Hello everyone And welcome to the switch
Jon:This is our ninth episode on Masters of
Matt:Hey, John. What's going on?
Jon:Hello, Matt. Uh, it's going quite well. How are you doing?
Matt:I am doing alright. No news to report. Do you have anything interesting in your life?
Jon:Uh, not really. I mean, I just went to Florence and saw the Duomo,
Matt:Now, what is a Duomo?
Jon:So the Duomo is a massive church, one of the And it has, I think, the largest dome. I mean, at least from that era. It's a larger dome than the Pantheon, which is Um, and I actually read a book about the domes construction Very interesting book. If you're interested in domes, I'd recommend it. Um,
Matt:Let's make that the next, uh, the next book.
Jon:I mean, it was interesting from an I mean, The guy was a genius, like no doubt in my mind. He was like, and it's funny because a lot of these things Um, but yeah, so he, he invented or reinvented It was cool.
Matt:Um, but today, we're talking about, talking Unless, I don't know, were there any domes in Doom? Doom domes?
Jon:cared about domes, but he did care about Ferraris. He's a famous fast car guy. And this chapter starts out with him buying a Ferrari
Matt:That's
Jon:Which is just, it's just very John Carmack. So he found
Matt:a Um, there is a funny point early on where they Like it's no, this is a machine given to you by God. Like you're not going to touch it. Um, and you know, Carmack was like, get It's, this is just another machine.
Jon:yeah I thought this was good writing because it He was disappointed with it and he immediately And that's what he did. He contacted some mechanic. I want to say his name is Norwood. And the mechanic was able to install a turbo into
Matt:I think that there is something to be said for I look this through, my code is fine. Like some, if some people look at the like other system, Um.
Jon:That's why I thought this tiny story was so effective, Like, he just wants to tear things open and improve And I like your term of ignoring boundaries, because And this section even segues into Another interesting Cause the, he even mentions how, and maybe we should The idea is that you take a space and you partition And then you can take each of those subspaces It's a recursive algorithm, so it can get arbitrarily deep. And that way, if you have this BSP, you can very quickly So for instance, if you're calculating collisions, it's You know, I don't have to do any of the more expensive like Uh, yeah, quadrant would be for a 2D scene, octant Um, so anyway, it's just, it's a way of just And they discuss how Carmack used this to hyper optimize
Matt:It's incredible.
Jon:the whole boundary breaking aspect of it is You know, BSPs existed, they were being used But no one had thought to, like, apply it to, you know, And so that's where I think Carmack, one of his many
Matt:right, right, right. And then, and that's, that's also goes back to our idea
Jon:exactly. Yeah. Um, they mention a newcomer, Sandy, who I
Matt:Yeah, what did you think of Sandy?
Jon:Uh, dude, I love this guy. Uh, the way they discuss him is hilarious. Cause like he's Mormon and the team is, is initially They're like, we don't want some religious Uh, but it turns out that Sandy fits right in. Like he just starts blowing demons up and Yeah,
Matt:very directly like I don't want a religious person It's like, okay, if this person's religious, like It's totally wrong. And he's like literally a card carrying Mormon. Like they do, they do this, uh, basically, uh, Romero Where he kind of goes down the line, but you're not And he's like, I got him right here. they are just kind of further reinforcing that, just You can kind of Have that mental separation, where it's like, this isn't real life.
Jon:exactly, that's one of the things they say about He has no issues with it, because it's So, uh, I really like Sandy. I thought, I think he's a cool guy. I feel like they talk about him a lot more in
Matt:Yeah. It just felt wrong though. it's The kind of thing where, you really liked So the new person has a role that you just came out, Phil. Sandy sounds cool, but. I also hate him a little bit because
Jon:Right. He's replacing Tom.
Matt:to Tom. Yeah.
Jon:Yeah. Although, I mean, at least in terms of fitting in with the Uh, they both design great levels, but they just Whereas, they mentioned in the last chapter that Like, they just said his levels were boring, basically. Um, which,, coulda just been the differences of opinion But, uh, it does appear that Sandy's sensibilities
Matt:Well, it speaks to three different approaches He has this like very realistic scenery and it's He's got started. playing, pen and paper games., he really cares about, how fun is it to actually play? Like, he's not necessarily, a visual designer. And then Romero, it's, like, yeah, I want But, he's not as good at making something that's,
Jon:Exactly. they mention one of my personal favorite
Matt:Missed. They don't have kind things to say.
