It wasn't until he actually held it in his hands that Kojima truly realized how amazing the texture of this thing was.
The solid shell has been deliberately padded in many places, so it doesn't have the hollow feeling of a hollow metal shell.
The materials used for the trackballs were also carefully selected.
In California's weather, if the rubber balls aren't chosen carefully, they can turn into terrifying swamps that devour the colorist's hands if the air conditioning is forgotten in the summer.
The sticky little balls are unpleasant to touch, and they often leave strange sticky residue on your hands after handling them.
This terrible situation is enough to dampen the enthusiasm of many people.
With this in mind, the rubber used in these trackballs is of industrial-grade quality; it does not soften at high temperatures and does not harden, become brittle, or disintegrate at low temperatures.
I haven't tested it elsewhere, but at least in California, it works normally all year round.
I tried out the knobs besides the trackball.
These are used to control parameters that are not suitable for modification using the trackball.
"Huh?"
Kojima raised an eyebrow, looking surprised as he felt the feedback coming from his hand. The knob, without mechanical limits, used an optical encoder.
This means he doesn't need to worry about resetting; he can rotate freely using the current position as a base point each time.
With a damping design just like a trackball, it is easy to use without feeling loose or slippery.
There are nearly 30 knobs, each with a similar configuration.
Some even have their damping adjusted according to the frequency of use, distribution location, and arrangement.
In this way, colorists familiar with this color palette can immediately tell whether they have found the right button, even without looking at what is written on it, just by placing their hand on it.
It is this meticulous attention to detail that has led to the creation of such an outstanding industrial marvel.
It looks very green, huge, bulky, and not elegant at all.
But you can only truly appreciate how much ingenuity the designers put into it after you've actually used it.
As a Japan, Hideo Kojima has always held a certain degree of "pride" in Japan- made consumer electronics.
Its industrial design philosophy, which is completely different from that of the United States, often wins the hearts of consumers.
This behemoth before them seemed more like... an external projection of Mark Cerny's personal ideology, unlike the others in Gamenova.
Mark Cerny has a unique advantage.
If Lin Lixin is the emperor of Gamenova, then Cerny is one of its Primarchs.
Hmm... saying that sounds a bit unlucky.
In short, Cerny is like a personification of Lin Lixin's personality in terms of "compromise".
Unlike the other members, each of whom has their own extreme side.
Cerny acted as a kind of adhesive.
He was born and raised in the United States United States, where he earned his first fortune and launched his professional career at Atari.
But he also traveled to Japan to study, joined Sega, and moved among various Japan manufacturers, greedily absorbing new knowledge from that world with its completely different culture and social structure.
He had two sets of information in his head.
And Cerny knew exactly how to use them.
This behemoth combines the most powerful and brute-force components favored by America geeks with cutting-edge technology. However, it also takes into account the ease of use for consumers and users, incorporating numerous optimizations for human-computer interaction.
Despite its large size and bulkiness, even a complete beginner can quickly get the hang of it after a simple lesson.
"This... is amazing."
Kojima opened his mouth, but after a long while, he could only manage to utter this one sentence.
He really didn't know how to describe this terrifying industrial behemoth.
In his mind, if such a device really existed, it would probably be used by Hollywood guys first.
Unexpectedly, it was born in Gamenova's hardware lab.
I can even be the first person to try it out.
Seeing his performance, Lin Lixin and Cerny exchanged a smile, both able to see the smugness in each other's eyes.
There's nothing more satisfying than having your hard-earned design recognized.
"Ahem, I have to admit that Cerny has some great ideas for the outer shell, but its internal hardware is where the real money is going to go."
Lin Lixin stepped forward. If this continues, Cerny will steal all the limelight; this won't do.
"One 32-bit ARM processor, two Athena-80MHz processors, standard configuration... 64MB of RAM!"
This thing is not just a pretty face with a rotten core.
If you were to estimate the cost of such a color mixing console, it would be in the millions of dollars.
"A four-channel Radeon 9000 industrial version, supporting real-time processing of multiple inputs from NTSC, PAL, digital video recorders, etc..."
This thing is essentially a super-sized graphics workstation.
Aside from the terrifying performance of the four-way graphics cards, the real-time processing of the digital video recorder wasn't really designed for Kojima.
