Monday Quotes: John Carmack. John Carmack - the gaming industry in faces He is the boss in the house

John Carmack(also John D. Carmack, also J.C.) - 1970 production, not a virgin, not bearded, but very programmer. Zadrot. Wrote and continues to write thousands of racial / / First Person Shooter genres such as Wolfenstein 3D , DOOM , Quake , although he is more involved in the technical side.

Memeticity

"When it's done"- the exact release date of id software games. The phrase has received some distribution in the gaming community, as well as among coders / bydlocoders.

Past guilt

In 1991, the ex-SoftDiscs drank Id, which, as the creators themselves say, means "Ideas from the Deep". Then, however, they rested their heads and argued that this was not an abbreviation, but a Freudian term for the subconscious (which in meaning is not very different, the bowels of the brain are the bowels of the brain).

The boys bungled their desk on their knees and began to darn good, fit games. Meaty and fun Dangerous Dave, Commander Keen series, Catacomb 3D prototride and Hovertank. And then the same Wolf, Doom and Kvaka, who are categorically and one hundred percent fiercely guilty in the performance of the IDs. The last good game of the subject, according to anonymous, is DooM3 (which is debatable, because the linearity of the levels is slightly less than in all the hated CoD). Further creativity in the face of RAGE raises a lot of questions, not to mention the vague future performed by DooM4 and the promised Quake5 according to the canonical first part (with the entourage of Lovecraftian stories, Black Capricorns and other Cthulhus).

Also, every linuxoid is grateful to Carmack for opening the sources of previous versions of game engines. The ability to rivet your crafts a la Kwaka 3 pleases.

Possible end of an era

Carmack in a more current form

With the release of the raw version of RAGE for PC (probably the reason for such a gloomy fact was the venality of id to the gazebo / zaymax), it became possible that both id in general and Carmack in particular were no longer a cake. What is sad. In addition to the crankiness of the PC version of post-nuclear races with shooters on mutants, Carmack delighted the fans with the message that the PC has long been UG, and you need to play on Sony and huyboxes.

By itself, Rage, yeah, the game is not bad (finish it with a patch / change of firewood), but the fact that the game itself - gamers_of the whole_planet was released to the masses in such an undercooked form is a clear sign of the first steps of the Fat Polar Fox. May Cthulhu devour Carmack!

End of an era canceled

Facts about J.C.

Actually, laughers:

