The future ... and beyond !
I just wanted to take this moment to share an idea with you that gives me great feelings. What we are seeing right now in the gaming world is the start of a vast and incredible thing. Slowly, those that are at the helm of this new 3D technology are ( maybe unknowingly) paving the way for an awesome future in the realm of virtual reality. Bit by bit, today's top gaming companies (Epic, id, valve,bungie,etc) are solving the problems of terrain, modelling, lighting, etc. Soon - maybe within the next 5 to 10 years - 3D engines will converge into one universally compatible "thing" .... like an operating system. Epic is solving problems of frame rate vs actor polygon count .... Valve, Legend, and G.O.D. are all leaders in engine-based cinematics ... id Software (at least by the sounds of this NEW DOOM) may solve the problems of dynamic geometry and destroyable architecture ... Bungie seems to have truly covered the whole vehicle thing .... WOW ! My personal vision is that in the future, there will be "The Engine", where game companies no longer have to toil with problems of frame rate, net speed, etc. Once all of the perfect solutions have been gathered together into one product, gaming of the future will be in the form of content-only packaging. Isn't it the greatest thing to know that other people in this world are hard at work to make sure that you and me can have the most realistic fragging experience possible !!! Three cheers for game programmers in general ----- hip hip hooray !!!!