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3D First-Person Games, So Far

Posted by timothy on from the run-duck-shoot dept.

Gernot Ziegler writes: "One of my professors (Stefan Gustavsson) has written a good summary that explains the history & technical background/innovations that Doom, Quake & Unreal brought with them when they were released. Check it out." It's a pdf file. Gustavsson ends with a list of hopeful questions about where such games can go, after nearly a decade of running and violence. What I'd really like to see is a goal-free 3D world like the Snowcrash Metaverse, but it will take games to get there ;)

17 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Doom expandability by John+Carmack · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We were surprised at Wolf3D mods, but we knew it was going to happen with DOOM. I worked with some of the Wolf3D map editor guys before DOOM was even released, but they didn't wind up making the popular level editors.

    The editor and utility source code was released quite early, but it was all for NeXT workstations in Objective-C, so it had to wait for someone to rewrite it for more conventional systems.

    John Carmack

  2. It's already here but try selling it.. by zytheran · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Active worlds gets a mention but hasn't taken off because it has no use. I have helped write a Snowcrash universe (Cyberterm for those who care and remember), commercialised it with dotcom funding and tried marketting and selling it. The simple problem is that as nice as the idea is, there is no commercial use for it yet. Our world had autonomous AI, avatars, persistance, dispersed over multiple servers etc. etc. but we have been unable to find a commercial use. It is just like the Snowcrash or Neuromancer world (without the jacks) but what use is it really? Come on guys, karma this up, I want to know what use such a world has!!!

  3. 3d engine design. by codetalker · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The major goal of any 3d engine is to limit the the number of polygons drawn per frame in order to maintain a high framerate. As your world gets larger the potential number of visible polygons grows and grows until you are left with somthing that will take a long time to render. This of course, is unnaceptable. The solution is to develop algorithms that can effectively restrict the visible set allowing all the data to filtered depending on what is visible. The binary space partion tree (BSP) works by determing where in space the camera is and narrowing down the list of polygons to a manageable number. Of course this means that for each leaf in the tree (read: concave subspace) a list of all the polygons is kept with 1 bit per poly. 1 is visible, 0 is not. This works great for mid sized data sets, but If you were to get a online virtual world ala snowcrash, the sheer size of the data set would be an encumberance, and a BSP tree would be even more ridiculous since it actually adds more polygons by splitting polygons that intersect the planes it uses to build subspaces. A bsp won't stream either, since you need the entire data set to render something.

    Portals on the other hand are much better for this lofty goal. The way a portal works is rather simple. Take to concave subspaces (say two cubes) that share a face. That shared face is a portal from one subspace to the other. Now from within one cube, all you have to draw are the 6 faces. if you notice that the portal face is visible then you know you have to draw the subspace that the portal is connected too. This is great because you don't need a full data set to start drawing. you only need to know which cell you are in to begin with. moving from one cell to the next is simply a matter of going through the portal. To stream this, you start in your home cell and every time you hit a portal that you don't have a cell for, your computer can download the geometry of the new cell as well as the web addresses of any portals that it points to.

    The only problem I can see with portals right now is how to build the cells properly. Right now lots of games use BSP trees to build a whole bunch of concave subspaces (the cells) and use the tree to determine what face of each cell is touching another. Another problem is that as your data set gets bigger, your cell's volume drops to the point where you have more cells than polys to begin with and you're stuck with large data set again.

    You can't use an infite data set to build a bsp and it would take several ages of the universe to build an optimized one. If someone can come up with a method of building cells easily while making them contain a decent amount of detail(ie make them large and just ignore detail geometry inside of them), we'd have snowcrash in no time. That and 3d interfaces aren't that fast. Imagine walking from slashdot to google!

    --
    All a coder really wants, are fast cars, fast women and fast algorithms.
  4. Operation Flashpoint by rfolstad · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Definetly the most amazing game i have played!
    When i was a little kid i remember thinking the coolest game would be one where u could be playing a kind of flight sim game where u blow away some choppers take a few hits, eject and now find yourself a foot soldier. Operation flashpoint has made that dream a reality. I find games today focus toooo much on graphics and not enough on game play. Flashpoint doesn't have the best graphics but the game play is soo realistic and the engine supports the biggest maps i have seen. I don't want matrix moves and i could care less if the hallway im walking down has fog all around. I want realistic game play with large out door maps. I thought tribes 2 was going to make this a reality but like most games these days the 3d engine has sooo much potential but no good mods. Anyways i was suprised to see flashpoint not mentioned in the article. That game has more innovation from standard 3rd person shooters than any i have seen and it doesn't make sense for it to not be mentioned in this article.

