All-new technology

[Zack]

All the suggestions on this board that i've seen (well, all of them, period =P) were about the gameplay of the new Doom...but nothing had to do with the engine! Carmack announced that the game would use all-new, possibly and most-likely revolutional technology, just like the original Doom did back in '93. And an all new engine can definately help out with the gameplay. After all...before Doom, what kind of Hellish theme would have all 90-degree corners? :)

Everybody has been arguing with each other about whether cutscenes or scripted sequences should be used. Why not a combination of both? In some places, where a cutscene would normally be used, if it's still possible to use the engine for that sequence, then it should be scripted. However, in the original Doom's intermissional storyline updates could never have been scripted! In the places that a cinematic could not be handled by the engine, such as your first entrance into Hell, and anything with a ton of special effects, it is better off being a video. That first Q3:A movie required effects that the engine could not do, so it was made into an AVI.

Doom's hellish theme was great. The artists portrayed an awesome vision of Hell, the blood and guts and the entire place made up of brains and intestines.
Walls don't need to be solid. This is all new technology, and you can wish for anything ...don't just try to make Doom like Quake 2! That large wall over there, the one made of a huge intestine? Let's see it in true 3D, parts sticking out and branching into the ground. And it can squirm, too. Like a thousand worms. In half-life, a big chunk of ceiling collapses in front of you. In new Doom, guts and gore splatter from a severed rectum protruding from the ceiling. (Think of Todd's picture in Q2's BOSS2 easter egg...yeah, the one where he barfs up a gut when you step on the button =P)

The Quake 1 engine's 'water-blur' was new stuff and looked pretty neat. In different environments, such as hot, steamy areas (Ralph's volcano area as described in the Monsters post) the screen should wave or blur as the heat bends the light, just like in real life. When you get hurt, the screen dare not turn red, but rather blur slightly as you tear in pain, or darken the top and bottom sides as you wince.

Completely dynamic levels are a key to making the player drool in awe. I might have mentioned this in another post, but the ending of Cyberia 2 (which was a game based on full-motion video) has a huge portion of the maps, most of the second CD in fact, completely destroyed, engulfed in flames from the inside out as it blows up. Another good example is Doom 1, E3M9, Inferno's secret level. As soon as you attempt to exit what you thought was E3M1 all over again, everything changes. The exit room opens up to a huge arena with a Cyberdemon, and the warrens are introduced. id's games' maps were almost never straight-forward, as you were always walking back and forth, and getting well used to the levels. The find key, go back and open the door portion of FPS is always great, and much better than Half-Life (which was still a pretty good game, in fact the only one I consider up there with id's). So once you get used to and recognize a place, seeing it destroyed leaves one with a true sense of finality...like the death of a loved one (but of course, not as strong a sense). Watching a level that you know well, like MAP01 in Doom2 because of it's Deathmatch replayability, get destroyed room by room, the screen shaking and the entire place crumbling, and then combusting, is just...wow :)

--Zack

Irrelevant fact: Quake 1 will be four years old in one week from today!

[Doom_Dude]

You got some cool ideas there but i really don't wanna see no severed rectums anywhere in any game . Hell i see enough s#*t in real life , let alone in games . If they go to that extreme , maybe the new game should ship with a odour releasing patch that sticks to your monitor . That way we can all enjoy the aroma of burnt flesh and pukin rectums . Just jokin' , dude ( about the patch ) . No rectums , id dudes , please !

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The only good Vile is a dead Vile .

[This message has been edited by Doom_Dude (edited 06-15-2000).]

[Zack]

LOL...I was just thinking maybe people like to be as grossed out as they are scared :)

--Zack

[twisted]

I think anyone can be grossed out easier than being scared. I applaud any game company that can make me jump in my chair when playing a game. The only 2 games that have really put me on edge were Quake I and Half-Life. Both of these games didn't gross you out too much but managed to create suspense in the game.

-twisted

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Patrick 'twisted' Hardy
News Updates & Forums Moderator
http://www.newdoom.com

[Doom_Dude]

I really think it's a better idea to have some skittering , creepin' , strange noise makin' , come outta nowhere monster , that scares the crap outta ya than having a game go to the gory extreme for the sake of tryin ta make it scarier . I don't find guts all that scary nor do i find that to be the best way to potray hell . Hell , i like to see the blood fly like all you dudes , when it comes to blastin' some demon . I really don't need to see its brain tissue oozin' across the floor . Maybe i'm wrong , but i figure hell should look like a blazin inferno , where the light burns your retinas it's that bright and relentless . A place where the souls of the damned creep about as dark shadows that move in twisted agony . Where huge spires of black basalt , rise up from the blasted , red sand , to angily touch the ever burnin' sky . Smoke billows from jagged cracks in the dry earth where dark magma bubbles like boiling tar . Thousands of scorched bones lay scattered across the landscape . Devilish screams reverberate amongst the jiant boulders as demons fight amongst themselves for domination . Huge , multi-legged , scaled centipedes crawl amongst the rubble of some ancient ruins and a vile sharpens its talons on a shale like rock as it prepares for battle .

