Search found 18 matches

by johnwbyrd
Fri Feb 22, 2013 3:37 am
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: Kenji Eno Dead at 42
Replies: 13
Views: 7428

I was incredibly sad today when I heard the news. I spent many hours at the WARP offices, and I tried hard to make sure Eno-san and Hiro-san were comfortable when they came to visit 3DO. For some reason, despite the language barrier, everyone really got along. What I learned from the experience is t...
by johnwbyrd
Fri Jul 29, 2011 2:48 am
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: Help identifying WARP game (a little NSFW)
Replies: 8
Views: 5434

That's Flopon World. I have a copy autographed by Eno-san when I visited him at the WARP offices.
by johnwbyrd
Wed May 25, 2011 12:06 am
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: DC vs 3DO
Replies: 12
Views: 8368

You wouldn't know the half of it. It's gotten bigger in some ways but in some ways... still very tiny.
by johnwbyrd
Tue May 24, 2011 2:13 am
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: DC vs 3DO
Replies: 12
Views: 8368

A lot of us from 3DO -- Neal, Gary, Gretchen and I -- came over to Sega to work on the launch of the Dreamcast. So it was a lot of the same people behind the US titles for the Dreamcast as were behind the titles on the 3DO platform. I ran DTS for the Dreamcast in the US.
by johnwbyrd
Thu May 19, 2011 12:27 am
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: Some 3DO information from back in the day.
Replies: 13
Views: 11333

Great info, love this type of chat. mathematically correct-the lack of it leads to the textures warping and polygons spliting on the seems in early 3d games, right? I thought the psx did this to save on cost and keep the frame rate up? PS1 definitely didn't do this. PS2 did. Practically speaking, y...
by johnwbyrd
Thu May 19, 2011 12:23 am
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: IF DOOM had been as good on 3DO as it was on Jaguar . . .
Replies: 35
Views: 20279

I agree, I don't think Doom would have saved 3DO. However, I do think a good conversion would have been a shot in the arm for it. Whether people bought Doom on the 3DO or not was immaterial, however, Doom was a benchmark of sorts. Doom was like the 3D Mark of it's day: doesn't really mean all that ...
by johnwbyrd
Wed May 18, 2011 2:20 am
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: Introduce yourself.
Replies: 825
Views: 2791730

I wrote the Coal River demo on the Portfolio 2.5 SDK. I worked at 3DO University for three years and taught hundreds of developers about the 3DO and M2 platforms.
by johnwbyrd
Tue May 17, 2011 11:30 pm
Forum: 3DO M2 Forum
Topic: D2 - M2 - mag scans
Replies: 9
Views: 19623

I think I may be the only white person ever to have actually played the beginning of D2. My buddy Hiro H was the lead programmer on it. The game opened with a cinematic sequence where the heroine was on an airliner that crashed after getting hit by lightning. Upon crash landing, a bunch of the other...
by johnwbyrd
Tue May 17, 2011 9:15 pm
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: Korean 3DO releases?
Replies: 61
Views: 34580

Re: Some Seoul memories

3DO even went so far as to open a gaming center in Seoul where kids could come and play 3DO games. Unfortunately, very few people showed up. When I was there, the proprietor had secretly set up a Playstation in the corner, because "that's what the kids really want to play". Was that the same as the...
by johnwbyrd
Tue May 17, 2011 9:12 pm
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: Some 3DO information from back in the day.
Replies: 13
Views: 11333

LOL! It means you're an arrogant rock-star hardware and system designer with SGI roots who has been hired into a group of arrogant ex-Amiga hackers in order to design a next generation game system :) What Adrian meant was that the Opera system did not display textures with perspective correction. Ti...
by johnwbyrd
Tue May 17, 2011 8:59 pm
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: 3do specs
Replies: 14
Views: 10937

ewhac wrote:cel details from ewhac
ewhac's memory of the graphics capabilities of Opera supersedes mine... where we differ, he is definitely more correct. :)
by johnwbyrd
Tue May 17, 2011 8:55 pm
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: Some 3DO information from back in the day.
Replies: 13
Views: 11333

Hello John. I want to greet you with anim -h apew39.csf apew39_world anim hello.bsf hello.utf ;) LOL! I think Dan taught that class more than I did :) But I remember having to demonstrate those godawful command line tools in MPW. A lot of 3DO early developers had Apple roots, including Trip himself...
by johnwbyrd
Tue May 17, 2011 8:49 pm
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: Some 3DO information from back in the day.
Replies: 13
Views: 11333

Although we used the word "sprite" when speaking to developers coming from other platforms, I never thought of the cel engine as a "sprite" engine. "Sprite" in my mind implies something that gets directly addressed by the video DMA engine. Your mouse pointer is a sprite, since it's never actually d...
by johnwbyrd
Mon May 16, 2011 10:37 pm
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: 3do specs
Replies: 14
Views: 10937

There was a different color palette for the background vs. for cels. Cels, I think, could have like a 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 bit palette. The background could be 24 bits.

We figured out some cool tricks to abuse the palette structure into generating alpha blending effects.
by johnwbyrd
Mon May 16, 2011 10:34 pm
Forum: 3DO M2 Forum
Topic: Ask the M2 Developer
Replies: 33
Views: 60187

Hi Alex

Nice to see you. Of course I remember you when you came on at DTS. I remember also when you wrote that 2-D shooter... I think you also wrote that facial morph demo? That was some heady stuff for 1995.
by johnwbyrd
Mon May 16, 2011 10:28 pm
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: Korean 3DO releases?
Replies: 61
Views: 34580

Some Seoul memories

3DO even went so far as to open a gaming center in Seoul where kids could come and play 3DO games.

Unfortunately, very few people showed up. When I was there, the proprietor had secretly set up a Playstation in the corner, because "that's what the kids really want to play".
by johnwbyrd
Mon May 16, 2011 10:22 pm
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: IF DOOM had been as good on 3DO as it was on Jaguar . . .
Replies: 35
Views: 20279

I don't think Doom would have saved 3DO. The engine was originally written for a PC, and all the rendering was assumed to have been conducted on the main CPU. 3DO used its cel engine for everything. And IIRC the Doom engine rendered everything as a series of vertical stripes... not as textures per s...
by johnwbyrd
Mon May 16, 2011 10:10 pm
Forum: 3DO Main Forum
Topic: Some 3DO information from back in the day.
Replies: 13
Views: 11333

Some 3DO information from back in the day.

The moderators seem to not like buy/sell info in the main forum, so I'll temper this request with a bit of history. I worked at 3DO for three years, from 1994 to 1997. Those were some heady times indeed. In particular, I taught a series of technical classes on site at 3DO -- it was called 3DO Univer...