• Carmack sees the world in four dimensions and once even drew a self-portrait at a right angle along the 4th axis on a piece of paper. True, in the drawing in our 3-dimensional world, this image degenerated into a straight line (probably, an unsuccessful angle was chosen), so no one still believes it.
• Carmack invented a lighting model in 3D games that is better than real sunlight, giving an acceptable FPS on a Pentium-2, but does not release the engine to the world, because God is sympathetic to him, and Carmack does not want to show his incompetence in this matter.
• Carmack once fell asleep on the keyboard on the DEL button and lost a solid piece of priceless code. Therefore, now he makes and keeps video archives for 5 years with a recording of the keyboard and his fingers running over it when he writes the code.
• Carmack knows how to call up the console for the real universe to type in cheats and sv_gravity 0. But he despises cheaters.
• Carmack is gothic.
• Carmack owns a patent for the feeling of pleasure derived from point-blank shots at any objectionable creature.
• Carmack wrote the perfect physics engine for any computer game in two days. But then I had to mutilate it for many months to imitate real physics, since real physics is far from perfect.
• The Devil sold his soul to Carmack to write DooM and Quake.
• The safe in his office contains a portal to hell.
• Most of Carmack's games are based on real events in 2110.
• The weight of bodies on Earth weakens towards the equator, because once, being on a polar expedition, Carmack nevertheless typed sv_gravity 9.83 in the Universe console, but forgot to change it back.
• Carmack invented the W, S, A, D buttons.
• Carmack created a rocketjump, which delighted millions of modern masochists (if you don’t suffer, you won’t jump).
• Carmack knows how to divide by zero. Anyone.
• Carmack bet The Architect for a case of beer and wrote The Matrix in 40 minutes as a screensaver. And the dastardly Architect came up with the idea of ​​using it as an alternate reality.
• Carmack is still not satisfied with the color of the sky in the Matrix, but he cannot do anything, because the rights to the Architect to use, rewrite, copy-paste, etc. have already been transferred.
• Carmack is the only person Chuck Norris is afraid of, because John can call the console and turn Chuck into a poop.
• Carmack is the brother of Linus Torvalds and godson of Onotole.
• When Gabe Newell announced that he wanted to create Half-Life, Carmack said: "Say please."
• Carmack made Doom 3 in three days, he generated the models and textures. After that, I waited 5 years to give Half-Life 2 a head start.
• Carmack created a program that creates other programs by receiving voice input from the user. However, he keeps it a secret so that other programmers can somehow earn a living.
• Carmack does not program: he stares hard at the computer, and it creates the program itself.
• Carmack debugs programs by redirecting the binary to the sound card. By sounds, finds the cause of the error.
• Carmack always knows which electron in the device caused the error.
• One day, Carmack got bored and created an Artificial Brain. Now he plays chess with him, and the brain plays the role of all id employees using controlled dummies.
• John Carmack crashed his Ferrari four times (290-310 km/h) while drunk driving. However, after each accident, he returned to his office the next day.
• The UAC is a real organization created in 2076 by Carmack himself. He got to the 80s thanks to the time machine developed at the UAC. All the technologies for making video cards, building 3D, etc., etc., he, of course, knew.
• Carmack doesn't like being in large open areas because his Z-buffer is buggy. An open doorway causes Carmack to feel an acute sense of annoyance, as an open portal lowers FPS.
• In Carmack's house, many straight lines are drawn on the walls and floor, converging at different angles - the result of cutting with a BSP tree. It also has a custom-built GPS device that shows which side and which leaf-node it is on.
• For Carmack, the word "impossible" does not exist, and he especially dislikes the word "unreal".
• Carmack doesn't like to blink because closed eyelids put a lot of strain on the fill rate.
• Carmack doesn't believe in God for creating the universe mostly out-door rather than in-door. "How much more beautiful, detailed and realistic the world could be!" he argues.
• Driving along a forest road, Carmack usually lowers his head to his knees and looks at the floor - so that the textures and polygons have time to load.
• When Carmack is driving, he often hears the Universe's hard drive crackle as it loads the next street.
• One day, Carmack was driving his car and blinked as the universe's hard drive loaded the next street. Because of the brakes, his heart stopped for 3.5 seconds. Therefore, Carmack tries not to blink while driving.
• Once Carmack was driving a car, and the next street did not have time to load from the hard drive of the universe. For almost half a minute, Carmack drove through the void and was afraid to blink.
• Once, when Carmack was driving a car, three streets were loaded at once right along the course, and due to the abundance of polygons, the fill rate dropped sharply, and, moreover, the Z-buffer turned off. Carmack was afraid that his heart would stop again, and he drove without looking around, but looking at his feet for almost two and a half minutes. Unfortunately, he was stopped and fined by a policeman.
• Once, when Carmack was driving a car, he distinctly heard that the hard drive of the Universe slammed its head on a pancake. Carmack was agitated at first, but when he read about the Tunguska meteorite in the newspaper, he understood everything and calmed down.
• Carmack strongly discourages populating the area where the Tunguska meteorite fell. Not a very good idea - to settle down to live on a bad block.
• The real Carmack was left to burn in hell, because he was caught by a cyberdemon at the time of photographing textures and general views.
• The real Carmack will return from hell at the end of the crisis, because the brother-sister Wachowski needs an idea for the next trilogy, and the fake refused.
• Once John Carmack kissed a girl with open eyes. The girl's face was cut by the near clipping plane. Since then, Carmack kisses with his eyes closed.
• Carmack always lets the queen go first. So that she doesn't telefrag him.
• Once upon a time, a hammer, a Swiss watch, Carmack's source codes, and other things competed in reliability. As a result, Carmack's sources took 0x0 place, no one could come out on top, second place was shared between a hammer and a Swiss watch

An interesting fact related to the name of Carmack (a sad copy-paste from Pedivikia)

A dull copy-paste about a dull kin:

In the 2005 release of Doom, Carmack was "paid tribute". The role of the leading scientist conducting genetic experiments, and, in principle, being, as it were, the beginning of the entire film.

