Frederick Raynal wins a decade long legal battle against atari

[Darkflame]

Frederick Raynal - creator of Alone in the Dark, as well as certain other classic games, has won a decade long legal battle against Atari (formally Infogrames)

The court ruled that the game, as well as the early 3d technologies used to make it, could not be treated as a single enity, and therefor the rights should be divided between the various party's involved.
Raynal was declared the author of some of the key pieces of 3d software (3D Desk and Scene Edit), as well as retaining some rights over the gameplay.
They are currently evaluating how much financial compensation Raynal is owed.
It is unknown at this point if anything is going to the rest of the team who worked on AitD.

http://www.cubed3.com/news/26654/1/f...nst-atari.html

original source(french);
http://www.afjv.com/news/6747_f-rayn...n-the-dark.htm

[MevX]

first

[gravel22]

Originally Posted by MevX

first

[ChaosFish]

I think that's the first "first" on the MBN, after over 16 years! Certainly news worthy. Also that Atari thing.

[MrQuetch]

Yet amazingly, I've been checking this network for the past couple of days updating my findings of the AITD file formats and structure (the thread can be found in the LBA Modifications section).

Holy crap, Darkflame! That is awesome - go Fred! Thank you so much for sharing this information with us - I remember hearing the story in 2012 over and over again ( especially after watching Fred's GDC postmortem on AITD) about how the company left, and another one took over on the next couple of games of AITD, and Fred and the team went over to Adeline Software.

This is truly amazing! What I look forward to in the future now is if Fred could give us some file format information like has for LBA1. From my understanding of all of the games, the file formats in every game, (LBA1, LBA2, All AITD's, and Time Commando) all share similar styles. Of course, I still have yet to decipher what is in the AITD and Time Commando files.

But... Still, go FRED!!!

What I would really love to see is if he posted a video in HD of him showing off his software that he used to make the game in the early 90's - such as was shown in the 2012 GDC.

Overall, Darkflame, merci! And that's something for someone who knows no French.

[MrQuetch]

Originally Posted by ChaosFish

I think that's the first "first" on the MBN, after over 16 years! Certainly news worthy. Also that Atari thing.

I agree - truly outstanding. Maybe this can cause some more people to check the net again. Maybe more people will be looking up to Fred again.

[MrQuetch]

Darkflame, wasn't that program 3D Desk shown as 3Desk in his GDC? Are you sure the 3D and Desk words are separate? Not that that is really important, but still.

[Darkflame]

Well, they were listed separately in the source. But maybe its more a legal distinction then a technical one.
And yes, I think its the same stuff shown at GDC.

[MrQuetch]

This is kind of late, and I apologize for my delay, but I just looked at Fred's GDC postmortem of AITD that he presented in 2012, and the programs are not 3Desk or ScenEdit, but they are in fact 3D Desk and Scene Edit. Or maybe the ScenEdit was a typo?

Now I'm not exactly sure, but oh well...

[ras maxim]

Lba3

[gravel22]

Originally Posted by ras maxim

Lba3

That's what I though of in my original post in General section.

[Bestary]

It's a new win! ^_^

[TommyGun]

Good news. Thanks for sharing.

[Bunnyrabbit]

Good.

[Bunnyrabbit]

Good.

[hobbestheprince]

Anyone's know where to contact him to perhaps get a copy of 3D Desk? I tried his ludoid site but so far no response.

[Homeless]

doog

[MrQuetch]

Originally Posted by hobbestheprince

Anyone's know where to contact him to perhaps get a copy of 3D Desk? I tried his ludoid site but so far no response.

Are you sure he's just going to give it away like that? As much as I'd like to try out a program like that - especially in editing the AITD series, I'm not sure if he'd just link or attach it. It would be very cool though, I can guarantee that. I'd like to edit AITD and see what can be done using 3D Desk.

[hobbestheprince]

It's just wishful thinking. It would be nice since it's an older software tha younger people can experience to see how it was done back then.

[Zink]

I have talked with Frederick a few times by e-mail, and what I can say is that he often takes a very long time to respond, or doesn't respond at all. I think he's just got too many messages to respond to everything.

That he most likely won't give out any development programs is another matter

[0Topmmorpg]

It's an very good network. Keep notice about it