"Prey" is coming

[Kristian Joensen]

Well 3D Realms have written their own renderer, ligthing system and animation system for DNF, so I am pretty sure they will do similar things with the Doom 3 engine to the extent they are necessary.

[Ronald McDonald]

We know for a fact that Prey was worked on since 2002 according to Evil Avatar.

You think 3 years is enough to make the proper ajustments to the D3 engine AND make most of the content

The content alone seems like 3 years of work to me

[Kristian Joensen]

Are you sure about that ?

Isn't just that Evil Avatars rumor is from 2002 ?

You also have to remeber that when they annouce it, it will be something like 6 months or more from release.

I also thing development will be faster becuase of all the year peviously worked on the project before putting it on hold.

Their are probaply lots of concepts and ideas that they can impement.

They could also bring some levels back, they could base character models on earlier character models, and so on.

[Ronald McDonald]

Kristian Joensen said:
Are you sure about that ?

Isn't just that Evil Avatars rumor is from 2002 ?

You also have to remeber that when they annouce it, it will be something like 6 months or more from release.

I also thing development will be faster becuase of all the year peviously worked on the project before putting it on hold.

Their are probaply lots of concepts and ideas that they can impement.

They could also bring some levels back, they could base character models on earlier character models, and so on.

So you think they've been working on it since before 2002 or after?

And yes I allready assumed the game would be released atleast this year. I'm also assuming that the content on DNF will take 3 years.
They've restarted contentwise since early 2003 so my prediction is DNF summer 2006 or x-mas 2006

[Kristian Joensen]

Since maybe before 2002 or atleast earlier on the year than the Evil Avatar rumor.

Maybe 3D Realms started on in internaly mid/late 2001 and handled it over to Human Head Studios early/mid 2002.

You also have to remember that content creation and engine programming can be done in parallel.

[yossa]

Kristian Joensen said:
Maybe they solved those problem ?

Highly unlikely - if 3DR had the programmers able to make the idea of dynamic portals possible, they'd be as able to fix the problems - IF it was achievable.

Slightly off topic: I actually created a DM level which made extensive use of Unreal Engine's warp zones (static portals) feature for the original UT. Each corridor was actually a dead end connected with another dead end corridor in a diferent area of a map, while at the same time looking like a normal corridor (I feel silly explaining it, but it WAS cool). Basically you were seamlessly teleported to another place in a map each time you reached the dead end. It was a cool trick, but it had it's problems due to the limitations of Unreal Engine.

[Kristian Joensen]

yossa said:

Highly unlikely - if 3DR had the programmers able to make the idea of dynamic portals possible, they'd be as able to fix the problems - IF it was achievable.

If anybody has the programmers its 3D Realms.

[X-Vector]

If anybody has seen programmers come and go it's 3D Realms.

Anyway, this is a third party project now, so I'd expect the programming work to be handled by Human Head personnel.

[Kristian Joensen]

According to rumors and consistent with a quote of Scott Miller, 3D Realms started work inhouse on the game.

[X-Vector]

I'm assuming you're not referring to Prey's beginning in the mid-nineties?

Regardless, 3DR's has started lots of things, but it's the status quo that matters.

[Kristian Joensen]

X-Vector said:
I'm assuming you're not referring to Prey's beginning in the mid-nineties?

Nope, I am refering to now

X-Vector said:
Regardless, 3DR's has started lots of things, but it's the status quo that matters.

What is this supposed to meen ?

[X-Vector]

It means that only the current status of the project is of importance.
If indeed Human Head is working on the game now, it's Human Head that handles the programming chores, not 3DR.

I'd expect the situation to be similar to that of Max Payne and DN: Manhattan Project, where Remedy and Sunstorm respectively were responsible for development (and SCS for the original engine in DN:MP).
So whatever technical prowess 3DR possesses in your view, it would be pretty academic in the case of Prey.

[Kristian Joensen]

Not if it(Prey) contains significant amounts of 3DR code. As I stated 3D Realms started the development and Human Head contiued from their using 3DR's stuff.

That is what the rumor is about, Scott Miller has said that they have worked like that on one of their 3rd party games.

[X-Vector]

Even if that is true, one look at the history of development of DNF should tell you that gaming engine technology is work in progress.
Problems often start to rear their heads only in content creation (partly because during content creation additional requirements to the development code/tools become apparent and previously overlooked or underestimated drawbacks turn into roadblocks).

[Kristian Joensen]

Their is now law wich states that all of 3D Realms's projects should run into the same problems as they have with DNF.

Edited:

DNF is no typical project, besides Prey has already had it fair share of problems, they have most definetly learned alot of things the hard way through the long time Prey was in evelopent previoulsy, plus they have also learned through DNF alot of things to not do.

