News:

One Minute Game Review by The Happy Friar: https://ugetube.com/@OneMinteGameReviews
Also on Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/c-1115371

idTech 4 (aka Doom 3 tech) Discord Server! https://discord.gg/9wtCGHa

Main Menu

Why so few uses of Id Tech 4?

Started by Shawnturner, November 10, 2017, 06:49:29 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Shawnturner

Hello,

Id Tech 4 (i.e. Doom 3) was state-of-the-art when it was released, and still looks good today, but it was ignored by both commercial developers and mod makers.

There's only one commercial game made with the engine: Prey. There are also a few mods (TDM, MITM) and SP maps, but nothing approaching the number or content of UT or HL...

as I see it Id Tech 4 has several advantages over others:
runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox
has a large user base (D3 alone sold 3.5m copies)
will have the full source released under the GPL eventually, so you can make your TC into a standalone game and even sell it.
looks nice with modest requirements (I can run ETQW on high settings, whereas BS just barely worked on low)
the updated engine for ETQW can render huge environments very well
Looks and feels unique. There's no Havok, SpeedTree, etc. Id make everything by themselves.
Why's everyone using that broken pile of brokeness, U3?



I didn't find the right solution from the internet.
References:

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118962

explainer video

LDAsh

John Carmack himself said the engine was not "future proof", never supposed to be, and infact has a lot of terrible issues with high polycounts and wide open areas inherent in the engine itself, regardless of the hardware you throw at it.  It's a relic from over a decade ago.  You can argue with me about it all you want, but it would be outright delusional to argue with the author of the engine itself.

VGames

Yeah it's time has been over man. If devs aren't flocking to it in droves by now then there are obviously limitations within the engine that hindered devs in various ways depending on what they wanted out of it. Listen to Carmack, he built it.
Get the latest on Perfected Doom 3 here - http://www.moddb.com/mods/perfected-doom-3-version-500

The Happy Friar

I like Doom 3 tech because I know it.  I also like Q2 tech.  I admit they're no where near what modern engines offer though, and Torque 3D is open source MIT license vs GPL, which I consider an advantage of id's GPL licenses.

However, Q1/2/3/D3 are great for small teams: no royalties, super-easy  to use, lots of engine updates out there, Q1/2/3 are perhaps the most documented engines out there, all run an almost any device in existence... 

motorsep

#4
Quote from: Shawnturner on November 10, 2017, 06:49:29 AM

as I see it Id Tech 4 has several advantages over others:
runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox

Maybe the original did, but the one you can get your hands on won't run on XBox. And Xbox is dead anyway.
UE4 runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, XB1/Xb1X, PS4, and mobile/desktop/console VR. Unity runs one even more platforms.

Quote from: Shawnturner on November 10, 2017, 06:49:29 AM
has a large user base (D3 alone sold 3.5m copies)

Really!? Go check how many people bought Valve games (or Source 2 based games) and UE3-based games..

Quote from: Shawnturner on November 10, 2017, 06:49:29 AM
will have the full source released under the GPL eventually, so you can make your TC into a standalone game and even sell it.

So you can with Unity (no source code available, but who cares) and UE4 (source code is available, including XB1/X and PS4).

Quote from: Shawnturner on November 10, 2017, 06:49:29 AM
looks nice with modest requirements (I can run ETQW on high settings, whereas BS just barely worked on low)

Only looks nice because of the art created by iD Software. Has nothing to do with the engine.

Quote from: Shawnturner on November 10, 2017, 06:49:29 AM
the updated engine for ETQW can render huge environments very well

Except that's not included into released source code. So id Tech 4 out of the box doesn't do huge environments well at all.

Quote from: Shawnturner on November 10, 2017, 06:49:29 AMLooks and feels unique. There's no Havok, SpeedTree, etc. Id make everything by themselves.

You can make any engine look unique if you can work with shaders. Who uses Havok noways? o.O Good luck making good foliage without SteepTree. I talked to several ex-ID employees who said that not using middleware was one of the biggest mistakes of iD Software. Look at them now - they use every middleware there is to get the job done and I am happy they do. No need to wait for games to be released in 5-7 years and have a way less features and effects they could have had with middleware.

Quote from: Shawnturner on November 10, 2017, 06:49:29 AM
Why's everyone using that broken pile of brokeness, U3?

