3Drealms buys physics engine for DNF

[Gamebrain]

http://gamershell.com/news/17529.html

George Broussard CEO said that they have bought this physics engine and it integrated with the game very well.

[Pyros]

I was going to post this, I can't resist how bad it makes 3D Realms look.

Quake II -> Unreal engine -> Inhouse engine -> 3rd party physics

Wow, just wow.

[Cheapy]

Half-Life 2 uses havok, and Meqon is actually REALLY good. What's wrong with licensing?

Unless it's 3d realms, as you guys imply, EVERYTHing they do is wrong

[Brick_Sledge]

GB says that it will only take a few weeks to make the change.  Not a big delay considering that the game has been in development for seven years.

[Pyros]

Half-Life 2 uses havok, and Meqon is actually REALLY good. What's wrong with licensing?

Unless it's 3d realms, as you guys imply, EVERYTHing they do is wrong

The fact that they used the Karma engine for the past 4 years. Now they're going to have to convert everything to the new engine, and make sure it works properly. So they just added another step for them.

And sure, Gabe may say it will take a few weeks, but he said the same thing about coverting the Quake II engine content to the Unreal engine. And anyone remember how long that took? A year. There is nothing wrong with licensing, but there is something wrong with licensing 3 engines. Maybe if he's clever Georgie-boy will add in colour-lighting next.

[Cheapy]

Half-Life 2 uses havok, and Meqon is actually REALLY good. What's wrong with licensing?

Unless it's 3d realms, as you guys imply, EVERYTHing they do is wrong

The fact that they used the Karma engine for the past 4 years.

They didn't license or implement Karma. Dunno where you get that fact from, but it probably came from your prewritten FLAME-DNF book.

[Plagiarize]

they didn't use karma, which was a seperate license, but they did claim to have their own physics engine at one point. it is another part of the saga and even if it 'only takes a few weeks' to integrate the engine, it's something the game didn't need that delays it even further.

[Pyros]

Half-Life 2 uses havok, and Meqon is actually REALLY good. What's wrong with licensing?

Unless it's 3d realms, as you guys imply, EVERYTHing they do is wrong

The fact that they used the Karma engine for the past 4 years.

They didn't license or implement Karma. Dunno where you get that fact from, but it probably came from your prewritten FLAME-DNF book.

Karma is the Unreal engine's physics program. So yes, they're using it.

http://www.nofrag.com/news/oct2002/10/4286.html
http://www.planetduke.com/duke4/faq/technical.shtml

And let's take a look at what Georgie-boy said:

>>There must be considerable advantages to Megon over Karma for you to make the switch. What are they?

IMO, Karma was first gen. Havok was second gen. Meqon is third gen. It's way way faster than Karma ever was, and it does more, and it's cleaner to use. I know Havok is working on next gen stuff now, but it's not available yet.

>>A while ago, GB said all physics engines were basically the same. Did this change with the new generation of physics engines?

At the time they were. That is no longer the case.

>> Has the improvements in the physics engines "changed" DNF content?

It will allow us to do more with physics and we will do what we can to make things cool.

>> Rather than another switch, why not just build yer own damn physics engine?

Physics engines are one of the hardest things to write, so it's best left to a middleware solution.

>>I thought the DNF engine was done. Why are you guys messing with it now?

The rendering has been done a long time. The physics we had have been in for 3 years. We had a ton of physics gameplay code on top of Karma. All we did was replace the low level stuff with Meqon and re-hook it up to our high level stuff.

Why did we do it? Because Karma was too slow to do anything we were trying to do. I don't feel it was a shippable solution, and in fact very few game shipped with it, doing much more than ragdoll.

This is a *very* good thing for the game.

At least my prewritten FLAME-DNF book is accurate. Your information could use a little more research before you accuse me of making it up.

[Plagiarize]

ok i was wrong in saying they didn't use karma then... but...

karma isn't the unreal engine physics engine. it's a 3rd party physics middleware that anyone licensing the unreal engine can choose to pay a seperate licensing fee for. it's made by a completely different company. the only reason that many people do license karma for the unreal engine is because epic already went to the efforts of implementing support within their engine and tools, making it a lot easier to start using than any other physics middleware.

they're two different products from two different companies, but they kind of have allegiances to each other, would be a good way of putting it.

[Pyros]

I have never seen a developer that used the Unreal engine that did not use Karma. Do you have any examples? Considering Karma is a pretty big part of the system (characters are based around it), and it even comes with the perfect editing tools to use the Karma engine.

Although I will admit I did not know you could use another physics engine instead of Karma.

[Cheapy]

Oh stop bitching, it's better than still using Karma.
They choose to integrate the features they want, they're not basing off UnrealEngine2. Their base is still UE1 and they're getting pretty far with that.

[Pyros]

Oh stop bitching, it's better than still using Karma.
They choose to integrate the features they want, they're not basing off UnrealEngine2. Their base is still UE1 and they're getting pretty far with that.

Yes, it's better than Karma. I'm not saying that it isn't, and I can't imagine where you got that from. I'm saying that they have terrible management. They've lost 3-4 years of work, and have continued to change engines and features. I can't imagine what they are doing that the Unreal Engine can't handle it, and they have to code their own. The Unreal engine is a very powerful engine, which is why it's used to program many products. I never said Karma is better, but then again I suppose you're getting this from your  "How to not read posts" book.

[15thrampage]

man Duke Nuken 4 ever is taking longer than Doom3, i shoud be a great quallity game, is taking to mush time......

[Cheapy]

If you want pathetic game progress, there's Half-Life 2.

The only problem with DNF is the trolls such as you that are over-reacting to the time it will take for the game to come out. Get over it, okay?  

[15thrampage]

If you want pathetic game progress, there's Half-Life 2.

The only problem with DNF is the trolls such as you that are over-reacting to the time it will take for the game to come out. Get over it, okay?  

is that with me??