EL33TONLINE: News tag archive: johncarmack
Anyone who knows a thing or two about legendary id Software graphics programmer and technical director John Carmack will be aware that the genius programmer and rocket scientist consumes books at an incredibly rapid rate, tearing through tomes of knowledge at an inhuman pace.
These books range a gamut of topics, from history and science to technology, programming and science fiction - and anything in-between - perfectly showcasing his philosophy of ‘learning everything from anything.’ Anything can be an opportunity to discover something new.
[Update] Added a video showcasing the iPhone version of RAGE - it looks amazing! Watch below. [End of Update]
During John Carmack’s recent QuakeCon 2010 keynote, the id Software co-founder and technical director opened his talk with his “neat” unannounced “something” that he teased via Twitter recently.
It’s a side-project that he’s been working on recently thanks to extra time afforded to him following id Software’s acquisition by Zenimax. Now that he doesn’t have to worry too much about the business side of the company, he can focus on programming, and the iPhone and iPad versions of RAGE are the result of his ‘extra’ time.
This year’s QuakeCon begins today, and with it, a celebration of all things id Software (DOOM, Quake) with massive multiplayer tournaments, an enormous Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC) LAN event, all kinds of presentations and exhibitions, and what many would call the ‘crown jewel’ of the event, John Carmack’s annual keynote.
Every year, id Software’s co-founder, technical director and all-round genius John Carmack gets up on a stage and speaks at length (up to three hours sometimes) with no notes or prompts (except during the lengthy Q&A session) and goes on a stream of conscious ‘technical ramble’ about his work at id Software, the game industry, future directions, various programming challenges, and of course his rocketry work at his aerospace company, Armadillo Aerospace.
Sometimes, he even reveals id Software games.
According to social media message postings by Bethesda Softworks’ community manager Nick Breckon, some big names are going to be attending QuakeCon in Dallas, Texas in two weeks time – names that may just be ready to make a big announcement.
In an interview with Develop magazine, head of Sony Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida has revealed that the company is currently working on “concepting new hardware” as well as “future platform related activities.”
Only now for the first time, and since the departure of Ken Kutaragi (the ‘father of the PlayStation’) from Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony is working with its impressive array of first-party developers to help design and craft any new videogame hardware that Sony creates, including the next PlayStation, in order to ensure that they, the developers, are given the tools necessary to create the games of the future.
In comments made to Develop, Yoshida said:
OK, so the video may be a little overexposed owing to the fact that it was taken by a camera off of a screen (hence, off-screen), but if you watch the below-appearing technology trailer for Crytek’s CryEngine 3 (which will power the studio’s Crysis 2 appearing at the end of the year) and don’t come away impressed… then you’re probably from the future.
CryEngine 3 currently contains enough technological and visual wizardry to make even John Carmack and Tim Sweeney jealous (… nerd joke), with fancy lighting effects, procedural deformation, procedural destruction, blend shading and some extremely advanced artificial intelligence routines, all wrapped up in what looks to be a very smart editor.
Watch all of that in action below:
[Update] You can now watch the entire awards ceremony below [End of Update]
Last night the world’s best videogames and game developers were honoured with a shower of awards at the 10th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, held during the Game Developers Conference every year, the only official awards ceremony created for developers and voted on by developers.
This year’s big winner was Uncharted 2, which walked away with a total of five nods, while id Software co-founder and Technical Director John Carmack was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Event director of the Game Developers Conference Meggan Scavio said of the awards process this year:
Through stealth upgrades provided via various firmware updates, Sony has managed to reduce the amount of system memory that the PlayStation 3’s operating system (OS) uses at runtime, whittling the OS’s footprint down from 120MB to 50MB.
This essentially gives PS3 developers another 70MB for their games that would otherwise have been off-limits, which will be useful for applications such as temporarily storing extra data or higher resolution data, making for (ever so slightly) better looking and even (ever so slightly) faster running PS3 games.
Patrick Seybold of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) confirmed the news to videogame consumer site Joystiq, saying:
Videogame industry legend, programming technology guru and id Software (DOOM, Quake) co-founder John Carmack is set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the upcoming Game Developers Choice Awards for his outstanding contributions to the art and science of games, following in the footsteps of prolific industry stars Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima and Richard Garriott.
The Lifetime Achievement Award recognises “the career and achievements of developers who have made an indelible impact on the craft of game development,” and with Carmack’s more than two decade history of making games, working on breakthrough technology and his contributions to popularising the first-person shooter genre with titles such as Wolfenstein, DOOM and Quake, as well as his efforts in continually pushing the bounds of graphics technology, you could say he’s made an “indelible impact” on game development.
