Introduction

It really isn't recorded

After the taste of Doom 3 that id software gave at E3 2002 from E3, gamers have been frothing at the mouth for more and more coverage. Other than a couple new screenshots released a couple weeks ago, id has remained tight lipped on the matter, giving precious few details on the next big leap for graphics in first person shooters. What we do know about Doom 3 is that the engine looks incredible, the graphics raise the bar for lighting and shadows to never before seen levels, and it will focus primarily on single player gameplay.

Crowd gathers for id

Today, through a panel presentation, id software revealed a little bit about the technology behind the game. One by one, members of id software presented different aspects of the game related to their area of expertise. This panel presentation lasted about an hour and was followed by a long, highly technical talk from John Carmack about the genesis of the Doom 3 engine, and new directions he'd like the graphics industry to go in. The talk was followed with a lengthy Q&A session with Carmack answering questions about Doom 3, and his speech.

JC

Tim Willits

First up was Tim Willits, lead designer on Doom 3. While every Doom 3 presentation involved a prerecorded movie of actual gameplay (nothing prerendered), Tim made a point of sitting down with the game and running through it in real time for us, just to prove that the engine *is* real, and that the last couple of "maybe it's fake" people would have nothing to talk about. The first thing Tim did in the level (the same dim mars base from the E3 demo) was spawn a fat zombie in between two light sources. As the zombie ran back and forth, chasing Tim's character, we could see the light casting real shadows across the zombie's model, stretching and changing angles based on the position of the zombie relative to the light sources.

Tim also demonstrated that the Doom 3 engine has a true per poly collision detection for models, meaning that you can actually graze the shoulder of an enemy with a bullet, bust a cap in someone's knee, etc. While shooting the fat zombie with a pistol, we could see the bullets leaving holes in the exact spots on the body where the bullet was aimed. As the body hit the ground, Tim continued pumping rounds into the body as it convulsed with each shot. It's all reminiscent of the features that Soldier of Fortune brought to the table. One thing that set Doom 3 apart from SoF is that Tim stood on top of the "dead" zombie's body. When it re-awakened and tried to get up from the ground, it could not with the engine detecting the weight of Tim's boots stepping on its chest. Instead, the fat lump squirmed around like a fish out of water. Once Tim stepped off the zombie it could get up again and resume chasing.