Newer News

June 17, 1997
No more today! :)
3:12 PM EDT
Today is my high school graduation and then an all-night grad party, so I will be unable to do any more updates today. Also tomorrow I'll be sleeping after being up all night so I don't know if I can update tomorrow. Cya. Slipgate

As many frames as you can handle?
3:06 PM EDT
Tokay said Quake 2 will use as many animation frames for models as you can handle. Paul Steed of id Software wasn't sure what he meant. Here's what Brent McLeod suggested, I've asked Paul and American if this is what is meant but have no reply yet.

I could be completely off, but here goes.

I think what American means when he says the monsters will have as many frames of animation as your computer can handle is this: Bascially, the artists will generate the "key" frames for the models to be animated with. But, if for example, it takes 1 second to get from frame A to frame B, and your computer is running at 30 FPS, the engine will automatically generate the 28 in-between frames. Thus, 1 frame per frame drawn.


I hope to get a reply from id to see if this is what is meant. Slipgate

Another Quake 2 page link request :)
3:04 PM EDT
Maximum Dosage Quake 2 now linked. :) Slipgate

A shield in Quake 2
2:55 PM EDT
Cool beans. Here's a letter Christopher Murdock sent me, which I sent along to Paul Steed.

Slipgate,
>I was wondering if you knew of any plans to add a shield to Quake 2?
>I'm not talking like your midevil metal shield,. I mean a power shield
>like in Dune. An item you could pick up that when switched on envelopes
>the player in this blocky transparent sheet. Imagine what that would
>look like in GL Quake. It could be used against engery weapons, the
>would just reflect off, maybe even back at the shooter. Things like the
>rail gun and such would pass through though. I guess this is more of a
>suggestion than a question, but maybe you know who to suggest it to.
>Thanks for your time.
>
>-Christopher aka Generic


I sent that query along to Paul Steed and here is the brief yet exciting reply I got:

Yes, there will be an energy shield in Q2. Chicks, too.


Pretty cool on both counts :). Slipgate

Paul Steed plan update
2:46 PM EDT
Paul Steed updated his .plan about the Quake 2 woman and other stuff.

Before I talk about work stuff, I just wanted to say that I'll be the keynote speaker at the next Art Institute of Dallas graduating ceremony. It's the first type of function like this for me so I'll let you know how it goes.

Been working on the weapons for the game. They look pretty damn cool if I say so myself. Over the last couple days we've been able to get 5 weapons ready for the E3 show in Atlanta: hand-held blaster, machine gun, rail gun, chain gun and assault shotgun. I built and animated them while Adrian and Kevin did some really cool textures (I sneaked in a texture on the blaster!).

John did a kick-ass effect for when bolt or bullets hit a wall: particles fly in the opposite direction of the surface it hits. The technical term BTW for the direction a triangle or surface faces is "normal". For example when you "reverse" the "normals" on an object, whatever was facing OUT now faces IN. So what John did was to cause a stream of particles and smoke/explosion objects to emit in a direction OPPOSITE the normals of the surface being shot. Pretty fucking cool to see.

I've put hands back into the game as well and added little touches to the anims like the fingers tapping restlessly on the pistol grip when the player is isn't shooting.

All in all E3 will be the first taste of Quake2 gameplay for the general public. But after seeing the screen shots from other games over the past week, I have to say that any taste of Q2 will quickly lead to a feast!

Ps

p.s.
I received a lot of comments on the Crackwhore I gave to Xian to put up. I agree that just because she's my ideal cyber-babe, she may not be yours. Most of the comments I received were flattering, but most also had some hints of reservation about putting such a voluptuous "socially irresponsible" version of womanhood in Quake2. Please. I hope that the rest of you guys (and gals) who have a brain realize that that model was done as a break from dark monsters and as an indulgence of my "sex-starved, degenerate tendencies". It was also done as homage to the Crackwhore Clan. Rest assured the female character in Quake2 will be intelligent, witty, great at conversation, cleaning weapons and firing from a prone position. Just kidding. She'll like it on top and all the time.


I think that settles some stuff and more :). Slipgate

Meaningless milestone
2:33 PM EDT
PoLish of Quakemania was visitor 22222 to the site, and he gave me a partial screenshot. I've also fixed something minor about the Hosted by QuakeMania button. Ok, so this aint much of Quake 2 news but it relates to the site. Slipgate

A good Quakemania customer
2:23 PM EDT
Ever seen banners? There's one now. Like most quake domains, QuakeMania uses banners in exchange for space. Slipgate

Updated link
2:04 PM EDT
I updated the link to USteppin's Quake 2 page. Slipgate

Attention ddodson
1:47 PM EDT
Someone named ddodson mailed me but I could not successfully reply to their e-mail address. I'll put their letter and my reply here for them to see instead.

ddodson wrote:
>
> Slipgate,
> I need to know if id is planning on including a GL version right
> into Quake2? I read somewhere that you will be able to start the game,
> and then choose to play standard 256 colors, or GL. Is this true?? Please
> get back to me. I went out and bought a Diamond Monster 3D just for
> Quake2. Thanks.
>
> Dan Dodson
> e-mail: ddodson@micro.honeywell.com

Quake 2 will be a single EXE, with normal, GL and Verite rendering built in, able to switch between the different render modes (though just like GLQuake.exe and Vquake.exe you only want to use the ones you can).

The game will have colored lighting built in and look best of all in GL mode, so your Diamond Monster 3D will help.

The lighting in Quake 2 is colored in that not only can lights be of any color, but if two different colors of light glow on something, there is full color mixing, and the object will shine the color it "should be". For example, if red and blue lights shine on a surface, it will look a bit purple :).

Normal mode Quake 2 will make all the lights plain white light like Quake 1.

Just imagine what your Monster 3D will be doing for you soon and drool :).

I'm glad you felt you could ask me this, feel free to send any more questions my way because I can either personally answer them or bring an id software guy to their attention.


--
Slipgate - AKA Ismail Saeed
mailto:isaeed@erols.com
The Fault Line - Quake 2 news: http://www.quakemania.com/faultline/
Includes Quake 2 FAQ.


Well, now for those of you who have never mailed me, you know what my .sig looks like :). Slipgate

Blurb
1:43 PM EDT
Go here for a Quake 2 screenshots blurb. Slipgate

Redwood's first Quake 2 preview
1:25 PM EDT
Redwood went and saw Quake 2. Here is what he noticed:

  • Colored lighting in the GL version is amazing! It's used perfectly and not overdone. Walls by lava taken on the natural looking red glow of the molten liquid. It really ads to the atmosphere. I really hope eveyrbody has a GL capable card by then because it won't be nearly the same experience without one.

  • Your start weapon is a laser gun. You never run out of ammo, but the charge goes down if you hold the fire button and will go back up if you let go.

  • The rail gun. This is very much like the one in the movie eraser in how the projectile fires and looks. It goes through anything until it hits a wall. Tim blew through 3 guys lined up with one single shot and turned them to gibs. It was great. There's even an enemy with one, so you better watch out!

