Saturday, October 17

Chuck Jones - Valve [7:04pm]
The first interview under the new Valveworld team is now up. Larz scored an interview with Chuck Jones, Illustrator/3D Artist over at Valve Software. You can find the interview at chuckj.shtml

Messiah [11:54am]
Next-Gen has posted a new interview with Dave Perry, project manager on the Messiah project.

We saw the game running at ECTS in London on the PC and it looked very impressive. Will PC owners require a 3D card to run the game at its best?

"Not at all. The game will run just great on about any mid level-Pentium on up. But, for people who have the latest and greatest hardware, well, they'll get added visual detail (more polygons being displayed) than people on lesser machines."

GLDoom Close [11:54am]
Bruce Lewis is hinting at the ever looming release of GLDoom.

The time for glDoom's Beta test gets closer. There are far fewer show-stopper bugs now and a large part of the rendering problems have been worked out.

I'm still working on the dynamic lighting so that it's "right". The walls and flats use completely different algorithms for dynamic lighting because of their nature (in geometrical terms). The walls can be at any angle (although they are all "upright") so determining the distance from the light source to the plane of the wall takes a little more calculation.

Trespasser GOLD [11:54am]
After weeks of rumors that the game was just days from going gold, we finally have confirmation from EA and DreamWorks Interactive that Trespasser has been sent for production. It should begin appearing in stores October 28.

ZBot Blocker [11:54am]
For you server admins out there who dont enjoy the thought of players using a ZBot on your server the author of the Lithium mod has created a plug-in that you can run on your server to prevent these guys from bustin caps on your server.

Views [11:35am]

Tech Etc [11:35am]

werd
Well, the NT5 experiment is over. It works great except for 1 or 2 things. (No D3D, and doesnt get along with my TNT) Ive figured out how to get Win98 do what I was looking for and will be gutting my system again this evening. Anyone know a good util to enable write cache for WD SCSI HD's? NT5 has a check box for it but it resets after every reboot.

 

Friday, October 16

TombRaider 3 Demo Next Month [5:24pm]
PC.IGN has posted a new preview of TombRaider3 announcing that a demo should be out middle of next month.

A demo of Tomb Raider III should be available in mid-November. Barring any major complications, Eidos is planning on releasing Tomb Raider III on Thanksgiving weekend . . . keep looking on IGN-PC for more information about Tomb Raider III and the demo in the weeks to come.

In addition, GameSpot has published a nice 6-page preview of the game, complete with screenshots and first-impressions on the preview-build. How have things improved since TR2?

Q2 Extremeties Pack Authors [5:24pm]
Andrew Smith sent an email to Anna Kang asking the question I was too dumb to email my self:

I am able to say that the chosen mod authors will not only be published but paid. Agreements with the mod authors do not involve transfer of ownership of any property.
Anna Kang
id Software

Weekly Section [5:24pm]
You'd think after all this time I'd remember to upload these things in the morning. Oh well, check out Friday's Reasons To Live and learn and understand what helps me make it through the weekend while I miss you guys and cry for your return on Monday.

Unreal2 & Legend [5:24pm]
As originally mentioned on BitchX, then later confirmed by Sweeney as well as an update to the Wheel of Time website, Legend Entertainment will be doing Unreal2 under contract for Epic. Blue points out GameCenter has posted Unreal2 on the Horizon with some quotes from the CEO of Legend Entertainment.

"We will be working on content while Epic handles the technology"

Broussard's 10 Questions [9:24am]
This week on FDC's regular friday column, "Ten Questions", we put 3DRealms' George Broussard through the gauntlet. Find out what you wanted to know on the progress of duke, the switch to the unreal engine, the duke movie, sp vs. mp and much more

... Unreal does things like outside areas much better, and it has a lot of nice visual things like better lighting on models, procedural textures and the like. Those are all things we would have had to add to Quake 2.

Ultimate Poll [12:34pm]
Methos' "Ultimate Quake Poll 2" ends tomorrow so you guys who havent filled out your voted may wanna check it out. The turnout apparently is gigantic (17meg log file of votes Methos says)

Blood2 [9:24am]
Scott Schlegel over at Monolith updated his .plan with some chat about the Blood2 AI and a release candidate:

Got done a huge release candidate build for GT yesterday. The AI is looking a lot more pimp as well as deadly. Most navigation issues are taken care of while keeping low tick counts and NO SCRIPTING. Attacking tactics have been beefed up. The AI will deal and react to stuff like gunfire, bullet impacts nearby, differences in height, ledges, distance, damage and ammo amounts (the AI will take ammo and health pickups that are sitting around if they need them), searching and chasing, retreating, inter-AI fighting (Cabal vs monsters), etc

Messageboard GOLD! [8:54am]
From the incredible messageboard guru Sander: "Ok, after little more then a week of programming in the evenings and bitching at the N-browser I think the new messageboards over at 3dchat.net are in a stable state. They should work for all people with a version 4 browser. IE5, for some reason, does not work. But, it's still beta so that's M$'s fault. So, you can now bitch and moan at the newsguys and you can post comments or additions, all that is just one click away! The messageboard is actually a newsgroup so you can use your favorite newsreader also. Point it to the group 3dnews.chat at news://news.3dchat.net.

