13 replies to this topic

[Bljashinsky]

It seems that Devmaster.net has succumb to baseless fanboy complaints about the Doom 3 vs. Source article and have decided to take it down. Here's their quote:

Quote

Due to numerous complaints received about the errors in the article and due to its controversial nature, the editors have decided to remove this article.

It's sad that the site can't see through those complaints and realize that 100s of sites and at least 1 magazine have published the article, because of its facts. I've been with them the whole time correcting the few errors that were originally in the article, but now without talking with me or notifying me they decide to take it down. They didn't state the reasons or the so called errors with the article. I have been nice enough to answer all emails and forum posts about the article, and to now receive this type of disregard is disheartening. Wow, the topic is controversial so we should just not be allowed to discuss it?

[Ed Mack]

Don't take it personally - It was just a pity what happened there, and you were the unfortunate victim.

Keep hitting those keys :)

[SnprBoB86]

I don't wish to start a flame war, but I think the article was removed because it was not really useful. The technical aspects of the article were watered down with non-sensical comments such as "The Source Engine has better models, especially human, but combined with the lighting and shadowing, the Doom 3 Engine creates amazing textures." The models are a product of the game artists, not the engine itself. Things like that pop-up all throughout the article and therefore it couldn't be used as an objective, reliable source for helping someone choose between the two engines.

[Bljashinsky]

I'm not sure why people think that models have nothing to do with programming when they have quite a bit to do with it. Each engine has certain requirements and ways to approaching character models. Although the artist creates the actual model the limitations and ways to maximize performance are from the engine design. As more games are made with each engine you will see my point. Looking at Half-Life 2 and Bloodlines for the Source Engine, and Doom 3 and Quake 4 for the Doom 3 Engine you understand my philosophy.

[Bljashinsky]

Anyone who wants to read the article may do so by going to my own site:

http://www.newworldvideogames.com/plans.ph...3%20Engine.plan

[Noor]

Very sorry about that Bljashinsky. I gatta say the truth, I'm with Bljashinsky. You gatta give him credit for spending the time and effort writing the article. not every article is perfect and so what if he missed a point or two. I really hope Bljashinsky would not get discouraged writing further article for devmaster because of this.

[dante_uk]

I'm not surprised they took it down, even with the correction it still had lots of holes.
The fact the Bljashinsky refuses to accept the difference between DX9 Level hardware and DX9 compatible ( the former requires DX9 level pixel or vertex shaders to run, the latter meaning it just needs to be able to run with a DX9 driver. ) doesn't help.

Someone elses view on the article: f1gm3nt3d
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The review of Source Vs. Doom3 engine is just kinda funny. I mean if you read the enviornments part of the comparison.:

Quote:
The Doom 3 engine is more suitable for inside environments though, because of its BSP (Binary Space Partitioning) system for optimizing the graphics engine.


..and what the hell does he think Source uses? Source also uses a BSP based engine...with portals...and I also believe that the doom3 engine is the same.

Granted the doom 3 models look like crap without normal&bump maps....but hey thats because they were made to look like crap without normal&bump maps. That being said, HL2's models were better in a geometric sense, but thats more of an HL2 thing then a Source engine thing. I'm sure I could make equally crappy models for each engine. Also if I took HL2's models and converted them to md5 somehow I think they'd probably look equally good in D3's engine. That sort of comparison in an article titled "Source Engine Vs Doom 3 Engine" is pretty retarded because it makes no valid point besides that each games models were created to the games needs, not the engines capabilities.

A.I. yet another game related issue that has nothing to directly with the engine. D3's A.I. was minimal. But what the hell? You want mindless hell infested hordes to sit down and use an abacus to solve calculus problems? I mean it's true that Hl2's ai was better(though not perfect, I ended up killing my squadmates just because they kept being annoying), but that doesn't mean that the Engine is better because it's not an engine specific feature. If you look at freeware 3d engines, the majority have no A.I. at all because thats a game feature. yeesh.