  • The Disintegrator gun. This was REALLY cool and I hope they decided to keep it in the game. It fired a sort of white plasma looking ball. The only difference was that instead of dynamically lighting things as it went, it dynamically DARKENED them, almost as if it was antimatter sucking up the light! Demonstrated on a monster, the bad guy starts to dissolve into ball like objects. Those that have seen the movie Lawnmower Man know what I'm talking about. You have to hit them a couple of times and then they just disappear, fading away more each time. If you just hit them once and stop, they will fade back in in a few seconds. You can also accidentally disintegrate yourself if you're not careful.

  • They mention a blackhole type weapon that used dynamic darkness also.

  • There were various other weapons. The weapons haven't all been decided on yet.

  • The monsters are so cool! There are a ton of different monsters now, none taken from Quake. They are much more detailed looking and the animation is much smoother.

  • The monsters are persistent bastards about following you. They'll follow you to hell and back given the opportunity. Running is not always an option either, as some of the monsters move at player speed.

  • The ducking from rockets is really cool! I saw at least one monster also dive to the ground to avoid getting hit!

  • There are a lot of monsters. I already saw more monsters than were in Quake 2 even though more are to come. I finally figured out what one of the dudes in the screenshots was. It was a hover dude and he looked great sitting there swaying gently back and forth a foot above the ground with his jets going. Apparently Paul Steed is a madman at cranking out monsters art/models so he is making it possible to have plenty of different types. There's even going to be hazardous indigenous life in various nooks and crannies. A killer turtle thing was mentioned (I like turtles, I want this in the game).

  • One of the monsters with sharp pointed arm (in screenshots I think) sat there when idle and would sharpen his arm and move his mouth when pointed sometimes. There was a medic monster that was kind of like an archvile from DOOM2. There are many more but I can't remember them all and they weren't all finished.

  • Tim showed me how you can hide in the shadows and make a noise and have a monster hear it, come out looking for you, not see you hiding, and then go back to what he was doing.

  • The radiation boxes, and other things are movable now and very integral to comleting the game in some cases.

  • Strategy will be much more important. Tim suggested that a Strategy guide for Quake 2 might actually be useful, unlike the ones for Quake.

  • Tim showed me quickly how you would go through the unit solving the puzzle ('goal') for each level to complete the unit objective.

  • The status bar is much less obtrusive now. I like the idea of seeing more of the game.

  • There was a fairly good sized gun turret that you went up to and sort of took over, aiming it and blowing away enemies as they came around the corner.

  • Well, that's all I can remember for now, but I wanted to share some of it right now.


  • Quake 2 is sounding cooler and cooler. Slipgate

    Tim Willits interview
    1:15 PM EDT
    Tim Willits was interviewed by Redwood (who btw dropped by Undernet #quake2 in person 3 days ago). Click here for the interview (it was messy trying to put a copy here). Slipgate

    June 16, 1997
    Hook talk
    6:54 PM EDT
    Here are the plan updates for today and yesterday from Brian Hook (I missed seeing this yesterday).

    June 16, 1997 (early AM)

    This is too cool. I installed a 3Dfx Voodoo board in my Intergraph workstation, and the damn thing _worked_. Just when I was about to lost my faith in the PC, it comes back and does something unexpected (like working the way it's supposed to).

    Anyway, I now have an Intergraph Realizm + 3Dfx Voodoo on my desktop, using a second monitor instead of a cheezy pass-through, and THIS, my friends, is the ultimate QuakeStation. Awesome for development, level editing, and playing. The only pain is that I have to keep creating/deleting the 3Dfx OPENGL32.DLL in the Quake2 directory.

    Oh well, small price to pay for the best of both worlds.


    Before I print his June 15 plan update, let me just say that I'm surprised the 3DFX worked too. Yes I know they are easy to install, but they aren't easy to install when you think your the problem and it turns out the card you got is defective, you have to return it and get another one. In case you don't know who I'm talking about, I'm talking about myself :(. Anyways, continuing:

    June 15, 1997

    Let me preface today's rant with a real quick disclaimer -- these complaints are directed at high end accelerators that implement the ENTIRE OpenGL pipeline in their drivers, so it is expected that they'll be buggy. Not only that, but since very few applications really thrash the hell out of an OGL driver implementation, bugs are expected. It is our intention that Quake2 and, maybe some time later, QE4, will be good OpenGL conformance tests.

    Quick comment: a good "level editing" board implies someone is using QE4, but QE4 is only being used by id and our partners at this point in time. So our experiences looking for a good level editing are largely moot, but we're relaying the information anyway just to keep everyone informed, and also to keep IHVs on their toes. And just in case one of you psychos out there wants to write your own Quake editor with OpenGL, I figure talking about our experiences can't hurt.

    Okay, now the fun part...

    Jesus, the completely crappy drivers on high end OpenGL systems are just plain appalling. Today John and I attempted to get Quake2 and/or QE4 (our newer level editor) up and running on something other than the Realizm. Our two boards we had on hand were a Glint 500TX based board and a Dynamic Pictures Oxygen 102.

    The 500TX wasn't that bad -- its fill rate was pretty abysmal, sure, but it still worked. It was missing some important features, such as tex- subimage, thus making it not the best board in the world. However, it is close to obsolete since the MX is supposed to be out from 3DLabs sometime soon, so it's sort of irrelevant. The MX looks interesting though.

    We tried the Dynamic Pictures Oxygen102 again, and the results weren't, um, encouraging. We have a little game going now: "How fast can a new board give us the Blue Screen of Death under Windows NT?"

    The Oxygen102 won.

    We tried to run QE4 at a higher than supported resolution (the 102 we have only has 4MB) -- we tried it at 1280x1024 w/ Z-buffer, which should have caused the driver to fail during a wglCreateContext() call or something. *bzzt* We got the Blue Screen of Hate instead.

    So we tried bumping the resolution down to 640x480. Well, QE4 killed the system again, this time for no apparent reason. And when we ran Quake2, it turns out their driver doesn't support texture objects and it reports a completely and utterly whacked out GL version string (they put in their driver version number, not the GL version number).

    AND their drivers still require a reboot doing a resolution change, which is just completely inexcusable in today's world.

    Anyway, we're going to try and get an Oxygen 202 or 402 to see if things get better with more RAM. Unfortunately, all this occured with the very latest driver revs. *sigh*

    So as of today, the Intergraph Realizm looks like the best level editing graphics card, and the 3Dfx Voodoo is still the best game play accelerator out there. Which means that nothing's really changed in the past six months or so. *irk* For a low-end level editing card, a Permedia w/8MB or a Permedia2 /w 8MB might be the way to go -- just don't expect to run Quake2 or GLQuake on it. In the mid-range the Integraph Intense3D 1000 looks pretty cool too.

    I'm going to check out some other boards pretty soon and will keep you folks up to date.

    Have I mentioned I REALLY want the next crop of accelerators to show up?


    So do I :). Slipgate

    Wowza
    6:46 PM EDT
    I've cleaned some old links out of the links area and restructured it so that only Quake 2 or Quake links are there. (Hexen 2 if enough people persuade me). I've also removed the link to the now dead site Underground Aspect. From that page:

    I am sorry, Underground Aspect has shut down. Since I never really got anybody to my page ( maybe 15 people a day). I am not out of the Quake 2 business, I will be working on the telefragged.com site. To go there please click here.
    Aspect ka8pyh@zoomnet.net


    It's a saddening thing. Also, Impulse 2 moved according to the page, I've got the link updated but the new URL it gives doesn't work for me? Slipgate

    Link fixes
    9:21 AM EDT
    I gotta update some links later today, but I'm going somewhere now so the key phrase would be "later today". Cya. Slipgate

    Disruptor plan update
    9:13 AM EDT
    Christian Antkow updated his .plan with the following to relax concerned parents:

    Ever since I've taken over the "webmaster@idsoftware.com" e-mail address, I've recieved a number of e-mails from concerned youth and parents about the satanic and demonic content of id's previous games (DOOM and Quake).

