Well, the game is jammin' along and looking as expected: AWESOME. I have to have the cinematics done by tomorrow so Sound Deluxe can put the sound and music to it. As far as whether or not I'm happy with the stuff? Is it cool? I'll let you make that call.

Next week I go balls out and tweak EVERY single frame of character animation until they're all dead-on perfect. BTW, anyone out there not using Alias Wavefront with Power Animator on an SGI gets my vote for manliness. You HAVE to use a skeletal system with vertex deformation. Moving objects or groups of vertices around to animate is both barbaric and akin to stop-motion photography. All you Ray Harryhausen wannabes out there go grab Character Studio or BonesPro something and get serious. Any other approach will be both frustrating and sub par in quality.

The CW contest hasn't progressed very much (as in '0'). Either I'm underestimating the number of girlfriends/wives/friends/whatever willing to put on the outfit or the real entries are waiting for Holloween. Hope it's the latter instead of the former.

Finally I watched Disruptor play Jedi Knight for a while and thought the cinematics and sound were great. I could go into a more in depth analysis of what I thought about JK (I AM a SW fan BTW) but I'll go ahead and agree with Kevin: We've been working way too hard.

>Hej! (hi, in swedish)
>
>I remember some unreal programer saying they had removed a graphical
>feature which allowed shadows to 'slide' across objects as they moved,
>due to too much slow-down..
>
>Q: Will Quake2 have shadows 'sliding' over objects as they move, or will
>the entire model be shadowed 'on-off' .. ?

Quake 2 will not have any advanced shadow features. Trinity will...

John Carmack

Today someone wrote wanting to know what you get if you play the Demo, and you don't actually 'flip over it', as I promised yesterday.

So, all non-flippers will be honorary inductees into the Llama Hall of Fame. This is an extraordinary honor! Something that some people work really hard over an entire lifetime to achieve, and yet others seem to effortlessly obtain, almost as if they have a god given talent or something. You can do this one thing, not 'flip over' the demo, you will leap frog all your buddies and reach the crown jewel!

You're gonna flip over the Demo! (and the full game will be even better!)

I do not comprehend Microsoft's inability to write software that just works.

Here is the latest in my epic saga of "How to Write Software When Your Tools are Written By Complete Idiots". The sad part is that I know a lot of really competent and smart people at Microsoft, yet I guess their code never makes it into production software. Or something like that.

So why am I griping? Dig upon this scenario:

Given two identical machines (Intergraph Realizm workstations, identical driver sets, both dual PPro/200s and 128MB of RAM, both running WinNT 4 with SP3), and given two IDENTICAL installations of MSVC 5 (w/ SP2), and given that both grab an ENTIRE directory of source code (including all relevant project and workspace files) from a central directory, and both do complete rebuilds without touching any compiler options, given ALL this, WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD THEY GENERATE DIFFERENT EXECUTABLES? Different sizes, and in many cases different behaviour.

If I build Quake2 on my machine using the "release build", the DLLs and EXEs generated work just fine. If either Cash or Carmack do the same thing, they get fucked up, bizarre shit like weird spinning worlds and other randomly bizarre stuff.

Did I mention this is with the same basic hardware on everyone's machine? And the same OS? And the same compiler? And the same project file? And the same workspace files? Cash went so far as to format his hard drive and reinstall everything from scratch, and he's getting the same problems. Where are these magic compiler options being stored -- in the Flash BIOS?!

Or maybe I have magic compiler options being stored in my registry...and in that case, well, civilization is doomed and we may as well start building fires with rocks again.

It's like the programmers at Microsoft have neither pride nor common sense.

All right, I'll shut up now, since if I say how I REALLY feel I'll probably piss off even more people.

October 8, 1997

Someone wrote me today and said that there were rumors flying about that QTest2 was coming out soon.

I wrote back and said that there won't be a QTest2. Now there's more concerns from that statement, so let me clarify:

We all along have said there will be a Demo released for Quake. This is a bit different from a 'QTest2', in that QTest2 would lead you to believe it would be the same type of thing as QTest was. QTest was a non-monster-populated, internet playability test. The Demo will not be like this.