  5. Actually, the first 3D game was for the TRS-80... by KelsoLundeen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... or, at least, the first 3D game I remember playing over and over and over again: Death Maze 5000 for the TRS-80 Model I. I believe this was around 1980-82.

    (I'll bet there were 3D-like games even before the TRS-80.)

    There was also Asylum I and II -- both 3D (they weren't actually 3D, but the hallways had a 3D perspective). All the games were (more or less) real-time, too: you move through the maze using the arrow keys. Every time you moved, your perspective changed. You could pretty quickly locate doors and stretches of long hallways.

    Remember, too, that the TRS-80 Model I's had really, really limited graphics: black and white and (IIRC) approximately 127 by 48. Later, you were able to buy a high-res upgrade (not sure if it was available for the Model I, but I remember the Model III/IV had the option).

    And here I'll veer off-topic slightly, but I think it's interesting to mention that these early games (and I remember a 3D maze game for the Commodore Pet, too) were amazingly addictive despite limited graphics. I wouldn't be surprised if the Timex Sinclair had some sort of 3D game. I'm sure the Apple II had 'em -- as did the Atari 400/800 and the TI 99/4a.

    What I distinctly remember -- and this was a long, long time ago -- was sitting with my buddies playing Asylum and wishing for better graphics and colors. We all thought it would never happen. (We were maybe 14, 15, at the time.) We figured games like Death Maze and Asylum were flukes. That they'd never catch on. We also figured the Infocom games -- Zork I and Deadline and Suspect -- would be the games that, over time, would last.

    Really, really off-topic, but I remember this, too: does anyone recall the old-time Infocom game packaging? How they'd include all sorts of neat floor plans, maps, keychains, buttons and badges. Those old Infocom games were really a trip: each package was different and had all kinds of cool stuff.

    *sigh*

    Anyway, flash forward twenty years. Quake 3, Tribes 2, Counterstrike.

    Little did we know ...

  6. Re:historical revisionism by 11223 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    True, Descent's architecture was sort of a "one room with tunnels" approach, which meant you couldn't go outside. The way they did it was with cube-ish structures which could have walls on none, some, or all sides (but the outside needs to have walls). So, if you wanted to place a floating cube in the middle of a room, all you'd have to do is border it with 8 blank cubes.

    Interestingly enough, the engine never checked for overlaps, so third party developers did some interesting things in the name of the fourth dimension ;-)

  7. Re:Actually, the first 3D game was for the TRS-80. by John+Miles · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We figured games like Death Maze and Asylum were flukes. That they'd never catch on. We also figured the Infocom games -- Zork I and Deadline and Suspect -- would be the games that, over time, would last.

    They were. I don't see any entire communities dedicated to keeping Death Maze and Asylum alive.

    The good stuff endures. Unfortunately, it's been years since there was any "good stuff" available commercially in the interactive-fiction world.

    At some point, that's likely to change.

    --
    Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
  8. Already here. by jsonic · · Score: 5, Interesting
    What I'd really like to see is a goal-free 3D world like the Snowcrash Metaverse, but it will take games to get there ;)

    Its been around for at least 4-5 years already.

    1. Re:Already here. by The+Larch · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Well, Active Worlds is certainly goal-less -- when I tried it out a year ago or so, there was absolutely nothing to do but wander around and watch the blocky software textures slowly creeping down your modem to materialize into abunch of kids cursing and making passes at each other.

      But then Active Worlds is not a game, it's a "social environment", and while it's prettier or at least more colorful than IRC, it doesn't actually offer any improved functionality over it. In fact, I imagine trying to hold a conference would be much easier on IRC than in one of the "virtual conference centers", where everyone's avatar must fit in the constraints of a "room" and offer a line of sight to whoever they're trying to "listen" or "talk" to. And when you're the speaker and want to take questions from the audience, they all spew overlapping text on the screen at once. Yes, you can also communicate directly with particular users on Active Worlds with a simple text-based interface component which defeats the purpose of having a 3D environment at all and is also far inferior to any IRC client.

      What I'd really like to see is a good captivating 3D first-person adventure game, such as Ultima Underworld was (and Ultima IX wasn't). But I'd be just as happy with a good captivating 2D adventure or role playing game, such as the Curse of Monkey Island or Ultima IV.

