Evolution of FPS Renderers

[IgnorancePersonified]

You may want to include the Vesa mode for graphics as one virge(vx?) card I had supported this mode in Quake and I think Heretic. The difference was pretty big.

 

[Luminescent]

UE3: Not unified lighting or shadowing!!! The strength of that renderer actually seems to me to be that it uses every trick known to man to get the highest quality frames it can.

I thought the UE3 had a vert simillar lighting model to Doom 3, albeit the precomputed shadow masks, fuzzy shadows on dynamic characters, and inderect lighting on static models. I'm not sure whether its method of inderect lighting makes use of precomputed data, though.

I do believe I will replace source with the cryengine as they are both very similar in their techniques (a conglemeration of traditional polygon and texture rendering with lightmaps and extensive use of shaders) and the cryengine is available as we speak.

All information on the features that made each engine unique are gladly welcomed and appreciated. I appreciate your assistance; keep it coming .

 

[see colon]

I would seriously question the inclusion of UT2k3 in the list as it added nothing in terms true rendering advancements as far as I'm aware. Feel free to correct me on that but it seems purely more polys, bigger textures. Nice, but not revolutionary.

hightmap terain rendering, ragdoll physics, and hardware brushes. it wasn't first but it was popular.

the unreal engine (classic) was the first engine i saw that did volumetric lights, detail textures, and a certain amount of location specific damage (headshots with sniper rifle and reaper)

quake 3 has a curved surface generator, and the engine has been modified in licensed games with features like shadow volumes (jedi knight 2) location specific damage (soldier of fortune 2) and pixel shaders (call of duty).

other engines to consider:
tribes (terain, indoor/outdoor, huge maps and view distance, vehicles; software rendering/glide, opengl with a patch)

serious sam (ridiculous enemy counts, cube maps, truform; opengl)

red faction/geomod engine (deformable environment, render to texture effects for reflections and thermal vision, hardware t&l; d3d)

halo (widespread use of programable shaders, vehicles, streaming levels, d3d)

half life (skeletal animation; opengl, poor d3d support)

 

[Murakami]

Perhaps Slave Zero...first use of real bump mapping (Emboss and EMBM)?
See also Evolva (and Giants: Citizen Kabuto).

 

[SuperCow]

Very interesting thread, I though I'd add my two cents to it by adding a few bits and pieces about the 3D game engines discussed here.

- You couldn't look up and down in Doom (this was already mentioned but I thought I'd reiterate this point again).

- You couldn't jump in Doom (no jump key).

- Although you could climb stairs in Doom you could never be at a different height level for the same X,Y position. This is because the game's ray casting algorithm wouldn't allow that. I.e. you couldn't climb up a spiralling staircase.

- One engine overlooked was the one used in ShadowCaster, written by Raven and published by Origin. It was released after Wolfenstein but before Doom. The engine was actually licensed from id but it supported a few extra features compared to Wolfenstein like height movement and non-square walls.

- One important engine feature of Doom which I don't think I've seen mentioned was its use of dynamic lighting through extensive use of palette animation. The lighting results were astonishing if you consider you only had a palette of 256 colours at your disposal.

- The Duke Nukem engine was an important evolution just for the fact that you could do the spiralling staircase case (i.e. you could be at two different height levels for the same XY position), among with other features. I believe the Duke Nukem 3D engine was basically the most advanced ray casting (i.e. 2D) FPS engine used before real 3D was introduced with Quake. I say "FPS" engine because the Descent engine was also very advanced with its 360 degrees movements.

- Last but certainly not least: ULTIMA UNDERWORLD (thanks to whoever already mentioned this in the thread)! This *must* be mentioned in your analysis of game engines. The game was released before Doom (1992), and was actually more 3D than all existing game engines at this point in time! You could look up and down, jump, you had diagonal walls, fog, some level of perspective correction, some 3D objects etc. The technology was so advanced for this time that the real, immersive 3D environment got countless players (me included!) completely hooked to the game. And it was a great game as well! Sure the engine wasn't as fast as ray casting engines, but the real 3D added so much to the game that the reduced window size and performance didn't bother any player.

 

[bloodbob]

- Although you could climb stairs in Doom you could never be at a different height level for the same X,Y position. This is because the game's ray casting algorithm wouldn't allow that. I.e. you couldn't climb up a spiralling staircase.

I'm pretty sure thats wrong the problem was you could have two sets of floors and ceilings but you could have overlaping sectors at the same X,Y co-ords ( ehh by that I mean you can't ever see a floating block in the air )

Finally yay for ultima underworld!

 

[Goragoth]

- You couldn't jump in Doom (no jump key).

