id Tech 5
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Developer(s) | id Software |
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| Operating system | Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 |
| Type | Game engine |
| Website | id Software Website |
id Tech 5 is a game engine developed by id Software. The name follows id's new naming scheme, which gives information about the generation of the engine (for example the Doom 3 engine is now called "id Tech 4"). This was done so people would not build too strong an association with the in-house game any more. It was demonstrated for the first time at the WWDC 2007 by John D. Carmack on an eight-core Apple Macintosh computer; however, the demo only used a single core and a single-threaded OpenGL implementation running on a 512 MB 7000 class Quadro video card.[1]
The engine was first shown privately to an audience of potential licensees at E3 2007. The first public demonstration took place at QuakeCon 2007[2] during the annual keynote held by John Carmack. The game engine will be used in id's upcoming games, Doom 4 and Rage.
An interview with John Carmack, the lead graphics engine developer at id, indicated that like its predecessors, id Tech 5 will eventually be released as open source. This will likely be many years after id Tech 5 has been used in commercial games. At QuakeCon 2007, Carmack said to LinuxGames that he would integrate as little proprietary software as possible into id Tech 5, because "eventually id Tech 5 is going to be opensource also. This is still the law of the land at id, that the policy is that we’re not going to integrate stuff that’s going to make it impossible for us to do an eventual open source release."[3]
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[edit] Features
The focus of id Tech 5's features are centered predominantly on development. Rendering features and performance will be competitive, but unlike the unveiling of previous id technologies, the demos of id Tech 5 have talked more about the advantages to developers as opposed to players.
The demonstration with which the new game engine was shown had 20 GB of texture data (using a more advanced MegaTexture approach using textures with up to 128000x128000 pixel resolution) and a completely dynamically changeable world. This means that developers do not have to concern themselves with memory constraints or texture limits, as the engine will stream textures into memory as needed. This will simplify the creation of content and eliminate the need to adapt content for different platforms.
One of the features the renderer will include is a penumbra in the shadowing, by using shadow maps. This is unlike the shadowing of the id Tech 4 engine, which had very sharply defined shadows, with no penumbra.
John Carmack mentioned in his keynote at QuakeCon 2007 that the id Tech 5 engine will be OpenGL- and DirectX 9-based, thus not requiring DirectX 10 (and, with it, Windows Vista) to run.[4]
The engine is cross-platform, making it possible to render the same models on different platforms without the developer having to write different code for each platform. This reduces the complexity of deploying a game on multiple systems.[5]
The engine comes with a new content-creation tools package called id Studio which is supposed to be much more user-friendly and polished than in earlier versions. Previously, content creation required artists to run various command line tools besides the level editor. Unlike the engine, id Studio works only on Windows.[3]
The engine will likely feature a number of other graphical effects such as various materials for lighting, high dynamic range rendering-centric effects, depth of field, and motion blur. The engine will also support multi-threaded processing on the CPU for many of its tasks, including rendering, game logic, AI, physics, and sound processing.
id Tech 5 is not a shooter-only technology. The engine will also work outside the shooter genre; Steve Nix from id Software said that "Not only do we think people can make games outside the action-shooter space with our technology, we encourage it. We'd actually like to see those games made."[6]
[edit] Games using or licensing the id Tech 5 engine
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Gaminggroove.com. "Cain's Carmack Quickie". http://www.gaminggroove.com/newsitem.php?id=9045.
- ^ IGN. "E3 2007: id Into the Future". http://pc.ign.com/articles/804/804112p2.html. Retrieved on 2007-07-14.
- ^ a b LinuxGames - Embrace your inner penguin
- ^ TheInquirer.net. "Rage rages against the DX10". http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/08/06/rage-rages-against-the-dx10. Retrieved on 2008-04-02.
- ^ Gamespot.com. "E3 Q&A: id's Nix on Tech 5 Engine licensing". http://www.gamespot.com/news/6175061.html. Retrieved on 2007-07-15.
- ^ Gamespot.com. "E3 Q&A: id's Nix on Tech 5 Engine licensing". http://www.gamespot.com/news/6175061.html. Retrieved on 2007-07-15.
[edit] External links
[edit] Media
- John Carmack demonstrates id Tech 5 at WWDC 2007 at YouTube
- Matt Hooper demonstrates id Tech 5 at QuakeCon 2007
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