No one uses UE3. Everyone uses UE4 or Unity. Id Tech 4 a way more broken than UE4 for example (I've worked with both and I can tell you from the experience). UE4 just works. No restrictions, no limitation. You might want to grad id Tech 4 and try making a small game using it. I am confident that you won't be able to make anything but Doom 3 mod that plays and feels exactly like Doom3 (or worse). With UE4 you can make any game, free or commercial.


aphexjh

is the OP like a time capsule/repost? People can still use Doom 3. I mean Quadrilateral Cowboy was a critically acclaimed game made with Doom 3 and Blender. There is a path, tho few use it.

motorsep

Quote from: aphexjh on November 13, 2017, 12:27:48 PM
is the OP like a time capsule/repost? People can still use Doom 3. I mean Quadrilateral Cowboy was a critically acclaimed game made with Doom 3 and Blender. There is a path, tho few use it.

There is a better game made with Doom 3 engine, but no one heard of it. Simply because the author of Quadrilateral Cowboy has a higher publicity than the other guy. If you track his progress however, you'll see how long it took to build and how much he was fighting the engine. It would have been done much much quicker using UE4 or Unity.

argoon

You guys do love to complain, specially motorsep that loves this kind of threads, any opportunity to shit on idtech 4 and glorify UE4 and Unity is a most for him.

Why so few uses of idTech 4 by comercial AAA studios? Id contrary to Epic is not focused in the engine business so they didn't tried to sell the engine that strongly, even tho id sold licenses to their engines, they didn't worked on the tools to make them very easy for other developers, they expected them to get used to the tools or make their own or not bother at all and many didn't so idtech 4 saw few uses from outside teams.
Id tech 4 also came about when the engine market was imploding, everyone and their mother add now access, almost for free, for engines that were prohibitively expensive before. Engine tools also improved to the point that now, engines like idtech 4 that don't hold your hand, are not very noob friendly and don't make a single developer a power house are deamed has inferior, etc.

Taking that out, Idtech 4 is a very versatile engine and very maliable, to do big changes it does require developers with experience in c++ and OpenGL, but if you don't try to get to much outside of what the engine already provides, you can do pretty awesome stuff with it, motorsep only likes to mention comercial games, but there's some really cool mods made with idtech4, some with very unique stuff on them.

And Man Frictional games has made a awesome game (penumbra) with a engine (HPL 1) much more restrictive and inferior to even vanilla idtech 4 even the tools were inferior to those of idtech 4, the problem is not the engine is the ones using it. 

motorsep

"argoon" stands for "I like pointless arguments" - I don't see any track record of you making games. I've worked with idTech 1, idTech 4 and UE4 and I can tell you that id tech 4 is not malleable and is not versatile, it' was made to run Doom 3 and that's it. If you want to make something else you have to essentially rewrite it. Even recent attempt to integrate Vulkan into BFG engine stopped when the author dug deeper and discovered there half of the engine needs to be refactored.

The reason idTech 4 isn't used is simple - it's not flexible, it's limited and it's old. Once can make 3 games using UE4 before you make one game using idTech 4. Even Splash Damage ditched it at the end.

argoon

#9
Quote from: motorsep on November 13, 2017, 01:42:18 PM
"argoon" stands for "I like pointless arguments" - I don't see any track record of you making games. I've worked with idTech 1, idTech 4 and UE4 and I can tell you that id tech 4 is not malleable and is not versatile, it' was made to run Doom 3 and that's it. If you want to make something else you have to essentially rewrite it. Even recent attempt to integrate Vulkan into BFG engine stopped when the author dug deeper and discovered there half of the engine needs to be refactored.

The reason idTech 4 isn't used is simple - it's not flexible, it's limited and it's old. Once can make 3 games using UE4 before you make one game using idTech 4. Even Splash Damage ditched it at the end.

Tell me mister "I've made one game now my opinion matters more than yours", if the engine is not versatile why are people working on different versions of it, including rewriting it into a completely different programming language, some guy even made a fantastic VR version with it, etc? The TDM team has even announced they implemented multi-core support, OpenGL 3.2, soft stencil shadows and many more features, in their spare time, you on other end have nothing to show on your awesome UE4 game.

No I've never made a game nor mod and that is because i really never add that intention and had other things to do, for me this is a hobby period, but that in no way invalidates my point, at lest i don't waist my time complaining and hating on a engine forum i don't like, contrary to you.

motorsep

Quote from: argoon on November 13, 2017, 06:24:22 PM
No I've never made a game nor mod and that is because i really never add that intention and had other things to do

Then you have no weight in this argument, at all.

The Happy Friar

motorsep's right, doom 3 tech isn't very flexible.  it does what id designed it to do very, very well.  TDM plays on it's strengths very well.  TDM has also been in development for about 14 years.  With previous id game GPL releases there were several games based on the GPL engine released within ~5 years of release. 