Quote from Wikipedia:

Carmack, injured by the monster, later turns into a mutant himself. He is killed by the Sergeant with a shot in the mouth when Carmack gets stuck in the nano-door. This hero is a clear reference to John Carmack from id Software.

Also

• Received a criminal record at the age of 14 for attempting to steal an Apple II computer. Proof to look in the book "Masters of Doom".
• A Ferrari 328 fell on the profit from the sales of Doom "and fathered a Ferrari 328, and then another, another, another ... As a result, in 1997, he put up the first one at the tournament for the first Quake - Red Annihilation. The prize went to mega-nerd Denis "Thresh" Fong .
• He drives a red Ferrari with an operating system to which he has been given full access by the manufacturer of those cars.
• Until now, he leads the team of developers of sequels (and not only) of these games.
• The basis of the engines of most modern FPS is a little less than completely copy-paste from the production of John Carmack (although there are exceptions: Unreal Engine, Serious Engine, Cry Engine, X-Ray ...).
• Leads a team of developers of engines (real) for lunar landers - Armadillo Aerospace. The only one whose development can be called win "ohm to some extent, since he implemented a full simulation of takeoff from the moon and won the NASA tender for this case.

Links

• id Software is a company started by Carmack and his friends. Recently, Carmack and company sold to ZeniMax Media, the same company that released Morrowind and Oblivion, which caused a wide resonance in the ranks of fans.

Notes

Carmack |

The sphere of programming and computer games today is recognized as one of the most progressive areas of human activity. High school graduates willingly become students of higher educational institutions with a technical bias, where the emphasis is on computer science, in the expectation that in the future they will be able to do useful work while in a highly paid position.

However, if now it is enough to unlearn and go to work, then earlier, in order to achieve the same goal, one had to overcome a truly thorny path, become a fearless pioneer. It is about such a person that this material will be discussed - this is John Carmack, a legendary figure in the world of computer technology and programming.

Heist of the century

John Carmack, whose biography dates back to 1970 in Kansas, USA, knew what he wanted to do literally from childhood. That is why in 1984, when the young man was only 14 years old, he, along with a group of comrades, decided on a desperate step - stealing a couple of Apple II school computers. The idea failed, because one of the friends touched the silent alarm button. The police arrested the unfortunate violators of the law. Their leader, who was John Carmack, had to first visit a psychiatrist, and then go to a juvenile colony for a whole year.

Be that as it may, this incident did not cool the boy's passion for computers at all. John Carmack himself admits that the desire to connect his life with the development of various information technologies arose already at the age of 12, but neither then nor later did his parents have the means to purchase the cherished equipment for his son. However, after his release, the situation in the family improved, and John finally bought the coveted computer. By the way, he no longer had new thoughts about breaking the law. John, like everyone else, graduated from high school, after which he entered the department of the University of Missouri and devoted himself entirely to programming.

Higher education

However, with the receipt of specialized education, the young programmer did not go well. John Carmack was only interested in lectures and practical classes related to computer science and programming. Everything else the guy mercilessly missed and as a result decided to part with the university bench.

The young man began to freelance, but it turned out to be much more difficult than he initially thought. For a month, John received no more than 2 thousand dollars, while the projects on which he worked often seemed to him shameful and unworthy of his real talents and abilities. However, Carmack was lucky - in a difficult hour, when he was completely desperate, he was invited as an employee to the Softdisk organization. Later, the programmer admits that this was the starting point in his real professional activity.

Working at Softdisk

Here Karman John, in his own words, was happy. Relentless conversations about programming, reading about programming, doing programming - all this was his native element, in which the newly minted worker felt like a fish in water.

John was also lucky to get into a team of enthusiasts full of irrepressible energy and love for the chosen business. It was in Softdisk that Carmack formed a team of people as gifted as he was, who were Tom Hall, Adrian Carmack (namesake) and John Romero.

John Carmack and John Romero are a special duo. If the former developed a unique technology that allows processing graphics in side-scrollers to improve the performance of personal computers, then the latter, being a first-class designer, became a texture developer in the team. As a result, the company began working on its first game called Super Mario Bros. 3.

