https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/209303684427956225


Finally ... closer than ever

I don't have a twitter account, but if I had I'd tell him to cheer up and keep up the good work.
It's good to see that Id wants to make sure that the product is of high quality, even if it means a significant delay in release.

I wonder if this tool will be anything like the geck.

It's the exact same tool that the developers used to make Rage, if that's any indication. This obviously excludes the external tools they used such as Adobe Photoshop, Autodesk 3Ds Max ...


Somewhat related info to the OP:
The Steam overlay is a 32-bit application and is therefore not compatible with 64-bit applications.

Thats pretty cool. I wonder if it will be as easy to use as the geck. I have used some sdk programs that were really difficult to work with. Another thing i am curious about is if you can open the model files and import new or modified models like weapons like you can in fallout. Would love to put a silencer and scope on my AR. I wonder what format the models are and if blender can support it.

All I know is that the file format for idTech 5 meshes is *.md6, does it sound familiar to you?

Never heard of that format. I guess modding the models is out the window . If I can just mod the weapon properties I will be happy.

I don't think modding models would be out of the window, as it would kill any possiblity for users to add new content.
It'll probably include a converter for typical 3d formats like *.3ds, *.obj, ...

No I really doubt it. Even elder scolls or fallout games kits didn`t come with exporters. Nifskope, nifscripits, were all done from the people at niftool from what I understand. Even if they did somehow manage to release a plugin that would import/export it would be a max only plugin. So that limits it to people who have max. Blender users like myself would be left with nothing. Since this game isn`t all that popular, I don`t see anyone making import/export scripts for blender anytime soon. Maybe they will who knows but I wouldn`t hold my breath.

I have also been doing a little research and found out they are using megatextures for rage. So there are only like 4 textures in the gamefiles but they cover all the meshes in the game. Thats probably why the textures bug so much when you turn left and right. I don`t even think the normal modders software like gimp could even open textures that large to edit anything. So I`m not really sure how they would handle this.

Well, if anything, I'm glad it has taken this long if it is due to testing. Most software delevelopers should have the mindset that a product is not right to put on th amrket until all major bugs and vulnerabilities have been reported and fixed. With software this large, it would take months, and kudos to them for sticking with it.

Obviously I doubt they will find every issue, but with such a long go at it, I doubt that there will be many issues with the fial product, other than the possibility of people using PC's that jsut weren't designed for handling the tool.

There is a .nif conversion script available for Blender. http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/Blender


I'm pretty positive that the megatextures are only used for area textures. Just think about it for a second; how could the characters and walls have different texture resolutions if they used the same texture file?

I work with nifs all the time in blender. Have been for years. I am saying if the model format for rage is md6 liike Xaxx said you probably won`t see blender support for the models. Unless someone decides to make the scripts which they might and they might not. It`s anyones guess. I don`t think they will release a converter though. Even the cryengine editor didn`t have an importer/exporter. At least the version I had didn`t.

I do see blender can import md2 meshes so who knows.



I read the textures are 128000x128000 so you have a huge template of all the textures on 4 files. The resolutions are handled by the size of the texture on the template. So the texture sizes on that template can vary. Rage isn`t the first to do something like this. But it is the first I think that used a template that large.

MD# has always been a idsoftware model extension afaik, support has never been a major issue.

With regards to "soon", that word has taken on a whole new meaning for me since RAGE. So while the news is positive, I reserve my jump for joy until release.

Sorry, I thought you didn't realize that Blender can import/export through scripting. It's just a matter of someone writing a script for the file type.



Darn. I didn't think of that.

What advantage would there be in using that system rather than having discrete textures for animated models?

It improves performance as it reduces draw calls by having very few materials and it reduces amount of texture fetches, and I'd assume memory bandwidth requirements as well.
Combine it with the virtual texturing like in Rage, you'll also significantly reduce video ram requirements.

The setup Rage uses for virtual texturing is 4 simultaneos virtual textures. It has one for unique objects like buildings, two specifically made for the wastelands and a single one for dynamic objects.
On consoles, all of these (as far as I know) are in a DXT1 format at a resolution of 4096x4096, which in total equals to 32 megabytes of video ram (for the megatextures only).

Compare this to other games which seem to allocate anywhere between 90-160 mb video ram for their textures.

Bethesda's recent editors act sort of like legos - you are provided with pre-made building blocks and you can configure them as you like. I'd assume the RAGE editor is a full 3D editor, where you design and texture everything yourself rather than using pre-made units.

But this is just speculation on my part. The presence of mega-textures already changes things about, perhaps they'll do something more like the GECK and CK.

That is good news indeed

Amen to that. My thoughts exactly.
Soon Schmoon!

Well, hopefully they'll be out in the summer so people start with loads of time to work.

I'm sure we'll see tons of activity for the mod tools. Might take a bit since many people lost interest, but they'll come back.

I hope "soon" will be soon and that there are enough enthusiast modders who will dig into Rage development, so we can look forward to new levels. Rage was a great game with just not enough content, imho.

Do you think that would be posible to make a multiplayer FPS with those mod tools?
Still Im sad because they decided reject the idea of "classic" FPS multiplayer for RAGE.
I read that they wanted to explore new game types. So they had the best FPS engine EVER and they wasted it with car races!?
Oh well... I just wanted to ask you if you see posible some multiplayer FPS mod in the future, I dont think so, but no idea about that, just wondering. Sorry my english, dont care I wont post anymore

Dude, your english is easy to udnerstand, and now Ill answer your questions.

I would put money on an FPS mod for RAGE, and I believe the multiuplayer community will grow significantly whyen that does happen. Multiple gamemodes and stuff like that actually shouldn't be too hard to program, the weapons already exist, the networking might need to be tweeked a bit and some User Interfaces will need to be worked on, but really, it won't bee too hard. Qhat I want to see is a server listing mod, that allows you to see lists of servers rather than the bullcrap matchmaking service that exists now.

They did want to actually make new game mdoes and stuff,a nd really I quite liked the game modes, but here isn't enough of a community to find games for me, so that kinda svcks, but nothign we can do about that until the tools come out!

Have you seen the editor preview pics ? Starts some minutes in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2USBm4hMOAw

It is going to be pretty big stuff, it may challenge the tools Unreal puts out for UE3 (not necessairly UDK, these mod tools won't be free version of an engine)


I really like the fact carmack doesn't want to go into licensing wars, EPIC was doing it for a long time and see what they made, a crappy dudebro console game, crytek has stepped in and they made the biggest most utterly screwd up consolized PC port with modern warfail COD crappy x360 15 year old kid gameplay and stuffed into a "PC" version, that was Crysis 2. The biggest failure of 2011, a shame and a disaster, like an insult to the gaming community.

If they told more about the VR stuff they were doing, we might get something to be busy with so rage mod tools would be easier to wait for, yes he made updates, but nobody really had a clear idea.

Completely disagree with that, it had great gameplay, I don't know specifically what you are talking about (cos you didn't actually point anything wrong out with it). And anything you don't like in it was more than likely fixed in one or more mods from the close to thousands that exist. If RAGE has half the modding community that UT3 has, then I'd be stoked.

By the way, i play it on PC, still. It looks beautiful, still. Biggest problem with it is the crappy team AI, but really that is all I can think of.