Check out the new locaion for the Shack Forums: Quake3 , General , Quake1 , Quake2

Mac QuakeWorld v2.3 [8:54am]
Via Blue: "MacQuakeWorld 2.3 Beta 1 is out on Westlake Interactive's website. "This version includes several Mac fixes as well as compatibility with the newest PC version." Thanks Jvox's Boomstick."

Sites

Views [7:35am]

Tech Etc [7:35am]

Download Unreal Metal patch
BETA Version 0.15    date: 10.15.98
Download S3 Gallery Level using S3TC
notes:
Download S3 Movie Level using animated S3TC
notes:

Creative Labs Inc. filed suit against Diamond Multimedia Inc. accusing its rival graphics board maker of false advertising, unfair business practices, trade libel and defamation. Diamond executives declined comment, saying they had not seen the suit.

werd
Quake2 Internet pack eh? I sure hope id gave $ to the guys who worked on those mods. If anyone has a mod that is being included on that CD please drop me a line at smiles@shugashack.com

Been playing around with NT5 recently and gotta say it's pretty cool. USB seems to be royally messed up still but hell there is direct mouse sampling so my ps2 mouse feels like USB now anyways.

 

Thursday, October 15

Duke4 Interview [8:04pm]
Perplexed has posted their interview with Chris Hargrove of 3D Realms, read on:

...We switched from the Quake2 engine to the Unreal engine in order to lessen the time wasted developing redundant technology, so we could spend more time making a fun game. Most of the "features" will be gameplay oriented, in that respect (although there will be a few technological improvements here and there).

id Software's Quake2 Internet Pack [5:10pm]
Well here you go, that "additional product" that Todd Hollenshead was hinting at a few weeks ago from id Software. Check out the email just sent out from id:

Just wanted to fill everybody in on the latest id news.

As you all know, the id development team is hard at work on Quake III Arena.  We do, however, come up for air and some fun in between all the work.  This is where the idea of "Quake II Internet Pack No. 1: Extremities" originated.  Many of us at id have enjoyed the great mods created by the community and we recognize the hard work and high production quality that goes into creating them.  This convinced us to bundle some of the best Quake II Internet mods as a retail product.  Yep, retail. Extremities will make these mods available to fans who might otherwise not be aware of these great works.  This is a great way we at id can recognize some of the great work that's being done out there in the community.

As a bonus, we’ve created a special Quake III Arena poster which will be available in stores through the purchase of Extremities.  The posters are VERY cool.

I will update you with more information about which mods will be included as well as when you can expect to see Extremities on the retail shelves once these details are finalized.

PCG Q3 Article [11:40am]
Word from a few emails I've gotten is the big PC Gamer with the Quake3 article is now appearing on news stands. Snag a copy and look at the pretty curvy stuff. Speaking of which Colin from PCG made a post to the Quake3 msgboard

I think I remember Kevin Cloud saying how one of the level sets would be slightly Gigerish. Your prayers are answered

Games On Shelves [11:40am]
While you are out there grabbing the latest PC Gamer, check out SHOGO and Klingon Honor Guard which both are showing up on store shelves as well. SHOGO is of course LithTech based, and KHG utilizes the Unreal engine.

Weekly Demo [11:40am]
Got suckered into a little 2on2 last week. Hopefully I'll start playing a bit more in the near future, this one is a pretty goosd demo. I kinda miss my weapon switch key and blow up once, always humiliating.

Messiah [8:40am]
The PVR-Net page has a post from Shiny discussing a bit on multiplayer:

Imagine ten cherubs in a room with 30 bodies. Well, you can't go around killing everyone because you're effectively destroying your future armor and weapons, and eliminating hiding places! It get's great when there's one less innocent body than there are players. Suddenly, everyone's ganging up on one guy (shooting each other in the crossfire, usually) while the cherub on his own is trying to kick somebody out of a body! It's totally hilarious and nerve-wracking at the same time!"

Heretic2 [8:40am]
Check out OGR's preview of Heretic2. 7 more days till the net released demo kids

The Raven folks are no stranger to souping-up an ID based engine. Heretic was the first game to give us the ability to look up and down in the Doom engine. Hexen 2 added vibrant color to the Quake engine. Now Heretic 2 takes the Quake 2 engine and increases the variety and vibrancy of the texture colors, and take the perspective away from the familiar first-person and into the third-person. The new perspective changes things quite a bit. Now that you can see yourself, lots of new graphical touches are needed to keep things looking right. For example, when Corvus stands on an uneven surface like a slanted rooftop, the uphill leg will be bent while the other leg stretches out below, because it would just look silly to have one foot sticking out in the air as if he were on a level surface.

Mac Unreal [8:40am]
Bleh, should have mentioned this yesterday. A new public beta of the MacUnreal port has been released on the WestLake Interactive page. Only problem with this port is you have to own a Mac. :P

SHOGO [8:40am]
PlanetShogo has posted a recent chat log from the AVault chat, then check out this .plan update from Kevin Stephens talking about the work being done on the first Shogo patch.

Views [7:35am]

Tech Etc [7:35am]

werd
Our friendly messageboard moderator Huntsman broke his arm yesterday in a masturbation accident. Email him at huntsman@3dnews.net and tell him to get well soon! He claims he was playing basketball btw. *cough*

Oh, for the curious I snagged a Abit BH6, Cel300a, and 256megs of ram. A big old thanks to Steve @ EPCTech. Stinking thing keeps booting at 450 no matter what I put in the bios though, wtf is up with that?

3DNews.net Last Weeks News copyright Steve Gibson 1998