They have also learned with regards to 3rd party development from thier work with Remedy on Max Payne and Max Payne 2.

[X-Vector]

Prey already ran into the problem in its earlier indication, n'est-ce pas?

That's besides the point however, DNF and 90's Prey are merely examples, my argument is a general one.
The idea that any company can sprinkle some magical engine code dust on a project, curing past and potential stumbling blocks and pass it off to a third party with guaranteed success is rather naive IMO.

[lonestar]

when this thread got opened about joe's interesting comment on the frontpage, we should have put it in this forum in the first place, cause it was pretty clear it wouldn't be dnf, he was talking about.


@ronald

you wrote on the first page, 3 years wouldn't be enough for d3 engine upgrade and content creation. i don't think so. it's a pretty long time, remember, they didn't need to write it all from scratch (if this published stuff is indeed true). d3 engine is already there to build on it. that's a huge benefit concerning time consumption.

on the other hand, they have to get familiar with this not in-house engine.

[Kristian Joensen]

I didn't say they had guranteed succes.

Mainly, I think 3D Realms has solved their internal problems wich have delayed DNF and got Prey "canned(officially put on hold) the first time around.

They have hired alot of team members especially programmers. I see this as attempt to try if they can extend their solutions to Prey, partly by delegating it to Human Head Studios.

[Ronald McDonald]

How did you get so anti-3DR biased

Don't recall you being so negative about 3DR

[Duoae]

Warmaster129 said:
"Portal Technology" is old. Old, old, old. Every modern engine has it. But don't mix it up with "Dynamic Portal Technology", which is what Prey has. Dynamic Portal Technology has never (IIRC) been done before, and is completely awesome.

I wish people didn't get confused with these things.

A "Portal engine" is the rendering method used in the engine. It is an alternative to BSP. Many BSP-based engines (like the Doom 3 engine) have had half-portal techniques since the mid-late 90's. So you are partially true. Every modern engine uses a part of portal engine technology - culling and clipping of unseen geometry and effects.
The reason prey used the term "dynamic" portal technology was because it was a spin on the scientific terms. Ie. The actual portals that people walk through in game, they could be created when and wherever you wanted. I wish that 3DR had never called their portals, "portals".

For example: Area portals, Dynamic scene graph (DSG) technology and other types of vis-portal systems are all portal engine inspired code, ripped from the premise behind a portal engine and applied to the more rigid BSP engine system.

As far as i know, "portal technology" as you call it has never been achieved in any game before or since Prey (and maybe not even in that game properly). The "portals" (i prefer to call them gates, to avoid confusion) were not like the teleporters seen in other games, at least not from what i could see in the videos. They were more like physical doors in the 3-dimensional space in the game - the perfect example (i like to think) is of Quantum Leap. The character Al, constantly walks into the viewing room through that Door which slides up and down. It is a physical attachment to the 3-dimensional space (even if it is all a hologram) rather than a teleporter with a visual display from a camera at the destination.

In principle, both get the same job done, however you cannot physically interact with a teleporter - no gun can be fired through unless specifically allowed. With a "portal" there is no allowance needed because there literally is no space between the start- and end-point a physical continuation of "level space" is acheived... and for this reason it has been referred to as a 4-dimensional engine....

However, i may be wrong in some of my assumptions. Nobody is perfect.

[Lengis]

>>>>>>It is 3D Realms's policy to annouce games about 6 months before release, that is what they will be doing in this case.

It is? Gee, I would have sworn they announced DNF about 9 years before it's release.

[Rider]

it wasn't intended to take another 9 years...

but ofcourse, you already know that

[Kristian Joensen]

Lengis said:
>>>>>>It is 3D Realms's policy to annouce games about 6 months before release, that is what they will be doing in this case.

It is? Gee, I would have sworn they announced DNF about 9 years before it's release.

They have learned from that experience. They won't be doing that ever again.

[Lengis]

About this portal tech,


You guys realize that the reason why it hasn't shown up in other games is because it's not that big of a deal anymore right? Yay, I can see a person on the other side of a portal, and I can shoot him. Who cares? Nobody bothered to play around with that tech because it's as useless as the standing taller feature in Ken's Labyrinth.


Another thing, what is the damn point of modifiying engines to include new features? I like epic's method of marketing their engines. Here's what we have for UE3, go have fun with it, it has everything you would want to make a great game.


If you want your engine to have unique features, make it from the ground up! 3DRealms made the mistake of trying to "add" new features to the Unreal Engine, and they wound up redoing nearly all the code. So what was the damn point in the first place? It didn't save any time at all, it actually contributed to the development time greatly.