As for a specific reason D3 tech hasn't been popular is, to me at least, a very simple reason: only the engine is GPL, no weapon, AI, shaders, etc. available.   For Quad Cowboy the hardest part was writing all those basics.  Wolf3D, Doom, Q1, Q2, Q3A, RTCW, etc. all have everything you need to make a game except assets where as Doom 3 is lacking, basically, the whole gameplay part of the game: someone could make a clone of one of those games in months with just asset work.  Doom 3 requires more code to get to the point where you can have some gameplay going.

In arguments like this the irony is lost by almost everyone: epic/valve fans for decades claimed id was nothing but an engine tech company that made games to show off tech.  The reality became that valve & epic are engine tech companies & id is still a game company but nobody's hollering it off the roof tops like when id made mega-hit game after game decades ago.  :)
Save

argoon

Quote from: The Happy Friar on November 13, 2017, 10:42:05 PM
motorsep's right, doom 3 tech isn't very flexible.  it does what id designed it to do very, very well.  TDM plays on it's strengths very well.  TDM has also been in development for about 14 years.  With previous id game GPL releases there were several games based on the GPL engine released within ~5 years of release. 

As for a specific reason D3 tech hasn't been popular is, to me at least, a very simple reason: only the engine is GPL, no weapon, AI, shaders, etc. available.   For Quad Cowboy the hardest part was writing all those basics.  Wolf3D, Doom, Q1, Q2, Q3A, RTCW, etc. all have everything you need to make a game except assets where as Doom 3 is lacking, basically, the whole gameplay part of the game: someone could make a clone of one of those games in months with just asset work.  Doom 3 requires more code to get to the point where you can have some gameplay going.

In arguments like this the irony is lost by almost everyone: epic/valve fans for decades claimed id was nothing but an engine tech company that made games to show off tech.  The reality became that valve & epic are engine tech companies & id is still a game company but nobody's hollering it off the roof tops like when id made mega-hit game after game decades ago.  :)
Save

Motorsep is not "right" is has real arguments, and i agree with some of them, but his way of presenting them and the way he pretty much calls anyone using idtech 4 has a dumb person, even ones making mods or just fan's of id engines, removes from him any reason whatsoever.

Yes the vanilla idtech 4 is to old, that is why i'm using fhdoom, yes the original tools are old, not artist friendly and not very stable, but you have better alternatives for some of them and they do their job well. Yes the engine lacks many modern features like open spaces and stuff, but for corridor shooters is just fine. What i see here is a guy that instead of going to other engines if idtech 4 is not right for him or instead of trying to work with what he has, like some of the others that already finished mods and games in idtech 4, he complains and worse he actively tries to make other people stop using the engine (to the detriment of his own BFG modification), and that is Motorsep, if you condone this kind of behavior i don't. I don't mind people complaining about idtech 4, i also complain about it, what i don't agree are those that complain and instead of helping improving the engine/tool/documentation instead go out of their way to kill it. 

Second the TDM mod has indeed been worked for 14 years or so but these new engine features are not something that took 14 years to make, it was a resent addition to the engine because they add new coders and they also add other idtech 4 modifications and i stress MODIFICATIONS from hum they got some of their tech and you don't see them complaining and lamenting they are stuck with a "garbage engine".

Yes only the engine is GPL the game assets are not, but even if they were i'm pretty sure that would not matter, many would still complain the engine lacks many of the capabilities of modern engines, and so would not use it, hell even Cryengine 5 a modern engine with state of the art tech is full of "motorseps" on their forum, grass is always green on the other side.

And motorsep i've used Unity 4 for many of my exploits and even played with UE4 and Cryengine a little but in the end i prefer using this garbage engine, but that's me.     

motorsep

Now you are just being ridiculous @argoon and you sound like a blind fanboy who refuses to accept the facts and reality because you are stuck in the past.

Snehk

I worked with different engines - Build, GoldSrc, Source, Darkplaces, ioquake3, UE4, id Tech 4 (GPL, BFG and their forks), mostly for personal projects, prototypes or learning purposes. I do it for fun, and will continue with it.

The problem of nothing released along with the engine could be fixed in a rather simple way. There were many modders back in the day, many resources were available, as well as information on how to do different things. With release of the engine, it could be as easy as simply getting it all together, but that for some reason never happened.

University is slowing down progress of my development base right now, but once I'll find enough time, I'll improve it significantly, then work on a version for fhdoom/GPL.




I don't care what anyone is using for development, projects, design, rocket science or even quantum physics in their spare time. It's their right to be stuck in the past, use ancient or modern technology or anything they want. People are still using Quake and Doom deriative engines!

If someone wants to live under a rock, I don't pry it off their back nor take a sit on it just to add some weight. Stopping every time I see a caveman, or to stare in awe at wonders of modern technology would only slow me down. My solution to every problem is to act. Do something, improve and fix until the problem is gone - just keep doing your thing, and don't bother with others.