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Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by adammarkey on Friday April 03, 2009 @02:24PM (#545303)
Not only does Wolf3d run beautifully on the iPhone, the controls (and options for modifying them) actually make the iPhone a viable platform for 2.5 dimensional FPS games.

I'd like to see what he can come up with for Quake (a fully 3D shooter - which adds aiming up and down)

Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by daniel-cussen on Friday April 03, 2009 @04:12PM (#545518)
You'd need some kind of giro for the z-axis. Right now the iphone can only tell if it's facing uyp or facing down, but can't tell by what degree. Maybe in later edititons they will make the z-axis giro like the others. Alternatively, you could make a device you can attach to the iphone that tells it its position along the median plane.
Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by DougBTX on Friday April 03, 2009 @03:14PM (#545415)
Great interview, this guy makes a good publicity person. Watch how he stays on his point throughout the questions, the list of products you (the consumer) should be watching out for at the end is superb.
Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by nickb on Friday April 03, 2009 @02:36PM (#545327)
People thought you couldn’t do 3D games on the iPhone but here it is running.

Who thought that? Todd never looked at Apple's App Store.

PS: Wolfenstein 3D doesn't have a real 3D engine anyway.

Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by palish on Friday April 03, 2009 @03:03PM (#545388)
3D is not "real". The output of 3D apps are projected onto a 2D screen (VR goggles not withstanding, but even then, there are simply two outputs projected onto two 2D screens).

Wolfenstein has rasterization, just like a "real" 3D engine does. Its engine happens to be optimized for certain viewpoints, which makes it "2.5D", but it still gives a crude approximation of 3D, just like every other "3D" game.

Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by nickb on Saturday April 04, 2009 @01:49AM (#546133)
"which makes it "2.5D""

You wasted all those words to say what I said... it's not 3D. :)

PS: I know very well how 3D games work since I co-wrote a commercial 3D engine in 2002-3 and used to teach computer graphics course at a university.

Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by ConradHex on Friday April 03, 2009 @06:02PM (#545718)
I think your comment underestimates developments in 3d hardware and software in the last 15 years or so.
Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by ajmoir on Friday April 03, 2009 @06:20PM (#545756)
Woosh
Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by palish on Friday April 03, 2009 @06:11PM (#545734)
Why? What I said and what you said are unrelated.
Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by jcromartie on Friday April 03, 2009 @03:56PM (#545493)
This particular version of Wolfenstein 3D is actually rendered using standard 3D techniques in OpenGL. It's just low on detail and the ability to look up/down.
Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by jcapote on Friday April 03, 2009 @03:07PM (#545400)
How is this a surprise? He's been blogging about it for months...
Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by erik on Friday April 03, 2009 @04:23PM (#545536)
Do you have a source on that? Carmack rarely updates his blog. The only info I've seen about Wolf3d on the iPhone are the development notes released a little over a week ago.

Edit: The dev notes are here: http://www.idsoftware.com/wolfenstein3dclassic/wolfdevelopme...

Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by matthew-wegner on Friday April 03, 2009 @04:37PM (#545554)
It's just an angle to the story--and a clever one, too! Would it have showed up on HC if it were just "Wolf 3D Launches on iPhone" versus "Carmack Made iPhone Wolf 3D Without his CEO Knowing"?
Re:John Carmack surprises fans (and his CEO) with Wolfenstei... by cfrey on Friday April 03, 2009 @04:57PM (#545582)
Later in the interview: "How did the launch for Quake Live [the free browser-based version of the circa 1995 ID Software game]..."

Way to do your research; Quake 3 came out in 1999.