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Steam for Linux captured on video, one step closer to reality
Yesterday, Phoronix had encouraging news about the prospect of Steam for Linux: photo evidence of Left 4 Dead running on Ubuntu 11.10 with AMD Catalysts drivers. Today, the site followed up with video footage of that same scenario, posting a hastily shot clip to show that Valve is indeed making progress -- slow as it may be -- on porting the game engine to Linux. Got 14 seconds? Check out the video demo below the break.
Kinect and Windows Phone combine to create holographic game engine (video)
If your life is anything like ours, it's in sore need of more pseudo-holographic helicopters. Fortunately, YouTube user programming4fun has come up with a solution, using Microsoft's Kinect beta SDK and a Windows Phone handset. The system, pictured above, basically consists of a Kinect and a 3D engine; the former tracks the position of a viewer and automatically adjusts the image projected by the latter, creating the illusion of a 3D landscape. In this case, that landscape happened to feature a holographic helicopter, which could be controlled using a phone's accelerometer and a Windows Phone 7 app (apparently called HoloController). Watch it in action, after the break.
The Secret World's engine takes center stage
Unified engines for MMOs have long been a rarity, simply due to the time needed to develop a game and the number of different companies developing separate products. The Secret World manages to buck this trend, using the same core Dreamworld Engine as Funcom's Age of Conan. A recent interview with lead programmer Øystein Eftevaag discusses the way that the engine interacts with the newer game, how the unified engine helps both games, and what special features the game is using in a technical sense. Eftevaag explains that the Dreamworld Engine benefits chiefly from cross-pollination; improvements made in terms of optimization for Age of Conan can be imported to the engine on The Secret World with minimal extra legwork. The engine also uses a series of dynamic equations to determine what player characters should be able to see, subsequently leaving obscured areas blank to save on processor cycles. It's an interesting look under the hood at the technical side of Funcom's upcoming conspiracy and horror title, even if this particular dream world is tilted toward a nightmare.
Doom 3 source code available now, gory customizations welcomed
Doom for everyone. It's not a particularly festive message, but as promised earlier this month, the Doom 3 source code is now out on a general public license. Programming types can meddle with the game's inner workings as wintery temperatures force them to huddle close to the warm hum of excessive gaming rigs. Doom dad John Carmack announced the release to his horde of Twitter followers, while doffing his cap to Timothee Besset, who helped sidestep some shadow rendering license issues that had dogged an earlier release. Peer into the source code at the link below, and know the true face of despair Doom.
Carmack: Doom 3's engine ready for open-sourcing, awaiting 'OK' from legal
When the granddaddy of FPS tweets, we listen. For those unaware, that's John Carmack -- you know, the guy behind games like Doom, Quake and Rage -- confirming that Doom 3's engine, id Tech 4, is all bundled up for its open-source release, only awaiting clearance from legal. To be verbose, that doesn't mean you'll be getting down with a gratis copy of Doom, but rather with the powerhouse that powers it, a veritable boon to game developers and tinkerers, alike. The release is par for the course for the company, as id Software's been routinely open-sourcing its older engines for as long as we can remember. We'll keep an eye out for when it drops, but while you wait, feel free to read an interview with the visionary himself.
The Daily Grind: Do you like optimizing your character?
In some ways, a character in an MMO is like a car. Some people are going to have one that's just plain bad, because they don't care about it and just want the bare minimum of functionality. Others will take care of it to an extent, helping it blend into the great sea of average. But just like with cars, there are people who will spend days and weeks tuning a character to the absolute limits of performance, working hours on end just to eke out another fraction of a percent of stat bonuses. Either way, you're pushing the limits of what the engine can manage. Of course, to some people, optimizing your character is the only way to play. To others, it's searingly tedious when all you want is to just log in and have fun. So what do you think? Do you like trying to tune your character to be the best? Or would you much prefer to just play the game and take a more casual approach? Are there certain things you have to be the best at and others you don't care about? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
InstantAction dies in an instant, future of embedded gaming looks questionable
Well, that was brief. Just a few short months after InstantAction went public with its embedded browser-based gaming platform at GDC 2010, the Oregon-based startup has gone belly-up. If you missed out on what this here outfit was offering, you clearly aren't alone -- but for the historians in attendance, we'd invite you to revisit our hands-on for an overview of what was planned. Unfortunately, the company has yanked all of its Vimeo clips detailing the system's features, and its website now affirms that the service as a whole is "no longer available." We're hearing that it'll be selling the underlying Torque Game Engine (and presumably that fancy "chunking" tech that enabled games to be played in a browser with just a broadband connection), but based on the tepid response so far, we're guessing it won't fetch much. We definitely saw a bit of promise in the concept -- after all, browser-based games like Solipskier are all the rage in some circles -- but bona fide console / PC games simply don't fit that mold, or so it seems.
Bungie building a new engine for Activision project
Like the Halo series before it, Bungie is working on its own, brand new game engine for use in its forthcoming Activision project. "Just like we don't want to develop a game off someone else's IP, we want to push our own technology in the same way. That's going to be our position for the forseeable future," Bungie's Brian Jarrard told Develop in a recent interview. Furthermore, that new engine is already being worked on, though it's still in the early stages. "Yeah, [the new engine is] actually in development, so I would say it's in a stage where, technically we're still at the end of a pre-production mode," Jarrard explained. He did admit that, "now that Reach is done the full weight of our team is rolling into the project," adding, "Real work is underway." We're excited to hear more about Bungie's next project, but for now, we've got an inevitable glassing to face.
Garriott returns to gaming with Portalarium
It should come as no surprise to anyone that Richard Garriott isn't a man content to rest on his laurels. Just after we hear that the documentary about his space trip is coming out, we now hear that he's found a new niche in the multi-player gaming industry. Only this time, he's not developing a traditional MMO as one might suspect. Instead, Garriott has revealed his involvement in a start-up called Portalarium, which is setting out to get a chunk of that browser-based social game cash floating around on Facebook and other social media networks. Currently, Portalarium isn't so much a games company as a games engine company. According to a great writeup about this new company by Dean Takahashi over on GamesBeat, their general feeling is that the current crop of Facebook games are "relatively primitive in terms of game play." The Portalarium team plans to make richer, more engaging games that will manage to give players a high-quality game while still remaining in a browser and not needing a separate download. In all, it's a fascinating article -- both in terms of technology, and in terms of what Garriott has been up to (there's a bit about Tabula Rasa in there too) -- so be sure to pop over there and give the full article a read.
WWDC Video: Unity 2.0 sneak peek
The gang from Over the Edge gave us a sneak peek of two new features in Unity 2.0: a cool terrain tool and real-time dynamic shadows. Check out the video, but also check out their page of all the other features coming soon to Unity.[Note: we'll have all these WWDC videos available for direct download soon!]
