Game Developer's Conference 2004: Carmack Addresses the Masses
by Derek Wilson on March 30, 2004 3:34 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Coding Reality
Aside from organizational and time-to-market issues, cutting edge game engine developers must obviously deal with the technology. Writing the software to actually produce the type of games that current hardware is capable of is definitely the most daunting task. Where are we now, and how are we going to get to real time "Lord of the Rings?"Apparently, John thinks that perfect audio can be done now. Carmack says that we've got the computing power to fully model aural environments and create honest-to-goodness real world sound in games. The focus of id Software's current game development efforts aren't in the aural area because the gap between reality and what we have on the physics and graphics side of the issue is much larger (and therefore more important to fix). One of the main themes of John's speech was that the most important things to do are the ones that have the largest impact on end users.
In fact, John mentioned that he had enough time to go back, clean up code, polish the interface and really put some effort in trying to make the game as close to perfect as he could get it. His verdict after the experience was that it generally sucked. Ultimately, the end user won't get as much value out of a really highly polished interface as he put into it. Of course, being a real "craftsman" with games (as John likened his experience) will satisfy a developer's desire for perfection, but Carmack's motivation, he found, is in delivering satisfaction to the gamer. He said over and over that the focus should be on value to the end user, which is a stance we take when looking at hardware as well.
Game physics are very CPU intensive, and John lamented the sheer volume of physics engines that do many things well but are easily breakable. Computing power and research are the main tools in improving this end of game development, and fluidity is the key to the future here. Mechanical and rag-doll physics are becoming ubiquitous, but things like having real wind, weather, and water affecting all the hair, grass, trees, clothes, and dust (or other particles) in the environment in a real way is a very big problem to solve.
The most difficult issue to tackle in game engine development as outlined by John Carmack is AI. John admits that their games feature very little character interaction because no matter how good a character looks, if it acts retarded or unnatural it will only serve to tear down the experience of the gamer.
On the plus side, academic research has become very relevant to games. In the past, academic research projects were way beyond what could be implemented in realtime. Now though, John sees academic and real world AI research merging in a gaming environment. Rather than requiring all kinds of sensors and inputs, a game world synthesizes all of its data so that core AI algorithms can more easily be tested.
Of course, the final problem with games is content and asset creation. Artists and designers slave over every model animation and texture that goes into a game, and just about every game engine requires that these artists and designers be familiar with its specific tools and idiosyncrasies. This means that artist have less mobility in the market place (and even within a company between projects), and more time has to be spent training people to use very specific tools that may end up becoming outdated when the next engine is released. Unlike the movie industry who can hire hundreds of carpenters to build sets immediately, the gaming industry can't go out and just get assets created fast enough. As with graphics engines in general, John sees the solution to this problem being generality in graphics hardware and APIs. As programmers can do more and more with graphics engines, development tools should more easily accommodate what artists want to do, which should also help speed up the development cycle.
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SilverBack - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
I was one of the lucky people to buy Doom from the Software Creation BBS, the same BBS that was the shareware capital of the modem world. In fact I was sold the 31st copy produced, I still have the 3 1/2 disks :)It started the 3d experience for me and also my building PC's to keep up with Carmacks games! LOL
In a way Carmack changed my life. :D
However I got a different perspective from this article than most of you seemed to.
After reading where it's being considered possible to revamp the Q3 engine with better graphics, internal alarms started going off.
I may be a pessimist, but that sounds as if the ID camp may be getting Doom 3 out of the door much later than anticipated.
The Unreal Team seems to have a much better graphics engine available now. I hope that JC can get the Doom 3 engine up and running sooner.
mikeymasta - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
Good informative easy to read article, whats how I like em.When I talk about upcomming games to others I am often surprised at how little they look forward to upcomming work by john carmacks like Doom3, its proof that they just haven't been around long enough and don't know who their god is!
DerekWilson - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
#14:just start something on the side Turnip ;-) That's how many of the people break into the industry ... create a rockin mod or find some other people out there (like me) who are interested in a little on the side game development... that way, if id Software or Epic offers you a job, you can feel good about leaving your favorite "boring" company for something just a little bit more exciting ;-)
Turnip - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
<sigh> Sometimes I almost wish I didn't love the "boring" software applications company I work for, so that I could get out there and do something about the game I dream of.Oh, the difficulties in being a developer. :)
Chucko - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
So when is Doom 3 coming out?DerekWilson - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
I don't think there is a tech journalist out there who wouldn't want to get some one on one time with Carmack... but the supply falls way short of the demand on that one ;-)There was a short group QA sessoin in which John decried the value of game design oriented schooling (saying the value is in what people can do in the real world, not how well they've mastered stale curriculums), mentioned that he thinks the direction the PS3 is taking with its parallel architecture is of little value, and talked about X-Prize.
He also mentioned that Doom III would be ready when its ready ;-)
And I can tell you right now with a fair ammount of confidence that PCI Express won't make a real difference in playing current games (read any game that will come out this year). I can stream multiple HD quality videos to my GPU in real time though :-)
yumarc - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
Maybe it's just me, but I found this article not to be very informative. It just spews about the greatness of John Carmack and his past accomplishments. It would have been a much better read if the author had received some Q&A time with Carmack and asked him questions such as "When is Doom III due on the street" or "Do PCI Express cards make a difference in game speed". Now that would have been informative.TrogdorJW - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
#6 (and #9):Okay, so you've got Zelda and Mario and what not. They didn't really *push* the envelope, though. Nintendo games always seem to trail behind on the technology and innovation curve. Maybe the original Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. were "innovators", but back then everything was new and different. Hell, Asteroids was "state of the art" at one point in time. All Shigeru has done was to hone the art of the platform game, and every iteration of the Zelda and Mario franchises just gets less and less impressive.
About the only thing Carmack and Shigeru have in common is that neither one can tell a really, truly great story. Shigeru does great with kid stories, and Carmack makes wicked 3D engines. Neither one could compete with the stories of any decent author, though. Or maybe it's just that I'm not Japanese... do adults in Japan actually think the stories in the Mario games are interesting? I hope not....
DerekWilson - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
#6:"real talk, and in all seriousness:
shigeru miyamoto > john carmack
as far as influence in video games is concerned. "
I'll bite.
That is arguable if you are talking about video games in a general sense, but I don't think you can call it. Sure, mario and zelda have defined and influenced hords of other games (including Carmack's own Commander Keen), but then Wolfenstein defined and influenced the entire first person genre of games while quake sparked the push to full 3d games and shifed gaming performance into a position of major influence in the PC space.
But regardless of who has had more impact on video games in general, PC games and hardware follow where Carmack leads.
replicator - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
John Carmack is a cool cat..Imagine if he and Tim Sweeny (Unreal) put their efforts together.