    For the record, Quake II will have no demonic or satanic references. It is a pure cybertech sci-fi shooter set in the future.


    This doesn't thrill me as much because I liked the hellish stuff in Doom/Quake, but I guess it will be cool anyhow. Slipgate

    Quake 2 chat problem :)
    9:12 AM EDT
    The next Quake 2 chat was scheduled for Saturday at 7 p.m. EDT. They want id guys and such to show up. I see a problem here. Saturday is going to be "in the middle" of E3 and id guys will be too busy to show up and such. Also, I am not sure that we have all that much to talk about until after E3. I'm mailing this little tidbit out to Jonathan Ruff and other folks and see what response I'll get. Slipgate

    I was laughing
    9:11 AM EDT
    Check out this link, it made me laugh and it will do the same for you whether you use Netscape or Internet Explorer. Thanks to Prophet for that pearl. Here's another thing from him too, an E3 Preview he mentioned to us. Slipgate

    Shub vs. Chton, DuMBal's Levels
    9:10 AM EDT
    I promised a buddy to mention this. Check out Shub Niggurath vs. Chton (SvC) at this link. Also, be sure to check out DuMBal's level page. There we go, two birds in one stone. Slipgate

    June 15, 1997
    Paul Steed talks
    5:32 PM EDT
    Paul Steed responded to a query of mine in e-mail, as well as a query of Rotwang's in e-mail. Earlier I mentioned how someone asked me if players would be able to see what weapon the other person was using, beyond just a differentiation between "gun" and "axe". First I'll do the letter I got and sent his way and his reply:

    Doubtful, but I agree that it would be cool to see different weapons in peoples' hands. The problem of course is data stored and speed, etc. If the program has to store every weapon within each player model, then it would not be possible. Maybe we could do a weapon class (i.e. BIG gun, normal gun and little gun) and swap out a weapon model for those classes. I'll talk to John and Kevin about it.

    ps


    Remember that reply is in reference to QwertMan's letter to me, which I sent along to Paul. It is very cool that we can have a little input in Quake 2 (a la the weapons thing and how Paul just said he'd talk to the artists about it).

    Now the next letter is when Rotwang mailed him and the reply he got:

    >Mr. Steed,
    >
    >Thanks for asking my previous question!
    >
    >On Undernet IRC, American stated that the monsters in Quake 2 have as
    >many frames of animation as one's system can handle. Is this true, and
    >if so, how is this accomplished? If not, how many frames of animation
    >do the monsters have?
    >
    >Thanks again!
    >
    >--
    >Rotwang
    >tloeschk@bmt.net

    Rotwang,

    I don't know exactly what American meant about the number of frames handled being dependent upon your system. He may have meant the frame interpolation which does work based on how powerful your machine is. Basically, all monsters in Q2 will have the following suite of animations:

    - Stand
    - Attack
    - Walk
    - Run
    - Pain
    - Defense
    - Duck
    - Death

    Depending on the monster, there will be as many as three variations for each type of action above. Some monsters (like the TANK) will be too tough or too cool to duck or defend themselves so that type of animation won't be there. And there won't be too many variations of walk, run, defense and duck. So theoretically a monster could have up to say 15 or 16 different animations he could perform at any given time. Allowing for each animation averaging from 10 to 60 frames a monster could have a total of 600 frames of animation. So far, however, the basic grunt has the most frames, weighing in at about 350. This breaks the 256 frame barrier John set up in Quake and isn't really recommended due to the overall amount of memory required to store the data. This limitation is why companies like Valve have chosen to use skeletal deformation as opposed to the vertex deformation that we currently use. Of course we favor the latter because it gives us more control over the look of the model's final animation.

    In Q2 Kevin and I have really tried to focus on giving as many versions of the more redundant actions that the monsters do as time permits. Actions like pain, death and standing anims are seen over and over and over, so it would be cool to see more variation there. Overall, the fans will love the power of the actions, especially the deaths. More powerful knock-backs, characters flipping end-over-end and an overall more realistic sense of WEIGHT is our main ambition when doing the character animations. You'll FEEL the impact of monsters flying back and slamming to the ground.

    To increase speed and allow us to have even MORE monsters at any given time, John has put in a "level of detail" feature which allows far-off monsters to be represented by just a couple triangles and increases their number to maximum count when close-up. This should be available on the regular version of the game and not just GL Quake2. Hope that helped and answered your questions.

    ps

    This artist is very helpful :). Slipgate

    Another Quake 2 chat :)
    5:05 PM EDT
    I got this e-mail from Jonathan Ruff about the possibility of another Quake 2 chat.

    Lets have another meeting on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday of this coming week. I'm more than positive we can finally get guys from Id Software to show up and people like blue, maybe we could get American to give us some more pics ( an avi would be nice heh). Non the less let me know, I plan to unveil the new permanent home of The Nebula and return it to its previous form with constant updates and such.

    Best Regards,
    Jon Ruff


    Will give you more info as I get it. Slipgate

    Brian Hook on IRC
    11:57 AM EDT
    Rotwang sent me a log of Brian Hook of id Software visiting undernet #quake2 (actually, he sent it to lots of the news guys). Anyways, if you want to read it, click here. I haven't had much time to look through it yet so I can't comment as of now. Slipgate

    Some model info :)
    11:51 AM EDT
    Good old Rotwang sent a mail to Paul Steed asking some stuff about monsters. His letter and Paul's reply are included. Rotwang's letter is the italicized thing, and Paul's reply follows. Without further ado:

    >Mr. Steed,
    >
    >As I was looking through the Quake 2 screenshots, I noticed something
    >curious. Are the monsters in Quake 2 modular? I've noticed the
    >chicken-walker legs on two different monsters, and wondered if other
    >monsters share similar apendages as well.
    >
    >Thank you for your time!
    >
    >Rotwang
    >Quake News Informant
    >tloeschk@bmt.net


    Ben,
    Whenever we make models we usually make the arms and any cyborg parts as seperate objects. This makes it easier to make skins for them and animate them. Also due to the extreme cybernetic nature of the bad guys in Q2, seperate parts are used to convey a sense of the mechanical.

    ps


    In case you haven't figured out, ps is "Paul Steed" :). Anyways, this sounds really interesting to me...... sounds like enemies can sever into pieces if they are made in pieces to begin with :). Slipgate

    Holding weapons
    11:48 AM EDT
    I got this e-mail from a person in the #quake2 IRC channel from Undernet:

    If you want I have heard ALL to often about the question:
    Will the other players be able to see the weapon someone is holding. It is VERY, VERY doubtful that Id will put that in.