The Demo will be released when we are finished with it, and at that time you will get to see exactly what's in it :) And, I promise you will flip over it!

PC Games has just released Quake2 coverage in their latest issue. This includes an in-game shot of that controversial female monster. I'm aware this has previously been on-line, but just to let everyone know :).

(BTW, in other news, Intel just bought out Alpha, the company making that 500mhz chip that id was porting to. So they'll be writing for an obsolete platform :). hm)

[Zerstorer] Tex-Murph

Planetdnf.com's QuakeWorld tournament, Quake-A-Thon '97, is on its final stages. The registration deadline is today and everything is running smoothly. A chat will be hosted tonight on Quake2.com's IRC server, irc.quake2.com so everyone who still has questions or problems regarding the tournament can get their answers there.

Once the tournament has started, the channel will be re-opened for the players, so they can be informed of their status and upcoming matches. Make sure you register and don't miss the chat.

For more information go to:
http://www.planetdnf.com/qthon

If you have any questions send some mail to primodel@planetdnf.com.

Thanks to Quake2.com for letting us use the server for this.

Quake related! Woo-hoo! Okay, nothing special, other than to say that we talked to NVidia today and they showed us an early early early version of their ICD for Win95. Very impressive, given the short amount of time they've been working on it.

Hahaha. Someone pointed out my lack of typing ability, obviously I meant '1998' in yesterday's .plan update.

A limitation of the original Quake engine was that enemies could not chase the player past certain boundaries within the game architecture; now that is no longer the case as they absolutely will not stop until you are dead (or crush them in a metal press). Players need to use the lay of the land to his (or her, there will be two player types) advantage, hiding in shadows so that the enemy doesn't know you're there, until you're ready to let him know.

Quake II is gonna bring the whole roof down on 3D action gaming, leaving the others shaking in its wake.

Players can also crawl into narrow shafts or behind crates (to pop up in surprise when the time is right). Another new feature for Quake is a more interactive environment; some walls can explode, giving access to other areas or power-ups and gun turrets can be manned for those times when the chaingun just isn't enough (can you imagine the CTF games where players can defend with these puppies?).

Heres some specs:
Quake2 soundtrack is done!!!
Quake2 soundtrack will rock your world!
There will be 15 tracks all in redbook audio format
All together we composed 23 tracks
We used up over 3 gigabytes of HardDisk space for audio
We had 100 liter of coffee and 25 times we ordered pizza ;)

The Screenshot Archive's Quake II screensaver has been updated to accomidate extra image sets. Six extra image sets have been posted as well. Check 'em out:

http://archive.gamesmania.com/ftp/pub/savers/quake2/q2saver.zip
http://archive.gamesmania.com/ftp/pub/savers/quake2/q2imag3.zip
http://archive.gamesmania.com/ftp/pub/savers/quake2/q2imag4.zip
http://archive.gamesmania.com/ftp/pub/savers/quake2/q2imag5.zip
http://archive.gamesmania.com/ftp/pub/savers/quake2/q2imag6.zip
http://archive.gamesmania.com/ftp/pub/savers/quake2/q2imag7.zip
http://archive.gamesmania.com/ftp/pub/savers/quake2/q2imag8.zip

The subject pretty much says it all! John Carmack's 1000HP Ferrari Testarossa is to be featured in the October issue of "Street Power" The article is appropriately named "EDGE OF DOOM". http://www.mcmullenargus.com/pub/FrgnPerf/strtpwr/default.htm Anyhow, I thought the QUAKE community would find this to be of some interest.

9/30/97
I've been getting a lot of inquiries about the weapons so since I animated them I thought I could add a little illumination to this subject. Forgive the redundancy if someone has already clarified any of the following issues on one of the news sites. I stay away from the browser since Danni's Hard Drive is just above Redwood's (sorry red) so in order to save myself from being lost in mindless surfing, I miss out on all the late breaking, pulse-pounding, orgasm-inducing tidbits about the world according to Quake. These are the following weapons I've animated for the little game we've been working on for the past oh, 354 days or so...
- blaster
- shotgun
- super shotgun
- chain gun
- hyper blaster
- flare gun
- hand grenade
- rail gun
- rocket launcher
- grenade launcher
- BFG
- Disintigrator (ALTHOUGH Kevin says this may be questionable making it into the final cut)

