Wednesday, April 5, 2000

Aureal Files for Chapter 11 -- 5:22 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Avault is reporting that Aureal has filed for chapter 11 protection in the light of their miserable financial situation and the recent resignation of every major officer (story). According to the financial information given on Avault, it appears that their major downfall was legal expenses from the suits and countersuits with Creative Labs. Thanks Blue.

Pondering the Imponderable -- 12:36 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

This is the third day in a row now that Win98 has booted up on my computer and Explorer has not GPF'd! Makes you wonder if the end of the world is coming. Or if Daikatana is going to be released. Something cataclysmic at any rate :)

J.t.Qbe comments: Figures. Microsoft gets nailed, then his Win98 starts working correctly. Yep, strange things are afoot!

Ask Hook -- 11:24 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Voodoo Extreme has slapped up a new issue of "Ask (Brian) Hook". Today, Brian answers questions on games driving hardware advancement or vice versa and a more technical question about color palettes in more recent games. May need a translator for that last one.

The Master comments: Actually-I understood that color one quite clearly. Course, I've been reading Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book, which has about a million times more detail on VGAs, DACs, and color pallettes than you really need to know :-)

J.t.Qbe comments: Great book! Originally I bought it because it has "The Zen of Assembly Language" on the CD--priceless stuff. Plus it was a remainder book for $6. Abrash wrote some great stuff for Dr. Dobbs Journal in the late 80s--now there's a programming wizard. . .

GameGirlz and CliffyB -- 11:17 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

GameGirlz has posted a short interview with Epic's Cliff Bleszinski. Here's a snip (and the best part of the interview, FWIW):

[GG] In doing levels for Unreal Tournament, which level in the game that is mostly your work was the hardest for you, design-wise?

[CB] I'd have to say Tempest. I had just done Barricade which I thought turned out only OK... I'm not that stoked with the final result of the map. I felt that any deathmatch "purity" that the map had was compromised by the sheer gimmick nature of the castle on the cloud. I was building Tempest and it was originally going to be some sort of a structure above the city that you could go around but the first version, quite frankly, blew. So, I decided I was just going to make a hardcore, big DM map and set to making it and I think the end result is pretty cool.

In my opinion, Tempest is THE best deathmatch map in Unreal Tournament by a long shot. I've played that one over and over. Maps like Barricade and especially KGalleon (ugh!) suffer due to the fact that they look very cool, but simply do not flow well enough to be good deathmatch maps.

Obi-Wan Shots -- 10:48 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gamespot UK has ten in-game screenshots and thirteen shots of the CGI cutscenes from LucasArts' forthcoming Episode I: Obi Wan. Now that I hear that a lot of this game will be played (have to be played?) in third-person, I'm losing a little enthusiasm for it. I guess I'll wait for the demo and see how I like it. The premise sounds awesome though . . . Thanks Blue's News.

Netscape 6 pre-release -- 9:39 am CST, Update by The Master

Netscape has released preview release 1 of Netscape Navigator 6. Very cool. Must download . . .

A.T. Hun comments: I downloaded and installed it. It seems to be basically the exact same thing as the latest Mozilla release, except that some things carry the Netscape logo now. If you already have Mozilla M14 installed, don't bother downloading the Netscape preview release.

There still are some stability issues with the browser, but seeing as it is still alpha-grade software, that is not terribly surprising.

Brandon Reinhart .plan Update -- 8:13 am CST, Update by The Master

Brandon Reinhart updated his .plan with his rebuttal of an article on Machinima.com entitled "Which Engine?". Basically, he rebuts most of the support issues the article raised.

The author argues that Epic is not putting a huge effort into support the user community. My response is "?" Maybe I'm not being clear here. Epic is actively PAYING mod authors we feel have cool projects. We have also purchased equipment (programs like 3DS Max) for mod authors who have shown us cool work. While we can't pay for every mod under the sun, we are working hard to create an active scene.

I've personally written a TON of documentation on UnrealScript and programming issues for mod authors. In addition, every Epic employee answers emails about mod development related questions. Shane Caudle runs a UT model information site, James Green is preparing a UT related art information site (epicknights.com), and Jack Porter, Steve Polge, and I are extremely active on the UnrealScript at eGroups discussion list and the Epic hosted UT Mods development discussion list.

Had the author of the Machinima article approached Epic or asked scene developers about their experiences with us, they probably would have painted a different picture.
..
Finally, Jack, Steve, and I are all available through email if you have any mod development related questions. Every question might not get answered because we do get busy sometimes, but I definitely try to answer what I get (and I forward a lot to Tim).

Dreamcast Q3A -- 8:07 am CST, Update by The Master

Some more news today on the Dreamcast port of Quake3: Arena. Next Generation conducted an interview with John Carmack on the DC Q3A port, and Daily Radar posted a snip. I thought the first question was interesting:

Next Generation: So, is 56K fast enough for Quake III on Dreamcast?

