<!–#set var="article_header" value="Quakecon 2002 – Day 2
The Day Of Doom III” –>
Quake 2002 – Day 2 – The Day Of Doom III
Doom III is perhaps the most anticipated next generation title to be released. Some may question the wisdom of id Software’s commitment to release what can only be described as the first real chance to take gaming development to the next level. This will be the engine that powers many of the new games that players have been waiting for, and these new games will finally be able to really push the hardware to the limits.
John Carmack has written and designed the engine technology that powers these games. John Carmack is often described as one of the best game engine designers that has ever been involved in the business. He is well respected in the industry and his .plan file is almost required reading. He continues to support the open source movement and insists that his code be released to ignite continued developments within the gaming development community. Today he delivered the keynote address at Quakecon 2002, but before we talk about some of the things he discussed, we’ll first mention the presentation given by id Software. The company’s entire Doom III team gave us a preview of what we can expect to see in Doom III. In addition, they also spent a great deal of time talking to us about the technology behind what we saw in the Doom III Theater demo.
We also were able to spend some time talking with Tim Willits, the Doom III project manager. Although, due to a prior commitment, he was only able to spend a very short time with us today answering our many questions, he promised to try to make time tomorrow to answer additional questions.
If you have never been to Quakecon, and you are a developer or someone who just has a question and wants the chance to talk to the developers behind the software, normally access to these folks isn’t a problem. You can find the id developers all over the Quakecon event, and normally it is just as simple as walking up to them and starting a conversation. This unique flavor isn’t lost on the attendees at Quakecon. At times things seem hurried or even a little unorganized, and the fact is that Quakecon has outgrown it’s current location. When you get more people than you expect at this kind of event, you are bound to have problems. Attendance figures for Quakecon 2002 have not yet been released, but current estimates put the number at over 3800, perhaps closer to 4000.
Interview With Tim Willits Of id Software
THG – What are your current responsibilities at id Software?
TW – Right now I am currently the Lead Designer / Program Manager for Doom III.
THG – What platform does Doom III target?
TW – Doom III is targeted mainly at the GeForce 3 series cards and the Radeon 8500 cards. Other cards will be able to run the software, but of course the graphics will be scaled down from those cards on the target platform.
THG – When looking at Doom III, is the game more video card or CPU dependent for the best experience?
TW – Due to the complex nature of the graphics fidelity that we are trying to present in Doom III, the game is more video card dependent than CPU dependent.
THG – Does Doom III have a specific build to exploit the features of both the AMD and Intel CPUs?
TW – No, we have one build, but it does take advantage of the best features of each CPU.
THG – What can you tell us about multiplayer in Doom III?
TW – Doom III will have multiplayer, but we are not going to break any new ground in the multiplayer support within Doom III. For Doom III our focus is on the story and the single player version of the game.
THG – Once you check out Doom III in the Doom III Theater, it is apparent that sound now plays a much bigger role in the game. What can you tell us about it?
TW – Doom III features full 5.1 sound support and new sound editing tools for developers. Doom III includes full Dolby Digital support and brings a new true life sound experience to the table.
THG – The sound is incredible! What kind of sound card are you using in the demo system?
TW – We are using the Philips Acoustic Edge in our demo systems at the moment.
THG – There continues to be a lot of talk about the amount of textures transferred between the video card and memory. What kind of sizes are we talking about?
TW – 80MB textures are not uncommon for Doom III.
THG – How long has the Doom III engine been in development?
TW – John started working on what is now called the Doom III engine as soon as Quake II engine was complete. The Doom III engine is pretty much feature complete.
THG – So, what is still left to do before release?
TW – A lot of course, but optimizing the game and building the multiplayer are some of the first things that come to mind.
Doom III Presentation – No Pictures Or Recording Allowed
Another line to wait in to get into the Doom III presentation. Lines are becoming more common at Quakecon.
The first thing about the Doom III presentation was the announcement that no pictures or recording would be allowed. Of course, this makes the coverage of the Doom III presentation much more difficult. I can personally understand that id did this presentation for the fans here, but it would have been nice to have additional info that we could have shown you.
The screen shots that are included were supplied by id to members of the press. From what I can tell they are pretty much the same screen shots that were shown at E3. So we were unable to break any new ground here.
I was able to snap a quick picture of all of the id Software development team sitting on the stage ready to make the Doom III presentation. I took this picture before they told me that I was not allow to take any pictures, but since there was nothing happening yet, I don’t think it will be a problem to at least show you were they were sitting.