    Thank you,
    Adam J. Christensen
    QwertMan


    Qwertman I sent this question along its way to Paul Steed. Hopefully I'll get an answer soon. :)
    Slipgate

    Less bandwith logo
    11:46 AM EDT
    Dale Bertheola told me that the logo made by Nigel was a real bandwith killer. He ran it through a spacesaver and reduced the file size to 26k. When I asked Nigel (who made the logo) if using the newer smaller one was ok, he said yes, so I have. Slipgate

    June 14, 1997
    Gamespot stuff
    10:13 PM EDT
    Gamespot has a blurb about the Quake 2 screenshots. Slipgate

    sCary saw Quake 2
    9:56 PM EDT
    This is quoted off his Shuga Shack:

    Well, while I was over at id Software yesterday American was kind enough to show me all the stuff that they will be giving a demo of at E3. My overall impression was "WOW, this place is HUGE" I mean, you look at the levels and they have this great feeling of grandness, like you get when you walk into a cathedral or the likes.. the texture work was outstanding, amazing they can do that stuff with just 256 colors to work with. He showed me a few of the new weapons, as well as about 5 monsters.. Those animated gifs on the web page don't do the monsters justice, they all seem to have multiple attacks, and are just plain freaking cool. And yea, that screen shot of a monster ducking under a rocket is a reality, American was firing rockets down the hall at one of the monsters and it was actually dodging / ducking under the rocket. uh... stuff that I observed:

    - Weapons are slightly offset to the right, ala Duke3d.
    - When you fire a weapon it actually moves around similar to when you fire that cool chain gun in Turok for the n64.
    - Monster animations, wow.. they look so smooth...
    - Colored lighting, they are using it everywhere, and not overboard either, just that feeling of real life color wherever you go.. adds a whole new feel to the game. No colored lighting in software, GL only.
    - I'll give a much more in depth report, including some solid technical data when I pry into their souls at the Quake2 booth during E3 next week.

    And that is all HE had to say :). Slipgate

    Paul Steed on QuakeCast
    9:41 PM EDT
    Paul Steed was on the QuakeCast, according to his finger. Click here for Thursday's show (the one he was in). Remember QuakeCast requires having RealAudio or RealVideo. Also, here's the quoted update(s) from his finger.

    6/13/97
    COOL! Was up on Quakecast talkin' smack about Q2. Had a good time and felt the interview went well. Those guys (and girl) seem like they're having a good time with the show. Kudos to them as well for some intelligent questions.

    Speaking of which, I'd like to begin an education for the layperson in some of the terminology I'll be using as I talk about my work and techniques and stuff. Forgive me if I'm too basic, but I'll get more advanced as I go along. Let's first begin with the most basic terms in 3D graphics: "polygons", "faces" and "vertices". For those of you not familiar with these terms, let me walk you through a simple exercise. For this exercise you'll need a small, plain cardboard box, a ruler and a fat magic marker of a dark color. Grab the marker and make thick "dots" at each corner of the box. Then take the ruler and connect each dot so that each square side of the box has a diagonal line bisecting it. What you now have is a "polygon model" each triangle you see is a "face" and each dot is a "vertex" (more than one vertex is referred to as "vertices").

    Now in the computer, vertices are drawn using the "cartesian coordinate system" That means as you hold your box and look at it, each vertex is represented in the space around you by a set of three numbers which line up on three "planes" or three "dimensions" called "x", "y" and "z" (hence the term "3D"). Bring your box up to your face and look at the front top right corner. This isn't necessarily the same for all programs but for example in ALIAS, the "vertex" behind the one your looking at is farther away on the "x" axis. The "vertex" to the left of the one you're looking at a lesser value along the "y" axis, and the "vertex" below the one you're still looking at would be at a lesser value along the "z" axis.

    Thus we have a mathematical representation of any point in "space" that a computer can work out and "connect the dots" with a "face" that can be a color or have a picture drawn on it. Put a light above the box and you'll get shadows and/or reflection, etc.

    So now you know when I say that the character models I'm working on have anywhere from 400 to 750 polygons (or "triangles" or "faces") and they're animated by "manipulating the vertices" then you know what the hell I'm talking about.

    So let me just close with a quote from someone I've known for a long time, "Ouche-day ag-bay ay-say at-whay; You got somethin' to say BOY, you come out and SAY it." -Deets Luap

    **********
    6/11/97
    Wow. Shocked would be an understatement when describing how I feel about all the responses I've gotten over my .plan. I just want to say one thing: You guys out there are totally COOL! Out of the 51 responses I received, 3 were flamers and the rest understood what my .plans were all about: id.

    That's right. If you are a fan of id then you got the gist of my postings. BTW if you aren't a fan of id why are you reading this? I wasn't out to piss the guys off at any other company especially the ones in the "Dallas Gaming Community". I was out to proudly declare how cool id is and how cool it is to work here. Jeff was right about my devotion to family and friends. Well id's part of my family now and I'll always defend my own when it comes to it.

    And for you "PEDophile bitch"-calling dudes who think I'm consumed with myself consider this: I am a total fan of id's. Always have been. I'm just like any one of you out there who has had this really cool thought, "What if I were at id? Wouldn't that be fucking cool?!" Well it is and I'll strive in the future to stay off my soapbox and stick to the point of these apparently high profile mind dumps: Keep telling you how cool id is.

    ps
    p.s.
    The reason why I deleted my previous .plannage is because it was just too friggin' big. I still stand by my previous words but wish the guys at IS (especially the artists) hadn't taken it the wrong way. I completely thought their stuff ROCKED when I visited (and still do). And as far as Jeff goes, who turned him on to the job there in the first place?


    Well, I think Paul has said enough for both of us. Slipgate

    Brian Hook update
    9:40 PM EDT
    Brian Hook has had a planfile for a little while, I got a fingerlink for him going. Go check out his plan and read through it all if you've never read it before (you can use my fingerlink in the fingers section). Slipgate

    Interesting page
    3:07 PM EDT
    Here's a new Quake 2 page: USteppin's. It has a link to the FAQ also, which btw has been updated. Slipgate

    New Tokay visit
    2:23 PM EDT
    I was sitting in IRC while writing these page updates and Tokay visited. Prophet sent me an edited version of the log of his visit...... so click here to read it. Slipgate

    Fingerlinks and screenshots
    1:13 PM EDT
    I updated the fingers (who you can finger) and screenshots pages. I need to make a new "logs" page. Slipgate

    Sandy Petersen interview
    1:05 PM EDT
    Quakemania interviewed Sandy Petersen. Check this link out. Slipgate

    New logo
    1:03 PM EDT
    Nigel from #quake2 sent me a new logo. Thanks man. Slipgate

    Paul Steed stuff
    1:00 PM EDT
    Check this link out to see some Paul Steed info garned by Halogen of Telefragged. Slipgate

    MS Petition
    12:22 PM EDT
    There has been a petition from game developers to Microsoft, asking them to openly support OpenGL and make life simpler. Check this out. Slipgate

    Quake 2 mailing list
    12:21 PM EDT
    The Quake 2 mailing list has been suspended till further notice. I'll give you the real reason: Hardware difficulties (no joking). Slipgate

    IRC happenings
    12:04 PM EDT
    There have been 4 more IRC visits of interest since the first Tokay visit I reported on before my little hiatus. Here are the logs of said visits, and the first Tokay visit linked again to boot.