Now I can't argue against the facial animation in HL2 or even the cutscene point. I admittedly found it damn cool that you could wonder around and just look at crap when someone was talking to you. It just felt more real and interactive(Don't ever invite me to your hous I might just wonder around picking crap up and throwing it around when I get bored of your conversation Wink ). Then again the cutscenes in Doom3 were kind of welcome, they offered a few seconds of reprieve and relaxation in a very tense game. The animation involved in D3's characters I felt was well done,. As far as texture splitting and the such I noticed that at least for me it's intermittent sometimes I get it sometimes I don't. So that may be something in the render path, though I would assume it's bad seaming on the normal map.

So physics. Well. It helps to say that HL2 was designed around the physics. It was a main feature and an integral part of the game. It worked well but models clipped to often and that made it seem a bit shoddy. That being said they were good physics though I wouldn't say the end all be all to physics. D3's physics were more then acceptable and being that the gameplay itself wasn't based around the physics it was a nice feature to be able to shoot boxes around, also the models in D3 don't clip. They sometimes end up in funky positions but I read that it's really due to the fact that sometimes the bones fall in a position that can't be resolved(i.e. the jittery rag dolls that you see in some games*cough*hl2*cough*) and also timing issues with the ragdoll state.The physics in d3 are rather good, taking into account that it is also a custom coded physics engine and the game doesn't depend on it to be fun whereas HL2(Source) is just a highly modified one and the game does depend on it.. ( plus value didn't write the physics engine anyway, they just bought one ).

I will admit that Source's sound system is technologically better then D3's. Source uses a DSP system and audio filters to filter the sounds correctly for the enviornment. For example when you fire underwater most of the treble is cut out and it sounds like you think a gun would sound underwater. Most of the time while playing HL2 I kept being in awe of the sound.Not the graphics, the sound. wheeeeeee. D3's sound is good and the use of it in creating the theme is awesome, technologicaly however, it just isn't that impressive.

Doom3 eats up your system. nuff said. Source engine...welll.... that depends on the DX mode you run it in. IF I run it in 9.0 with my 59000FX (using 3d analyzer) I get worse framerates then I get in D3 and the difference between running full precision shaders and forceing low precision shaders is only about 3 fps. So clearly either the shader theory about why hl2 runs bad on nvidia is wrong or 3d anaylzer is just not doing what it says it is. Or maybe there just more overhead having to use hook dll's and emulating a radeon 9800 on geforce fx 5900 but as of right now it's the only way to run dx9 correctly on anything under the newest fxs.

And yeah. Portability is a big thing, for gamers and developers. Maybe not for the casual gamer who bought their computer from a manufacturer and pays to have parts installed in it because it will void the warranty. These people just run windows or maybe own macs and nothing else. The very fact that this guy said it's the least important makes me wonder if I should read anymore of the things on this site because it just seems ignorant to say that it's the least important. ( article doesn't mention Doom3 has a native Linux port or the soon to be released Mac port ).

And eh. IMO both engines are good. D3's seems to be more future proof, though I think Source will be around for a while also. the one good thing I have to say about the article is at least he didn't give the standard "Doom 3 can't do outdoor scenes" opinion any credit. Eh. Really other then that the article seems really uninformed and focused on things that weren't really engine specific but game specific. of course it's all my opinion but the article should have been titled "Half life 2 Vs. Doom 3" With no mention of the engines at all in the title. Bleh.
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Yes, I'm a Doom3 fan, yes Doom3 has faults(mostly game related, not engine related), so does HL2.
HL2 biggest fault is steam, the so called 'technical' article failed to really mention this(beyond networking bit for MP).
What about patches?
Doom3 patches so far: 1 ( nothing major and no gfx engine fixes, mainly MP tweaks and fixes ).
HL2 patches so far: loads, and all compulsary since steam will download them automatically by default. On each of the few times I've tried to replay parts of HL2 since completing it, I've had to first wait for various patches and updates to be downloaded first. Some of these are obvously game related and not relevant to the engine, however some are engine fixes. ( not the steam bothers to tell you what it's updating or what it doing )

Stability of Engine(not mentioned in article but must be important when looking at game engines) - Crashes to desktop:
Doom3 - 0
HL2 - 3
And I play around with doom3 a lot more than HL2.

