id tech 6 - cool features?

Ged

Ive seen the trailers for Doom 4 and Ive seen the wikipedia page on id tech 6 and I just wondered what we really know for sure about this engine? Doom 4 looks great but are they really using voxel octree rendering? It still looks like triangle based models in the screenshots so what does that even mean?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_6

AtticusMars

Ged said:

what does that even mean?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_6

INFINITE DETAIL!

Seriously though that citation is from 7 years ago, might have been what was initially envisioned but probably not what it is now.

Ged

haha unlimited detail!
Ah that would make sense, Doom4 has been in development for 7 years? so what else do we know about the engine, what does it do that unreal 4 doesnt etc?

oglu

thinks its more like the cryengine... cause one of the lead coder from cry is working on it...
and i dont think there is special magic inside...

Aabel

They might be using voxels for lighting and non deforming geometry.  Real time deformation of voxels, like we get from linear blend skinning, does not currently have a good solution that would meet audience expectations.

ZacD

I would assume they are still using megatextures unless they scrapped it. 

ambershee

Voxel octrees are most commonly used for approximating global illumination; it'll be used in the lighting.

EarthQuake

Yeah, I was just going to say, voxel GI if anything.

Ged

Oh yeah that would make sense to have SVOGI. Do you guys think the dismemberment / cutting demons in half is done through canned animations or do you think there is a dynamic real time component to that? Im guessing its a small selection of premade animations that are chosen based on the players position or something.

ambershee

It looked liked canned animation to me. Personally I hated it

Ged

Hey ambershee, hates a pretty strong word, is there a better solution these days? I dont disagree, Im not a big fan of canned animations but I understand they are an easy way to make stuff appear to be more "cinematic"

AtticusMars

Those are almost certainly canned

Also somewhat interesting regarding SVO: That slide deck by Jon Olick in the citations seems to specifically talk about using voxels for unique geometry. Apparently Brian Karis of Epic wrote about this back in 2009 on his blog.

Think it's a safe assumption this never made it into idTech however looking through Jon Olick's youtube channel he has another personal project called Voxelnauts which he says is built on the ideas in that siggraph presentation. Evidently there was a kickstarter for it which failed to meet its funding, One of the artists made a thread here on Polycount about their work on it. Wish I had known about it, the game looks pretty cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK5vHWkXL5k
Sorry for the tangent, just thought it was interesting.

Ged

oh yeah I remember that thread, pity the game never came out, it looked really cool, like a natural evolution on the minecraft style.
Yeah I assumed that they arent doing anything super new with voxel based geometry in doom4, it just looks so much like what we have seen in other current gen games, it would be a nice surprise if there is some fancy tech going on that renders so well.

claydough

I am hoping that besides the "tool that anyone can mod doom with" ...

that Snap Map might start IdTech down a path that reveals power under the hood.
If popular ID could further contribute to competition and hopefully further inspire the tech in other available engines.

Even if marketed for idiot proofing the snap map video got me excited for maybe new advanced Idtech editor progress?

Tokyo_Funk

So long as id Tech 6 has fixed the megatexture work in Doom, I'm ok with it. The amount of texture swapping/mip mapping/ artifacting in RAGE made my head hurt. Beautiful from a distance, a mess up close.

Having one of the CryEngine gods on the team also helps.

claydough

Tokyo_Funk said:

So long as id Tech 6 has fixed the megatexture work in Doom, I'm ok with it. The amount of texture swapping/mip mapping/ artifacting in RAGE made my head hurt. Beautiful from a distance, a mess up close.

Having one of the CryEngine gods on the team also helps.

have u revisited rage? seems as if they implemented a dithering solution that I think works fine. ( I was mightily impressed compared to my initial negative impression to "close up" when the game was first released )

Just was reading that Snap Map would be the only course for DOOM modding. Dunno if that is a good or bad thing ( is Radiant evolved into snap map or is Snap map a simplified alternative tool for the modding community? )

cptSwing

Incidentally I just played it a month or so ago - is the dithering effect that pixel noise they overlaid?

claydough

yes. surprised how much blokiness close up was cleaned up. If not actual resolution detail.

ambershee

Ged said:

Hey ambershee, hates a pretty strong word, is there a better solution these days? I dont disagree, Im not a big fan of canned animations but I understand they are an easy way to make stuff appear to be more "cinematic"

It's an adequate word to describe a strong feeling - lengthy canned animation 'takedowns' will get old and repetitive quickly and have little place in a fast paced first person game. They only serve to steal control from the player and detract from the experience (worse, you also end up with either a couple of seconds of vulnerability where you are helpless, or a couple of seconds of invulnerability whilst the animation is playing).

Ged

Yeah sure, I know what you mean, so do you reckon direct control would have played better? 
I really like the slowmo weapon selection they did, I wonder how that system will work in multiplayer - maybe it just doesnt work like that in multiplayer.

ambershee

Culling the 'finishing moves' entirely would make for a better bet. If you must have a melee finisher, it wants to be something more practical like Call of Duty's knife swipe, or Halo's melee thump - you remain entirely in control and the action is very brief; no canned animation steals the camera away for seconds at a time.

The weapon selection stuff won't be in multiplayer.