    First Tokay visit (got ball rolling)
    Disruptor visit
    John Cash (Hellrot) visit
    Tokay visit #2
    Tokay visit #3


    Since there is so much to catch up on, I really couldn't organize it better. Read through it all and enjoy :). Slipgate

    Lots of new screenshots
    10:13 AM EDT
    Many, many, many, many new screenshots have been released in my absence :). Here they are (they've also been added to the screenshots section, which btw has been changed around a little). The screenshots include lots of stuff, including seeing an enemy ducking a rocket (too cool, can't wait) as well as two images hinting at the available female player in Quake 2.



    Wow..... finally caught up on screenshots I think. I'll stay on top of Disruptor's claimed "daily updates" (shudder). Slipgate

    Back at last
    10:06 AM EDT
    Finally finished high school final exams (that is why I couldn't update at all for so long). There is so much news to catch up on though (my inbox has 100+ letters in it). Here's the situation..... today I will catch up on everything as best as I can, and then this page will hereafter once again be a truly up to date source..... but now to the old news :). Slipgate

    June 9, 1997
    New Quake2 pic
    9:41 PM EDT
    Over on the id Software Quake 2 pages is a new image to pique curiosity. Thanks to Luke for telling me about it (e-mail withheld this time due to severe lack of time for html :) ):



    BTW, Redwood told me that because of Daylight Savings Time I should say EDT and not EST, so that's corrected :). Slipgate

    Paul Steed plan update
    7:04 PM EST
    Paul Steed updated his plan again. He talks more about himself instead of being so technical this time. (BTW, this update was ready two hours ago but I had problems uploading. Here you go:

    Well, I have to admit that the response to my .plan file was more than I expected. Everyone's comments were great and I tried to respond to as many as I could. If I haven't responded to yours yet, I plan to (er, no pun).

    Just wanted to drop a quick line about myself for those curious since my first one was pretty technical and after a re-reading pretty boring as well. Basically I got into the computer gaming field after being born in Alliance, Ohio, attending 22 public schools spanning 5 states, joining the Air Force and spending nearly six years in Europe (Iceland, England, and Germany mostly along with every other in between).

    I made an name for myself at Origin down in Austin, TX (Strike Commander, Privateer, Wings of Glory, Wing Commander Academy, Bioforge, Wing Commander III, Wing IV) and after several start-up company abortions moved on to Iguana Entertainment, also in Austin. Iguana got old pretty fast (spent time around Cyrus Lum for awhile, though). Next, I went to California and worked on a "Wing Commander on Wheels" game called Propaganda at Virgin Interactive's in-house development effort (later re-named, "BURST" if you can believe that). While I was the art director on that project I got a call from a headhunter wanting to know if I'd be interested in showing the guys at id my reel.

    I immediately thought it was a joke: "Yeah, right." (At that point id was without a doubt the Camelot of gaming to me and the reverence with which I held the company and its elite members still holds today (tear wipe, sniffle, sniffle). So anyways the guy convinces me he's legit and I send id my one and only ORIGINAL cut of my demo reel I made several years ago (have since gone strictly to CD to show my stuff). I was THAT determined to get my foot in the door. Well id never even looked at my reel. By the time they got it they had decided to make an offer to someone (someone whom I vowed to have hunted down and his second and third finger of his mouse hand broken).

    Well needless to say I WAS BUMMED. There goes my reel, there goes my one shot at the only company for which I'd give up an art director position on a high profile game. BUT as the head hunter placatingly adds, there's always the possibility that the guy will turn down the creators of DOOM and QUAKE. I wanted to hit the patronizing moron. Who in their right mind would turn down id?Well the guy turned 'em down. Amazed yet not really surprised (id knew that I was the ONE...er, well maybe I knew I was the one), I was flown to Mesquite and interviewed with Kevin and Adrian.

    Just to illustrate how cool these guys are I'll just tell you about one aspect of the interview. When it was decided that they wanted to hire me, they dropped the question dreaded by all and feared by most: "How much would it take to get you here?" Hearing the words from my pilot-fish-for-a-recruiter, "Don't talk money!" I said fuck it and mumbled, "pay me what I'm making now and I'll be here tomorrow." There. It was done. No bargaining. No protracted rumination. Just say it. There was a pause and then Kevin says, "Well, Adrian and I have to discuss this," and they both walked out of the room. HOLY SHIT! I just blew it! I should have asked for minimum wage or something. Geesh! I'm such an IDOT! So again to illustrate how far they're up the cool meter, they came back in and offered me substantially MORE than what I was making in California. That was the third time I was completely FLOORED speechless in my entire life ( the birth of my son, the surprise shower thrown for me at Origin for the birth of my daughter) I had to ask them to repeat it and then mustered every erg of self control not to jump around and whoop and yell. Any other employer would have said, "Cool, let's do what he says and match his current salary."

    So since then the rest has been a roller coaster ride and has been unequivocally the best thing that has ever happened to me during my 32 years of life - besides the first time I got laid, or married or kids. But you know what? It only...gets...better.


    That was quite long. Slipgate

    American McGee on IRC
    4:35 PM EST
    American McGee was on Undernet #quake2 Saturday. I couldn't mention this until we got permission from him to print the log, and now we do and because I was away taking finals today I didn't get a chance to get to this until other people had printed it....... aggh..... 3 days more of finals...

    In any case, click here to read the log of the visit. He talks about how no midi support is in Quake 2, talks some about the monsters, the fact that levels will need to be converted, etc. etc. Sorry I'm not the best at news this week, its because this is my week of finals. Slipgate

    June 8, 1997
    Quake 2 to include a female
    5:53 PM EST
    Straight from Redwood again this time (demmit people send me Quake 2 news like you used to). Petra-PMS (of clan PMS no less :) ) asked American McGee if a female player will be included in Quake 2. It has been confirmed that yes, there will be a female player also. Good news. Slipgate

    June 7, 1997
    Multi-processor support in Quake 2
    9:03 PM EST
    While taking a break from studying, I cruised the news pages and found out this tidbit from Redwood's Quake Page. The Eliminator asked John Carmack the possibility of getting multi processor NT support into Quake 2 (or Quake, actually). The response he got was this:

    I might add an SMP rendering module to quake 2, depending on time constriants. I have the framework set up, but it would still take me a day or two.


    What this means is that if you have a multiprocessor board (for example, a dual Pentium), there would be an advantage. For the folks who don't understand ANYTHING I just said..... here goes an explanation: First off, you can get a computer with more than one processor in it, where the two processors share the CPU work and the general effect is that the computer is speedier. However, multiprocessor boards aren't the "perfect solution". They have little to no advantage on a program unless its written so its able to detect and take advantage of multiple processors, otherwise it just uses one and will run at the same basic speed it would run on a single processor regular old computer. However, if a program is written to detect and take advantage of multiple processors, it can run quicker for people with multiprocessor systems, because its using all the processors, while at the same time it can still run good on regular single processor systems. Because programs need to be WRITTEN to take advantage of multiprocessor systems is why multiprocessor systems aren't the "perfect solution". Basically, John Carmack has stated that he's begun the framework for multiprocessor support in Quake 2, but that in order to finish he'd need to spend a solid day or two working on the multiprocessor support. However, when you are busy programming so many different aspects of a game, that time he needs might not be available to really get it done right. Hopefully it is done because it doesn't hurt to have multiprocessor support... and now there's all the more reason to get multiprocessor systems! (Think how many people bought a 3dfx card just because of GLQuake....... now imagine them all buying dual Pentiums or dual Pentium Pros just for Quake 2...). In any case..... I spend more money than I have on computer stuff already.... I don't count a new processor on any wishlists this year at all. Slipgate

    Fingers
    4:48 PM EST
    I meant to mention this before (doh) but John Cash updated his plan while I was gone and Paul Steed updated too! He didn't even HAVE a finger before :). Here's a quick qouting job on John Cash's update:

    LostReality luvs Sniper
    I AM A GENIUS!!!!

