DNF Physics

[General Failure]

http://www.nyteknik.se/art/36014

The page is in swedish. It claims that 3drealms is using a physics-engine called Meqon. This doesn't make sense to me, since George has told us they are using Mathengine (karma). But this page is certainly not a page that makes up news to get attention. They don't even write about games in normal cases, and this article isn't even focused on DNF but rather the company Meqon. This makes me believe it could actually be true. It also claims the development of DNF is heading towards the end.

Anyway, I had the chance to meet the creators of Meqon a year ago during a lecture, and I must say to me this is great news. They showcased their engine, and they had some awesome stuff with cloth physics and water (maybe this is the famous "stuff" the water is claimed to do )

Check out this demo: http://www.meqon.com/downloadarea/meqon-demos-1.3.1.zip

(sorry about my poor english)

[Nacho]

Very interesting news...It may be true as well.

[General Failure]

I've done some more research, and it seems Mathengine was bought up by Criterion Software. Criterion are the creators of Renderware. The article in my first post says that some developers (including 3drealms?) are afraid that EA won't let other developers than their own use Renderware. This could very well explain the move to meqon. I sure hope this won't slow down the development too much

[Agulf]

The article was released today (040906) @ 13:36 - both of your posts were written @ 11... Now maybe I'm to tierd right now but this doessnt seem right...

"För fysiken i spelet står svenska spelteknikutvecklaren Meqon. "

Meqon stands for the game physics?
Either GB needs to tell Jonas to &quote ;"stfu imo" &endquote ;D to stop the leak, or this is not true...

"Den riktiga uppföljaren, Duke Nukem Forever, har dock låtit vänta på sig. På 3DRealms hemsida står det fortfarande att spelet ska komma ut "när det är färdigt". Men ett slutdatum för utvecklingen kan nu vara på gång, delvis tack vare svensk spelteknik. "

It basicly sais that DNF has been delayed and that this homepage still has the WID-mark up, but that partially thanks to swedish gaming technology, a release date might be on the way... Uhm...

[General Failure]

Agulf said:
The article was released today (040906) @ 13:36 - both of your posts were written @ 11... Now maybe I'm to tierd right now but this doessnt seem right...

Damn, you're on to me! *hides away mysteriously looking device*

That article is written in Sweden, not in the states

Agulf said:
"För fysiken i spelet står svenska spelteknikutvecklaren Meqon. "

Meqon stands for the game physics?
Either GB needs to tell Jonas to &quote ;"stfu imo" &endquote ;D to stop the leak, or this is not true...

I wonder if they have to keep such things secret?

[Agulf]

Lol ok yes how stupid of me ;D... sorry.

If "They" changed physengine, thats a pretty big step issnt it? and wouldnt "They" tell <I>uss</I> first?
Like.. News... And... Woooaaaah *remembers what he red on main page...* "We've all been busy working, so never fear, Duke is still here. "....

[Beelze]

Being Swedish and all I can also confirm that the article states DNF is using it. If that's true or not, well I don't know. Maybe George could confirm this? Really, would it spoil anything?

[Zaarin]

As for being Finnish myself and the fact that I can read Swedish, I can say it's true. George hasn't said anything about what physics engine DNF is using and he really should comment on this.

[Beelze]

Being Swedish and all, I can safely say I agree with you.

[NutWrench]

Having Swedish ancestors but being born in the U.S., I can safely say that I didn't understand anything on that page.

[Gryph]

Not being Sweding or Finnish I will take your guys word for it and agree with you.

That Meqon demo is fun. Thanks General Failure.

[Fat John]

The scaffold demo was the most fun for me, but the mesh one didn't work at all for me.

[Beelze]

Being Swedish and all ... eh, whatever... I like the water demo the most, because it's new to me.

[DudeMiester]

It's not an engine change, just a component of the engine. I'm sure they have an abstraction layer on top of their physics component, so it would only require altering the internals of that interface. I don't think it would take a huge amount of time.

[Micki!]

Being Swedish and all ... eh, whatever... I like the water demo the most, because it's new to me.