Ease of Map Editing/Scripting/Asset Creation (very important for choosing a game engine, Bljashinsky obviously didn't invest any time in this ).
I can't really comment because I've only created content for Doom3.
Doom3 has all it's editors(maps, particles to name 2) built into the binary (doom3.exe) the AI and weapons are mostly handled via scripts (plain text) and easy to edit. ( hence someone created a working gravity gun for Doom3 before the SDK was even released, not to mention the flash light mod etc ). All Doom3 maps are plain text files and can be opened in the map editor, this is great for finding out how things are done. Doom3 assets are all inside the .pk4 files ( can be easly opened with winzip or winrar vs HL2 assets that are stored in inside the Steam virtual filesystem which I've no idea how to access ).

If the article had less technical faults ( virtually all of the faults work against Doom3 and for HL2 ) more technical information(this is a technical site after all ) and Bljashinsky's conclusion should have been titled 'Bljashinsky Opinion' ( then he can say what he wants ) then I think the article would be fine and not as controversial.

I suggest spending more time researching before submitting next time.

[NomadRock]

haha, Devmaster has succumbed because it is not doing the same thing a hundred other sites are doing? This is a very poor argument, and unfortunately the article was filled with arguments such as this.

nkharrat said it should stay up just because you took the time to write it. I say that if everything everyone ever wrote was published just because they took time writing it, we would be completely unable to find the good material through the mess. Large scale publishers have editors with the time to catch things before they get published, but such is not the case with DevMaster.

If you like, write more articles, write better articles. Get several knowledgable people to read through them and critique them before you even attempt to publish it. This is the way things are done.

[Mihail121]

NomadRock said:

haha, Devmaster has succumbed because it is not doing the same thing a hundred other sites are doing? This is a very poor argument, and unfortunately the article was filled with arguments such as this.

....

If you like, write more articles, write better articles. Get several knowledgable people to read through them and critique them before you even attempt to publish it. This is the way things are done.

I have to agree with that statement, and believe me - i have a reason to do it, cause i am myself an article-writer. First of all you CAN'T just write an article (even on some hot topic) and expect to get famous with it. Secound, you should not blaim anyone here if your article has been removed - its removed cause it lacks something! Instead of complaining try to add and modify what the people want! Third and last - you shouldn't present us the argument, that some 100 globally unknown sites and some magazine have published your article, cause you just look and sound silly....

[Bljashinsky]

dante_uk- I don't find that quote in the article, but feel free to look:
http://www.newworldvideogames.com/plans.ph...3%20Engine.plan

Models- Already explained in my previous post.

A.I.- Has everything to do with the engine, which makes me wonder about the rest of your friend's statement.

Portability- I feel I accurately covered it, and compared to most engine reviews gave it a fair share. Ask most game companies and they will tell you they could care less about whether it can run on Linux or Macs. Even id doesn't as you can see with their slow release of the Linux and Mac versions.

Your friend criticizes me for comparing games and then starts talking about patches and game crashes. Both of those have nothing to do with the engine at all. I'll admit I could have covered the map editor better, but both of them are versatile enough for all professional developers to work with.

NomadRock- I believe I said that it should stay up for its facts, which have been shown on 100s of sites. What other argument could I have given? Keep up the article, because I say so? If you feel there are errors with the article than please state them instead of just saying there are numerous errors.

Mihail121- 1st- I did write an article on a hot topic and did get Internet Famous. I've received over 100 emails congratulating me on my work and about 10 discussing errors or flame emails from id fanboys. I would say that shows I've achieved interest with the article.

