November 1997
| November 27, 1997 |
Gamecenter was scheduled to post its first of the series of Prey Development Journals November 24th, but it doesn't look like that has happened. There is no sign of it on Gamecenter, anyone know what happened?
The November Issue of PC Gamer had a cover story on Duke Nukem Forever and it included a nice sidebar on Prey which included a new screenshot and interview with Paul Schuytema. The new screenshot is on the right, and it shows some of the outside area in Prey, and a nice sky which includes a sun.
Below is the the article in its full length.
Pitting
a full-blooded Apache Indian against three alien races, Talon Brave: Prey is probably the
first action game from 3D Realms with a full-blown, honest to good-ness storyline. Using a
new portal technology instead of today's standard BSP tree, the game also offers a unique
environment of dynamic entries into other levels and architecture which can be modified or
destroyed – during the course of the game.
Heading up the design team is Paul Schuytema, and he is well qualified to do so. Formerly the lead designer on Mechwarrior 3, prior to that he taught interactive authoring, 3D animation, creative writing, and science fiction world-building on the collegiate level, while maintaining a second career as a game design consultant and freelance writer. Now he will apply all those skills at once on Prey. For more on Prey, check out our September issue.
INTERVIEW WITH PAUL SCHUYTEMA
PC Gamer: Why is Talon Brave fighting the Trocara?
Schuytema: On one hand, that's a question for the player to discover. The short answer is that Talon is, in every sense of the word, a relucta nt hero. He's sort of abducted, in a very unusual manner, and finds himself in a place that he didn't expect to be but the Trocara didn't expect Talon either.
PC Gamer: Will Prey allow players to destroy anything?
Schuytema: We could do that, but what happens when you blow the floor out of the lowest room in an environment? Do you simply fall through? Our lead programmer Will Scarboro still can't have infinitely complex environments, so there has to be a limit. We have to also make sure that we're not allowing the player to create shortcuts.
PC Gamer: It seems that Prey's dynamic technology opens up all kinds of four dimensional level design possibilities. What can't you do?
Schuytema: Actually, our Portal Technology engine is, mathematically, a four-dimensional engine. Just sit down with Will Scarboro, and he'll tell you all about it until your head explodes! Any three-dimensional position in the Prey engine can posses multiple three-dimensional points, just as any 2D position in a 3D world can posses multiple 2D points – try it with some graph paper, and you'll see what I mean. The implications for gameplay are simply staggering, as you've guessed. We're going to have fun with these capabilities, but we're not going to go overboard. I need to feel comfortable that this type of "folded space" fits consistently within the fictional realm of the game universe. But secretly I hope that someone will license the engine to make a wholly surrealistic game, sort of an ode to Dali.
PC Gamer: This project sounds like a perfect fit for your background. How did you find out about it?
Schuytema: I call it my "Creative Holy Grail." Before Prey, I had what I considered the cherry project in the industry: lead designer of Mech Warrior 3. I loved it there and sure wasn't looking for anything else. But Scott and George, who had known me for quite a while, heard that I'd jumped ship from academia and had entered the game industry, and Scott came a huntin'. I was flattered beyond belief, but I still didn't think it could beat out Mech 3. They flew me down, laid their cards on the table, and essentially offered me creative carte blanche with the Prey project. My wife and I talked about it long and hard for a few weeks, and we came to the conclusion that this was one of those decisions we'd second-guess for the rest of our lives if we didn't take it. So I said "Hell, yes" and I haven't regretted it for a second. This project is really a test, and it stretches the creative talents of our entire team on a daily basis. It's a daunting task, but no one on the Prey team would trade this opportunity for anything.
| November 23, 1997 |
After 10 months, 3D Portal's Preyground has officially opened. It is run by Brad Wernicke and Chris Day, not me by popular belief. The site features a Message Board, File selection, and the Prey FAQ. It can be accessed at http://www.preyground.com
Scott Miller said this in his finger update hinting at a possible hire from Ion Storm. 3D Realms has been looking for a new artist for the Prey team for a few months now.
"Prey is still looking for a 3D modeler/animator,but due to some layoffs at Ion Storm, we might be close to filling that position."
Paul Schuytema has informed us in his plan that William
Scarboro has put a new feature in Preditor that helps out the artists. I don't know
exactly what this is, but Paul tells a little about it below.
Yesterday, William made a big splash with his
programming surprise de jour--I caught a quick glimpse last night, but had to
shuffle home before it was done. John just popped in and reported that William's
new Preditor trick leaves 3D Max in the dust.. can't wait until he gets in
today!
| November 17, 1997 |
In a press release today, Apogee and KMFDM announced that the Alternative Music band from Seattle, called KMFDM, will be creating the music for Prey. Here is a little background on the band from the press release:
KMFDM was formed in Paris in 1984 by Sascha Koneitzko and Udo Sturm-currently, the band is based in Seattle. KMFDM stands for the German phrase "kein mehrheit fur die mitleid," which, roughly translated, means "no pity for the majority." To date, the band has released 9 major albums, culminating in their recently released. Called "the inventors of electronic angst music," KMFDM's music is infused with an aggressive intensity and a message that shuns the "me too-ness" of our modern culture. To KMFDM, individualism is the key.