Doom Theater
First off, it is important to tell you that the Doom III Theater received five awards for its presentation at E3. It is the best way that I have seen to experience the full effect and thunder of Doom III. Without being able to see the demo in the Doom III theater, it is difficult to describe what you are seeing, and much of this is absolutely due to the fact that it is unlike any gaming experience that you have ever seen before.
Here is the picture of the outside of the Doom III theater from E3. It still was better than every picture that I took of it at Quakecon.
Here is a picture of the inside.
Doom III Features
In general, some of the features of Doom III are dynamic shadows, per polygon hit detection, multi dynamic light source, and a new physics engine. The new physics engine can be applied not just to the characters in the game, but to the objects in the game as well. So, for example, you could kick a box on the floor into the air and you get the realistic effect of the box falling to the ground. This physics engine was pretty impressive and something that adds a new dimension to Doom III.
In the one player mode, the Doom III game is very mission and story driven. You will be able not only to activate computer consoles in the game, but, for the first time, to interact with them with HTML-style screens on the computer that will allow you to click on them.
Each custom model starts life as a sketch. This sketch is moved into Lightwave and can be as rich as 800,000 polygons. Once this is completed, a low polygon count is wrapped around the model and the Doom III engine is able to render bump it. Detail is then transferred in from the high quality image model. Painting the model then takes place and the internal control skeleton is built. Doom III has a complete full skeleton animation system.
Screen shot from Doom III.
The Doom III Toolkit
During Doom III’s development, we used a post-to-post mode of traditional animation method. We did the key frames and let the computer compose the rest. Our target continues to be 24 FPS, which is the standard for film.
Unique to Doom III is the fact that all of the development tools are built into the game itself. This gives Doom III many advantages over other traditional methods of development. Of course, when the game is running, these development tools are not running. It is also important to note that because of this you are able to develop levels for Doom III right out of the box.
Doom III offers a real time preview tool, so when building levels, for example, they can be rendered and previewed in real time. Doom III also offers shader animation and texture lighting tools as well. With Doom III, it is possible to alter and change the light source.
Another screen shot from Doom III.
Doom III also offers a very easy to use scripting language that is powerful enough for the pro, but easy enough for the beginner. This scripting language compiles scripts as it loads the levels, so you are able to get the warnings right away. In addition, Doom III will feature a new sound system, new GUI system, and, of course, a new particle system.
The new Doom III sound system features a new sound tool, which allows you to load and select sounds from a sound canvas and drop them right into the level. Once this is done, it is possible to adjust the volume of the sound. The new sound system is very professional and targeted more towards the pro, but has an easy to use interface that is great for the beginner. Adding sounds and controlling the volume of the sounds is very easy to use and very fast. The new sound engine and tools feature Dolby Digital 5.1 sound technology; as the image quality has evolved, so too has the sound fidelity of Doom III.
John Carmack Keynote Address – Quakecon 2002
John Carmack chose not to grant any interviews at Quakecon 2002 from what we were told. With all of his effort going into wrapping up Doom III, this is understandable. Presented below are some comments from his keynote address at Quakecon 2002, and the Q-and-A session that followed his keynote address.
John Carmack gave his Quakecon 2002 keynote address to fans that overflowed the room where the talk was being held. It was a great talk and very informative. I wish all keynote talks had a question and answer session that was as good as this one.
All of the pieces are in place for Doom III, I am now finally starting to see things pay off. The core project development was started as soon as Quake III was wrapped up. We are already working with 3rd parties on the engine and the technology, so you can expect new titles to be introduced using the Doom III technology soon.
The question is, where do we go from here? The next logical step is to develop an engine that is designed exclusively around the technology that you will find in the new technology video cards such as the ATI Radeon 9700 and the Nvidia NV30, which has not been released yet. The sad part about this, of course, is that we might miss an intermediate step, but I think that is what is going to happen.
64 bit color is going to be important on any move forward. A monitor can only display 32 bits of color, but perhaps the good reason to move toward 64 bit color is that the human eye can see more. Monitors are all different, and you don’t get a consistent look on all monitors. I have built some experiments on trying to find a software based solution to calibrate monitors, but as of yet I have not found anything that is workable.
Game development is about approximating what we want to do and striking a balance till the new technology comes along that will allow us to do it. Doom III has a flexible lighting system, without a good lighting system it makes the textures rough. The next evolution in the graphics development will be tone mapping and I think that the industry is already starting to move in that direction. The cleverness comes in the optimizations of the game, not in clever hacks.
