#Winter CES 1995
34 messages in this thread
Martin:
You don't happen to know how many polygons Virtua Fighter 2 was pushing, do
you? I'm wondering if the Glint based 3D cards will handle something of that
scale.. since there's a lower end chipset (and others) being targeted at
everyday PC games users that's in the works.
JNJ
JNJ,
>> You don't happen to know how many polygons Virtua Fighter 2 <<
no. I tried to count them but the darned characters wouldn't keep still for a
single moment, doh! <g>
I think about 1500+ per character, but there's extensive tex-mapping which
helps. Also, there's probably another 1000+ in the environments. It's very fast
too, so I'm assuming 60fps. I don't think glint boards will be that good. The
characters are very large on screen which has a large affect too.
>no. I tried to count them but the darned characters wouldn't keep still for a
single moment, doh! <g>
hehe, yeah, that's pretty tricky.. I get to about, oh, one polygon before it
moves on me! <G> Yeah, it's 60fps. I know that much.. I read a little about
it in a new games platform mag called Next Geteration- it's premier issue has a
cool VF2 cover on it. Sweet stuff.
How's your PSX stuff going? I did a little reading up on it, and it sounds
like a nice box. Faster than the 3DO even.. at least until their PowerPC
accelerated "Bulldog" add on.. (who knows how much that'll cost.. lots of $$
probably.)
Did you notice any multiplayer 3D games released, either as a VR center type,
or for end users? (aside from Id, and Apogee's new release?) A friend runs a
PC store here in town, and has tuesday and friday night slugfests on a
network.. fun stuff. Currently, it's D2, Heretic, and Descent. Unfortunately,
the better ones, Doom and Heretic, only take 4 nodes.. 🙁
JNJ
JNJ,
>> How's your PSX stuff going? I did a little reading up on it, and it sounds
like a nice box.<<
We haven't got into the PSX stuff yet – we're still in that nebulous
pre-production stage. Other teams have PSX's (development systems and shipping
Japanese boxes) and the programmers think it's great – much better than the
Saturn. Rumour has it that Sega's trying to rework the American Saturn to be
more of a match for the PSX.
>> Did you notice any multiplayer 3D games released <<
most PC games seem to be going multi-player where possible (or useful). The PSX
has a way of linking multiple machines to play multi-player games on seperate
TV's – that's dynamite.
>The PSX has a way of linking multiple machines to play multi-player games on
seperate TV's – that's dynamite.
Definately. I wish the 3DO came out with something like that. It's got a port
that's (I believe) capable of supporting some sort of a network, but I don't
know of anything coming.. (I own a 3DO, obviously) The Jaguar has a 2 machine
network, which would be good, but I'd love to see a whole slew of those
machines connected. (8+)
The Saturn looks interesting as well, more sleek than the PSX actually. But I
know it's underpowered, in comparison to the PSX.
Network games are certainly the next big thing. It's about time computers are
connecting people, instead of isolating them.
JNJ
JNJ,
>> Network games are certainly the next big thing. It's about time computers
are connecting people, instead of isolating them. <<
I totally agree. It's so much more fun to go to the arcade and race a bunch of
friends on a Daytona or Virtua Racer 4-8 rig, or Cybersled, or Virtua Fighter
etc. It's just not the same playing the computer – no challenge.
I've been wanting to start up a relatively inexpensive network game "center"
running 10 or so high power systems all networked together, etc. Franchises
connected via ISDN/the net, etc. Sounds fun doesn't it?
JNJ
JNJ,
>> network game "center" … Sounds fun doesn't it? <<
I'll say it does! Employees in companies around the country are probably
already doing something like this already (unofficially), much to managements
chagrin.
True, I envy those who have 5:00 net game sessions! Much less hassle than
hauling your system to another place to play 4 player.. I know Doom has been
banned on many large networks, due to it's poor use of network broadasting.