John Carmack: You use basically the same protocols that you get on PC. So it's very similar to what you get on PC with a 56K modem. Right now, in general >QIII development on Dreamcast has gone quite well. You can play Dreamcast against PC on the same maps, dialing in right over the Internet, and it works pretty nicely.

The maps are slightly modified to fit in the lesser memory, but I believe the plan is to have those maps available on the Dreamcast disc so that people with PCs can interact and connect to the same game. They're inter-operating just fine.

Now, if I can play against DC Q3A users-that will be VERY interesting indeed.

Carmack on 3D graphics -- 7:54 am CST, Update by The Master

John Carmack has been posting his thoughts to the slashdot forums quite a bit lately. Yesterday he posted his views of the current hardware on the new 1GHZ P3 processors. And it's not actually full-on-super-techy either! :-)

A GeForce should be able to run Q3 at 200 fps at 400x300 (r_mode 1) or possibly even 512x384 resolution if the cpu was fast enough. A dual willamette at the end of this year will probably do it.

We currently see 100+ fps timedemos at 640x480 with either a 1ghz processor or dual 800's, and that isn't completely fill rate limited. DDR GeForce cards are really, really fast.

Yes, it is almost completely pointless.

The only reasonable argument for super high framerates is to do multi frame composited motion blur, but it turns out that it isn't all that impressive.

I did a set of offline renderings of running Q3 at 1000 fps and blending down to 60 fps for display. Looked at individually, the screenshots were AWESOME, with characters blurring through their animations and gibs streaking off the screen, but when they were played at 60hz, nobody could tell the difference even side by side.
..
Exagerated motion blur (light sabers, etc) is a separate issue, and doesn't require ultra-high framerates.

There are still plenty of things we can usefully burn faster cpu's on...

Yeah-like better AI, more realistic lighting, more action in the worlds . . .

Tuesday, April 4, 2000

UT Linux 413 Patch News -- 4:32 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Epic's Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart updated his .plan with news on the OpenUT project (the Linux Unreal Tournament open-source project) and the Linux 413 patch:

A 413 for Linux is in testing with a few of our server operators from the UTServers mailing list. This version of 413 does not include any code from OpenUT. I will probably release this patch in delta compressed and non-compressed format.

I am going to talk to Daniel Vogel about releasing an OpenUT enhanced 413 afterwards. I was integrating the CVS features, but I can't test them all and I am running short on time. The programmers who have contributed to OpenUT have gotten a LOT of stuff in great shape.

They've added support for music, a much less cpu intensive mixing scheme, support for control through SDL, support for MesaGL through SDL, and lots of stability features. All of this code is available through the OpenUT website, openut.sourceforge.net. There will also be a new public source distribution to follow the 413 Linux release.

Xian .plan Update -- 2:30 pm CST, Update by The Master

Christian Antkow updated his .plan with a note to those who quote him. Since this is a good thing to keep in mind when running a news site, I figure I'll post it:

An interesting quote on a webpage I don't feel like linking, in response to my .plan update last night.

This is the second time a member of id Software has expressed that they are bored with plain Vanilla Deathmatch. "Hello, McFly!" why didn't you put something more than Vanilla Deathmatch In the game box.

Since when does pleasant change equate to bored with Deathmatch?

Before people go about putting words in my mouth publicly, and making assumptions, at least do me the courtesy of asking for clarification.

In my not-so-humble opinion, deathmatch kicks ass. It's an adrenaline rush, great fun, and I enjoy it immensely.

One of the great strengths of the Quake III engine is it's extensibility, and it's always a treat to see what the community comes up with by playing a well made and fun mod like Q3Fortress.

Actually, I think pleasant change began to equate with bored when it did so in the writers mind. Too bad they had to shove that equality down Xian's throat. Please, people. If your going to run a news site, keep things in perspective, huh?

A.T. Hun comments: Hehe, I know who THAT was. I saw it earlier today. It was Evil Avatar. EA takes every opportunity to take pot shots at Q3A. I'm sure he'll have some VERY interesting comments on Xian's new update . . .

Review: DM-Q1DM4 -- 12:05 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Do you play Unreal Tournament? Do you still like the original Quake? Well then this map is for you! This map is a conversion of Q1DM4 "The Bad Place" for UT. Check out my review and see how it stacks up to the original! After that, you can check out the rest of our reviews too!

SpamCop is the BOMB -- 8:44 am CST, Update by The Master

Gotta put a big THANK YOU up to SpamCop for it's wonderful service, and to J.T.Qbe for pointing SpamCop out to me a month ago. I now get to complain about spam faster than ever before. I like not having to do my own analysis of email headers :-)

Now, if popsite and china.com would finally clean up their completely loose attitude toward mass mailings, we'd eliminate half the dang spam ON the net...

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