Engine programming to end?

I think Carmack said that about the generation AFTER Doom 3. Doom 3 still uses DX7 level techniques.

There is always room to improve anything. I don''t think there will be just one engine that all game will be run on. After all, new technology, especially with graphics cards will allow more features for an engine, so obviously engines will always change to take advantage of new hardware and algorithms.

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Nicholas Skapura
skapura.2@wright.edu
http://skap.8k.com
AIM: skap35

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Original post by BigBadBob
A lot of people on the net have said that they think that game programming will change after doom3 / half life 2 generation because there is not much left to be done in engine programming...they think that one solid engine will be produced that will be used for all games in a certain genre and that no new engine creation will be done.

I want to know if people here agree with this or not?

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Total BS. Believe me, there is a lot you can do better than HL2/D3... Especially on the new DX9 type cards. Eventually, that point will come. But not in the near future.

That reminds me of a 19th century "scientist", I don''t remember who it was, who said that everything that could possibly be invented has been done, and that technology could not go any further than that...

I agree, I don''t think we''re going to hit a plateau any time soon. I''d be surprised if we get current Pixar-quality graphics in game situations in the next 5 years, and Pixar-quality graphics certainly aren''t the peak. In fact, I''d go as far as to say that in the big picture, graphics technology is fairly primitive at the moment. There''s lots of room for improvement, and for changes in the rendering process. Almost everything currently is a (fairly) crude approximation..as technology progresses, we''ll be able to do a lot more, and engines will need to adapt to those changes.

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Original post by Yann L
That reminds me of a 19th century "scientist", I don''t remember who it was,

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quote:

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Original quote by Charles H. Duell, U.S. Commissioner of Patents, in 1899
Everything that can be invented has been invented

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Some sources say it''s a myth. I tend to believe it is.

You wanna know what a perfect engine looks like? Go see "The Matrix". That, of course, with a better physics implementation. It''s not nice to have game-characters ignore all kinds of programmed-in rules

I sure hope it isn't going to end. What will I do for a living?

I like NaliXL's point. Until you can replicate The Matrix, A Bug's Life, Toy Story and Shrek real-time, there will always be graphics and engine programmers...

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[edited by - iNsAn1tY on July 15, 2003 5:09:48 PM]

State of the art offline rendering (The Matrix etc.) isn''t even perfect. I was fairly disappointed by The Matrix''s CG. It was very obviously computer generated. Just look at the Hulk aswell. That standard of rendering in realtime in games wouldn''t mark the emergence of "perfect" engines. As technology marches forward and we get into deeper simulations in terms of all the senses, we''ll be talking about deep and precise simulations of worlds which is a very far way off, and which will be far away from current engines in terms of design and architecture.

OK, this is what I consider state of the art photorealistic CG (both images by Gilles Tran, a french 3D artist):

Click 1
Click 2

Compare that to Doom3 or HalfLife2... And even if we get that kind of quality in realtime, there is still room for improvement.

Retrep> I don''t think he meant effects like matrix, but actually the ability to manage and render such a complex world, as realistic as a photograph or as thoses two pictures YannL posted...
I understood what he said as "we won''t reach the end until we''re able to write a program like what the matrix is supposed to be"
maybe he didn''t mean that, but I think it''s a good point

YannL> mmh.. seen one of these before... wasn''t the rainy picture on pov-ray''s homepage for a while?
the picture with the highway is definitely very nice
that stuff in realtime... hu, nice thing to think about :D

If I saw those pictures running real time someone''s computer, I think my first question would be, "So how much did you pay for that, anyway?"

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Original post by sBibi
YannL> mmh.. seen one of these before... wasn''t the rainy picture on pov-ray''s homepage for a while?

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Could very well be. He did those pics in pov-ray (!)

Carmack said he wanted to get out of the game dev business because he believed that other people had a good handle on it, and that he wouldn''t do as much as he had done in the last 10 years or so. He really wants to focus on his Armadillo Aerospace company because he believes (and maybe rightfully so) that the aerospace industry is like 25 years behind where it should be.

-timiscool999
"I like waffles. Especially with syrup." -me

XBox controller v2.0

click for bigger picture

Sure many games will use the HalfLife2 or Doom3 engine, for a while. But we are only just beggining to see what can be done. As the graphics have showed the worlds we can create, the physics have then had to catch up, and now the AI has to catch up. All is far from over.

When I think engine, I think of everything that goes into creating the core system that the game sits on top… I think AI, networking, user input, sound, possibly scripting and of course graphics. Personally, I don’t think that engine development will stop, nor will anyone engine be used for all games of a specific genre; there are just way too many egos that will prevent that from happening.

As an example there are many different car makers and all of them have their own design teams. The keep designs secret and they are always looking for ways to outdo the competition. Competition, in a free market, also propels technology – using history as a guide, as I always preach, I foresee more and more advances in engine design especially where graphics is concerned. As chip manufactures continue to compete to create faster hardware the software side of the house will readily take advantage of it.

I do hope that we wake up… I have bought maybe 6 or 7 games in the past 6 months and have yet to be satisfied with the level of play that any of these games provided. Someone has said that once we reach a plateau where graphics can not be called important, that we will (re)start to focus on the game play.

Maybe Carmack has the right ideal... Aerospace is where its at.



Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

Have you played Rise of Nations? In my opinion that game is excellent.

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Original post by tuxx
Have you played Rise of Nations? In my opinion that game is excellent.

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No, I have not... Primarily because I have forked out over 175 bucks for the aforementioned games and secondly because well… because SS didn’t hire me actually that’s only half true… I sent my resume to them and I got a response for a resend and nothing else.

Really, I have read about RoN and I even secretly counted the days until it’s release (since I’m a big RTS nut) but after more reading I decided that I didn’t want to waste more money on another game. I particularly find the status quo resource gathering a bore and in place of the game I bought yet another book to fill my head with ideals – so that I could further my design and continue the framework for my own RTS.

What is it that you like about RoN?


Dave "Dak Lozar" Loeser

You idiots, of course engine development will end... right after all the matter in the universe degenerates into energy.

Haha,

No offense, but that is the dumbest shit I''ve ever heard.

Technology evolves, and to utilize said technology your means of exploiting it must evolve with it.

Just because some people are getting burned out and leaving the industry doesn''t mean a damn thing ( or just plain retiring ). There will always be more people to pick up the torch where they left off.

Game programming will evolve just like it has since its inception. Just because Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 are doing some neat things doesn''t mean that the show will just stop. To be honest, that is just pure fanboy bullshit.


*shrug*

.zfod