Being Danish and not Swedish (there isn't any big difference anyway) i would say... "Let's ask George..!"

[Major Lag]

If "They" changed physengine, thats a pretty big step issnt it? and wouldnt "They" tell <I>uss</I> first?
Like.. News...

Do they ever tell us anything

[TBZ]

Translated the article the best I could, probably lots and lots of spelling mistakes.. But here you go
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Swedish game-engine to bring in delayed "run-and-gun game"
The development of Duke Nukem Forever, one of the most delayed and anticipated sequel, is heading towards the end. The physics is handled by the Swedish gametech-developer Meqon.

Duke Nukem 3D from the American 3DRealms was one of the most succesfull "run-and-gun games" that followed Doom in the mid-1990. Since then there have been realesed countless of games with Duke Nukem.

The real sequel have taken it's time though. On 3DRealms homepage the realese date is still "When It's Done". But a realese date may come soon, partially thanks to Swedish technology.


The company from Norrköping, have specialised on the code that controls the physics in computer games.
To controll how objects and characters react to each other and the world in the game, 3DRealms have taken help from Meqon.

(Info about what the physics do etc)

Meqon have about ten companys that use the engine today.
- But we're negotiating with about 30 more companies, says Jonas Lindqvist.

He believes that the big interest in the companys technology right now is beacuse one of the biggest gamedeveloper/publisher(?), Electronic Arts, have bought the Brittish company Criterion and their gamedevelopment-tool Renderware.

Some of the developers we have spoken to says that theirs publisher demands that they look for alternatives to Renderware, explains Jonas Lindqvist.
That is beacuse the developers/publishers is afraid that Electronic Arts only is going to let "their own" developers use Renderware in the future

[Major Lag]

hmmm interesting ta for that

[General Failure]

GryphonKlaw said:
Not being Sweding or Finnish I will take your guys word for it and agree with you.

That Meqon demo is fun. Thanks General Failure.

"det var så lite" as we say in sweden (okay, let's stop it with this swedish nonsense already! )

DudeMiester said:
It's not an engine change, just a component of the engine. I'm sure they have an abstraction layer on top of their physics component, so it would only require altering the internals of that interface. I don't think it would take a huge amount of time.

That's true. Guess I really didn't think that far. Let's just hope they didn't have to do any major modifications to the engine.

Oh, by the way: great translation TBZ! Would have done it myself but I'm not too comfortable with the english language just yet.

[dark_angel]

Jonas response to a thread I post it in the meqon forums:

Yes, Meqon is being used by a number of games under development, but our policy is not to keep it silent until the games are finished. I can tell you that you can look for a release in the near future though!

If you are interested in getting a reference to talk to I can arrange that.

Regarding comparisons with other physics packages I recommend you to read this thread:
http://meqon.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=51
where this is discussed.

How could I possibly have a comment on DNF, when 3DRealms themselves does not comment on it?

/jonas

I emailed him regarding if meqon is beeing used to power DNF physics. I will post the reply whenever I get his response.( if it yes then we should expect the " no comment " response )

[Blue Demon]

Not being swedish and being mexican, all I can say is that I would like to take some Vacations in Sweden

[IHerman]

General Failure said:
Check out this demo: http://www.meqon.com/downloadarea/meqon-demos-1.3.1.zip

After messing around with the demo, for about half an hour, I hope DNF can do stuff like that. Allthough it could use a little tweaking. (entire stocks of boxes can balance on one single box...)

I can remember George mentioning a physics engine (Karma) but that was a long time ago. I'm sure they will choose a very good physics engine with all the interactivity and all.

[Yatta]

It claims that 3drealms is using a physics-engine called Meqon. This doesn't make sense to me, since George has told us they are using Mathengine (karma).

You're both wrong. We're using the Havok engine. http://www.havok.com/

[IHerman]

Yatta said:
<font color="red">We</font>'re using the Havok engine. http://www.havok.com/

Say what?

[Duoae]

IHerman said:

Say what?

That's what i thought. There's been a couple of posts in which he's referred to 3DRealms in the royal-games company "we".

[EDIT] the little mess-around tool was great fun too! I loved toying with those little walking guys shame they had an area limit......

