[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/john_carmack.jpg]]

Pick a computer game from the past few years. Any one. Like, seriously, just name one.

There's a very good chance this man is responsible for the technology that makes that game run. There's a reasonable chance it even includes some of his code.

John D. Carmack (born August 20, 1970) is a game programmer ([[HeAlsoDid and aerospace engineer]]) who worked for Creator/IdSoftware. He co-founded the company with Creator/JohnRomero, and was the lead programmer for almost every game that company made.

He worked on a ''huge'' number of games in his prime (see [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Carmack#Games the other wiki]]), but in recent years his productivity has declined due to having a second job as the owner of Armadillo Aerospace. His most notable games, usually because they included groundbreaking technology that he pioneered, are listed below:

* ''VideoGame/CommanderKeen'': Pretty much invented the idea of "adaptive tile refresh," or redrawing only tiles that have changed since the last time the screen was drawn. Allowed cheap DOS computers to compete with specialized console hardware. [[note]]For perspective, the Platform/SuperNintendo was released only one month prior in Japan.[[/note]]
* ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'': Popularized raycasting (the technique itself is much older than ''Wolfenstein 3D''). Allowed cheap DOS computers to compete with specialized console hardware. [[note]]For perspective, ''VideoGame/SuperMarioKart'' was released a couple months later.[[/note]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'': Vastly improved raycasting using techniques like blockmapping and binary search partition trees. [[TropeCodifier Codified]] the FPS genre. Allowed cheap DOS computers to compete with specialized console hardware. (You might be noticing a pattern.) [[note]]For perspective, ''VideoGame/StarFox'' was released only 10 months before ''Doom''.[[/note]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'': Invented surface caching, an essential part of full polygonal 3D. Improved binary search partition trees. Was the first FPS to have fast enough netcode to be playable online (previous ones could only really be played over LAN). Supported a mod community that is still active today. [[RunningGag Allowed cheap DOS computers to compete with specialized console hardware,]] and Windows computers too to an even greater extent not long later with [=GLQuake=].[[note]]For perspective, the Platform/Nintendo64, the first major console with polygonal 3D support, came out in Japan the same month. It couldn't handle textures as big as ''Quake'''s (although a scaled down Quake port was released on the console, playable with the hub and few levels cut down), and certainly couldn't handle running at the frame rates the PC version reached.[[/note]]

Oh, and that bit about modern games including his work? That's not exaggeration - a lot of the technologies he developed, ''especially'' BSP trees, are practically essential to modern video games, even on consoles. And ''he's still at it'' - do a search for "sparse voxel octrees" if you want to see what the next generation of video game graphics will look like.

As of November 2013, he has resigned from id Software to work full-time for Oculus VR, the company responsible for the Platform/OculusRift. His reputation took a major blow when he has been heavily involved in the lawsuit that cost Facebook $500 million for stealing the technology behind OR, although the trial jury absolved Carmack of liability and his reputation has been slowly recovering ever since.

In December 2022 he announced his departure from the company and that he would be devoting all his efforts to his new start-up, Keen Technologies, which focuses on new forms of AI-assisted computing, thus bringing an end (for now, at least) to his career video game developer after over three decades.

[[spoiler:[[VideoGame/{{DRL}} May or may not be the actual leader of Doom's demonic invasion]].]] Is also possibly [[WebVideo/Civvie11 some form of otherdimensional intelligence masquerading as a human being]].
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