Supposedly every system- playing doom or not- has to deal with doom's
broadcast, not just the playing nodes. Certainly a net stopper.
If you know of anyone wanting to write a big 3D network game on, say, an
Alpha running NT, let me know. I've got a couple pretty good ideas, but the
programmer I met on CIS seems to have fallen by the wayside.. haven't heard
from him since early December. (don't worry, didn't give him much to work
with)
JNJ
JNJ,
>> I envy those who have 5:00 net game sessions! <<
Who says anything about 5pm? Doom gets played during the working day. I was
over at an SGI site today and they were playing it on Indigo II extremes <g> –
the native Unix version – boy, was it fast. It really is sweeping the nation.
>Who says anything about 5pm? Doom gets played during the working day. I was
over at an SGI site today and they were playing it on Indigo II extremes <g> –
the native Unix version – boy, was it fast. It really is sweeping the nation. <
Yeah, the SGI version I played at Siggraph was smooth as glass. And in a
window! Crazy stuff. I'm not sure if it was just a dos emulated version, or
the native version, but it was suprising. Apparently Id's got some hot boxes
they want to *really* use.. <g> P90's play it well too though.
I'd say Heretic's gonna be big too. I like it better, in fact. It's got
flying, and other "power-ups".. alot of fun in Deathmatch.. especially the
"morph ovum"- shooting eggs, and turning the hit into chickens! fun stuff.
JNJ
<<a relatively inexpensive network game "center" running 10 or so high power
systems all networked together, etc. >>
Do you mean a local center or available through modem? There's a center around
here which runs Doom2 on a bunch of 486s. They seem to do pretty well- not
much overhead.
Scott
>Do you mean a local center or available through modem? There's a center
around here which runs Doom2 on a bunch of 486s. They seem to do pretty well-
not much overhead.<
Is this "center" all they do? all 40 hours a week? (or whatever their hours
are) I'm curious on how they're doing.. Is it profitable? How do they
charge- per hour? How many nodes? What kind of PC's? What city?
My idea is similar to "just a bunch of PC's networked together" but with
(custom?) software that runs more than just 4 nodes. 8 would be much better.
I'd make up little pods though, and make it feel more like a sit down arcade
game than sitting in front of a computer. (protecting the PC boxes too)
JNJ
<<Is this "center" all they do? all 40 hours a week? (or whatever their hours
are) I'm curious on how they're doing.. Is it profitable? How do they
charge- per hour? How many nodes? What kind of PC's? What city?>>
Man, you ask for a lot. : )
I just called the place up, the Virtual Gaming Center (414-476-1514), and asked
them your questions. They say yes, they're doing alright, no one's becoming
millionaires or anything. They charge $7 an hour per person. They have 8 486
pcs. They (and I) are in Milwaukee, not exactly the cutting edge of Cyberia.
The surprising thing that he told me was that you need a site license from Id
to run Doom, and that Id wasn't giving out any more. He thinks that they're
looking into franchising VR arcades. I wonder how the law views this- does
game software copyright keep you from charging people to play your games once
you purchase them? Would it hold up in court?
Where are you located?
Scott
>Man, you ask for a lot. : )
I'm sorry, I didn't expect you to call them! Thanks.
I'm not suprised on the site license thing.. I was wondering about that for my
friends place.. they have 4 systems (3 of their own, and another borrowed) that
they use when they play. It's only a couple of days a week, for only 5 hours
or so a night.. not full time. They have 4 legal copies, but no site license.
They are running 4 486/66' with usually 16MB each in them.. pretty good for net
doom/Heretic/Descent/etc. They charge $3 per hour. I live just outside
Lexington KY. about 1/4 million people, not much. I'm sure they could go
20-30 hours/week during the summertime though. Mabe 8 systems, if they could
all play the same game.
