BU: While Epic Games has managed to keep the core of the company intact for quite some time, there have been a number of personnel changes/additions over the past couple of years. Can you tell us a little about some of the newer team members? CliffyB: We've managed to keep our turnover fairly low. I'd like to think Epic is a great place to work.We recently hired Joe Wilcox, AKA Dr. Sin. He's a great gameplay programmer who really knows his shit. I like programmers like Joe - they're easy to work with and they have their own great ideas about what the game should be.Lee Perry, formerly of Ion Storm/Anachranox, is a great level designer who can crank out badass 3d geometry faster than anyone I've ever seen. Very funny, talented, and easy going.Chris Perna, also formerly of Ion/Daikatana - totally mental artist who is responsible for many of our truly breathtaking visuals. If you see any of my maps in UT2003 and you like the way they look odds are he's responsible for it.And most recently is Chad Schoonover, a great animator from Midway who recently wrapped up Red Card, a cool PS2 soccer game. Before we hired John Root, our other animator, I recall saying to him "Gee, John, I'm not sure if animation is a full time job here at Epic." Now we've got 2 animators and they're both kept very busy. The camera in our office loves Chad - anytime he stands in front of it the sign goes crazy saying "Baldy!"Be sure to check out the camera and sign - you never know who might pop up in front of it for you to call a 'fag0t.' http://www.mindspring.com/~mobius/signcam/BU: Excellent cam, Cliff! I stopped by, and there was this round bald guy glaring back at me. All I could think to type was 'Eat at Joe's', as I was paralyzed with fear.Ok, let's close out this interview with a couple of questions submitted by BeyondUnreal visitors (edited for clarity):Balton: Is Epic considering using radiosity lighting in the Unreal engine? The hardware brushes wont suffer under the old lighting, but classic BSP will still look as weird, so why not radiosity lighting, like in Max Payne?CliffyB: For this generation of technology we've decided that it isn't worth it yet. Radiosity generally adds quite a bit to your map compile time for an end result that often can reduce the amount of control that a designer has over his lighting. Sure, it is more realistic, but we prefer to have more control over our lights. Next generation, probably.Joe Mo.: It has been stated that the new editor uses prefabs much more heavily than before. Will it be possible, since the new engine is capable of having more polys per map, to make maps far more complex than those in UT or Unreal, without having to rely on prefabs?CliffyB: Sure, you can build whatever you want, but we choose to use prefabs in many instances for memory. They also allow you to get a visually interesting scene up and running quickly.BU: Thanks, as always, Cliff, for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.