E3 Q&A: id Nixes Tech 5 Engine licensing

[Danalys]

that texture would wrap around surfaces so it'd be less that 1 square kilometer of actual game space.

 

[tabs]

I'm still not clear on how they've apparently addressed the stretching issue for steep slopes. I know Crytek are using voxels to deform steep terrain, but that doesn't seem to fit in with the megatexture concept as I understand it.

IIRC QuakeWars has this problem (which may have had a fix plastered on it afterwards, such as an additional texture for troublesome areas - I don't know), but supposedly it's been fixed in more recent upgrades to the megatexture system.

 

[ebola]

I'm still not clear on how they've apparently addressed the stretching issue for steep slopes.

might a little bit of UV relaxation allow a limited amount of slope handling with a conventional map-do they do this? Although thats not a general solution.


I suppose this whole thing seems reminiscent of the surface-caching lightmapping in the original s/w quake engine - vs subsequent hardware lightmap blending..
i.e. (surface caching) - versus - ( blended textures + more vertices to distribute detail + mip-map texture streamer..)
I suppose lots of normal map blends is where the 'surface caching' would win.

Shame he dislikes the PS3 ....- advanced texture-decompression seems like exactly the sort of thing SPU's should be strongest at, compared to CPU+GPU on other machines (what with video decompression being on their original list of intended uses..)

....Wheras if I was to suggest replacing texture blending with surface caching on the xbox 360 I'm sure I'd get some funny looks.
I think you could use this to good effect for surrounding scenery, but in a conventional driving game you'd probably want plain old (micro)textures for the fast moving tarmac & barriers.

 

[Cyan]

Carmack unveils its eagerly anticipated next game, called "Rage" in which players fight an oppressive government in a post apocalyptic world. iD also announced that they hired a 2nd dev team of 20 to 30 people.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=27348

QuakeCon 07 Conference has finished and seems to me that it was pretty intense. Very interesting stuff and conclusions:

6:59: Question about Carmack's involvement in OpenGL. Carmack believes one of his big successes in the industry was getting Apple to adopt OpenGL and keeping it relevant to hardware vendors. However, he believes that DirectX 9 is actually currently a better platform than OpenGL. id still uses OpenGL on PC, "partly due to inertia" and partly due to Mac development.

6:56: Vista and DirectX 10. There is no DX10-only feature driving Rage, due to multiplatform development. "But the honest truth is that there's nothing [in DX10] that I'm dying to get my hands on." Carmack believes we're not even close to maxing out DX9.

6:51: Multicore architecture is inevitable but not desirable. "There are no benefits" to multicore architecture; much better to have a theoretical incredibly powerful single processor. However, that is not practical unfortunately. With 8 processors or less, you will do course grain parallelization and assign different processors to different tasks--but beyond that number, you have to start looking at it more like one big sea of processors, which requires a totally different attitude to programming. Introduces difficulties for game development. However, game development will "rocket past" more traditional research into parallel processing.

6:44: We are "within small integral values of all that matters" when it comes to graphical presentation issues. Talking about doing things like true genuine motion blur sampled at 4x 60fps, rather than current fake motion blur. He did some tests himself, but found that it may not be all that perceptible. 30fps to 60fps is a big difference, but 60fps to 120fps isn't really. "It's amazing how many pixels we're rendering even at 720p that really don't matter."

6:34: Agnostic on HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray, not a big videophile. Using Blu-ray because it's in PS3--he thinks Blu-ray still costs more than two DVDs, but he's not sure. Probably not going to do an HD-DVD distribution for Rage because it's just an extra cost when already doing Blu-ray. Theoretically if it turns out not to be any more expensive to do a PC HD-DVD distribution, they might do it, but otherwise they'll just do Blu-ray and DVD.

6:32: Rage will have co-op.

6:31: Question about Havok and its potential to complicate open sourcing engines down the road. Carmack says Raven licensed Havok for Quake 4 rather than use internal physics engine. He didn't think that was a good idea and still doesn't. They won't be doing that with id Tech 5.