Some other weapons that have been discussed but I have not seen or animated are:
- mines
- sticky bombs
- a low-yield, hand-carried, tactical thermonuclear bomb

Some other weapon factoids you may be unwilling to wade through a FAQ to obtain are:
- weapons can be customized to be on the left or right
- view model weapons are between 250 and 400 faces
- weapons seen in the world are no more than 200 faces
- the shotgun drum doesn't actually do a full rotation. I just move it a little and then move it back
- the rocket launcher will still carry 3 missiles on the rack even when empty (call me a tease)
- the rocket shells and grenades being fed into the chambers of those respective weapons are not really different shells and are tricks ala the pseudo-rotating shotgun drum
- the chain gun and hyper blaster have overspin and one rotates clockwise and the other counter-clockwise
- when creating the weapons I built them as usual and then viewed them through a 90 degree field of view camera viewport in order to account for any view warp. This occasionally required me to deform the weapons in order to compensate for our wacky FOV (i.e. squash them in a bit)
- the decision to make our weapons look more conventional as opposed to looking like some quisinart(sp) or toaster oven was because we wanted you to be able to realize it was in fact a weapon you were holding in your hands
- no melee weapon was made because we wanted to piss people off, although the mission pack may have such a weapon if we get enough bitching about the lack of that feature
- yes the weapons animation ARE a bitch to do and to make look 'right', that's probably one of the reasons why I'm actually PAID to do what I do
- no people or defenseless animals were harmed in the creation and/or animations of the Quake2 weapon
- finally YEP you guessed it I am tired of questions about the weapons

Back to the grind good friends and fellow philogynists...

Another honor has been bestowed upon id Software. The Red Herring has named us to its 1997 list of the "Top 100 Technology Companies". The magazine has this to say about the list:

"The Herring 100 lists the one hundred brightest stars in the digital firmament. These are, we believe, the companies that define the digital universe."

WOW! That is hefty praise.

The Red Herring isn't much of a "gamer's magazine", but it is a very respected publication in the high technology field, which prides itself on coverage of upwardly mobile companies. I say this to frame what it means to be included on their Top 100 list.

You can see the full list and story here:
http://www.herring.com/mag/digital/id.html

...I think I'll put the article next to the Quake II ad once we get *both* of them framed...

Ok, the Quake II logo contest is over. I have over 50 entries to sort through and decide on. A large number of these entries are fakes. The fake entries will get mention, but so far there is only one fake that will be awarded a special "Cool Fake Entry" prize :) As far as the "real" entries go first place is going to be awarded to the guy with the largest Q2 logo. Those were the rules, and we can't be breaking the rules you know. There will also be 2nd and 3rd place prizes, and I will award some prizes for people who put extra effort into their entries.
I want to thank everyone who participated, and also Stomped and Process for hosting and helping out with this contest.

Since I have no spare time right now it could be a few days before I get a chance to go through all the entries. Please be patient :)

(Note that all the entries are not yet on the contest page)

uzi

Sunday, September 28, 1997

Final weapons list? - Slipgate
Lord Spike made the following messageboard post. I wonder if it would be too much trouble to ask id if this list herewith mentioned is in fact the final weapon list. If someone from id could e-mail me and confirm this, that would be just great. Anyways, his messageboard post read something like this (it's been edited and html formatted). Regarding melee weapons, both this site and the Quake 2 FAQ have reported for some time now that there would be no melee weapon. Anyways, here's the post.

In the latest PC Gamer, there is a offcial and complete list of wepons in Quake 2.

Here they are:

Laser Pistol

Uzi

Shotgun

Chain Gun

Rail Gun

Disintegrator

Hand Grenade

Missile Launcher

You may have noticed there's no Melee weapon (which I think sucks).

Also, the disintegrator is basically a one hit kill weapon and the Rail Gun is as powerful as the Missile Launcher.