Then of course you can take the scenic route . Thats a part of my idea of what hell should look like . It may not be everyones favorite idea but i like it .

Besides who said that the new game has to take place in hell ? Not all of the Doom episodes were in hell . Just because all these monsters come from hell , doesn't mean squat . Hell , you could be someplace in northern Russia , when KABOOOM ! A bunch of hellish minions comes through a hell portal or whatever .

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The only good Vile is a dead Vile .

[JoeCosman]

indeed, John Carmack is always on the 'bleeding' edge of technology. with the advent of new 3d routines, graphics cards, programming APIs and modeling packages, the future seems bright for any developer or hobbyist designing games.

several coworkers and I have come to a conclusion that there are certain parts to video games that go overlooked, but are very important and contribute greatly to the 'suspension of disbelief' we see lacking in most games.

anything to do with generating the visual aspect of a 3d shooter has been covered. we have everything we need to get slimy, droopy gooey, foggy effects and textures. to honestly say, we have all been 'prettied' out. what seems to be missing(and someone correct me if I am wrong) is accurate and entertaining animation.

for the most part of the new gaming development era, and especially in the 3d shooter genre, we have been using pre-animated sequences linked together to show character interaction. this would be known as scripting.
player runs left(play runcycle), then strafes(switch to strafe cycle) then dies(play death sequence).

each of these are separate animations, and for the most part, programmers have been finding better ways to transition one to the other without annoying 'popping' artifacts.

something as simple as a walk cycle can be hard to make look realistic in a game.
getting the feet to stay stuck to the floor is a real nightmare, as you have to program the speed of the character moving in the game to match the walking animation you just made.

with the advent of newer technologies from 3d software companies, such problems can be alleviated by allowing a character to be animated procedurally. the computer puts down a 'target' and moves that around in 3d space, you bind your characters bones and mesh to these targets.

for example, you have just made a cyberdemon model, it has bones inside it that cause the 3d surface to animate. an animation file tells these bones to rotate, translate and scale, making your cyberdemon move.

instead of making a ton of animation sequences, you instead opt for a procedural method, which is less bandwith intensive when it stores animation(6 targets for the extremities as opposed to 15 bones for the entire model).

here is an example of how I can do this on a 3d character in Animation:Master by Hash inc(www.hash.com)

after my bone system is set up(meaning the mesh is attached to the bones)I can apply what is called a constraint, which tells a bone how to behave. I add an 'aim at' constraint to point my thigh bone at my foot target. I can add a 'hinge' constraint that tells the Calve bone to bend the thigh when the foot target moves up.

those of you building Quake3 characters are familiar with this already, because you can add 'tags'(targets) to models that tell the computer to 'put the weapon model here'.

once I do this, I can animate just the feet and hips instead of animating the hips, thigh, calf, ankle, foot and toe bones for my walk cycle. I have just cut my animation duties by a factor of 3(and offloaded the rest to the programmers on the third floor. ahh, the tradeoffs we must make...)

so a simple walk cycle for my Cyberdemon would consist of animating three bones: a left foot, a right foot, and a hip. the rest is all taken care of by the computer program. I could even tell the computer to move these targets itself, which would allow the programmers to apply dynamics and behavioural attributes to this character(as well as animate it, too.) so if I hit the cyberdemon from the side with a rocket, he would sway and have to regain his balance.

I can also program a walk cycle that lifted the left foot target and placed it down on a surface, then lifted the right foot target and set them down on a surface, going in a specified direction.

by using the latter method, when my foot targets encounter a set of stairs while walking, each foot will remain _planted_ on the stairs, instead of skidding, sliding and clipping through the stairs.(one disadvantage to premade animations. you have to make a 'walk up stair' animation if you dont want that to happen, which increases your animation duties.)

if your cyberdemon walks down a slope, the feet stay _planted_ on the slope instead of hovering in mid air while the body slides down the hill(hooray for the pre-animated sequences, right? :-)).

this type of procedural animation has a host of advantages to it. the characters stay rooted on the ground when they walk, so no more sliding feet. the filesize of animations are smaller(because the task of moving and rotating other bones is handed to the computer and you only have to keyframe 6 bones). You can attach objects to the bone targets, and attach bone targets to an object(similar to Quake3 tags). imagine pulling a shotgun away from a corpse's hand and watching the arms move with the gun, as if the corpse was actually gripping it.)