    Well, I got 17 of Gateway's teasers (so far), so at least according to that test I am!!

    Update:
    Jim, that makes you a genius too; that scoring system is rather binary ;-) I guess you're just a genius who had more time; I stopped when I hit 17.

    Oh yeah, sCary... I did it myself. You've been hanging around Bob too much, ya cheatin' bastard! ;-)

    0 = Number of people who give a D about our "scores".



    And now back to the real world...


    Umm, I won't ask if you don't. Here's Paul Steed's first plan update (I gotta add a finger link to him sometime now):

    This .plan file has not been set up by its owner yet. He or she might want to do something like this:

    Work: <972 613-3589 x.50>
    Home:
    Office Location: id
    Basic schedule:

    Well it's about time I got with the program and made an entry here. Since I just got back from the 3D Design conference in San Francisco, I'd like to start with some views and opinions on a couple of art tools, mainly Lightwave and 3DSMAX.

    First I'd like to say that 3DSMAX is my main choice for cinematic animation. I'm slowly moving to it for low-poly modeling as well, but for now I model in that old dinosaur, 3DS4. Since I'm fortunate to have no budgetary constraints or fiscally anal supervisors holding me back I have three machines at work and three machines at home which combined run the programs I use on a daily basis:

    3DS4
    All kinds of external plug-ins for 3DS4
    Animator Pro
    Alias Power Animator 8.0
    3DSMAX
    A plethora of 3DSMAX Plug-ins
    Photoshop

    Recently I paid a visit to Ion Storm and was shown Lightwave by a couple artists there. I was impressed with how proficient and devoted they were to the program, and even considered buying a copy of it. However, after doing some research and attending the 3D Design Conference, it became apparent to me that MAX is definitely THE NT program to stick with. Why? Two reasons: support and longevity.

    Lightwave doesn't have one tenth the support MAX has in terms of people developing for it or maintaining it. I also have a gut feeling that Lightwave won't be around for very much longer in its current form. With companies like Alias and Softimage going to NT, Lightwave will have to add quite a bit more to its versatility and functionality to keep up.

    The only thing Lightwave has going for it is COST. It is a relatively inexpensive program. If you're a smaller company or start-up company like Ion Storm who can't afford the higher end tools or if your artists can't really grok the more complex programs like Alias and MAX, then Lightwave is probably best for you. One turn-off in particular I noticed with the program is that it can't save out the meshes the way they need to be saved out for the Quake engine. Alias does with no problems (MAX doesn't, either, though.)

    Another thing that bugs me about Lightwave is that I didn't see any cool animations done with the models. The guys at the aforementioned company are modeling up a storm, but in order to be an effective modeller in our genre one needs to be animating or understand how the model will be animated. Jeff Wand showed me a pretty decent spider but the joints didn't seem to have enough faces to support movement. Maybe this is due to Jeff's lack of animating experience, but I hope the hoops the guys at Ion Storm will have to go through to get their models in the game won't be too time-consuming. If geometry has to be added to help support movement, then the model has to be re-saved and re-grabbed by the software. Again, Alias is great at animating characters and giving the most amount of control over vertices and general mesh deformation for low-poly animations.

    Eventually, I'll be doing everything in Alias once I find the time to devote training in that, but for now I'm happy looking at my three 21" monitors using a variety of programs to get the job done.

    So I guess I'll get back to work finishing up the player weapons for Quake2. And let me close by saying that I know that everyone is going to be very very surprised and very, very, VERY pleased with the follow-up to Quake. Once again, id will brush away the competition with no talk, no over-blown media hype, no egos and no bullshit. We will simply let the game speak for itself. And you know what it says? It says "WE ARE GONNA KICK SOME F@#$ING ASS!"

    Prepare yourself.


    He sounds like he'll make lots of quality plan updates. Slipgate

    Final update of day
    3:32 PM EST
    I'm now studying for final exams. I really haven't got the time for the page that I did..... until Thursday :). (No, the page isn't shutting down). In any case, Nite will be doing any and all updates from here on till Thursday, because I just can't. Wish me luck on my finals! Slipgate

    Fault Line now has a button
    3:30 PM EST
    Crash of Crash's Single Player Quake made me a button for this page. Thanks man! It's at the top of the page now. Slipgate

    3d cards
    3:28 PM EST
    There is a roundup of 23 accelerator cards reviewed on GameCenter. Thanks again go to Prophet. Slipgate

    Portal story
    3:26 PM EST
    GameCenter has a story about Portal technology (supposedly the next step in 3d games). Thanks Prophet. Slipgate

    Why Verite when there is GLQuake? =)
    3:20 PM EST
    There is a fresh scoop on the second-generation Verite stuff on GameCenter. Thanks Prophet. Slipgate

    Activision or E3 stuff
    3:17 PM EST
    Activision has a high bandwith version of their website along with their E3 lineup. Go to http://www.activision.com/high/index-ie.html. Also, id's CEO talks about the Activision deal on PcGamer here. Thanks Prophet. Slipgate

    American McGee interviews
    3:04 PM EST
    There were TWO American McGee interviews...... one on Thursday night on the QuakeCast. The show can be heard by clicking here, as long as you have RealAudio 3.0 or higher installed. Go to real.com if you don't. The other American McGee interview deals more with editing and was done by the Quake Workshop. Thanks to Andrew McIntyre for telling me about the Quake Workshop interview. Thanks to Rotwang and KaTT for telling me about the QuakeCast one. As KaTT told me, American talks about enhanced monster AI, the ability to hide in shadows from monsters (they can't see as well in the dark), levels being 2-3 times bigger, more consistent themes/styles, bigger range of weapons, no grappling hooks, and probably other stuff. Rotwang told me that he appears on the show inbetween the 17 minute 35 second mark and 49 minute 40 second mark (to save you time in listening to the rest). Listen to the QuakeCast for the whole deal. Slipgate

    Quake 2 Zone of Telefragged
    3:01 PM EST
    The Quake 2 Zone of Telefragged has officially premiered. Here's the URL for your hot little hands: http://q2z.telefragged.com. Thanks to QuakeGod the maintainer for letting us news folks know. Slipgate

    Nebula has returned
    2:58 PM EST
    The Quake 2 Nebula has returned with its new layout. It's not back to steady updating or even truly finished up with the new format yet, but its something to look at right now. Thanks to Prestige for mailing me about this. Slipgate

    Mailing list problems
    2:54 PM EST
    The Quake 2 mailing list has not been sent yet due to unforseen problems. Nite recently got a P166MMX to replace his P60, but its having problems and it hangs a lot, including when he tries to send the mailing list. Because of the nature of the mailing list I can't send it out myself although I tried. Nite will send it out to the current 400 folks on Wednesday, and people who have asked to subscribe since the last one will have to wait. You will be included by the time the next edition of the mailing list after this one is sent. We apologize and we wish we could do something about it right now but we can't. Slipgate

