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Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever/2004
This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever.
 | This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes. |
Contents
Unknown
 | To do: This isn't new information, Miller had talked about this on an episode of IGN Unfiltered (Source), where he claimed this happened in 2003. Additional sources and research will be needed for this info. |
Sometime in 2004, Miller had approached Digital Extremes, known then for co-developing the Unreal series and much later Warframe (which Miller notes), to finish the game. The owner of Digital Extremes was eager to work on the project and Take-Two had given their blessing for it, but this idea was rejected by many at 3D Realms internally. Miller would consider this "to be a fatal suicide shot" for the game.
September 2004
September 4th
Swedish outlet Ny Teknik reports that Duke Nukem Forever will use a physics engine from Meqon Research AB.[1]
September 9th
Take-Two folds Duke Nukem Forever's pervious publisher Gathering (formerly Gathering of Developers) into Global Star Software, Take-Two's budget game label.[2]
September 27th
Meqon announces through a press release that their Meqon Game Dynamics SDK will be used for Duke Nukem Forever, replacing the game's previously used KARMA physics engine.[3][4]
3D Realms buys physics for Duke Nukem Forever
27th of September, 2004
Meqon is glad to announce that 3DRealms have decided to buy our Meqon Game Dynamics SDK for their upcoming title Duke Nukem Forever.
Meqon’s product strategy has always been to create the most easy to use and flexible physics engine on the market, but without compromising the computational speed. George Broussard, CEO of 3DRealms comments – “We evaluated several physics SDK's and Meqon was really fast, had the cleanest interface and integrated into our game very quickly.”
The Meqon Game Dynamics SDK does not only handle basic rigid body simulation but also contain highly advanced character and vehicle modules. Mr Broussard comments – “With its advanced feature set, we feel confident that Meqon's next generation physics engine can help us create the next generation of action games.”
About 3D Realms
3D Realms Entertainment, a division of Apogee Software, Ltd., founded in 1987 and headquartered in Garland, TX, is a leading PC developer and shareware pioneer, with 35 published titles. Known for the award winning, alien ass kicking, Duke Nukem franchise, 3D Realms also partnered with Remedy Entertainment to help create Max Payne in 2001 which went on to sell over 4 million copies and became another leading action game franchise. Additional information can be obtained through the 3D Realms web site located at http://www.3drealms.com
In a chatty thread about the announcement from Meqon, Broussard discusses the engine.[5]
Here how it works. You have a physcis [sic] engine that does things low level, basic things, like move objects in the world, handle constraints, ragdolls, and all of that. On top of that you build a lots of high level gameplay code that allows you to do things with physics objects. That's where most of the development time goes.
So when incorporating a new physics engine, all the high level game code stays and just needs to have the new physics function calls replace the old physics calls.
So within a couple of weeks we had most of the gameplay back up and running, but now we could move 200 boxes in the world at a time, instead of 10-20.
The integration will end up being about a month of one persons time, simply to hook up the new Meqon function calls to a couple hundred high level gameplay functions we had to deal with physics objects.
Basically it's like having a car, and you do something like replace one system in it like and engine, or the air conditioner, or something. The rest of the car stays in place and you just deal with hooking up the new piece to the old car.
This isn't a radical engine change like changing renderers where you have to create new content for the visuals.
Users ask about hail being in the game, to which Broussard replies.[5]
The thing in, the hail thing could be done, if we had hail :)
September 28th
HomeLAN published an interview with Meqon CMO Marcus Lysén, where 3D Realms and Duke Nukem Forever are discussed.[6]
HomeLAN - Currently, how many games and developers are using your technology?
Marcus Lysén - Most of our developers want to keep things secret, we consider ourselves lucky that 3D Realms is okay with going public like this. Currently we are working with about 25 developers that are using our SDK, on three platforms and on four continents. The first game out with Meqon technology will be Shade: Wrath of Angels which is out October 1st.HomeLAN - How did your relationship with 3D Realms start?