[Yatta]

Err, I meant they.<font color="#1F1F22">NOT!</font>

[IHerman]

Be careful with that. You don't want an angry mob in your frontyard, demanding DNF-screenshots.

[Rider]

this thing is sweet, and as I noticed, the source code is in there too. (can anyone confirm/deny this?)

I would love to build a minigame where you shoot balls at incoming cubes...

... or something like that

[Duoae]

Rider said:
I would love to build a minigame where you shoot balls at incoming cubes...

... or something like that

The new "snake / Tetris" is born.....

[Rider]

I have an engine, now who would like to code for me? I've got a great idea!!

yeah, we could use MD2 models...
and MP3/OGG support
and real-time lighting
and actual textures
bump mapping

the works!

Then we'd build Netcode!

a very solid one!

And we'd ofcourse improve the way the current dude moves.

We'd also build a very easy to use editor!

Make almost everything interact!

Add something that acts like Geomodding...

Ofcourse we'll release it only WID

But It'll be worth it!

and we'd make it as Moddable as possible!

Naturally I'd do at least the same amount of work as anyone else (I'm not George )

So who's with me?

[Fat John]

Rider said:
I have an engine, now who would like to code for me? I've got a great idea!!

yeah, we could use MD2 models...
and MP3/OGG support
and real-time lighting
and actual textures
bump mapping

the works!

Then we'd build Netcode!

a very solid one!

And we'd ofcourse improve the way the current dude moves.

We'd also build a very easy to use editor!

Make almost everything interact!

Add something that acts like Geomodding...

Ofcourse we'll release it only WID

But It'll be worth it!

and we'd make it as Moddable as possible!

Naturally I'd do at least the same amount of work as anyone else (I'm not George )

So who's with me?

Me. I know a bit of qbasic.

[Rider]

I know Basic, Visual Basic, Some Pascal and Some C and C++

but I'll be darned if I can figure out this thing...

so what... besides coding... can you give the project?

[General Failure]

Yatta said:

You're both wrong. We're using the Havok engine. http://www.havok.com/

Since when? Never heard that before. Do you have any quotes to get me updated?

Because the last thing I heard, they were still using karma
http://www.nlgaming.com/nl/asp/id_13...gameDetail.htm

[General Failure]

Just got an answer from the guy who wrote the article, and he claims he got the information from both Meqon and 3drealms. Seems strange if you consider 3drealms policy against the press, but nothing is impossible I guess. We really need George to shed some light on this mess.

[Agulf]

http://www.havok.com/clients/titles.php

I sure don't see dnf on this page...
At least there's a picture of duke on nlgaming...
But the swedish article seems so ture... If a gamer wrote the article, that person would have called the game a shoot-em-up and not "run-shoot game"... Wouldn't they? So this lad might have...
Idunno... yharr!

[Yatta]

Agulf said:
http://www.havok.com/clients/titles.php

I sure don't see dnf on this page...

Neither do I, but I remember seeing them on that website's page before. Maybe I imagined it all.

[dark_angel]

Its true guys.

DNF is powered by the meqon physics engine.

Jonas was sweet enough to confirm that !

Hail to the New Duke

[Yatta]

dark_angel said:


Jonas was sweet enough to confirm that !

Wait, hold on. You don't mean this guy, do you?

[dark_angel]

lol !

First of all kick ass avatar yatta

And no not this jonas

Its jonas_g from meqon team, you can check meqon's Forum and see what I am talking about

[Duoae]

Rider said:
I have an engine, now who would like to code for me? I've got a great idea!!

yeah, we could use MD2 models...
and MP3/OGG support
and real-time lighting
and actual textures
bump mapping

the works!

Then we'd build Netcode!

a very solid one!

And we'd ofcourse improve the way the current dude moves.

We'd also build a very easy to use editor!

Make almost everything interact!

Add something that acts like Geomodding...

Ofcourse we'll release it only WID

But It'll be worth it!

and we'd make it as Moddable as possible!

Naturally I'd do at least the same amount of work as anyone else (I'm not George )

So who's with me?

I can map!