    Back!
    2:53 PM EST
    Sorry I've been away, as I said yesterday was my birthday. I'm 18 now! The mail piled up nonetheless! I had a lot of fun on my birthday though and also saw "The Fifth Element" (really funky movie) Here I go doing today's update. Slipgate

    June 5, 1997
    Vorinth's page dies!
    5:23 PM EST
    Bad news always seems to follow good news. Vorinth's Quake 2 page is now officially dead...... it won't be updated anymore and it will be taken down, although it hasn't been taken down yet. I've removed the link. If he states that he's coming back, I'll put the link back on. I'm not happy but I've realized this sort of thing is going to happen, it did with Quake 1. So I'll just deal with these page shutdowns as they come. Slipgate

    Minister's page returns!
    5:21 PM EST
    Minister has decided to keep his Quake 2 page going! Good thing too. Slipgate

    Doomed Dimension makeover
    5:14 PM EST
    The Quake 2 page The Doomed Dimension got an interesting makeover..... check it out. Slipgate

    Quake 2 possible compiler?
    5:12 PM EST
    Go here to get to the page of LCC, the compiler mentioned in the mail with the Quake 2 Headquarters. You can get the 1.4 meg download of LCC here. Thanks to Spam[69] of the Headquarters. Slipgate

    Movies
    4:31 PM EST
    Just a quick announcement, the Rangers plan on unveiling "you know which movie" (RGB3 for those who don't know :) ), at QuakeCon '97. Damn I can't be there, but I will download the movie nonetheless. That came from Polish of Quakemania. It's just a quick announcement is all :). Slipgate

    Quake2.com officially open
    4:13 PM EST
    Quake2.com, where the Quake 2 Headquarters page moved, has NOW officially "opened for business". The domain is by the same folks as time2quake.com. The official "announcement" was sent to us news guys (including me, Blue, Redwood, Patrick Cupka, and many others). Here's the announcement:

    Time2Quake (http://www.time2quake.com) is proud to announce the official launch of our sister site Quake2.com (http://www.quake2.com)

    Our Quake2 news section is in the very capable hands of Spam[69], formerly
    of the Quake II Headquarters news site. You can always find the latest and
    greatest on the eagerly awaited Quake2......just a sec......this just in:

    We recently got some info from John Carmack about .dll's and Quake 2.
    Here's the mail:

    > Will the source code be c or c++?

    -C

    > I realize your using msvc but will the source have anything msvc
    > specific, IOW, how hard will it be to port to another win32
    > compiler?

    -We will use VC++, but it should be pure ANSI, compilable with the win32 gcc port.

    > Will this change anything concernig net play, like will both client
    > and server always have to be running the patch or would only the server
    > need it, like it is now?

    -I don't think I am going to do client side DLL's, but that could possibly
    change.

    > Oh, you might want to let people know about lcc-win32, its a freeware win32
    > compiler w/ source code and its all in a 1.4 meg zip. This would be great
    > for people who cant afford a comercial compiler. its at

    -I like LCC, I ported it to the jaguar's risc chips a few years ago.
    -If someone writes a dll tool for it, that should be a fine compiler to
    use, and
    -it wouldn't require all the bulk of gcc.

    -John Carmack

    Check back often!! Quake2.com, your one stop shopping experience for all
    that is now and is to be Quake2.

    Figin
    http://www.time2quake.com


    Some people ask me my opinion on other Quake 2 pages popping up and going down. I'll give you my honest opinion. If you like a site, go there. That's my honest opinion. I am not going to act supieror or inferior to any other pages seriously. Sometimes I may joke, but it is just a joke at those times. Cheers to all Quake 2 pages! Slipgate

    Radiosity lighting
    4:09 PM EST
    Walter Meyer e-mailed me in reference to my letter to John Carmack about, well, light. Here ya go:

    since you were asking JC about radiosity lighting you might find the following link interesting:

    http://www.garymct.com/


    Go check that page out if interested..... thanks Walter (for those who don't know, this is the page recently mentioned by Blue about screenshots of multiple textures being mappend on single faces... that's not all this page has though). Slipgate

    Other Prophet mailbag goodies
    4:05 PM EST
    To get a Quake 2 gotten by Activision story (there are too many of these!), go here. Damn... I wish I had a P200MMX, but the Diamond Monster 3D looms formost on my mind (I'm getting it really soon now). To hear about IBM's competition for the MMX, go here. Slipgate

    E3 wierd details
    4:03 PM EST
    First off, yup, Quakemania is back on a Linux server now. Ok, to the news. Prophet let me know about this: You can go here to get some WIERD details on E3. Thanks bud. Slipgate

    June 4, 1997
    Quake 2 at E3
    7:20 PM EST
    Sure enough, Quake 2 will be shown publically with playable levels at E3. That news comes from John Carmack's reply to a letter from Dyno of Dyno's Quake 2 news. Slipgate

    Other page shutdowns
    7:19 PM EST
    Vorinth's Quake 2 page is shutting down also. He's gotten 25 mb at lockandload.com to make a TF page, so...... Also, Minister is thinking of shutting down his page. Vorinth did tell me he may make another page later, but to consider his gone. I'll remove his link once the page is gone. Slipgate

    Quakemania will be down for a while
    7:06 PM EST
    QuakeMania will be down for two hours tomorrow while the server switches over from Windows NT to Linux. I've been looking forward to this change because I'm better at working websites on Linux servers, and well because Linux rules! :) Anyways, I may make updates today but to be on the safe side I won't make any updates tomorrow until the completion of the move is confirmed. Slipgate

    Quaker Joltmeal is dead
    4:50 PM EST
    erraticAvoid, the maintainer of Quaker Joltmeal, has closed his site down. From the page:

    Quaker Joltmeal is no more. I will be concentrating on game design and
    programming for the whole summer.
    It's possible I may return in a few months with a whole new news page, but
    as of now - I have other plans.

    <----------------------------------->
    |Thanks to those of you who visited,|
    |and those who sent me feedback. =) |
    <----------------------------------->

    erraticAvoid (neilr@nsis.com)


    This marks the end of a very good page....... oh well. It's truly a sad day when instead of adding to my links, I'm subtracting from them. Slipgate

    Many thanks to many folks
    3:03 PM EST
    I just wanted to get on the shoebox a second to thank everyone who's linked me (and a certain individual who's saved my site AND linked me), people who have sent me news, people who have given me suggestions on the page or their honest opinions about things..... I just never get to correctly express my gratitude for all you guys do, without which this page wouldn't be here to read (or worth reading if it was). I know this is a little unrelated blurb..... but thanks guys. On a final note, many thanks to all who supported the format change of yesterday. I promise you this page isn't going to drop like a fly. Slipgate

    Quake 2 pages getting dropped
    2:59 PM EST
    Some Quake 2 pages are dropping down, or haven't been updated in so long that they look dead....... It's not making me happy, but I guess it is bound to happen..... think how many Quake 1 sites there were that are dead now (only a few of the first Quake sites made are left), and then there's the Doom pages, and it goes on. It is too bad really, but again I guess it is bound to happen. Thanks to a certain individual with a like mind :). Slipgate

    Minister's new logo
    2:55 PM EST
    Minister, the runner of (aptly named) Minister's Quake 2 page, has gotten a new logo, made by Jonathan Ruff of the Quake 2 Nebula (which at the time of this writing hasn't repremiered with its new format..... it's promised later today)..... It looks pretty good, but I'm no art critic :). Slipgate

    Gamecenter blurb
    2:53 PM EST
    Gamecenter has a new Quake 2 gotten by Activision story up. It is interesting to now see the "Quake 2" engine being termed the "Unified Quake Engine" but the name makes sense..... 3d card support and switching built in etc. etc. Thanks go to the Prophet. Slipgate

    Wampey's Census on Quake 2
    2:43 PM EST
    Before you ask how this is related to Quake 2, read the last paragraph of this letter that Digital Savior of Wampey's Census sent me:

    Somebody (who was unaffiliated with the page) announced a couple days ago that Wampey's Censuses had been updated. That report was untrue.