Event Director of the Game Developers Conference Meggan Scavio said of Carmack and the award:
This February at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, videogame industry legend Mark Cerny will be formally inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, joining the likes of luminaries such as Shigeru Miyamoto, John Carmack, Will Wright and Sid Meier.
Mark Cerny has made major contributions to videogame technologies and numerous titles throughout the years, some of which you may not even realise he had a hand in, including Marble Madness way back in 1984, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 1992, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Heart of Darkness, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, Resistance, Uncharted, MotorStorm, Heavenly Sword, inFamous and Killzone 2, with many more to come in the future through his consultation company, Cerny Games.
The QuakeCon event held in Dallas, Texas every year is a celebration of all things id Software, who play host to the affair in order to talk directly to the public about some of their current work and development directions, show off their new games, and play their old ones in a massive network of computers (entry to which is completely free thanks to some kindly sponsors).
This year’s QuakeCon officially kicked off with a joint press conference with fellow developers Bethesda Softworks (both id Software and Bethesda are now owned by media company, ZeniMax), as id’s CEO, Todd Hollenshead, revealed a few little titbits about current goings-on at the company.
For one thing, we’re going to have to wait until next year’s QuakeCon to find out about id’s currently-in-development DOOM 4, but added that “When we show it to you you’re gonna love it!”
Furthermore, Hollenshead announced that the Xbox 360’s Xbox LIVE Arcade will soon be seeing two new additions to the service from id, namely Quake Arena Arcade, a version of Quake 3: Arena tuned to the Xbox 360’s control style and online functionality, as well as a re-release of the classic DOOM II, which will contain higher definition artwork, sounds and online play.
Last week, news of John Carmack’s comments in the latest issue of Edge sparked quite a bit of fanboy nerd-rage, as Carmack essentially said that, currently, id Software’s upcoming game RAGE is performing half as well on the PS3 as on the PC and Xbox 360 platforms.
By the time the game launches, however, that will be another story, as Carmack then went on to say: “Everything is designed as a 60 hertz game. We expect [RAGE] to be 60 hertz on every supported platform.
“The work remaining is getting it locked so there’s never a dropped frame or a tear,” Carmack continued, “but we’re confident that we’re going to get that.”
Legendary graphics programmer and game developer at id Software, John Carmack, has recently stirred the fanboy nest with a statement that is nothing less than controversial: id Software’s next game, the first-person action racing game RAGE, runs faster on the Xbox 360, and “lags a little bit” on the PS3.
These statements appear in the latest issue of Edge magazine, where the team there had an opportunity to interview Carmack about all things id Sofware, which included the revelation that, while RAGE runs at 60 frames a second (fps) on both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game, the PS3 currently only runs at between 20 and 30fps. Here’s Carmack:
In a particularly shocking turn of events, Bethesda Softworks (Oblivion, Fallout 3) parent company, ZeniMax Media, has completed its acquisition of the legendary DOOM and Quake developer, id Software, a historically staunchly independent studio. id Software CEO, Todd Hollenshead commented on the acquisition:
“This was a unique opportunity to team with a smart, sophisticated publisher like Bethesda Softworks where the interests of the studio and the publisher will be fully aligned in the development and marketing of our titles.
“In addition,” Hollenshead continued, “we will now have financial and business resources to support the future growth of id Software, a huge advantage which will result in more and even better games for our fans.”
Game developer and graphics programmer extraordinaire, John Carmack, who will continue at id Software as technical director, remarked:
In a survey commissioned by the Develop Conference (which runs from July 14th to the 16th in UK development hub, Brighton), and polling results from 9000 game developers, it’s been revealed that, unsurprisingly, Nintendo’s star game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has been voted as the respondent’s ultimate game development hero.
What was heartening to see, however, was who placed in at No. 2 on the top ten list of favourite game developers – non other than legendary graphics guru (and game designer), and id Software technical director, John Carmack.
Managing director of Tandem Events, organiser of the Develop Conference in Brighton, Andy Lane commented on the results: “It’s no surprise that Miyamoto-san is the development hero of developers – over the last thirty years he has created games that have not only driven the evolution of the games industry but also changed people’s lives.
| « Previous Entries |
- Free Skyrim DLC and Skyrim Creation Kit!
- CoD: Black Ops Double XP Weekend on Friday, vote for next 24/7 map!
- Friends of Design are Friends Indeed: Cape Town gamers congregate on campus
- Win one of three 3D TVs plus an awesome PS3 bundle with Afrihost and El33tonline
- UFC Undisputed 3 Hands-on Preview
- PS3 firmware update 4.10 goes live, features revealed