Carmack on the Megatexture

(breathKILL) #1

http://www.gamerwithin.com/?view=article&article=1319&cat=2

[i]One of the most respected and well-known game developers in the world, John Carmack hardly needs any introduction. Having mastered the skill of game programming, Carmack co-founded developer id Software, and has also worked on such classic series as Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D.

In this Question & Answer with Carmack, he discusses the new MegaTexture technology, which will be used in the upcoming Enemy Territory: Quake Wars for PC. Definitely a worthy read for any programming, designing or general development enthusiast, as well as any gamer slightly interested in the development process behind games.[/i]

:drink:

(Loffy) #2

Great read! Thanks for sharing!

(iwound) #3

Very interesting interview, especially how this technology has already moved on…

cant wait for a quad race down there…

(Hakuryu) #4

Hehe, I’m still a bit confused.

You would think that with the topic being the Mega Texture, that a question would have been posed about using it when making maps, but they only lightly touched on mods and talked about it MT in general. Maybe talking about that would give too much of the secret away I guess.

There sure are some real haters on that website; read the comments on the article - “bad looking trees”, “been done before with UT”, etc… some real HL fanboys there.

(Rhoades) #5

This quote kinda concerns me

he particular version that’s in the Splash Damage code is essentially already abandoned, where the newer version of the stuff that I’ve got is a super setup that allows us to use it for arbitrary textures and has a few other nice benefits.

(nUllSkillZ) #6

Sorry for hijacking.

Has anywhere been mentioned how big maps can be (in the meaning of representing real world measurements)?
For example 1.000 metres * 1.000 metres.

If I’ve calculated correct W:ET “Goldrush” is about 2.800 metres * 2.800 metres (7.168 units * 7.168 units, with 1 unit = 1 inch = 2.54 centimetres).

(GlobalWar) #7

How did you calculate that??

I only got a knife, pistol, some nades and a machinegun…nothing to take measures with…or make calculations :slight_smile:

(kamikazee) #8

On a more serious note:
-Get GTKRadiant. Open up goldrush.map (as most newbies have noticed that one in the past few years), and take a look a the sizes in the grid.

-Then a simple conversion from game units to metres gives the desired result.

(Wils) #9

A world unit is 1 inch, or 2.54cm in RTCW and Wolf ET. Radiant units == Game units, so you can open up the goldrush.map that comes with the Wolf ET tools to get sizes for everything, and convert from there.

We use the same scale in ETQW, incidentally.

[edit: damn you kamikazaee!]

(Rhoades) #10

carmack said the megatexture technology in etqw was abandoned. What does that mean?

(jaybird) #11

Indeed, that is frightening…

(carnage) #12

he mean the way the megatexture is implemted in the code has been abandoned and replaced with a more effective/efficient way of doint it. This is natural with game engines they they will find different ways to do more or less the same thing to try and gets better performace making the engine more useful to a wider variety of games

im pretty existed about having totaly unique textures though the entire map but like he says all this means more work for mod teams and individual mappers etc. It takes long enough to make a map but with all this it will become harder and harder to keep up to the standard set by the game. This kinda makes me a bit sad in a way since moder seem to be getting less behind more and more with the advances in technology but its progress and it has to be done

its quite amazing to think i started mapping for rtcw some years ago and now how much more advanced it has become in the space of a few years

(kamikazee) #13

You’re welcome.
Your post is more informative then mine, anyway. :wink:

True, but this might allso mean that things which would require a lot of work to look good might be easier to begin with. Starting a terrain from a modelling program for example will allow more details right from the start. (Of course, I wonder how the architectural things blend in)

Maybe it’s time to get to know Maya and pick up my old Bryce CD.

(SCDS_reyalP) #14

I don’t see why. All it means is that future id titles will use an even more flexible system. Having the underlying technology continue to undergo big changes while SD tried to develop ET:QW would most likely have been very disruptive (Imagine trying to develop an ET mod and having the engine API change every few day :moo:). So they branched it off when it was capable of meeting their needs.

(carnage) #15

with the time it takes for a new title to be developed in recent times and the speed of advancing technology if you kept updating and re implementing then you would probably never get the game out. after some new technology is developed it could still be a few years untill it makes its way into a game on the shelf

(jaybird) #16

reyalP - good point. Still, it would be nice to have the latest and best revision in this game, especially since I got the impression that the newer revision is so much greater than SD’s copy of it.

(Joe999) #17

i wonder if an advancement has been made with the new megagen editor and if you can already draw directly into the landscape instead of having to mess around with leaks n such. carmack says no word on that one. new technology is good, but if only a limited number of people can use it or have the will to use it (finding leaks/crashes/etc), it’s more or less short-lived.

(SCi-Fi) #18

I really agree that graphical world has moved on allot in the past 4 yrs, its amazing on the texture compressions
and the amount we now can have in detail. I loved making maps with all the dooms and quake 1, but 3 was
great fun and is looking forward to gettin my hands on the tools of this game :slight_smile:

I would now love it if creators would stop with the graphics and move onto other parts of the gameplay. The destructable side of graphics
where you can destroy say all the buildings and stuff, blow holes in the walls and so on or looked more on the
AI part as graphics arnt everything, gameplay is wanted aswell not just candy eyed stuff, graphics will
get boring.

(Hakuryu) #19

I agree.

I would love to see a level of artificial intelligence that is comparable to the leaps and bounds made in graphics.

Most AI still sucks horribly, with the notable exceptions of games that define AI actions via map objects (UT) and games that design map flow to make you think the AI is doing things (FEAR).

It would be sweet ifa game came out that had AI that could challenge AND grow with your skills, along with working as a team, without seeming like AI at all, but like real people.

(breathKILL) #20

Splash Damage is using an older version of the technology, but maybe they made progress with it themselfs?