Further promotion and discovery of id Software

At the same time, John Carmack, a photo of whose work can also be seen in this article, still continued to stubbornly implement his ideas, develop himself and his own projects. The fact is that the game created by the team (on which inspired developers worked after hours or on weekends) turned out to be out of work: Softdisk had no desire to publish the game. Nintendo was also not interested in releasing games for computers. The guys were lucky: they were noticed in time by Apogee Software, thanks to which John Carmack and his comrades were able to open their own id Software studio, and the platform computer game, which friends spent so much time and effort on creating, turned into the legendary side-scroller Commander Keen.

The impact of career success on John Carmack

The programmer stated that, despite the signed contract, the appearance in life of a stable income, confidence in the future, the completion of his activities as a freelancer, leaving Softdisk and even the appearance of a Ferrari car, little has changed in his life. He was still driven by the hot idea to create something truly innovative. John's plan for the day was to come into the studio, do something worthwhile, go home, and start over tomorrow.

Conquest of new horizons

Softdisk did not want to let go of its former employees so easily, and by mutual agreement of both parties, the guys had to release computer games for the organization for some time, one for a 2-month period. Carmack turned this situation to his advantage and used the opportunities that opened up for him as a field for new experiments, as a result of which Hovertank 3D, a progressive game for that time, from the point of view of computer optimization, appeared.

The trick that John resorted to was to limit the development to only the zone that the player saw at a certain point in time. As a result, this made it possible to significantly improve the performance of vehicles at the start of the game and direct the remaining resources to detailing the picture. Carmack, perhaps without realizing it, became the forefather of an entire genre.

Further projects

• Catacomb 3D (2-dimensional shooter created in the late 80s of the XX century).
• Wolfenstein 3D. Despite the name, neither this nor the previous computer game had 3D graphics yet, of course. John acted as an engine developer.
• Spear of Destiny (created in 1992).

Although the platforms still lacked the power to support full-fledged 3D graphics, personal computers, nevertheless, have already surpassed the consoles in terms of power. Carmack was the one who set the tone for the entire industry; so, in the last game, the sky and ceilings appeared for the first time, the levels began to differ in height, the number of sounds and colors increased.

The games that made Carmack famous. Part 1

The DOOM series of games, which translates from English as "rock", "doom", "doom", is a first-person shooter game, the first part of which was released by id Software in 1993. John Carmack did not think much about the plot of the game; under his influence, the original concept was even simplified. In addition, while working on the project, the programmer practically did not communicate with other team members and wrote the network code himself.

As a result, a conflict broke out in the company: John Romero, already mentioned in this article, advocated that in the future there should be more emphasis not on non-stop shooting, but on freedom of action and tactics. What happened to John Carmack? The creator still cared little about the plot in games, and therefore did not accept such an offer. He released DOOM 2, which in terms of technical characteristics practically did not differ from the first part, except for the increase in the arsenal of weapons and the list of enemies, but Romero left id Software forever after the release of another legendary Quake game.

Be that as it may, it was DOOM that laid the foundation for the esports world familiar to society today, and subsequent projects only consolidated the formation of multiplayer entertainment. Another objective achievement of this computer game was that after a while the developers published source codes in the public domain, by changing which it was possible to modify and improve the game qualitatively by adding graphics and sounds to it.

The games that made Carmack famous. Part 2

The Quake project seems to fall into 2 categories: before Romero left and after. The first part was a joint brainchild of comrades, but after the audience attributed success only to Carmack, Romero (who was responsible for the development of levels, and for creating the general style, and for inviting Trent Reznor to record the soundtrack) left the company forever. Apparently, because of this, the second part of the game, released in 1997, Carmack made completely different from the first one, neither in terms of general direction and style, nor in terms of script, nor in terms of character development. So strong was the desire in him to get rid of any reminders of a former collaborator.

Does the general public know about a man like John Carmack? Lurk, a youth encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia, which, unlike the latter, is conducted in a more free manner, provides a lot of information about the programmer, so yes, in certain youth circles, he is very famous today.

Decline (or suspension?) of professional activity

What else did John Carmack achieve? There is not much to say about DOOM 4, the re-release of the cult game that took place in 2016, as well as about other projects - in fact, they have become like a cyclical repetition of the same product. The computer industry began to develop rapidly, but Carmack, despite his talent, could not catch these impetuous movements. A pioneer in the field of programming and creating virtual reality, id Software failed to appreciate the importance of the plot, the needs of the mass player, and all because Carmack used to simply ignore these many components.