Pure 3D starts shipping tomorrow - Slipgate
TiMEBrK sent me an e-mail regarding news he saw on Voodoo Extreme. It's about the Pure 3D accelerator card, which will be a good card for Quake, Quake 2, and other Quake engine games. Anyways, here's the news. If you ordered a Pure 3D card from the website back before the card had gotten released, your in luck because the cards will start shipping tomorrow (um, I think my title to this update said that). I ordered one myself some time back. Hope it comes by Wednesday :). Anyways, here's the scoop from Voodoo Extreme:

Well it's looking like the Pure3D is selling by the bucket load eh? The big question is; when will all your orders that have been placed materialise in to Pure 3D ecstasy? Well, I got from Steven Erickson (cheers) who got a reply from Michael Humphress of Canopus stating this:

PURE 3D will start shipping on Monday, September 29.

Michael

Short and sweet but to the point and EXACTLY what we wanted to hear.

I can't wait to finally play GLQuake on my own PC (only time I've ever personally played it or seen it rather than screenshots was another guy's PC at QuakeCon). I'm also looking forward to colored light in Quake 2 and in the general goodness of GLHexen2. Did I mention I can't wait?

To all subsites - Slipgate
I was going to mail this but thought this might be quicker. A couple of issues emerged recently on Quake2.com, I believe from the server move. For example, Illuminati's team e-mail forwarder is broken (getting fixed soon). If any other subsites are experiencing ANY abnormalities or other problems, bring them to my attention immediately and I'll get them looked into. Thanks.

Green Ribbon Campaign - Slipgate
The Quake Community Green Ribbon Campaign has now moved to grc.quake2.com. The reason for this move is because I love and support the campaign, and I started wondering why the campaign had to be resigned to using Geocities space for its great purpose. So, we're hosting it. Things haven't otherwise changed on it, mind you. Green Ribbon campaign supports will need to update their link to grc.quake2.com, but that shouldn't be too hard.

FAQ News - Slipgate
It's a quiet day newswise in the Quake 2 community, so I thought I'd make an announcement.

Version 0.3 of the Quake 2 FAQ was released some time ago (September 12) if you remember. Since then Paul Steed has released character sheets of monsters not mentioned in it, including information on one of those characters. Also, a couple of other miscellaneous bits of news or clarifications have been released. You'd think 16 days would be enough time to incorporate this information. Ideally, it would be.

The problem I'm running (read: crashing) up against is the fact that there is an html and an ascii version of this FAQ. Each time I update the ascii version I have to re-html-ize from scratch for various reasons. It's killer. It's really tough getting new versions out like this, so I decided on something. Starting with when the next version of the FAQ comes out, there will no longer be an html edition. The hyperlinks to help you navigate were cool and all, but it was a pain to support, and also Netscape's html interpreter made too many mistakes with the FAQ. Since it never really incorporated anything but text, a text version is sufficient. Maybe down the line I can get someone who will make HTML versions available independent of me, but for now, I'll only do text versions.

Also, I do still plan on uploading FAQ versions to ftp.cdrom.com, but instead of a zip with both varieties, I will from now on just upload the text edition unzipped with the filename q2faq_v##.txt (## being version number, 03 for 0.3, 12 for 1.2, etc.). Also, the "text edition", "html edition", and "Download FAQ" links will be replaced with just a single Quake 2 FAQ link to the FAQ text file. Just save the text file to disk to download it :). Anyways, this lets me get new versions out and keep it up to date much better. A lot of people who e-mail me corrections to the FAQ don't realize that the only reason its incorrect is because its an older version when we understood something else. I appreciate these people and anyone who sends me corrections, and hope people still do this.

So, to get to the bottom line, there will only be ASCII versions from now on.

Polls - Slipgate
The Sentinel's poll from this last week has come to a close. This past week the question was "Should AI controlled marines be added to the game to help you complete missions?". There were 187 votes, out of which 76% liked the idea, 20% disliked the idea, and %4 percent didn't care. I didn't vote in this one, but my personal opinion is that if something like that is done, you shouldn't be "forced" to work with the bots, it should be an option so that people who don't want them can say no.

This week's poll is up, and the question is, "Do you think id should add the grappling hook to the weapon inventory in Quake 2 multiplayer?" I wasn't sure there were enough choices on this question to express my opinion. Go vote if interested, and be sure to check out the Sentinel's weekly polls.