[Kristian Joensen]

You clearly have not seen the E3 1998 video of Prey.

Edited:

I am also sick and tired of people prejudgeing this incarnation of Prey based on their dislike of the what was showen of the Prey in the 90's.

Judge this game on its own merits, wich you so far know nothing about.

Edit 2:

I found this great article.

To me it proves that Prey was more than portal technology.

[Lengis]

No one doubted just how ambitious Prey was back then. Back then, it's visuals were amazing, probably exceeding Unreal's. Problem is, that was it's major selling point, which isn't an issue anymore.

[Yenz]

The ultimate thing in "the goodie" folder on the prey disc would be a copy of the old version of Prey (what they had then).
Please George & Scott

Kristian Joensen said:I found this great article.

One of the best articles about Prey

[Rider]

Yenz said:
The ultimate thing in "the goodie" folder on the prey disc would be a copy of the old version of Prey (what they had then).
Please George & Scott

LamePrey on the official CD I'd buy that for sure...

I really hope it's Prey, I can't wait to get my hands on that one

[Kristian Joensen]

Lengis said:
No one doubted just how ambitious Prey was back then. Back then, it's visuals were amazing, probably exceeding Unreal's. Problem is, that was it's major selling point, which isn't an issue anymore.

No it wasn't, plus it wouln't matter since is has no bearing on the qualities of this new Prey.

[Duoae]

It'd be nice if the Collector's version of Prey came with a "featurette" about the making of Prey and - inlcuding the E3 videos and a documentary style commentary by George and anyone else who was invovled. Maybe also some stuff from Liquid development as well - showing off the evolution of the models they made for the game...

[Kristian Joensen]

That would be great, I also like the idea of a LamePrey. But I am afraid that it just isn't gonna happen.

I have also been thinking about the engine, is it somehow impossible to combine dynamic portals(as opposed to static) with BSP ?

If so, why ?

[Duoae]

Kristian Joensen said:
That would be great, I also like the idea of a LamePrey. But I am afraid that it just isn't gonna happen.

I have also been thinking about the engine, is it somehow impossible to combine dynamic portals(as opposed to static) with BSP ?

If so, why ?

Well, at first you could have static cameras and teleporters..... then you had moveable (dynamic) cameras - DN3D, HL2... then moveable teleporters - UT...

A work around on the actual "portal" system in Prey could be to have simple teleporters that can be generated "on the fly" with a camera object at the destination and visual surface at the start-point....

A combination of UT's teleporter thingies (wth are they called?) and a camera object..... like in the guidable UT nuke weapon. So a mobile spawn entity (that's not character specific) and a mobile camera attached to the objects. I'm not sure if this is along the lines of what was done in the Prey engine to start with.... i'd need to be told or see source code. But from all i've seen it would suggest that this is not the simple case.

Come to think of it, i've never even seen dynamic generation of camera entities. The only cameras i've seen in games have been there from the start and the entities all linked up. Not that this should be a hard thing to do, they would have to be an object like a weapon/mine/crate or something....

[Kristian Joensen]

Your conlcusion would be ?

What could be made with the system you envision ?

[lonestar]

george said, all the old dnf material is gone, i think this goes for prey more than ever.

[Kristian Joensen]

Actually George has confirmed some things in like Las Vegas.

[lonestar]

he said, they still got some content from dnf based on what engine? i doubt that...

[Kristian Joensen]

The Unreal Engine, ofcourse. DNF is still DNF, and I am sure Prey is still Prey.

[Night Hacker]

Lengis said:

It is? The news is out anyway, so someone talked. The fact remains that they announced a new game before they even completed DNF, so no it wasn't a smart move on their part.

That's not news, it's speculation.

The fact remains is that they haven't announced anything yet! heheh

IF Prey is being developed by a third party and IF it is going to be annouced at E3 this won't be a surprise to me, it seems like standard 3DRealms buisness practise. The same way they have treated Max Payne 1, Duke Nukem Manhatten Project and Max Payne 2 to name but a few... this is nothing out of the ordinary as far as I'm concerned.

[Duoae]

Kristian Joensen said:
Your conlcusion would be ?

What could be made with the system you envision ?

I think it is "easy" to incorporate moveable/deployable teleporters..... but not sure about the actual engine idiosyncrasies of having a physical connection rather than a teleporter entity. I'm not a programmer.

With the system i stated above? Well, i guess it'll look the same or similar, it just won't be programmed the same or have the same physical properties that a "4-D" engines portals would/do.

[Kristian Joensen]

What do you mean by physical properties ?

Would you be able to duplicate all, some or none of the Prey E3 1998 Infinite Mhz interview ?

If the answers is some, then wich ones ?