6:26: Early on looked like Steam was "just another middleman," but there are definite positives to digital distribution. Believes next generation of consoles may not have optical media. id was looking into its own distribution channels but decided it wants to stay a development company and not a publisher. Back when Wolfenstein and Doom were coming out, Carmack notes they decided not to go the publisher route even though it would have been available at the time.

6:16: Question about why Carmack's PS3 complaint is about texture memory whereas questioner thought difficulty with system was processor architecture. Carmack says that currently, texture memory is the company's biggest problem. Carmack has said Microsoft's triple-core processor is a better decision than PS3's Cure architecture--and while some people probably like the Core architecture, it's still Carmack's opinion that the symmetric Xbox 360 architecture is a "much, much better design."

6:06: "Eventually, id Tech 5 is going to be open-source also." "The policy is that we're not going to integrate stuff that makes it impossible for us to do an open-source release." All id engines eventually become open source. It's more of a personal principle than a business decision. "As a personal conviction, it's still pretty important to me, and I'm standing by that."

5:24: "None of my core opinions have really changed about [the PS3]," and 360 and PS3 are more similar than any two gaming platforms ever, "but if you have a problem moving [a game] over, it's probably going to be because of the PS3." However id has hired one of the best PS3 programmers do ensure that all of id's stuff is top-notch on PS3--PS3 engine will be just as good or potentially better in some ways, but it will have required much more effort than the other platforms. Quake Wars (which uses id Tech 4) on PS3 lagging way behind. Would like to just release 360 game first, but Sony wouldn't really get behind that. However, id Tech 5 will be ready for all platforms. "One of the things that will be really unfortunate" about multiplatform and 60fps target is less upward mobility. Most id titles have been targeted for 30fps on most systems, with expectation that higher-end machines will do more. "Obviously, it's worked well for us over the years." However with multiplatform focus, it changes things because intending to run at 60fps on Xbox 360 and PS3, "which are essentially previous generation PC hardware," adds challenge.

5:10: Talking about game in development prior to Rage, and about 30fps versus 60fps. id has made decision to target 60fps with its engine and games. Thus, licensees can shoot for 30fps if they like, and do more visual stuff, or stick with the 60fps goal. "At 30fps with modern graphics hardware, you feel you can do almost anything." "But at 60 hertz...you're left with a lot less decision freedoms, and it's kind of nice." Easier to just say "No you can't do that with 60 hertz."

Totally genius. I agree with him. GT5 and Forza 2 have amazing graphics, imo, since they're locked at 60 fps. 30 fps are ok for me in Arcade racers but sim racers should run at 60 fps.

Full info here:

http://www.shacknews.com/docs/press/20070803_quakecon_carmack.x

 

[sevanig]

"PlayStation 3 edition of Rage will arrive on one Blu-ray disc, whereas the other three versions--PC, Mac, Xbox 360--will come on two DVDs with a potential Blu-ray distribution for PC and Mac."

2 dvd's for the 360...

 

[babcat]

I'm a little confused by the megatexturing concept. I understand that one massive texture is being used instead of multiple smaller ones. However, I have a couple questions.

1) Does this method of texturing actually save available RAM?

2) If so, how does it save RAM?

 

[Gabrobot]

I'm a little confused by the megatexturing concept. I understand that one massive texture is being used instead of multiple smaller ones. However, I have a couple questions.

1) Does this method of texturing actually save available RAM?

2) If so, how does it save RAM?

Well, it's not really intuitive to describe it as being about one huge texture...Quake Wars only uses one texture (applied to the terrain), but id Tech 5 uses many different textures. The idea isn't so much one huge texture (although that has many benefits for terrain), but rather huge textures in general. It frees the artists up to do whatever they want.

To describe it in basic terms it works by streaming only what texture data is needed (like uber mip-mapping)...this has the double effect of reducing the amount of ram needed, and also allowing for enormous textures.