Not forgetting, thanks to Rotwang for mailing me about this.

Also, the Sentinel (or the The Nebula) is where you can sign up for the Quake 2 mailing list which comes out every week with a review of the week's news, since not everyone can go to the Quake 2 websites every day.

Saturday, September 27, 1997

I win! - Slipgate
John Cash updated his .plan to say I won the contest he mentioned yesterday. I'm happy! :) I'm getting a free Quake 2 copy.

I won't comment further on this because I don't want to rub it into everyone's face.

PC Gamer shots - Slipgate
PC Gamer added 2 new shots yesterday to their "shots each Friday" site. They can be found in the screenshots area. Thanks Rotwang. There are SO many Quake 2 shots now.

Quake 2 OGR feature - Slipgate
Hanif informed me of some new Quake 2 shots on OGR, and Rotwang was kind enough to send me direct links for quick retrieval of the new images. They are in the screenshots area now, thumbnailed.

Quake 2 console back? - Slipgate
There's a new "Quake 2 console" background for Quake, made by Julian "Juju" Maxwell. Basically while your playing Quake the normal brown console will be a big Q2 symbol picture instead. Colors are a little odd because of the Quake palette. You can get it here. Be sure to read the included text file, unless your a pak editor yourself and know what to do.

Quake 2 site maintainer needed? - Slipgate
Prophet passed along this word from my buddy at 3Dx, Nite.

Due to various reasons, quake2.3dx.org is now without an updater. If you know anyone who would like to take over on that page, or would like to move the page into quake2.3dx.org, please email nite@3dx.org (me) and let me know.

Friday, September 26, 1997

Interview log - Slipgate
The interview with me is complete. Here is the edited log. Hope you like it.

I have tried (and hopefully succeeded) to dispell the notion that I work at id with this interview, because I don't.

John Cash .plan update - Slipgate
I always prove myself wrong :). Anyways, John Cash updated his .plan with a note to Scary, a humurous contest, and tech info. The humurous contest and tech info parts are quoted below.

OK, here's *my* contest. Careful, it's very tricky. This contest is open only to journalists. Web p1pms would seem to eligible too. All ya hafta do is answer one simple question. The prize will be the second box of Q2 I set my hands on (sorry, but my kids get the first). Ready? The question is: Name all three of id's programmers. Spelling counts (hey, you're supposed to be pros so you should know how to spell). Extra credit? Sure, why not? The extra credit prize will be as many id signatures on the CD as I can get. The question: Who is the lead programmer for Quake II? email your entries to me. I hate long waits, so this contest only runs until midnight CST tonight (Sept 26th). In the event I don't receive any correct entries (given recent events, it could happen), I will pick people at random at The Frag and the first one who knows who I am will win.

Thanks to all who've sent me info on that Siemens unit. Man, OBD-II is a pain in the... rear.

How about some Q2 info. I know I've not said much about Q2 in quite a while, but that's only because we've been working so hard on it to get it ready on time. "For this Christmas" is a lot tougher than "When it's done". Here's a few tidbits for you who like to mess with the QC/progs. It's not exactly news, but, yes, we changed to using a DLL for the progs. There are just so many good things for progs programmers it's hard to know where to start. The physics has been moved into the game DLL. So now you can even change the laws of physcis! All aspects of the player's view can be controlled by the progs, note I said "can be" not "will be at all times". CTF and Quake Rally will be soooo much eaiser for Q2. The progs actually make up about half of the Q2 source, so when we release the progs source, you'll be getting a serious chunk of code. We also have entity teams. For things like doors, plats, etc a team is a group of entities that move (or don't move) as a unit. That way you can make a set of doors so that if one gets blocked they both stop. A million and one fun uses for that. You can also makes teams of items; very useful for DM. Teamed items work like this: when the map loads one (and only one) of the items will be spawned. When somebody picks up that item there is the usual respawn delay time and then one of the items on the team is randomly selected to respawn. For example, you could put a quad and a invulnerability on a team so that they are both on the level but never at the same time. Or you could put 5 RL on a level as a team so that you can't camp on it because you don't know which one will come back next. I'll try to give ya more info later... maybe a little less stream of conciousness next time.

