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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 11</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC"> 
                </font></b></font></p>
              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
                in loonygames:</font></b></font></p>

<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">New!!</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> The Archives have been cleaned up, fead links fixed, and printable versions restored! Also, don't miss the new comments <a href="../../../index.html">on the front page</a>!</font></p>
              
<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../2.15/feat/index.html" target="">Livin' 
  With The Sims</a></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">: 
  theAntiELVIS explores the wild and wacky world that is Will Wright's <b>The Sims</b>, 
  asking the inevitable quesiton, &quot;is <b>The Sims</b> the first step toward a virtual 
  life where everyone is Swedish?&quot;</font></p>
<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../2.15/pixel/index.html" target="">Pixel 
  Obscura</a></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">: Josh 
  Vasquez on <b>Omikron: The Nomad Soul</b>.</font></p>
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        <p align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+3" color="#0022A8">loonyboi's 
          Frag 2 Diary<i></i></font></p>
        <p align="right"><font color="#804000"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By 
          Jason &quot;<a href="mailto:jason@loonygames.com">loonyboi</a>&quot; 
          Bergman</font></b></font> 
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        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0022A8"><b>10/31 
          - Rebel Boat Rocker Dealie - 2:25 PM Central</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here we go, the first seminar 
          of the day...Rebel Boat Rocker's think on advancements in level design. 
          Hasn't started just yet, so I'm sitting here writing away.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Blue and Levelord are up 
          at the bar shooting the shoot and hopefully contributing a nice interview 
          for this here site...look for that soon.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm really looking forward 
          to this thing, since I haven't heard much about the RBR engine, and 
          I've seen even less.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh cool...here comes the 
          guys. Randy Pitchford is talking now, with a giant projection of a blank 
          level behind him. Aparently, they're planning on changing the title 
          from "Prax War" to something else because of how much flak they've gotten 
          from it. That's an interesting development, expecially since I kinda 
          dug the title. :)</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Their biggest new technology 
          is arbitrary polygons instead of fixed brushes (like in Quake). That's 

          interesting, because it (theoretically) allows for a much more dynamic 
          world to be built. The downside to this, is that you need to build every 
          polygon, making level creation a much more time consuming process (i'd 
          think...but then i'm no level designer).</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Their editor is nice looking...they 
          don't have any 2D views, you're just in a pure 3D world. They can make 
          polygons that are an inch long, or a mile long (sounds kinda like an 
          old Quake level design trick pioneered by Levelord in the Hipnotic mission 
          pack for Quake 1 where he stretched brushes across huge distances). 
          This is cool, because they can make things off in the distance that 
          look cool, but actually use a very low polygon count.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Their LOD (Level of Detail) 
          system is limited to characters, and not the world itself, although 
          they have said that down the line it will be moved to a full LOD world 
          that drops the polygon count down to keep the framerate constant (two 
          or three <i>engines</i> down the line...don't hold out for Prax War).</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It seems that they are really 
          predicting an eventual move to large-scale commercial packages for game 
          design (3D Studio, Lightwave, etc). This would seem to make sense (Trespasser 
          used 3D Studio Max as its level editor) but it doesn't bode well for 
          the kid to wants to make a level at home and can't afford the $5k price 
          of admission.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Their arbitrary polygon system 
          allows for multiple effects per surface, and they seem to be using it 
          well. An example: in Quake, you've got a grass area and a road area. 
          In the game formerly known as Prax War, they've got both, but they've 
          alpha blended between them, to really make them work together. In the 
          screenshots, it looks great. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Just had an interesting thought...Electronic 
          Arts is publishing Prax War (or whatever it's called) I wonder if they're 
          planning to actively persue licensing. Activision has the Quake and 
          Heavy Gear II engines, (the Dark Side engine, or something like that) 
          Interplay has Messiah's RT-DAT thing, Monolith has LithTech, GT has 
          Unreal...I wonder if EA is banking on RBR. Definitely going to be interesting...</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Woop...gotta go do some interviews...check 
          back in a bit. :)</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0022A8"><b>10/31 
          - Paul Steed! - 4:00 PM</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Just spend a few minutes 
          with Blue, Levelord and Steed at the hotel bar, and now i'm sitting 
          here waiting for Paul to do his thing...it's funny, as popular as Paul's 
          thing is, there are guys in this room just waiting for Carmack to come 
          on. Go fig. :)</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Paul and Levelord really 
          hit it off, it seems, which is good, since they are two of the coolest 
          guys in this little industry that I know. Who knows...we have have something 
          on loonygames with that soon. :)</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Paul is giving his talk from 
          the IGDN a few weeks back (and it's been published in article form in 
          his column as well). He's a great public speaker, which is unique for 
          a game developer...you expect guys who are hunched over a computer screen 
          all day long. That <i>may</i> be the case with Paul, but you'd never 
          know it from watching him. He's completely at ease up there...he should 
          teach a class in this stuff.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">He's talking primarily about 
          Carmack's decision of vertex manipulation over a skeletal animation 
          system (like in Half-Life). Their hierarchical system alows for multiple 
          chunks of a model to be stuck together to form a whole character. And 
          example: in Quake 2, an enemy doesn't crouch and shoot at the same time, 
          since he never made a "crouch and shoot" animation. In Quake 3: Arena, 
          he can make an animation for crouch, one for shoot, and they can both 
          run <i>simultaneously</i>, making it look like a unified action.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Some cool animations to expect: 
          strafing, jump-forward, jump-backward, backing off, neat stuff. Hearing 
          him talk about this, you really get the impression that he's genuinely 
          excited about the game. He's like a kid with a new toy (or more specifically, 
          a geek with a new box of uber-expensive and complex gear).</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It's going to be interesting 
          to see what mod authors do with Quake 3: Arena. More so than any other 
          id game, it really feels to me like users will be able to easily modify 
          the characters specifically. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Interesting stuff: they <i>are</i> 
          officially going with class-based characters in Q3:A. Expect light, 
          medium, and heavy classes. I hope they don't go crazy with the heavy 
          class...in Starsiege: Tribes, the heavy armor makes you move like a 
          tank. Which is fine, I guess if the levels are small, but with those 
          six mile long levels, it can be a major pain in the tuchus. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Word balloons: yeap. When 
          you talk, you'll get a word balloon. It doesn't have what you're saying, 
          it's a pointer to show that you're at the console. It's got a smiley 
          face and bullet holes...cool stuff. :)</font></p>
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    <td><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"><b>Credits:</b> 
      This article is &copy; 1998 Jason Bergman. All other content is &copy; 1998 
      <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi productions</a>. 
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