[Micky C]

Not sure if this is worth making a new thread but here it is anyway, and I would have posted it in the Duke Nukem General section were it not for the Build todo list from back in the day which Ken claims he has never given out before.

This month Puritan did an interview with Ken over at Come Get Some. Most questions were oriented towards what Ken is up to these days with regards to Duke 3D (not much ) and Build.
The interview can be found here: http://www.scent-88....uary/index.html just press the "interview" button.

The todo list is an interesting read, and with regards to the level editor I think several of those features have been implemented since then, such as the undo feature, restricting the vertical editing range, and proper pasting of sectors inside other sectors. There are some other interesting tidbits Ken was planning, such as true looking up and down for the classic renderer, as well as "real lighting" (what the hell could this be?) and "fancy shading" for explosions/flashlights/torches.

Also a reference to "Build2" no information on that. Take it as you will.

Assuming the eduke developers haven't seen this todo list before, I'd be interested in getting their thoughts on it.

[Fox]

Text extracted:

Spoiler

An interview with Ken Silverman

Interview by Puritan on January 11-2014

Age : 39 (January 11-2014 as a matter of fact)
Location : East Greenwich, Rhode Island
Occupation : self-employed computer programmer

CGS : When did you first start to create Build?
Ken S. : The earliest I can find is PICROT4.BAS, which is dated 03/29/1993. It's a test of angled walls written in QuickBasic. I wrote that shortly after Id announced Doom and its features.
CGS : Did you have any experience with other editors before Build?
Ken S. : Nope.
CGS : Where did you get inspiration from when you came up with Build engine?
Ken S. : Build started out as a challenge to copy the Doom engine. I achieved that goal when the teams were in the middle of working on their games, so I had time to innovate beyond that.
CGS : Have you built any DN3D maps yourself?
Ken S. : I have never used the DN3D version of Build for anything other than a boring rectangular test room with default gray textures.
CGS : If so, did you release any maps?
Ken S. : No. All of my work in Build was done in KenBuild.
CGS : Do you still touch Build?
Ken S. : No. If I'm inclined to do Build-style mapping today, I'd prefer to use Build2. What's that? Whoops. Let's pretend I never mentioned it, ok
CGS : Are you playing any DN3D maps these days?
Ken S. : No.
CGS : What's your favourite map of all time?
Ken S. : When I view a Build map, I care mostly about cosmetics and architecture - anything that makes Build look like a modern engine is cool. My favorite would have to be LEM3. I also like the Roch and Bobsp series.
CGS : Do you follow the EDuke32 development?
Ken S. : No. I stopped following after JFDuke3d was finished. When he closed the forums, that was pretty much the nail in the coffin for me.
CGS : What are your opinion about the HRP and Polymer projects?
Ken S. : The HRP is very nice. Polymer - I don't see the point. It seems like a big waste of transistors for not much extra effect.
CGS : What other games do you fancy?
Ken S. : I really don't play other games anymore.
CGS : After the release of Duke Nukem 3D did you say to yourself: "Damn! That's a feature in Build that I wish I had implemented?
Ken S. : I will offer you something I've never given out before - my todo list from the Build days:

KEY:
$ - Should be done soon! > - Something to do eventually... ? - Is this really necessary? B - Bug! ENGINE - Drawing bugs: Make all VESA buffer-modes work with multiple drawrooms per nextpage Fix off-by-1 line on top of face sprites Fix selector initialization bug in ves2.h Make sure visiblity works on really high slopes Fix precision and crashing for wallmost on high slopes - xcross? Screen capture at correct page Wall/Floor sprite sorting bugs Drawing ideas: Make auto-buffer mode turn off with setviewtotile? Make lo-detail mode go directly to screen without extra blit somehow? Replace getpalookup with buffer Use palookup option for completemirror or use setviewtotile for mirrors Allow non 90ø viewing ranges Movement issues: Pushmove for face sprites? Make clipmove/getzrange move through parallaxing skies Memory issues: Allocate sectors and walls dynamically at loadboard Speed issues: Optimize rotatesprite for weapons, and status bar Try fread/fwrite vs. read/write with buffer Make hlineasm4 work backwards Pre-cache solution - auto cache sprites somehow Mergeing optimization (redo in QB) Misc. issues: Do joining in network games Network - send null packets if no packets sent recently Split engine into separate modules - drawing, movement, utility EDITART - Seems to corrupt tiles in the artfile after doing a palette grab Animation settings don't span art files $ Tile moving across different art files $ Make script-making function - F12 every tile and update capfil.txt $ Offer patch file option after resorting in editart when quitting > Warn if tile being deleted is used in maps - offer to change. > Allow comments to be associated with a tile. > When saving .ART, save to temp, rename, and delete, (int 21h-5ah,56h,41h) ? Screen still goes blank in 'V' mode sometimes with multiple tile files. B Why doesn't F12 do anything sometimes? BUILD - Goto sector/wall/sprite function New walls being added in BUILD should NEVER be masked or blocking 2D map mode: section off areas to edit overlapping ! Undo ! Sector copy / paste auto-inserting for pasting inside sectors. > The localtile variables get messed up with 'V' mode inserting/deleteing > Make overlapping sectors not connect in weird ways > Type tags in hex > Print out global visibility in Build status bar > Information screen (bitmap report, tag report) > Fix warping in fine sector rotating > Enter attributes with a menu GAME - > Programming example such as deleting sectors, and other BUILD functions > Fix bugs with fake network player windows. > Fix message typing (for multiplayer games) when screen is weird sizes DOCUMENTATION - > Make PROTOTYPES for functions in GAME.C in BUILD.H. > Document all variables in BUILD.H LOW PRIORITY - > Use multiple palettes other than palette.dat (command line?) > Fancy shading for torches, flashlights, explosions, etc. > Real lighting ? Multiple stories - (Not just: the fate of the universe depends on you) ? Add POLYTEX/CAVE stuff - true looking up/down ? Coded sprites for guns and menus
CGS : Finally, is it something you'd like to say to the DN3D community?
Ken S. : As I watch the world pass me by, one of the few things that keeps my spirits up is the occasional fan mail. It reminds me that I'm still worth something - so thanks for that. -Ken S.

[Lunick]

Heh, Build2

[Fox]

An interview with Ken Silverman said:

My favorite would have to be LEM3. I also like the Roch and Bobsp series.

OMG

[Gambini]

I dont know why he calls it interview when it´s obviously a questionary

Quote

CGS : Have you built any DN3D maps yourself?
Ken S. : I have never used the DN3D version of Build for anything other than a boring rectangular test room with default gray textures.
CGS : If so, did you release any maps?
Ken S. : No. All of my work in Build was done in KenBuild.
CGS : Do you still touch Build?
Ken S. : No. If I'm inclined to do Build-style mapping today, I'd prefer to use Build2. What's that? Whoops. Let's pretend I never mentioned it, ok

On a side note. Can´t believe he´s already 39.

[Fox]

"An interview is a conversation between two or more people where questions are asked by the interviewer to elicit facts or statements from the interviewee." - Wikipedia

[Gambini]

oh wikipedia righ! that site where anybody can come and edit it

[Paul B]

Sounds to me like he's a bit down. It also sounds like he hasn't really seen the potential of Polymer and how far its come from its earlier stages. It makes me wonder if he knows that his Build editor is still going strong in the Eduke community and that Mapster is practicaly Build2 overhalled and on Steroids. High quality maps are still constantly being made and released for the general public to this day. That should tell him something about his success as I don't know of any other 1990's game that still has an active online crowd worth mentioning.

Build2 was actually in the works according to some posts from Ken on his website:

12/24/2005: POLYTEX.ZIP: The beginnings of a successor to Build that never saw the light of day.
POLYTEX.ZIP (225,760 bytes, 12/24/2005): POLYTEX engine demo and source code. At one time, this was an exciting project that was going to be the next generation of Build. I started writing a polygon engine in late 1994 in order to keep up with Id Software's next game (Quake 1). Read the included text file to find out what happened.


Anyway, for a software programmer to have built something back in the early 90's and still have a following to this day using his engine on modern operating systems i'd say he did damn well. I still would favor Build over the Hammer editor or World Craft any day.

As for his tastes in maps you can tell they're a bit dated and its obvious he hasn't played Parkade.map =P

I'd really be curious to know what has been implemented from his notes in Eduke and what hasn't or if those points are going to be addressed?

In my opinion I think Ken should hook up with the Eduke team and finish what he started! =)

Thanks for sharing Micky!