smaller filesizes mean you can add more animation to the character. instead of having 2 death sequences, you could have 20 or 30. or if you opt for programming it, you can quantize the entire set of animations into behavioural patterns, giving your character style and interaction with the environment.

putting the computer on the task of animating also means you can have more realistic falls and death animations. if,in a death animation a character dies near a fence, the computer puts the targets close to the fence on the fence, and places the others on the ground, which would make the character 'slump' over the fence.

if each of the targets were assigned a weight on a procedural death animation, falling bodies can hit the ground and bounce with different body parts moving in different directions. they can then settle on the surface(which might include other corpses on top of it.) for example: a corpse falling and hitting the base of the stairs. the torso and hands would rest on the stair steps instead of clipping through, while the legs stayed level on the ground.

explosions would have more punch if your victims actually hit and bounced off of walls and other objects realistically, instead of going into a predefined 'death' animation or(as id likes to do it) disintegrating into a rain of gibs.
the latter is satisfying, but not very realistic.

of course, collision and dynamics dont have to be applied to Just the characters in a game, they can be applied to the environment as well. blasting a wall apart, because it is made of bricks, can allow you to build a fort using the bricks that made the wall. swing along vines, throw rocks, etc. this can have alot of exciting opportunities in Network game play, as you have the ability to alter your environment as you play.

Bob jumps into a CTF game only to find that the base walls have been rearranged into a maze to keep the Blue team from reaching the flag easily

bob runs to the blue team's base to find that a hole has been blasted in the wall and his teammates are running out with the blue flag.

my reply is getting waay to long right now, so I will wrap it up.

movement is what we use to distinguish what is happening around us. the way things can move help determine what it is and what it could do. by making things move more like their "real world" counterparts, we can continue to enforce the 'willing suspension of disbelief' in our video games.

[JoeCosman]

damn, I just keep typing them longer, dont I?

:-)

[Doom_Dude]

Well that sure was a good read ! I think you are right . It seems that game developers nowadays are throwing more eye~candy into their creations than they should . You describe animations that would play out differently , givin' a game a possible realism touch that isn't seen ---- yet . I like your " action = reaction " ideas , where the reaction = a possible 20 or more animations of said reaction . There must be other areas that have been only barely touched upon , by game developers . Give us more ambience i say .

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The only good Vile is a dead Vile .

[McBaine]

Wow Joe , buddy you know what your talkin about. my knowlege of technical data isn't quite developed as yours so all i will say is that i hope this new game is mindblowing.

[CRETE]

Joe let me just say that I am an idiot.
When I see you long messages, my heart drops. Immediately I think of all the words that I will not understand in the document and I contemplate suicide. I don't want to go back to that time in my life so I skip over long replies. If there is anybody else out there like me, now is your cahnce to voice your opinion against long windedness. If there is not anyone else out there like me, shun me as you please.

-Viva La Resistance

[Doom_Dude]

Well i liked that thing that Joe wrote and i can't say that he was long~winded . That was just a little insight into a very cool programmin' idea , that was meant to enlighten us gamers into the possibilities of future game design . Thanks Joe .

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The only good Vile is a dead Vile .

[CRETE]

I'm not saying it's a bad idea cuz I aint read it.
Alls I'm saying is that big posts turn me off. Maybe you could segment that actio a little? I'm not trying to make you but this is just what is going on in my head.

-Viva La Resistance

[JoeCosman]

I will try to keep my posts shorter this time. as well as make them more entertaining.
I do enjoy writing the little Story blurbs.
:-)

[CRETE]

And I enjoy reading them...I think.
You seem like a very agreeable person, Joe. I am interested in your methods and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

-Viva La Resistance

[Zack]

Sometimes, with the really long posts, I get three quarters of the way through, and then just decide, the heck with it, and just quickly skim through the rest.

I agree with Crete...he IS an idiot :)
just kidding...

--Zack

[King_Ralph]

I have never made a long post and I have never read a long post.
Me is lazy.

[Zack]

Heh...well then, does JoeCosman even exist to you, Ralph? :)

--Zack

[CRETE]

Ignorance is Bliss.
Who said that? I don't know. Why? Cuz I'm ignorant. If that's not a paradox than... What's a para-
*sound of CRETE's brain exploding*

-My Brain Matter Be Upon You

[Zack]

*licks brain matter off his face*

mmm...not bad. Has nice texture...

[CRETE]

Dude!
Stop lickin my face! C'mon, man! I feel dirty now. AAAAAHHH! Must wash off stench of failure!

-My Pow...God! It's Freakin gross, man!