    Wampey's Censuses has NOW been updated with new questions (including the important issue of best 1st-person game of all time), results, and responses.)

    The results about having a female quake character in Quake II are up. The people want her.

    http://www.planetquake.com/census/

    Thanks,
    Digital Savior


    I've viewed the results..... as he said, the female option got MANY votes (361 yes, 101 no). Also, 234 people said that Quake 2 would be "just another Quake engine game" whereass 228 said it would be a whole new experience... I of course should at this point tell you my stand....... and my stand is that I can't wait for Quake 2 to come out... I have no doubt it will basically be a Quake engine game, but I know it will let us see some things that just weren't there in Quake...... (I'm still spooging from the thought of a green glow when something is hit by blue and yellow light). Slipgate

    June 3, 1997
    The Nebula shall return
    9:01 PM EST
    The Quake 2 Nebula has been down getting what is promised to be a kickass facelift...... the new improved Nebula will be up some time tomorrow now according to Jonathan Ruff, the maintainer. Slipgate

    Detailed discussion on 3d accelerators
    8:35 PM EST
    Prophet told me this too... Elecplay has a detailed discussion on 3d accelerator technology that even has a glossary of terms. Slipgate

    Entermedia gets a Quake 2 story
    8:31 PM EST
    I mean exactly that...... go here to check it out. It's 1 page long (no joking). The particular informant here would be the Prophet :). Slipgate

    Quake 2 headquarters moved
    7:12 PM EST
    The Quake 2 Headquarters moved to http://www.quake2.com/news/. I've updated my link. Also added a link to the new site the Inferno. Slipgate

    John Carmack speaks about Quake 2 levels
    5:57 PM EST
    I wrote John Carmack several questions about BSP files and where Quake 2 is taking them in comparison to Quake 1, as well as a question I've wondered since Quake came out about BSP files...... He replied to the whole shabang albeit breifly..... what follows is his reply..... he has quoted my letter. Many thanks John. By the way, this is basically the entirety of my letter and his reply, it's a long read.

    > Dear Mr. Carmack,
    >
    > I've come to wonder exactly how much the BSP format of Quake is
    > changing in the work you are doing....... You've made several
    > finger updates (including your latest one) about changes to the BSP
    > format and more robustness in the engine.
    >
    > My first question is about the limitations of the BSP in Quake 1. I
    > know that QBSP only compiled maps with 4096 or less brushes, and
    > although I have asked many serious level writers (including members
    > of Hipnotic) I have never gotten an answer to this question: Is
    > 4096 brushes a limitation of the Quake 1 engine or is it just a
    > limitation plugged in QBSP? If QBSP would compile BSPs with more
    > brushes, would they run in Quake 1? If not, will this 4096 brush
    > limitation be bumped up to something higher in Quake 2?

    The brush limit is arbitrary, you could increase it and quake 1 maps would still work. There are a couple 16 bit limits in the file format that cannot be increased, though. I removed some of those in quake 2.

    > About engine improvements: Right now Quake's engine only supports
    > individual concave solids, for convex shapes you use multiple
    > concave solids. Is one of the improvements you are working on the
    > ability to have convex solids? If the 4096 solid limit is still in
    > place, this would allow more complex maps than Quake 1 did (because
    > a room could be 1 solid instead of 6)

    Concave solids are best represented as unions of convex solids.

    > When you say QRAD is radiosity lighting, I understand dynamic
    > aspects like the shadow of a block moving along with the block
    > instead of being stationary, but what else does radiosity exactly
    > mean?

    Qrad doesn't have anything to do with dynamic lighting, it deals with light bouncing off of all surfaces, instead of just coming from lights.

    > My second question regards MAP writing. Is basic map writing going
    > to remain the same (brushes descibed with numeric matrices,
    > entities classname and spawnflags) with just a different set of
    > entities being the standard?

    Basically.

    > For colored lighting: I am ASSUMING colored lighting is
    > available..... if not, set me straight :). My question is how a
    > person can dictate the color of a light in writing a map, is it
    > something akin to a new "color" spawnflag on the light_*
    > classnames? For light in Quake, when the light coming from two
    > light_ entities collide their basic brightness (at least how much
    > of it is left as it has been dissapating) is mixed to some
    > degree..... I'm not sure if the actual intensity of the light is
    > mixed.... will color "mixing" be present? For example, if yellow
    > and blue light both shine on an object in an area, will that glow
    > faintly greenish?

    You can specify rgb values for lights. Full color mixing is supported.

    > Will colored lighting be available to those playing Quake 2 in
    > standard (non GL, non Verite) mode? Exactly what as you see it now
    > will be the visual advantages to Quake 2 GL over standard and Quake
    > 2 Verite over standard? Are you moving most currently GLQuake only
    > features over to be available in standard also (like colored
    > lighting)?

    No, it is only in the GL version. Other versions will use mono lighting.

    > My last question...... will Quake 2 in standard mode be 256 color
    > graphics or 16 bit?

    It is 256 color.

    John Carmack


    Well, that gets some repeated questions answered at last....... Quake 2 in normal mode WILL NOT have colored lights...... it will be 256 color only in normal mode, and porting Quake levels over to Quake 2 won't be all that hard...... And woohoo! Quake 2 will allow colored lights to mix on the Diamond Monster 3D I'm getting soon! Slipgate

    Surprise!
    5:49 PM EST
    Surprise! Notice something different here? Go to the fingers, links, about and archive sections too..... realize what has happened?

    I'm sorry to do this to you..... but this page LOOKED like a newbie's homepage (somebody used those words to describe it, and I had been thinking the same thing. You know who you are mystery person :) ). Anyways, I've also not been very faithful on staying related to the topic of the page lately..... so here I go with some FAITHFUL news! Slipgate

    HTML mistake
    4:00 PM EST
    News was invisible for 20 minutes due to an html mistake..... sorry. Slipgate

    More hardware info
    3:38 PM EST
    Teac will be releasing a 6 disk 8x cd rom drive and there's a story about the new P233 MMX. Get it all at PCME. Thanks Prophet. Slipgate

    Counter fixed
    3:38 PM EST
    For the most part... the roughly 850 hits that were lost were re-added. I don't want to hear people thinking I'm adding more hits I didn't have because that's not what is going on here. Slipgate

    Older News

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