Thursday, October 23, 2003

DOOM3 Interview -- 3:29 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Computer and Video Games posted an interview with several id staffers on DOOM3. Included is an extended Q&A with the man himself, John Carmack. Here's a snip on the per-polygon hit detection.

"This feature had a lot more an impact than we were expecting," admits id CEO Todd Hollenshead. "We've had per poly detection in single-player for a year, but we never realised the full impact of it, of the player no longer being, effectively, a big rectangular cube. A bullet can now go under someone's arm or between their legs, or just whiz by their head. It definitely puts a premium on aiming. The first thing we realised was like: 'Damn, people are hard to kill in Doom 3 multiplayer. Why is that?' And we looked at the damage values, the hitpoints, the armour, but eventually we realised - we're just missing. We're lousy shots."

Thanks Blue's News.

Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Don’t Call Gator "Spyware" -- 8:17 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gator has sued a website for libel because they referred to the Gator software as "spyware." Seems to me it's a classic case of if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . . it's a duck. So remember: never associate Gator with spyware. That would be very unfortunate if anyone would ever refer to Gator as spyware. If you are looking for an adjective to describe Gator, make sure it isn't spyware. That is, of course, unless you want a particularly rabid species of lawyer sicced on you. Thanks Slashdot.

J.t.Qbe comments: I wonder if they'd object if you called Gator other things, like hateful, garbage, or a curse from Satan himself. Probably should be careful about that.

A.T. Hun comments: Nope, that wouldn't be charitable at all.

DOOM3 60fps Cap -- 5:49 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

IGN found out from id's John Carmack that DOOM3's framerate will be capped at 60fps. Here's Carmack's rationale:

The game tic simulation, including player movement, runs at 60hz, so if it rendered any faster, it would just be rendering identical frames. A fixed tic rate removes issues like Quake 3 had, where some jumps could only be made at certain framerates. In Doom, the same player inputs will produce the same motions, no matter what the framerate is.

I wonder if there will be a workaround for benchmarking purposes. Of course, I think it will be awhile before I have a box that can hit 60fps consistently in DOOM3. Thanks Blue's News.

Bink Player for Linux -- 9:45 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

RAD has released a beta version of a Bink player for Linux. You can snag it from their downloads page. I tried it with the Neverwinter Nights/Shadows of Undrentide movies and it seems to work nicely. Thanks Linux Games.

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