Marcus Lysén - Pretty straight forward, by the book almost; 3D Realms was evaluating different physics packages and asked us for a test period during which we were compared with the other commercial engines that are out there. When the period ended we came out on top.HomeLAN - What has it been like working with 3D Realms on Duke Nukem Forever?
Marcus Lysén - Things has just started and so far it has been really good. There are some truly innovative folks working over at 3D Realms and it's a pleasure to do business with them.HomeLAN - What upcoming features will you be adding to your physics engine?
Marcus Lysén - Currently I can't say much about specific features. However we are continuously developing new technology and there is going to be some amazing stuff out by next Game Developers Conference.
Broussard makes some posts on 3D Realms' forums about the Meqon announcement answering questions from users.
>>There must be considerable advantages to Megon over Karma for you to make the switch. What are they?
IMO, Karma was first gen. Havok was second gen. Meqon is third gen. It's way way faster than Karma ever was, and it does more, and it's cleaner to use. I know Havok is working on next gen stuff now, but it's not available yet.
>>A while ago, GB said all physics engines were basically the same. Did this change with the new generation of physics engines?
At the time they were. That is no longer the case.
>> Has the improvements in the physics engines "changed" DNF content?
It will allow us to do more with physics and we will do what we can to make things cool.
>> Rather than another switch, why not just build yer own damn physics engine?
Physics engines are one of the hardest things to write, so it's best left to a middleware solution.
>>I thought the DNF engine was done. Why are you guys messing with it now?
The rendering has been done a long time. The physics we had have been in for 3 years. We had a ton of physics gameplay code on top of Karma. All we did was replace the low level stuff with Meqon and re-hook it up to our high level stuff.
Why did we do it? Because Karma was too slow to do anything we were trying to do. I don't feel it was a shippable solution, and in fact very few game shipped with it, doing much more than ragdoll.
This is a *very* good thing for the game.
duke_fan said:
Worry not, surely it won't take more than two weeks. LOL.
You joke, but it's a fairly small scale thing to do. The bulk of the work was done in a couple of weeks and there will be a couple more. That's about like adding in any standard new system to the game, and we have dozens of small, little one month projects that the game is built upon.
But going forward this is incredibly good for the game.
3D Realms would repost the news on their website. In August 2006, the news post was updated to remove no longer functional links.[7]
Physics Code Chosen for Duke Nukem Forever
We have many news items to cover today, so we'll just get to it. The biggest one of the day is about Duke Nukem Forever. No, it's not finished, but there is some news available about it.
As has been reported in several places on the Internet over the last day or so, an announcement was made yesterday that the Meqon Game Dynamics SDK has been purchased by us for use in Duke Nukem Forever. Meqon put out a press release regarding this yesterday on their site (which crashed from all the net traffic that got sent their way). Here's a copy of the press release:
(Reposts Meqon's press release)
It's being discussed on our forums right now in this thread (plus these two as well). 3D Realms President George Broussard has weighed in on the announcement in these threads, so if you're interested in the latest, you should check 'em out.
Furthermore, there is an interview online with Marcus Lysen, CMO of Meqon about their game technology, and this announcement. Make sure to check that out over at HomeLAN Fed.
UPDATE Aug 2006: The various links from this story have been removed as they were all no longer valid due to age.
Screenshots
Screenshots of the game from this year were released by Gearbox in the game's release in 2011.
TBA
References
- ↑ Swedish game engine to run in delayed "cut-shooting-game" - Ny Teknik, September 4th 2004
- ↑ Take-Two reports loss, reorganizes publishing division - Gamespot, September 9th, 2004
- ↑ 3D Realms buys physics for Duke Nukem Forever - Meqon, September 27 2004
- ↑ 3D Realms selects Meqon as physics provider for Duke Nukem Forever - GamesIndustry.Biz, September 28th 2004
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Comments of DNF Physics Engine News (1, 2) - Shacknews, September 27th 2004
- ↑ MEQON Interview - HomeLAN, September 28th 2004
- ↑ Physics Code Chosen for Duke Nukem Forever - 3D Realms, September 28th, 2004
| To do: Incorporate/reference this information below into article. |