KMFDM will start on the Prey music in January 1998. Paul Schuytema visited Seattle in September to discuss this deal, and it was finalized recently. To learn more about the band, visit their web site. I will include updates here on KMFDM progress with Prey in the future.
What does this mean for Prey's Sound and Music Director, Lee Jackson? He will still be doing all the sound effects in the game, but most or all of the music will be done by KMFDM.
Finally, an update on the devlopment of Prey has been posted. Here it is below:
Over the last few weeks, Scott and Steve have been working on crafting a "reference set" of textures that capture the mood and feel of the four primary Trocaran environments. We've had written specs nailed down since March, but actually seeing things come together graphically lead to some wonderful discoveries. Scott and Steve were encouraged to stretch beyond our specs and to capture their individual take on these alien species, and after we all sat down to review their work, it was amazing how similar their interpretations were. We also discovered some mood and visual motifs that go beyond our written specs.
Once the reference textures were complete, John and Matt were charged with creating "reference rooms" for each of the four environments. These rooms are not complete levels-most, in fact, didn't even have any portals. They were more like visual dioramas for the mappers to try out the new textures and to experiment with some intriguing architectural motifs.
Reviewing the rooms, both Mat and John hit upon some excellent motifs that we've decided to incorporate into of "tone" definitions of the four species. Now, the artists and mappers have a solid suite of visual reference work and documentation to refer to when creating the game's Trocaran environments.
We've decided to release a few screen shots of these reference rooms. These environments are not meant to be indicative of gameplay levels, but they are a very excellent examples of the tone and feel of our myriad game environments. These are the last screen shots that we are going to release that are "environment" only-we want to showcase our characters in the screens that follow.
On the character front, Loyal is working hard on our actor system-when completed, it will give us amazing dynamic flexibility. Allen has been finishing up the animation cycles for a few of our "golden" entities, and they look mighty sweet indeed. When Allen finishes a model, he then turns that model over to Steve or Scott for texturing within Creditor. Currently, Steve has been doing weapons and object texturing and Scott is texturing the characters.
Last week also saw another milestone-Tom and William merged their code and Prey, the game system and Prey, the portal technology engine are now happily married! As an offshoot, our mappers can now load their environments into the Prey OS and run some very real performance metrics on their geometry.
3D Realms has released two new Prey screenshots. As mentioned in the Development update, this are of the reference rooms in Prey.
Gamecenter's monthly "Prey Development Journal" will start appearing November 24th. It will be an article showcasing the improvements in Prey. Remember to check Gamecenter on the 24th!
Joe Siegler sure has been busy adding new goodies to the Prey pages on Apogee's website. An updated photo of the Prey team can be seen on this page. It includes all the current members of the Prey team, although it will have to be updated again in a few months, once more hires are completed.
| November 13, 1997 |
Preystation has posted a new screenshot of Prey too. This one shows an environment from the new mapper, John Anderson. This is our first look at something from John, and I think we will see much more soon.
| November 11, 1997 |
Paul Schuytema was nice enough to send me this brand new screenshot of Prey. He also adds that there will be a Prey development update posted later this week with some more news and screenshots. Thanks Paul!
Click on image for 640x480 Version
George Broussard has updated me on the status of another Prey Level Designer being hired. A few months ago when 3D Realms was hiring two mappers, John Anderson was hired immediately and was soon started. At the same time, 3D Realms found another mapper, but in Germany. Due to immigration hassles, it is taking delaying the move to Texas. George Broussard did say that the Quake map made by this German mapper was the best they have seen by anyone, at anytime.
Update:
Just after I posted the above, Scott Miller made an offical comment on the subject in his plan. Here it is below:
We're very close to having our 3rd Prey level designer, Martin, join us. This is an interesting hire because Martin is from Germany, and we've been working with our immigration attorney for over five months to bring him into our country. One of the big problems is that there's not an official job for level designer within the Immigration Services' national database, so matters were not as clean-cut as they could have been.
But all the hurdles have finally been jumped, and I just got done signing a dozen signatures on a multitude of documents, petitions and forms that will finally clear the way for Martin to make the move. Why go through all the trouble and expense to hire him? I'll let Paul answer that one...
Voodoo Extreme has conducted an interview with Project Leader, Paul Schuytema, and provides some good information. Here is a little snippet where Paul talks about the 3D API in Prey and 3D Card support:
We've been mulling over our final API for months now. Our driving question is "which API will give our players the best fidelity on the greatest number of consumer-level 3D cards?" For a while, we thought that the best path was to develop our own HAL and support the cards ourselves, but now it's pretty obvious that we need to buy into an API like Direct3D or OpenGL. If I was placing bets, I'd say OpenGL. Right now, the card manufacturers are pretty quick to "talk GL" but pretty %$#! slow in actually delivering full-compliance GL drivers.
| Copyright © 1997 Lon Matero. All Rights Reserved. _ Prey is copyrighted by 3D Realms Entertainment. |
