local B&N telling you how to do it. That counts for a lot. So does his consistent willingness to bring the fire down the mountain and hand it to the masses.
- snprbob86 16y ago
  I think you're not giving Sweeney enough credit. He basically invented modding with ZZT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZZT http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZZT Additionally, post Quake 3, the team at Epic routinely chose better design tradeoffs for real world games. This includes both performance tradeoffs and spending of engineering effort on production needs (like a solid level editor). Hence the popularity of the Unreal 3 engine.
  - CamperBob 16y ago
    Yeah, I don't think there's any question that Epic owns id in the production department. That was true from the beginning.

albertzeyer 16y ago

Just curious: Who do you have in mind? Is there some source code I can see?

snprbob86 16y ago
Mostly people who are not and would not like to be famous. Sorry, most of the code is proprietary.
- albertzeyer 16y ago
  I cannot say much about people who don't show themselves and seem to not exist. Or who may be high skilled but where I cannot see the code. Isn't it always like this that if we evaluate someone as very good or even being one of the best that we mean of all people we know and where we can evaluate the skills? The best way I can rate someones skills is by reading his code. Just seeing the result makes it much harder to evaluate how intelligently it was written. Small exceptions are graphic engines which can do stuff which was never possible before in such a radical new way -- Carmack also did this a few times but in most cases, the code was also released a few years later. (Only exception I know was Commander Keen. But it was obvious that he introduced something very clever and new here. And it was also not unknown how he did it after those games were released.)

cubicle67 16y ago

Carmack is the original. He's been writing class leading graphics engines since the days of distributing software via discs in plastic bags. He wrote the first side-scrolling engine for PCs (long before they were called that) back when it was considered impossible. He made people sit up and take notice of Shareware He wrote the engines for Commander Keen (2d platformer) Wolfenstein (3d) , Doom (3d with variable height floors/walls), Quake (full 3d), Quake II (coloured lighting etc) etc etc He's one of a very small number of people who were writing groundbreaking code right at the beginning, and are still writing groundbreaking stuff. He's constantly made his code public, as much as possible He loves fast cars; how does a 1000hp twin turbo w/24psi of boost Testarossa sound? (that was 11 years ago) He founded a company that builds and flys some serious rockets. real ones. Seriously, if that doesn't make you a coding god, what does?

potatolicious 16y ago
Not only that, while he's not the only talented graphics developer out there, he is one that has consistently brought something revolutionary and new to the table. id Tech 5 is going to introduce the entire concept of megatexturing - the grand unifying theory of geometry, just as Doom 3 was the first major engine to implement a unified lighting model. This is going to have major implications for both content production and rendering, and is exciting as fuck. Carmack's impressiveness is not only in his ability to write kickass looking engines, but also his ability to lead the pack in completely rethinking the sort of things most devs take for granted.
- modeless 16y ago
  Nitpick: As the name implies, megatexturing solves the problem of texture memory management and rendering, allowing essentially unlimited texture detail on any object. The problem of unlimited geometry detail is still unsolved. Carmack has hinted that id Tech 6 may tackle the geometry problem using voxels instead of polygons, and id actually demoed a voxel rendering system at SIGGRAPH 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpEpAFGplnI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpEpAFGplnI
  - 16y ago