Doom III will feature six custom back ends to take advantage of the specific features of the video cards. Currently this will only apply to cards from ATI, NVidia, and 3D Labs. Maybe at some point we might do something with Matrox and SIS cards, but for the moment that has not been determined. The Matrox and SIS cards will be able to run the game, but because of the lack of a custom back end, we will not be able to take advantage of the special specific feature of these cards.
Most older video cards will be supported via a fall back path, but of course you are going to lose some of the graphics fidelity. What is really needed is an API that is the same on all of the cards that just allows the hardware to do all of this and this is something that I have been talking about for a long time now.
I still think that there is a 100X improvement possible in video card technology over the next several years. The time is coming to pass where we will sell movie-quality games with real time rendering. The problem of course will be the real world vs. toys debate on the technology. Small companies will perhaps deliver card technology that will deliver quality that was previously only available by using high end render farms.
I believe that there is really no reason that we can’t do Pixar quality rendering on the new breed of video card accelerators, such as the ATI Radeon 9700 and the NV30, once it is released. All of the Doom III game demos that you saw in the Doom theater were done on the ATI Radeon 9700.
The time is coming where video games and movies are merging. The point is about the game and the designer building the game. I look forward to see what can really be done with the technology. Virtual memory technology for video card memory is going to be the next necessary step.
The Doom III engine will be the engine technology for the next five years once it is released. Once Doom III is completed, I will start working on the next technology and there is a good chance that you will be able to use the same developed content on the next generation engine technology beyond Doom III.
John Carmack – Questions and Answers From Quakecon Keynote
Q – What about hardware based ray tracing?
A – Well, it might be right for some specific markets, but it isn’t something for the gamer market.
Q – Any possibility of a console version of Doom III?
A – We are committed to doing an X-Box version. The graphics fidelity on the X-Box version will be the same as the PC version.
Q – Will there be a Linux version of Doom III?
A – Yes! It will be a safe bet that you will be able to get Doom III for Linux with at least Nvidia video card support. I will consider helping any other credible open source driver effort for other video card support under Linux, but right now I can’t say that I see anything beyond Nvidia support at the moment. ATI is going to release a Linux driver for the Radeon 9700, but I don’t have any details on it yet or if it will work correctly with Doom III on Linux.
Q – What weapons will we have in Doom III?
A – All of the regular weapons in Doom should be updated and available in Doom III.
Q – What kind of play length are you looking at for Doom III?
A – Well, it will not be real long and if you are an experienced gamer, you might be able to beat it in a weekend, however the game will feature a lot richer content so that alone will add to the playability.
Q – Do you really need 5.1 sound in Doom III?
A – It really isn’t that expensive to do 5.1 sound. I would like to see the standard adoption of 5.1 sound across the board.
Q – Doom III when?
A – We don’t want to be one of the companies who continues to show the product year after year at E3 and never ship it.
Q – What about the new 3D Labs video cards?
A – From what I have seen so far, the new 3D Labs cards are not going to be competitive with the highest end video cards. The card has good drivers, however, and the virtual texture mapper is good, and I think other companies will adopt this. I don’t think that it will be a card that will be adopted by consumers.
Q – Will Doom III have multi-processor support?
A – Yes
Q – Will it have Multiplayer?
A – Yes, death match at least. We are concentrating on the single player version with the first release of the game. We will have an expansion pack at some point that will have a focus just on the multiplayer.
Return To Castle Wolfenstien Enemy Territory
Finally, apart from Doom III, Return To Castle Wolfenstien Enemy Territory is the new expansion pack for Return To Castle Wolfenstien. With it’s all new weapons and new missions, it plays to the strength of the original RTCW. We saw the very playable version of it and we really liked the new graphics and some of the new weapons as well.
Return To Castle Wolfenstien Enemy Territory is going to be popular once it is released. The demo was very playable, and feedback from some of the RTCW players was very good.
RTCWET is still undergoing development and is expected to ship sometime in 2003. Much attention is being paid the balance of both the game and the weapons. When we tried to pin down the developers on a better estimated ship date, all they would say is that it will ship when it is ready and not before. Impressive first look for what should be a new multiplayer classic once it is released. Keep you eye out for this one if you are a fan of RTCW.
Here is a screen shot from Return To Castle Wolfenstien Enemy Territory. We really liked the new tank and bridge/guard tower building elements that were added to the game. Watch out for the tank, as it was pretty cool, also.