My bad. I just played some legacy doom and that has jumping and I was pretty sure that there were some areas that you could only reach by jumping so I figured Doom had that originaly. So I fired up WinDoom just to be sure and nope, no jumping. Still, it introduced "true" 3d levels (i.e. stairs and lifts) so it is significant in that respect.

 

[DeanoC]

What about 3D Monster Maze? The father of all FPS, made in 1982/83 on a ZX81 with 16K RAM pack.

Technically its not a shooter because you don't have a gun (you have to avoid the T Rex) but still the game mechanic is basically the same. Run around a 3D Maze and try not to get killed by a monster.

http://www.classicpcgames.com/?p=game&ei=3D+Monster+Maze

 

[Beafy]

- Last but certainly not least: ULTIMA UNDERWORLD (thanks to whoever already mentioned this in the thread)! This *must* be mentioned in your analysis of game engines. The game was released before Doom (1992), and was actually more 3D than all existing game engines at this point in time! You could look up and down...

You could look up and down, but IIRC there were errors in the perspective - there certainly were problems with looking up and down in the gloriuos System Shock I, which used the same engine.

 

[KimB]

- You couldn't jump in Doom (no jump key).

My bad. I just played some legacy doom and that has jumping and I was pretty sure that there were some areas that you could only reach by jumping so I figured Doom had that originaly. So I fired up WinDoom just to be sure and nope, no jumping. Still, it introduced "true" 3d levels (i.e. stairs and lifts) so it is significant in that respect.

No, but I think Doom had some areas you could only reach by running really fast over a gap.

 

[KimB]

- The Duke Nukem engine was an important evolution just for the fact that you could do the spiralling staircase case (i.e. you could be at two different height levels for the same XY position), among with other features. I believe the Duke Nukem 3D engine was basically the most advanced ray casting (i.e. 2D) FPS engine used before real 3D was introduced with Quake. I say "FPS" engine because the Descent engine was also very advanced with its 360 degrees movements.

I remember doing some editing in Build, and the engine was pretty much independent of your X-Y position, but connecting areas had to share a ceiling and a floor. There could be a step up/step down, but you couldn't introduce a new ceiling/floor. So you could have that spiral staircase idea and continue it to multiple levels, but no stuff floating in the air.

As for Descent, I think it was the first real 3D engine, actually. I think the only thing Quake had that it didn't was the lighting. Granted, Descent was absurdly simple in its design and graphics, but everything but power ups/weapons fire were rendered in full 3D.

 

[SuperCow]

You could look up and down, but IIRC there were errors in the perspective - there certainly were problems with looking up and down in the gloriuos System Shock I, which used the same engine.

That was certainly the case! The good thing with System Shock (such a great game!) was that you could actually do a fullscreen 320x240 render if your computer was fast enough to allow it.

No, but I think Doom had some areas you could only reach by running really fast over a gap.

I think the second level of Doom2 actually required you to run over a ledge in order to be able to progress. You could finish Doom without running IIRC. But we're disgressing

 

[Reverend]

UE 3.0: A continuation of Doom 3's techniques

Someone won't be too pleased with the wordings. Some won't care, some will, better to be diplomatic IMO.

 

[Xmas]

No, but I think Doom had some areas you could only reach by running really fast over a gap.

Or by "rocket-jumping".

You could look up and down, but IIRC there were errors in the perspective - there certainly were problems with looking up and down in the gloriuos System Shock I, which used the same engine.

While both Ultima Underworld and System Shock came from the same team (Blue Sky/Looking Glass), System Shock had vastly better engine that allowed perspective corrected texture mapping (optional setting) and looking in all directions without a problem. UU did not. The "cyberspace" parts even required full 3D, though the levels were limited to 45°/90° angles.

btw, System Shock Enhanced (CD) even allowed 640x480, but you really needed a Pentium for this.

 

[see colon]

Or by "rocket-jumping".

not in doom. you couldn't look down to shoot the floor, and you couldn't jump to take advantage of the momentum.

 

[Xmas]

Or by "rocket-jumping".

not in doom. you couldn't look down to shoot the floor, and you couldn't jump to take advantage of the momentum.

That's why I put it in quotes. There were a few spots you could only reach by facing towards a wall and firing a rocket. The blast gave you enough momentum to cross gaps you couldn't cross by just running.

 

[ERP]

What about 3D Monster Maze? The father of all FPS, made in 1982/83 on a ZX81 with 16K RAM pack.

