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This guy is a wizard. I'm glad he's still hacking on cool stuff after he was forced to stop working on Portal64

Grazester 3y ago
Couldn't he just release something what wasn't call Portal instead? Couldn't he call it "Hole Jump" and just not use Portal's assets for it?
- MBCook 3y ago
  The issue wasn’t portal, it was Nintendo. Even if he reskinned it Nintendo would still be mad at him for using their libraries. Valve seemed to be relatively cool about it until Nintendo decided to come knocking and then it became too much of a legal threat.
  - pipes 3y ago
    I doubt they are "mad". There will be a team of people whose job it is to pursue ip infringement for Nintendo, they probably don't get emotional about it.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    Did they ever explicitly state that Nintendo brought up issues? I remember with Dolphin, Valve took it down without Nintendo ever even contacting them, which was just very weird. Especially because it was a high-profile Steam launch that they were very much aware of ahead of time.
- VelesDude 3y ago
  The only reason Valve pulled it was because they feared Nintendo would come after them as it was using Nintendos proprietary graphics API. They could not distribute the code. If it was to use a custom built API then there is no issue but hacking N64s RSP is a tricky beast of a chip due to all the oddities of it being essentially experimental 3D hardware at the time.
  - Rinzler89 3y ago
    >hacking N64s RSP is a tricky beast of a chip due to all the oddities of it being essentially experimental 3D hardware at the time It was basically trimmed down cost reduced SGI hardware, noting too exotic or revolutionary.
    - VelesDude 3y ago
      Its not so much that is revolutionary, more that it was finicky and precise in its ways.
  - Cloudef 3y ago
    He could use libdragon / tiny3d which has zero nintendo code in it. https://mbeboek.gitlab.io/rspl/ https://mbeboek.gitlab.io/rspl/ (posted this to hn but of course it got ignored)
    - VelesDude 3y ago
      It is a path that was being explored. I think the issue was that so much of the standing work was based on the explicit functions of the original API. A case of they would have to build up Tiny3D to get equivalent functions. Definitely viable but I guess if you are working on a game, all of a sudden you are focusing on the core workings of an API rather than getting a project done. Like building an app in Rust and then getting side tracked on optimizing the actual compiler. Very cool but a different task.
ninjin 3y ago
Was curious about what happened and did some digging. Here is a PC Gamer write up [1] as the original Patreon post requires a login [2]. [1]: https://www.pcgamer.com/that-portal-64-demake-we-liked-so-much-has-been-kiboshed-by-valve-they-have-asked-me-to-take-the-project-down-creator-says https://www.pcgamer.com/that-portal-64-demake-we-liked-so-mu... [2]: https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-about-future-96205584 https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-about-future-96205584 Lambert's Portal 64 work was too impressive for words, so I am truly sad that it has been halted. I was unaware that he relied on Nintendo's proprietary libraries, but I guess I should not be too surprised to see that from a project that used the name and assets from a proprietary game. The silver lining I suppose is that we know that Lambert is likely to produce great things in the future, wherever his mind and heart takes him.

Couldn't he just release something what wasn't call Portal instead? Couldn't he call it "Hole Jump" and just not use Portal's assets for it?

MBCook 3y ago
The issue wasn’t portal, it was Nintendo. Even if he reskinned it Nintendo would still be mad at him for using their libraries. Valve seemed to be relatively cool about it until Nintendo decided to come knocking and then it became too much of a legal threat.
- pipes 3y ago
  I doubt they are "mad". There will be a team of people whose job it is to pursue ip infringement for Nintendo, they probably don't get emotional about it.
- jorvi 3y ago
  Did they ever explicitly state that Nintendo brought up issues? I remember with Dolphin, Valve took it down without Nintendo ever even contacting them, which was just very weird. Especially because it was a high-profile Steam launch that they were very much aware of ahead of time.
VelesDude 3y ago
The only reason Valve pulled it was because they feared Nintendo would come after them as it was using Nintendos proprietary graphics API. They could not distribute the code. If it was to use a custom built API then there is no issue but hacking N64s RSP is a tricky beast of a chip due to all the oddities of it being essentially experimental 3D hardware at the time.
- Rinzler89 3y ago
  >hacking N64s RSP is a tricky beast of a chip due to all the oddities of it being essentially experimental 3D hardware at the time It was basically trimmed down cost reduced SGI hardware, noting too exotic or revolutionary.
  - VelesDude 3y ago
    Its not so much that is revolutionary, more that it was finicky and precise in its ways.
- Cloudef 3y ago
  He could use libdragon / tiny3d which has zero nintendo code in it. https://mbeboek.gitlab.io/rspl/ https://mbeboek.gitlab.io/rspl/ (posted this to hn but of course it got ignored)
  - VelesDude 3y ago
    It is a path that was being explored. I think the issue was that so much of the standing work was based on the explicit functions of the original API. A case of they would have to build up Tiny3D to get equivalent functions. Definitely viable but I guess if you are working on a game, all of a sudden you are focusing on the core workings of an API rather than getting a project done. Like building an app in Rust and then getting side tracked on optimizing the actual compiler. Very cool but a different task.

ninjin 3y ago

Was curious about what happened and did some digging. Here is a PC Gamer write up [1] as the original Patreon post requires a login [2]. [1]: https://www.pcgamer.com/that-portal-64-demake-we-liked-so-much-has-been-kiboshed-by-valve-they-have-asked-me-to-take-the-project-down-creator-says https://www.pcgamer.com/that-portal-64-demake-we-liked-so-mu... [2]: https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-about-future-96205584 https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-about-future-96205584 Lambert's Portal 64 work was too impressive for words, so I am truly sad that it has been halted. I was unaware that he relied on Nintendo's proprietary libraries, but I guess I should not be too surprised to see that from a project that used the name and assets from a proprietary game. The silver lining I suppose is that we know that Lambert is likely to produce great things in the future, wherever his mind and heart takes him.