Jon:yeah, dude, Myst, I feel, is still one of the top In a lot of ways, very different from In fact, I think there was a section where they Because it was like, you know, Myst is like a It's just like a series of still, mostly still Um, but the, the graphical detail is super high fidelity. Whereas the id games were Kind of low fidelity graphics, but
Matt:I just got a meta Quest 3, and they, So, uh, have you ever, have you played the
Jon:I have not that sounds amazing though.
Matt:I have not, I have not tried it yet, but I, I I actually bought it a couple of years back on But maybe I think instead of going through the old So, uh, I'm going to check it out. in this chapter, they're really getting down to the They, like, they have told people that it's gonna get That deadline kind of comes and goes. But there's actually, like, there's a pretty good reason Carmack is, uh, is adding, just a little, you know, a right?
Jon:no, and this is, this is why I was saying earlier how And this was in the 90s, like in the early 90s. That is a problem that even today is still You know, like, having the game state be shared in But basically it means that all of the clients So you need some sort of server that, Anyway, incredibly, incredibly difficult And Carmack gets it running in a week. And the team all plays it. It's, it's completely unbelievable. And Romero plays it and he's like, this is bigger Um, and he was right. I mean, Deathmatch, huge, huge, huge innovation.
Matt:Yeah. I mean, I, I personally, like, I don't know, I don't So, um, And like, again, it's like, this is why, this is Like, sure, like, when you're, when you're running a program It's like a whole other thing when you need to Packets, like, you have these switches, you have
Jon:Yeah.
Matt:it's unbelievable.
Jon:It's also, it's also so different. Like, I think there's a big misconception about software. Which is like, Oh, he's a, he's a software engineer. He can build anything, you know, he can build a I mean, it is two different expertise is that you So Carmack's ability to jump between, you know, And then just in a week, completely innovate the It's completely insane. And it's just a testament to how amazing he was.
Matt:it's absolutely unbelievable. And, I mean, they do talk about the fact that they're, Like They're working constantly. And like, that's the only way you can pull something They just have to be working, , 16 hour days. Every single day.
Jon:Oh yeah. No, there was actually a point, uh, just to Uh, so we saw these Michelangelos, you know, But he also did all these sculptures all over Italy And at one point I turned to a guide and I was like, You know, did he have like a bunch of cronies And the guide was like, dude just worked nonstop. Like never, never put the chisel down. Never put the, you know, the brush down. Like Michelangelo was apparently like And yeah, just to your point, like that's really the only
Matt:I also heard, I heard that the Sistine Chapel was Like, he was granted that, that job, like, As like, kind Yeah.
Jon:his back, but yeah, he was in constant pain So yeah, incredible achievement, but definitely a
Matt:um, just like just like John Carmack.
Jon:Also similar in that he did, you know, architecture, I almost said a renaissance man. Anyway. Um, so yeah, kind of, kind of similar in a way. John Carmack, the modern day Michelangelo.
Matt:when, you know, at the end of this chapter, we And this is something that I did want to bring up in terms Like, they gave them a little bit and then they
Jon:Yeah.
Matt:But it sounds like they did not do that
Jon:Yeah. I did not realize this, but yeah, it sounds like I was like, this can't be real, but I guess that's
Matt:That poor little server didn't know what hit it.
Jon:They crashed immediately when they, when they finally concurrent users. Like, I don't know, that part just cracked me up.
Matt:Yeah, I know. It's like, it's, it is funny to hear those numbers. Cause it feels like, like, uh, okay. At the time, I guess, you know, the internet like., they had maybe, I don't know, 10 students and, uh, Um, so, so it couldn't, couldn't hold up the,
Jon:But yeah, so that's, that's sort of I mean, they, they have this very unique distribution model
Matt:The demand, the demand is certainly there. So we'll have to wait until, till the next chapter to see
Jon:Yep.
Matt:All right, well, I'll, uh, see you next time, John.
Jon:See you next time, Matt.