I'm not sure on the legality of charging someone for playing a purchased game..
it would probably say on the liscensing agreement.. Even though you bought the
program, you don't get to do everything you want with it.. which kinda stinks,
but that's computing. I bet a full time center would definately be told to
have a site license for doom. My friend's place would probably be more in the
grey, but could probably be liable- but I doube Id' give them too hard of a
time, since they actually bought 4 copies.. too small a prey for the hassle.
(They just now paid off their copies.)
JNJ
JNJ,
Did you miss this in Next Generation?
"Now roughly 75% complete, Virtua Fighter 2 includes 2 new characters, runs at
60fps (twice the speed of the original) and can shift 300,000 textured polygons
every second."
I agree that its a pretty cool new magazine, have you seen InterActivity with
the Robyn Miller interview? These mags are coming out of the woodwork. Wonder
why there's no 3DS specific magazine?
Scaatt
Interactivity is an excellent mag. Well, from it's first issue, that is.. I
really got into that mag, and subscribed right away. Very useful, and
interesting. Kindof 3D Artist-ish, but more polish. (less how-to's though)
About the 3DS specific mag, have you heard about the 3DS based "Planet
(something)"? It's not cheap, but looked interesting from it's little Siggraph
promo. I'm sure someone'll pop in to give you info, if you're looking for it.
I guess I missed the 300k textured polygons/sec part of the VF2 article..
That's about what the Glint chip is said to do, right? Probably not as good,
but sounds close.. But then again, I'm no VR expert.
JNJ
I liked the theoretical discussions in InterActivity the most. It seems like
most of the how-to articles I read seem to be too specific to one program or
application. I guess I'm more into thrashing a problem around myself until it
kills me or I solve it. I still can't believe that I actually went through all
of the 3DS tutorials- I never read manuals.
I read a small something about "Planet (something)" in 3d Artist- isn't one of
the Sanford brothers working on it? I'd love it just for the opportunity to
look at ads aimed at 3ds users (now if that isn't a marketer's dream, I don't
know what is).
I am getting excited about this Glint chip, and the possibility of it becoming
affordable for the general public within the year. Maybe then the pc will
begin to catch up with the game systems as a popular gaming platform. I heard
that it won't speed up 3ds rendering, tho, does anyone know if that's true?
Will it only affect the previewing and modeling?
I liked the theoretical discussions too, it's cool to have game developers (or
any animator, for that matter) spilling their guts, talking about everything
they hashed about. It's good and thought provoking. (and helps me avoid the
same problems) That way, if everyone participates, it benefits all.. and
keeps the healthy competition up. 🙂
I'll definately get a Glint based video card when they come out. They're just
too cool. You may want to read in the latest Next Generation magazine on
Render Morphics' Reality lab.. that "engine" sounds really good. It does
software based VR type stuff, and will hook directly into the Glint chipset
based boards. It says that a P90 running Reality Lab's engine produces 3D
graphics that are at least twice as fast as on the PlayStation.. (hear that
Martin?) And that's without the Glint board installed! (well, for the money
involved, it should be more.. <g>)
I'd love to make a game with Reality Lab, but unfortunately the most qualified
graphics programmer I know is in Quito, Equador indefinately.. (he worked on a
program in the Cave, at Siggraph) and I don't have the resources to pull up a
software dev. company of that scale by my "bootstraps" Not yet, at least.
Render Morphics wants something like $1000 for the engine.. just to play with
it! The liscensing is quite high as well.
Anyways, I'd better get to work. 🙂 Boring stuff.. (well, about as boring as
you can get with 3D<g> My clients have no creativity.)
JNJ
JNJ,
>> It says that a P90 running Reality Lab's engine produces 3D graphics that
are at least twice as fast as on the PlayStation.. (hear that Martin?) <<
sounds impressive, but those benchmarks are very misleading. Also, try getting
a programmer for PC games – it's really hard. However, programmers tend to jump
at the chance to develop for the PS-X – much less hardware headaches.
JNJ
Have you thought about chucking it all and going to work for a gaming company?
