My Email from John Carmack

[superklye]

Originally Posted by Intel17

Really? Nothing left to contribute eh? Are you saying that Doom3 is photorealistic?

[aAv7]

Originally Posted by Subtestube

Interesting comment. Can I ask you to clarify what you mean when you say you don't think he has much to contribute? I'm not asking aggressively, I'm genuinely interested.

First let me say my opinion isn't based off Doom 3. From what we've seen, I think there's an agreement that the Doom 3 engine isn't as impresive as we had hoped or expected. It is good, but it isn't jaw-dropping like previous efforts. Some may say he's getting lazy or arrogant, but to me, you can't throw a touchdown every drive you get.

I just think the guy hit his mark around Quake 3 and it's time to step down and give some young blood a shot @ ID. I'm sure there's plenty of talented guys over there waiting for their chance to develop an engine. It's just kinda like a QB who can still throw, but refuses to retire until he gets banged up or booed out of the stadium. You should know when you gotta go for the good of the company and the medium itself. ( Sorry for all the football analogies...been watching it too much today) He's been doing this for over 10 years, he's made great engines, alot of money, gained fame and has every PC fanboy on his side, so I just think he's done 20 times more than he ever dream't he could do and it's time to settle down and start letting someone else reach that dream.

Originally Posted by Intel17

Really? Nothing left to contribute eh? Are you saying that Doom3 is photorealistic?

Oh of course Intel, because we all know that only John Carmack could create a photo-realistic engine and no one else but him.

[Skrot]

I think that's absurd, ultimate17. The reason that the engine wasn't as "jaw-dropping" as some people might say that it is is because we don't have the horsepower in our computers to be able to handle this sort of engine in it's full glory.

Can you back up any of your statements that he's getting "lazy or arrogant"? From what I've seen he's never shown any sort of arrogance. Hell, you're replying to a thread that shows that he has time to reply to emails from the 'little' people.

[Intel17]

The engine is friggin amazing. On a pure technical side, it is superior in many ways to Unreal Engine 3. However, the tools that ship with it are rather limited, and do not allow exposure of the ENGINE (not the game) 's true ability.

The reason Doom3 the game isn't as amazing visually as the Unreal Engine 3 based game scheduled for release by Epic in 2006, is because, our hardware cannot cope with the absurd amount of texture maps, shader functions, and polygon counts.

Let me assure you, given the same target hardware as Epic's next game is targetted for, Doom3 could produce scenes as good, or better in quality.

Please separate the ENGINE from the GAME.


-Intel17

[aAv7]

Originally Posted by Skrot

I think that's absurd, ultimate17. The reason that the engine wasn't as "jaw-dropping" as some people might say that it is is because we don't have the horsepower in our computers to be able to handle this sort of engine in it's full glory.

Can you back up any of your statements that he's getting "lazy or arrogant"? From what I've seen he's never shown any sort of arrogance. Hell, you're replying to a thread that shows that he has time to reply to emails from the 'little' people.

Apparently you don't read what others write.....I wrote "Some may say he's getting lazy or arrogant, but to me, you can't throw a touchdown every drive you get."

See that...SOME may say. Not me personally. I basically said, while I didn't think the engine was great, I really wasn't expecting him to get every engine perfect...we all slip up once in a while.

[Skrot]

Okay fair enough. I guess I assumed that when you say that sort of thing without a disclaimer, that you are part of that group. My mistake. You still said that you didn't think that the engine was great, which sort of puts you into a similar group anyway...

Generalisations are fun

[Intel17]

Originally Posted by ultimate17

Apparently you don't read what others write.....I wrote "Some may say he's getting lazy or arrogant, but to me, you can't throw a touchdown every drive you get."

See that...SOME may say. Not me personally. I basically said, while I didn't think the engine was great, I really wasn't expecting him to get every engine perfect...we all slip up once in a while.

Gosh-Darnit! He didn't slip up! This engine is miles ahead of other competing engines! Just because you didn't like the artistic direction or the quality of the models, doesn't mean that the engine is bad!

What must I do to prove this to people!

[aAv7]

Just leave us to our opinion and you won't get so annoyed =)

Maybe in a year or two i'll agree with you...but from previous engines, the best was usually given right away and further tweaked later....I mean Quake 3 still looks nice w/ 8xQaa and 16Xaf

[aAv7]

Originally Posted by Skrot

Okay fair enough. I guess I assumed that when you say that sort of thing without a disclaimer, that you are part of that group. My mistake. You still said that you didn't think that the engine was great, which sort of puts you into a similar group anyway...

Generalisations are fun

No prob . I'm not bashing the guy or the engine. It's better than most of the stuff out there now. But just not all I thought it would be, but maybe Intel here is right and it will be better when the hardware can keep up with it.

[mezkal]

Ultimate, Intel is correct. Of the four major engines (and their derivatives like Scrapland), so far only Doom 3's has shown that per pixel AND bump mapping are possible in every frame. You'll note that Far Cry has a much simpler shading/lighting model on the chars then Doom 3 uses. The procedural texturing is far more obvious (overt skin slickness) in Far Cry than it is in Doom 3.

Source tends to see these two both off by being able to blend bump maps (which is something that wasn't implemented in Doom3 - thus why there's so much black around) . Source's bump maps tend to be more "realistic" on the whole, avoiding generic surface deformation (as seen in Tribes : V) for much more complex belnded bump mapped procedural textures.

But Intel is right, the Doom 3 is engine is forward looking. By the same time next year we'll see more examples (maybe even in retail form) of Vehicles and Landscapes with the Doom 3 engine. Then there comes Quake 4 not long after.

That said Intel is only really right, right now. The fact is that we're heading into an age of stiff competition. Doom 3 won't be the most powerful engine soon. This is the age of competition in 3D.

I reckon by the years end next there will be at least one new 3D engine to hit the market. Maybe even two. More to the point what we're seeing now as revolutionary will be merely evolutionary soon.

[Subtestube]

Originally Posted by mezkal

That said Intel is only really right, right now. The fact is that we're heading into an age of stiff competition. Doom 3 won't be the most powerful engine soon. This is the age of competition in 3D.

I reckon by the years end next there will be at least one new 3D engine to hit the market. Maybe even two. More to the point what we're seeing now as revolutionary will be merely evolutionary soon.

I sort of agree. I think you're absolutely correct that there will be another good 3d engine or two in the next short while. What I disagree with is that they'll be in any way superior to the D3 engine. I generally agree with the idea of revolutionary->evolutionary perception of features. I have a suspicion that engines from here until, perhaps a year away are going to end up being roughly equivalent in terms of features (on the proviso that anyone else actually moves in and implements true unified lighting), with the differences being primarily in efficiency and the methods of shader optimisation. Still, this is all speculation.

My basic contention is that we're at the beginning of another Q3 phase, whereby we're going to get a few very powerful almost feature equivalent engines that will end up being heavily modified and having been really exploited to their limits by the next 'engine refresh' (which I would contend will occur with the emergance of Unreal 3, and possibly some other dramatically powerful engines, like TESIV:Oblivion's one). Why do I think this? Because my basic opinion is that in terms of feature completeness, we're really rapidly approaching the limits of the hardware that's going to be around for the next wee while. I'm not talking about new hardware, I'm talking about the dating hardware that's going to be sold to in much of the video game market over the next couple of years.

Meh, as I say, this is all my opinionated speculation, and lacks any real grounding.