That's it - Slipgate
Should be my last update to the site today till tonight's interview at 8 pm in Undernet #idsoftware. See you then, if your coming. /me hopes it goes well.

Paul Steed interview & plan - Slipgate
I was slow to mention this, but Voodoo Extreme has a Paul Steed interview (though they appear to be down currently, as does Redwood's site).

Speaking of Paul Steed, he made a .plan update, here is what he had to say:

9/26/97
Wow. We've been doing level reviews lately trying to tie up gameplay, identify areas to put unique textures and watching the monster animations. The level designs are very, very cool. Tim has a level where these laser beams kick out and spray death everywhere. American, Xian and especially the rookie Brandon are really kicking ass as well making our design team one solid block of talent. As ridiculous as it sounds, I don't even know our game beyond the responsibilities I have and the interaction I have with the others (head to the GRIND). I get surprised and excited every time I see the levels being played or demo-ed. Again, Twillits, Tokay, Xian and Killme, you guys fucking rock.

ps

Paul Jaquays Plan Update - Dyno
Paul Jaquays made a plan update, programming team is simply awesome.

Our programming team is simply awesome. The changes made last night didn't actually speed the game up ... they just stopped it from slowing down (I test on a P120 which is actually below the target baseline and this game MOVES in hardware). Of course, there were some texture compromises that had to be made ... but man, I know you're gonna love all THREE textures that we can put in the game now ( the light one, the contrasting dark one and the user-selectable decorator accent).

Oooops. Giving away company secrets. Gotta run now. No time for controversy (still haven't answered the last round of controversy).

Paul

Interview - Slipgate
The loving "Lobosoft" guys of Undernet #idsoftware are interviewing me tonight at 8 pm eastern (same time scale this site goes by). Get your questions in on the submission form at id.lobosoft.com soon so that they get asked and answered in tonight's interview for sure. I'm going to ask the #idsoftware guys to close the question form an hour before the interview starts.

Logos - Slipgate
Someone mailed in saying that it seemed as if we had already picked our winner with |2|'s entry. This is not the case. I was surprised |2| made an entry and didn't think about the pressure it would put on you guys if I mentioned that fact. All logos still have a fair chance, and I haven't actually developed a fetish for any logo yet that would be unfair to the other entrants. We will be judging this fairly, and not at all based on who submitted it, just how it looks and if we like how it looks. Everyone still has equal chance, and good luck to everyone! I've begun going through the logos since now judging has begun, and there are many fine entries.

Brian Hook Plan - Dyno
Brian Hook updated his plan a couple hours ago. Texturing and menuing code work.

I got 8-bit paletted textures working last night with the 3Dfx Voodoo. There is a new extension to allow for shared texture palettes, and 3Dfx, as far as I know, is the first hardware company to implement it. The difference in performance is quit astounding -- far less thrashing occurs, so the frame rate maintains consistency extremely well.

I'm now back to cleaning up the menuing code and doing optimization of various bottlenecks.

Logo Stuff - Dyno
Well as you all noticed, our logo contest ended tonight. There seems to be some great logos submitted, should be a hard to pick a winner. We weren't the only logo contest to end tonight though, the Quake2 Press logo contest is over tonight. The winner is none other than, me! So to see my handywork, just go to the page.

American McGee addendum - Slipgate
American McGee added an additional note about the Quake 2 theme song .plan update earlier (which was ironically earlier "yesterday"). Here's what he had to say:

I'm getting a lot of requests from people to release the "Quake II Theme" early. This is not going to happen. Also, the Quake II music has been done by Sonic Mayhem. Rob Zombie has done the Quake II Theme song and that's it. And to clarify what I mean by theme song... Kinda like the Imperial Theme song in Star Wars which say to you: "Join the Dark Side or we'll poke your eyes out with a Death Star." Except our says something more like: "This is Quake II, we'll just poke your eyes out." :)

Paul Steed also updated twice with an addendum to the Crackwhore contest and the note that ICQ proved too much for him and he's removing it (I just shake my head in understanding and sympathy, that's all I'll say).

Logo contest ends - Slipgate
The logo contest has come to a close. There are many many many entries, so it will take us time to judge them and announce the winner. Good luck to all who submitted!

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