This is definitely broadcast-quality.
The guys at the TV station will be thrilled to see such a marvel born in the world.
"I also crammed 32 Texas Instruments DSPs into this precious device, arranged in an array, 32 of them!"
Each chip can process a task in parallel or asynchronously.
Whether it's real-time color calculation or complex operations such as table lookups, gamma value calculations, and matrix operations, it's equipped with four high-performance industrial-grade 3D acceleration graphics cards...
If someone were to use this thing to run Quake, it would definitely achieve the highest frame rate in the world, even far exceeding the limits of what a CRT television can handle.
"As for storage, we've assembled a high-speed array consisting of eight enterprise-grade hard drives, with a capacity of up to 10GB!"
He reached out and patted one of the panels on the fuselage.
What's hidden behind this is the color palette's cache workspace.
It's quite large, about the size of a big box.
However, its capacity is only a pitiful 10GB.
Don't be fooled by these numbers; they're truly appalling from the perspective of future generations.
After all, in later generations, you can easily pull out a palm-sized SSD and get 1TB or even several TB of capacity.
But it is now 1990.
10g, baby!
This isn't like the cold storage of IBM tape cabinets! 10GB is more than enough to make it stand out in the world!
To put it simply, if we use cost as an analogy...
A car drove up; even if you disassemble it, it would only be enough for a small portion of the hard drive cabinet.
This is a... a gold brick!
"Alright, that's pretty much it. Since it's the first prototype, let's keep it for ourselves."
Lin Lixin interrupted Hideo Kojima's reverie.
"Getting back to the point, do you know why I'm giving you this?"
"For... the color grading of Quake 2?"
"Yes, but it's not just about color grading."
Lin Lixin nodded.
When discussing the Quake IP, many people elevate the original game to legendary status, while overlooking its successors.
In fact, Quake II, released just one year later, represented a revolutionary leap forward in engine technology. What happened during that year?
Lead planner John Romero left the company, and idsoftware hired a professional map designer, artist, sound engineer, and other new staff.
This was the year that idsoftware officially transitioned from a small workshop to industrialization.
However, for Quake, there is actually only one most important thing.
Carmack scratched his head and rewrote the entire game engine from scratch.
It's not just about various code-level optimizations; it's also about a dramatic improvement in performance.
Let's not forget that outside of programming, Carmack was also a genius in the field of computer graphics.
The brand-new engine brings... color to the world of Quake.
Of course, this isn't just about the color of the image; that's something everyone has already achieved.
"We rewrote the Quake engine and completely redesigned the lighting engine."
Lin Lixin explained,
"Now even light has color." His tone was calm, but to the Kojima's ears, it was like a thunderclap.
The fewer the words in a classic text, the bigger the significance.
What was the lighting like in Quake?
He had already figured it out completely.
It made a truly ingenious design.
A lightmap is a texture map used for lighting and illumination.
Quake adds a lightmap to objects that can draw different gray levels from 0 to 255.
After being processed by the engine, this texture layer will be converted into the corresponding lighting effects.
The areas illuminated by the flame will be very bright, while the areas in shadow will be very dark...
It's incredibly cool and incredibly easy to use, bringing smooth, gradient lighting to the world of Quake.
It gave light a real shape.
But it still had a problem that wasn't considered a problem at the time: light only has shape.
The area illuminated by a flame will only become brighter, and the area illuminated by a lamp will also become brighter.
Every light source is the same.
It will only get brighter; at most, the degree of attenuation will vary.
They have no color.
The area illuminated by the flame will not appear reddish, and the area illuminated by the cold light source will not appear bluish.
The shimmering venom is one, the lava is another...
"With this in mind, we designed a 'colored lightmap' for the second-generation Quake engine."
The grayscale image, which originally had only one parameter, was completely split into three channels.
This refers to the classic RGB three-channel design.
Therefore, developers can modify these parameters to make the light source more colorful.
So, the game now features cool-toned screens, red warning lights, warm yellow flames, and green acid... It sounds like... a minor, icing-on feature.
But Hideo Kojima is a director.
Almost the instant Lin Lixin spoke, he realized the immense potential within this situation.
Color scheme... is the foundation of atmosphere and also a regulator of emotions.
A dark area filled with flashing red light naturally evokes a strong sense of crisis.