2nd- It was removed without them telling me what it lacks. The article originally went up on January 28th and was abruptly taken down a couple of days ago without explanation. Saying they received emails stating the article has errors without telling me what those errors are doesn't allow me to fix the article. I would be more than happy to fix any errors of course I would need to know what those are.

3rd- I believe I said that it should stay up for its facts, which have been shown on 100s of sites. What other argument could I have given? Keep up the article, because I say so? If you feel there are errors with the article than please state them instead of just saying there are numerous errors.

[Mihail121]

We can go on like that forever: giving arguments and contra-arguments... so i suggest we end this discussion NOW! This was the decision of the DevMaster staff and i cannot tell, who is right and who is wrong. But i can tell you one thing - i've never EVER ***EVER*** saw the DevMaster staff taking bad or wrong decisions. Perhaps you should try to look a little bit deeper in your mind - there can be other reasons why your article went down you know...

[dante_uk]

Bljashinsky said:

dante_uk- I don't find that quote in the article, but feel free to look:
http://www.newworldvideogames.com/plans.ph...3%20Engine.plan

Must have come from the very first draft that was post and you corrected.

Bljashinsky said:

Your friend criticizes me for comparing games and then starts talking about patches and game crashes. Both of those have nothing to do with the engine at all.

Actually everything after the 2nd row of hyphens is me talking.

Portability: There is a difference between being slow to release Linux/Mac ports and developing your game engine using an API that can't be nativily ported. id & Epic have a history for releasing games&engines on multiple platforms. Valve was formed from ex-MS employees.

Patches and game crashes can relate to the engine, not the design of the engine but possible stability issues with the engine. Yes SOME crashes are game related and not engine but neither you or I would know which without having access to debug versions. So say about patches & crashes "Both of those have nothing to do with the engine at all." is either very naive or just plain stupid.

For the record:
Game-Install and go: Doom3 beats HL2 easy
Game-Fun to play: HL2 is more FUN to play then Doom3 ( Doom3 is intense )
Engine: I much prefer the look and feel of Doom3 and have choosen to work Doom3 over the Source engine simple because I find it easy to work with. ( I not saying Source engine is hard to work with just that Doom3 got there first and looks better to me. If Doom3 was really hard to work with I'd have been forced to look at using Source instead. )
The real time light makes all the difference and the fact the Doom3 is not missing any key features makes it ideal.
If anyone still thinks Doom3 can only really handle indoors and dark rooms, check this out:
Doom3World : D3 Can do it too project.

[Noor]

Quote

nkharrat said it should stay up just because you took the time to write it. I say that if everything everyone ever wrote was published just because they took time writing it, we would be completely unable to find the good material through the mess. Large scale publishers have editors with the time to catch things before they get published, but such is not the case with DevMaster.

No, you completely misunderstood me. I'm saying that devmaster should be accountable for what is publishes. It doesn't make since to publish an article and than take it off-line because it got complaints. its just unprofessional to do so. if the article wasn't good, it shouldn't have been published the first place.

I feel devmaster owns an apology to Bljashinsky.

I don't want to start a flame, so this is the last post for me in this topic.

[Dia]

This is partially our fault for not validating ourselves some of the facts in the very first submission and not even reading it thoroughly. Mistakes happen...and we apologize to Bljashinsky for this. The article had to be eventually taken down due to errors. The fact is, the article is a comparison between the games rather the engines.

Taking down the article was no way meant disrespect to Bljashinsky. It is simply a mention that there were some errors and that it didn't fit in technically. We did not "succumb to fanboys"; the decision was made from a technical point of view of the article.

I do acknowledge Bljashinsky's cooperation with us. But I hope he comes to understand as to why the article had to be removed: the article is mostly a comparison between the games and not the engines; i.e. comparing engines based on the games isn't valid as the games most of the time don't show the full potential of the engine. The only way for the article to be legitimate is to compare the SDKs and do extensive research, which is not possible financially.

We will make sure next time that this kind of incident never occurs again. Since there is no point in discussing this further, this thread will be closed.