Technically its not a shooter because you don't have a gun (you have to avoid the T Rex) but still the game mechanic is basically the same. Run around a 3D Maze and try not to get killed by a monster.

http://www.classicpcgames.com/?p=game&ei=3D+Monster+Maze

And of course Midi Maze on the atari ST the first networked FPS as far as I know. 8 player over midi, we had out dorm rooms wired up at university <sigh>.

 

[DeanoC]

What about 3D Monster Maze? The father of all FPS, made in 1982/83 on a ZX81 with 16K RAM pack.

Technically its not a shooter because you don't have a gun (you have to avoid the T Rex) but still the game mechanic is basically the same. Run around a 3D Maze and try not to get killed by a monster.

http://www.classicpcgames.com/?p=game&ei=3D+Monster+Maze

And of course Midi Maze on the atari ST the first networked FPS as far as I know. 8 player over midi, we had out dorm rooms wired up at university <sigh>.

Those damn aceed faces First played it at an Atari Show in London, brought Bards Tale and met Jeff Minter that same show <sigh>.

Trying to find some pics for the young whipper snappers round here, led to http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/f/fi/first_person_shooter_2.html
A bit US biased (how can they miss 3D Monster Maze!) but they do point out the Id's Catacomb 3D predates Wolf3D by a year.
Some offical pics of Catacomb 3D in glorious EGA (by the classic team of Carmack, Carmack, Romero and Hall)
http://www.idsoftware.com/games/vintage/catacomb/

And finally a pic of Midi Maze.
http://www.computerspielemuseum.de/_IMG/642419885.gif

 

[Reverend]

Technically its not a shooter because you don't have a gun (you have to avoid the T Rex) but still the game mechanic is basically the same. Run around a 3D Maze and try not to get killed by a monster.

I don't think Lumi cares too much about that in the context of this thread. I think what Lumi wants has far more to do with graphics tech in games (as opposed to overall game engine design and considerations) than game mechanics. Given the state of progress of CPU and G/VPUs and how closely related they are when it comes to considerations for a game engine (and not just the rendering engine, FPS or not), I'm not really sure though what Lumi is concerntrating on...

 

[Luminescent]

I think Rev is onto my idea. I'm taking a more technological aspect with this, which is particularly evident by the games I've chosen to consider for the presentation. Many of the mentioned games did nothing to revolutionize the way the genre was played/developed, but they did technologically to some degree or the other. Aside from the fact that it will be a good tool of reference, an instrument of nostalgia, and a display of the evolution of 3d technology, I was hoping we could use it to map a distinct pattern and correlation between renderers and hardware capabilities. For instance:

1. Games began to use shaders as a means of acceleration rather than a qualitative means of enhancement, in titles with a traditional approach to lighting.

2. As things progressed, shaders were used for post-processing effects to enhance already rendered images.

3. Following this, shaders became an integral part of the game world in terms of materials and gave them per-pixel characteristic properties.

4. With the advent of Doom 3, we have shaders as an integral part of the rendering pipeline and have thrown away the traditional vertex lighting + lighmaps approach to direct lighting. In addition, pecalculated inderect lighting has been done away with in lieu of simple ambient lighting term. Since the gameworld is now inherently more complex and pushing hardware as it is, the usage of shaders as an aesthetic enhancement has been pushed back to a large degree. Shadows have become a global, uniform solution, but are not created/modified by shaders just yet. We have some post-processing effects, but the use of a myriad of complex shaders as in Far Cry or Source would slow even high end hardware quite a bit.

5. When UE 3.0 comes around, we'll once again see extensive use of shaders in the three areas seen before: per-pixel shading [for lighting], materials, post-processing, and even shadows, but not shadows in their entirety. Indirect lighting will not make use of shaders either, I surmise. Therefore we should expect its strengths and shortcomings to form the new direction future renderers will take

6. Future renderers will make use of shaders for all shadows and unifiy direct and indirect lighting in a more robust manner. Every material will have distinct properties. A viewers vantage point will often be distorted realistically with ray-tracing effects that mimic the behavior of light in a more detailed manner.

7. At some point, if traditional scanline rendering is not ditched, ray tracing effects (photon mapping or whatever is plausible) will go from being used for post processing to an integral part of the pipeline, perhaps in as crucial a series of shaders as the set used to incorporate phong shading in Doom 3. Shadowing effects for specific cases will not be as necessary, as they will be handled almost automatically, for most situations, by the rendering pipeline.

The above was just an example of what one could do with such information as that which has been discussed.

*My usage of shaders in this context refers to a set of fragment programs that serve as hardware instructions to modify data inputs. This is a direct contrast to the hardwired method of old, in which the rendering pipeline was preset a certain way and modified data the same way every time.