[Fox]

Gambini, on 11 January 2014 - 10:03 PM, said:

oh wikipedia righ! that site where anybody can come and edit it

Wikipedia > Gambini

[Gambini]

I will edit it and put "interview is a conversation in which questions are done based on the answers and not just a list" you´ll see whos right then

[Fox]

Go ahead, do it.

[Jblade]

If you're a human and not a robot you can see Gambini's point. An interview is a back and forth between two people talking about a subject, that was just a questionnaire. Heh, Build 2 - I imagine it's probably voxel heavy, sounds interesting.

[Mr. Tibbs]

Here's a recent interview where Ken Silverman reveals he turned down a job offer from John Carmack. Imagine if those two teamed up!

http://videogamepotp...-silverman.html

Quote

J: You had some contact with John Carmack during the 90s, and he obviously had great admiration for you. Have you talked with him since the Build days?

KS: He emailed me a job offer a few years ago. I guess he was frustrated with his current employees. I declined it though because I didn't care to move to Texas. Other than that, no.

[MetHy]

Paul B, on 11 January 2014 - 10:15 PM, said:

That should tell him something about his success as I don't know of any other 1990's game that still has an active online crowd worth mentioning.

Well the Doom community is very active, more than us. We're probably in 2nd place in terms of activity.

[Micky C]

How active is the quake community?

[Jblade]

Out of the build engine games we're the most popular but the Doom and Quake community have far far more activity than we'll ever have.

[TerminX]

I dunno if I would say Quake has "far far more activity than we'll ever have" at this point, but Doom has more than the rest of us combined, for sure.

[MetHy]

I thought we did better than Quake.

[Daedolon]

Well, Quake does have a handful of ports and few individual mods, but I don't think there's anything to the scale of usermaps we're pushing out.

Also, why does it matter?

[MetHy]

Well we're trying to cheer up Ken Silvermann by telling him his engine has the 2nd biggest active community for an old FPS

[Mark]

After reading some posts here I decided to do some Google searching for Doom sites to see where they are at these days. From all the screenshots and videos I saw I wasn't impressed. Granted I only searched for about an hour or so and more than likely missed the better sites. I'm familiar with the Doomsday engine but thats about it. Custom content and TCs for Doom were not jumping out at me. And thats what I was actually hoping to find.

[Daedolon]

There are no custom DOOM mods, it's all a mashup of textures from other games or gameplay enhancers for DOOM itself like the infamous Brutal Doom mod.

No respect.

[Mark]

So you think we may have the edge here on TCs and custom content?

[Fox]

No. While Doom mod can be messy, here the tendency is to never be completed.

[Daedolon]

Mark., on 12 January 2014 - 01:48 PM, said:

So you think we may have the edge here on TCs and custom content?

Keep working on the maps, then yes

[Mark]

ouch

[Micky C]

Daedolon, on 12 January 2014 - 02:47 PM, said:

Keep working on the maps, then yes

Hey, nobody pokes a stick at Mark. except me

Fox, on 12 January 2014 - 01:56 PM, said:

No. While Doom mod can be messy, here the tendency is to never be completed.

Time to turn all those effects you post pictures of in the "what are you working on now" thread into actual content


So nobody has any speculation on what Ken might have meant by real lighting and fancy shading in the classic renderer?


Edit: The interview has been updated. Basically it now says the list is from november 1995, 3 months before the shareware version of Duke 3D. Some of the list items were completed.

The big things he wishes he had time to implement were:

• Drop-in networking
• Fancy lighting system, like Quake (guess that answers my own question)
• True Room over Room
• True perspective look up/down

And as it happens all those things are implemented in eduke32
But we're still kinda waiting on the networking and polymer...

[Jblade]

You two guys are joking about Doom mods right? Just look at the Cacowards, which has pretty much the best WADs around to offer (on second thought though, if you're just looking for a reason to diss Doom don't bother)

[Mark]

I was searching Doom stuff to find the best available these days since I haven't paid real attention for years. I'll check out the site you mentioned.

EDIT: I guess my expectations are different. What I saw looked like software rendering and lo-res graphics. I'm looking for their versions of Polymer and custom HRP textures. Total conversions.

[Jimmy]

Doom stuff has definitely slowed down lately, but it seems most of the quality stuff is coming out of the ZDoom community.