Video games meanwhile evolved and grew. As a result, John was quickly overtaken by other personalities, such as Gabe Newell, the founder of Valve, who created the Half-Life and Half-Life 2 games beloved by fans. As a result, one setback after another led to Carmack leaving id Software in the fall of 2013, about which John posted on his Twitter page.

Personal life

Be that as it may, Carmack is still doing what he loves, in which he is helped by the support of close people, his wife Katherine Anna Kang, who previously served as director of business development at id Software, and the couple's two children, born in 2004 and 2009, respectively . Currently, there is information that John is busy in the field of creating spacecraft (he even founded his own company called X-Prize), and also participates in competitions to send them to distant expanses.

John Carmack was born on August 20, 1970 in the USA, in Kansas. The future programmer was very few years old when he first became interested in computer technology.

After graduating from high school, Carmack entered the University of Missouri. After some time, having received a diploma, John began to work as a programmer, regardless of any company.

John Carmack turned out to be a talented and sought-after specialist. His team has been actively working on many projects, taking part in various competitions, such as the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge, for example.

In 1991, the programmer founded id Software, which soon became famous for creating computer games such as DOOM, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake (currently an online game).

From the very beginning, Carmack became the company's chief programming specialist. Not surprising, because his methods of programming, as well as original design ideas, really deserved the closest attention and respect from his colleagues.

In 2005, John and other employees began work on the new id Tech 5 software, which later became the basis for the popular games Doom 4 and Rage. Three years later, in 2008, John Carmack and his colleagues took part in the initial stage of the competition for the best aircraft project - the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. Then they won, defeating the only enemy, whose apparatus, after a short stay in the air, almost fell apart.

Currently, John Carmack is an extremely famous person. Fans of computer games (complex online games and simple flash games as well) are looking forward to the activities of a talented programmer, each time expecting something new from a professional.

Every day the number of fans of various computer "toys" (including flash games) is growing and in order to satisfy the interests of the majority, John will have to work hard.

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John Carmack- American programmer, co-founder and co-owner of Id Software and Armadillo Aerospace. In 1991, Carmack co-founded id Software, which became famous for developing seminal FPS games - Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, Quake - for which Carmack was the lead programmer. His revolutionary programming methods and John Romero's unique design ideas contributed to the huge popularity of this genre in the 1990s. On November 22, 2013, John Carmack left id Software to take over Oculus VR, which he co-founded and is now CTO of.

About games:

The plot in the game is like the plot in a porn movie. It should be, but it doesn't matter at all.

One of the worst aspects of our work is the constant increase in the time between releases of our projects. If I could go back in time and change something in our work, I would decide to release more projects and much more often. And all along, id's mantra has been "it'll be ready when it's ready." I would refuse it. And I no longer think that this is the right method for game development. That is, time matters, it fits when talking about 1-2 months, but not when it comes to 1-2 years.

About development:

In the era of information technology, there are simply no obstacles to start programming. There are only those obstacles that you erect yourself. If you want to set a goal and develop some cool new thing, then you don't need a million dollars at all. All it takes is enough pizza and Diet Coke in the fridge, a cheap PC to work with, and dedication to get things done. We slept on the floor. We made our way across the rivers.

Thanks to the nature of Moore's Law, everything that one high-end graphics programmer could do at one time can be reproduced by average-level programmers years later.

We know why and how our code lives. Seriously, we're looking ahead a decade. I tell the guys that the code they write now (unless, of course, it is focused on a particular game) can and most likely will live for ten years. And this code will be used by hundreds of programmers. They will read it, refer to it in some way, and this is a serious responsibility.

On his transition from id Software to Oculus VR:

It was a great opportunity for both sides. Everyone would only benefit from this cooperation. But they refused me, which made me very upset. Well, I'm out of luck. And when I realized that I would not be allowed to freely develop virtual reality technologies, I simply decided not to renew my contract with id Software.

About virtual reality:

I really think that virtual reality is the most impressive thing that can happen to the entire gaming industry right now. I've witnessed the transition of video games from 2D to 3D graphics, and in recent years we've all seen games seamlessly transition from computers and consoles to smartphones and tablets. If you are constantly spinning in this industry, whether you like it or not, you begin to notice certain trends and tendencies. It seems to me that there is really huge potential behind virtual reality.

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