It seems that there are a lot of opportunities out there from the looks of Next
Generation, Computer Player (my favorite CG game magazine), etc. I've been
thinking about it, just waiting for my reel to be up to the quality level I
think will get me the kind of job that I want. My idea is to go to a larger
gaming house like Sega and learn the ropes and realities of the business side
of it, make some programming friends, then strike out on my own. My ideal
would be Myst with a Doom interface. The Pentium/Glint combination should make
that reachable.
Luckily, it seems that 3ds is the non-sgi software of choice for game
developers. Part of the reason I chose it.
Scaatt
>Have you thought about chucking it all and going to work for a gaming company?
Every time I get a stupid flying logo.. 🙂 Actually, I've already started on
one- but am only in the planning stages (content, etc.) It'll be for Windows,
and possibly ported later to the Mac, if we ever get Director 4. Nothing earth
shattering, but a good start. I'm not sure on what I'll use for a 3D program
at this point. I haven't gotten too deep in 3DS' modeller, I'll probably use
Macromodel for a lot of it, as much as I can.. I guess I'm more used to
splines. I spent most of my modelling time in Playmation, and haven't done
much since. I haven't done much in MM either, but plan on it in the future.
Certainly, 3DS is very good. Definately the PC game developers program of
choice right now.. except for some character stuff done in Playmation/A:M.
Texture mapping skinned objects really doesn't seem to be something I want to
deal with. Hopefully R5 will have all that built in, like in Animation:Master.
The main reason I haven't already sent out resume's to places like Lucas Arts,
and such is I'm not sure I want to go to SF.. and that seems to be THE place to
be as far a games development. Don't know why, but I guess it's the Hollywood
of CGI. Chop it in half, get rid of the earthquakes, etc. and I'd go in a
heartbeat. I'm doing fairly well here, have friends around, etc. It's basic,
but I like it here. For now.
Be careful in applying to game houses. You may not want to be stuck in a CGI
"sweat shop" full of lots of people.. I know I wouldn't. Lucas Arts has
interested me, they seem to be pretty close knit, and not too big. Sega, on
the other hand, seems really big.
All pay alot, and are desparately looking for people. Give it a shot!
(Lucas Arts has explicitly asked for 3DS experience, others as well.)
JNJ
<<Every time I get a stupid flying logo.. 🙂 >>
Tell me about it.
<<Actually, I've already started on one- but am only in the planning stages
(content, etc.)>>
Me too. I've got 2 former roommates with 3ds and we're hoping to colaborate.
We've got a few good ideas, and we certainly have the 3d experience. It's
enough to distract me from leaving for awhile.
<< I spent most of my modelling time in Playmation, and haven't done much
since. >>
I like Animation Master alot, especially the facts that you can buy additional
copies for just $175 and it's available cross-platform. Version 3 for the pc
is supposed to come out in a few weeks and be much more user-friendly
(mac-like). They also have a 5 tape instructional series that sells for $50!
(Of course they're sold out already, tho)
<<The main reason I haven't already sent out resume's to places like Lucas
Arts, and such is I'm not sure I want to go to SF.. and that seems to be THE
place to be as far a games development. Don't know why, but I guess it's the
Hollywood of CGI. Chop it in half, get rid of the earthquakes, etc. and I'd go
in a heartbeat. I'm doing fairly well here, have friends around, etc. It's
basic, but I like it here. For now.>>
Ditto… for now.
>Me too.
Hehe It seems everybody's into breaking into the games development scene.
That's cool. But I bet in a few years that there will be an oversaturation of
decent games, and it'll be really cutthroat. 🙁 Soo many new animators coming
out.. hopefully the market can support 3D everywhere. 🙂 We're in at the
right time though- surfing the wave.. not the old masters, but in demand.
Tell me how you like A:M 3 when you get it.
