John Carmack Unveils Next-Generation 3D Engine

id Software's id Tech 5 engine could make games prettier than ever

John Carmack, the genius behind the 3D game engines from id Software, once considered stepping away from games programming to focus on space-related endeavors. Thankfully for the games industry, Carmack appears to be still deeply rooted in games technology, as he demonstrated the next-generation 3D engine during Steve Job's address at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 2007.

Called “id Tech 5,” the new engine shies away from the cramped indoor engines of id Games of yesterday. Quake Wars will take the DOOM3 engine outdoors, but id Tech 5 will make it completely nature savvy.

“What we've got here is the entire world with unique textures, 20GB of textures covering this track,” said Carmack. “They can go in and look at the world and, say, change the color of the mountaintop, or carve their name into the rock. They can change as much as they want on surfaces with no impact on the game.”

The engine technology is aimed at the Mac, PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. If Carmack is able to pull of what he claims, we could soon be looking at an entirely new generation of in-game artistry. With game development costs higher than ever with the rising capabilities of consoles and video cards, id Tech 5 may help simplify the art and texture process.

Click here to see a video of John Carmack’s presentation.
Reference:Marcus Yam,dailytech