JNJ
JNJ,
<< it'll be really cutthroat. 🙁 Soo many new animators coming out.. >>
Look on the bright side, we're doing it now and we've got a jump on all the new
guys in terms of experience (not to be underestimated). I try to keep this
perspective: let them come, (hopefully) the talented will always rise to the
top, and if we were just relying on the fact that we were here first instead of
being talented we don't deserve it.
<< I bet in a few years that there will be an oversaturation of decent games>>
Yeah, right. There will never be too many good ideas, only gluts of bad ones.
Just take a look at what the big money studios are doing in the CD game
business: B-movie quality films jammed onto computers with lame gaming
tie-ins. The real quality games come from small guys (Id and the Miller bros.)
or those with a record of success (Bullfrog- check out Magic Carpet).
After the shit I've had to deal with at my job this week, gaming's looking
better and better. : )
Scott
>I try to keep this perspective: let them come, (hopefully) the talented will
always rise to the top <
And boy am I talented in making flying logos!! <g> Unfortunately, I don't
really stretch myself in the things I'm doing now. Not enough time allocated
for certain things. Right now, I have to work on speed, not creativity. With
speed comes time to really grow.
>if we were just relying on the fact that we were here first instead of being
talented we don't deserve it.
True.
I've checked out Magic Carpet.. pretty interesting. I d/l'd the demo, and it's
hard to figure out. Great graphics though. Very fast on a486/66.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to get the networkable part of the demo to
work. I thought it said that it did that.. dunno.
Gotta run-
John
Scott, I found your message mentioning Interactivity kind of late into the
scroll. I'm working on that magazine as Managing Editor and I'm really happy
you liked our first issue. We're hard at work on the second (and more!). In
response to your musings about a 3DS specific magazine, I have a couple of
questions for you and your cronies. Would you like a 3D Studio magazine or do
you use a variety of products? So that a more general magazine for animators
might be helpful. I can see that a 3D Studio magazine would be useful,
especially if that's what you use primarily and I would imagine efforts like
Planet Studio and 3D Artist would fill the bill.
Also, don't hesitate to let me know about articles you'd like to see in
Interactivity. — K>
K>
I'm still not used to the on-line world- it amazes me that I make a comment
about a magazine and I get a return message from the Managing Editor! Your
first issue was impressive, especially the Robyn Miller interview and the
article on the state of interactive literature (it almost got me to buy
"Grandma and Me"!). I'll be amazed if you can keep up that level, maybe
interviews with Jim Ludtke, or the guys behind SimCity?
<<Would you like a 3D Studio magazine or do you use a variety of products?>>
I'd like to see a magazine for 3ds like Video Toaster User. Gary says, "We've
got somewhere between 45,000-50,000 licenses out there at this time." It seems
like this would be a good target market of $-spending professionals, whether
for an independant or AD house publication. If someone's willing to spend
$2500 on a piece of software, they'll definately pay an additional $20-40 a
year for the latest info/tips on it. Of course, I haven't seen Planet Studio
or heard much about it- it might be the kind of thing I'm talking about.
Keep up the good work!
Scott
Scott, FYI, Planet Studio is exactly what you're talking about. It's $60 a year
though for only 6 issues. Originally I thought that it was too costly and it
really kind of still is, but there is some very good info in there. I think
David Avgikos' article on explosions with Magic IPAS was probably worth $10
bucks alone. I would like to see it get thicker though. Anyway, you should try
and get a copy of the latest issue (Jan/Feb) 800-441-44-3 ext 362.
DM
David, I need to call Planet Studio and don't have the 800 number. Could you
furnish this number correctly? (You will note that the number in your message
is incomplete)…thanks.
Regards, Connie
Don't know how that happened. Actually the 800-441-4403 ext 362 is for back
orders. For normal use it's 603-924-0100.
DM
Thanks, David. Actually, I have the 603 number…was just hoping I could save
myself a little money, but no big deal.
Connie
You might try sending some e-mail to Barbra Gefvert @ 76376,2135
-Lee
Thanks, Lee. Good idea, I'll do that!:)
Regards, Connie