      It was a common complaint in reviews in computer game magazines some fifteen years ago how games now had beautiful graphics and amazing sound, and absolutely no depth or interest. Plus ca change..

    2. Re:Already here. by Emil+Brink · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It does, indeed. You wouldn't believe the amount of trouble the fact that our default object happens to be a nude girl has caused. In January, we did a thing with Swedish national television (SVT) at the NATPE expo in Vegas. For that, we had to dress her up in a nice business suit, since otherwise (we were told) the American television people would die out of shock or something. Of course, at the actual expo floor, various rather adult shows were being sold with some rather explicit imagery. Not to mention the live models in some booths. ;^)

      I guess one of the actual reasons for the object being what it is is that human models, in general and female such in particular, are excellent for showing off our nifty subdivision surface technology. The renderer in the shot you link to is very simple and doesn't do subdivs, but we have one that does. It's very, very, impressive stuff, and can actually compete with present (and future) game engines. No joke.

      --
      main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
  9. Re:Errors. by denshi · · Score: 3, Interesting
    > >It (DOOM) was designed by talented people with
    > >good skills and academic degrees in computer science.

    > None of us had degrees in computer science. Romero, Adrian, and I don't have any degrees at all,
    > and Kevin's is in political science.

    Do you see a lot of these kinds of assumptions? The rest of the article doesn't show this bias, but I assumed this kind of mistake, coming from a CS prof, is the ivory tower trying to claim validity on a subject they have ignored.

  10. Re:Goal Free Universe by NickV · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There was this game a long time ago by Bethesda called Daggerfall, that had a very large universe that had no real goals what-so-ever. The world was incredibly large (we're talking about wandering outdoors for hours between towns, and none was randomly generated!) The NPCs and town members were all created in such a detailed manner (with agendas and what not) and it still had the best "real-world" type experience I have ever seen. It was online, without being online.

    I still remember being branded a criminal, riding on my horse to a town which ports it's fort gates up at night. I remember getting off my horse, looking around, scaling the wall... listening for guards, sneaking up behind them, knocking them out, and then climbing down into the town from the fort walls, and breaking into a house to find a bed to sleep at night. Now that was incredible.

    It's a shame the 3D engine sucked... but they are making a new one with a new engine, that is going to be incredible. Daggerfall took over three years to make, and this one seems to be taking longer! I can't wait!

  11. Re:World War II Online by mimbleton · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The concept is great but execution is far from perfect.
    I have been playing infantry soldier for the last couple of weeks and I had 2, possibly 3 encounters with enemy infantry.
    The whole game is dominated by tanks, hardly any infantry in sight. If they don't fix that then this will end up being cheap tank simulator ...

  12. Re:Goal Free Universe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Whaddaya know.

    Cyan Worlds, Inc. (formerly just Cyan), the makers of Myst, Riven, etc, is working on the most expensive game ever.

    Codenamed "Mudpie", the game is 3d, maybe first person, is online and multiplayer for broadband users only, and, AFAIK, is as goal-free as the user chooses it to be. Definately a non-violent game, given Cyan's history of producing family-oriented products.

    Just look for "Mudpie" links on the news page at:

    www.cyanworlds.com

    -AW (yes Lysters, I'm still around)

  13. Other uses for engines by dschuetz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What I'd like to see is an easier way to make use of the 3-D engines for things like office/home walkthroughs and the like. I've looked into this in the past, but never found anything that was all that easy to use. We're currently building a home (well, a builder is) (well, they haven't finished the sewers yet, so they're not actually *building* our house yet, anyway), and the 3-D home design software we bought to help us visualize the interior of the home is, well, cumbersome. And the walkthroughs are horrible.

    Why can't I find a quake/doom/whatever engine with a simple Visio-like front-end, so I can program in a whole house? Or office building? Or my neighborhood? (that'd look great on the web page...)

  14. Early networked games by vrmlguy · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Ten years ago, no consumer-level computer game would allow several players to interact over a network, mainly because computers with a network connection were not very common ten years ago.
    Allow me to differ! Way back in 1988, an outfit called Artifical Horizons had a commercial game called Aviator that did exactly this. Needless to say, it was a flight simulator, not a FPS, but you could play against your friends. Unfortunatly, the hardware requirements probably killed the game. It only ran on Sun SPARCstations with high-end graphics cards and used broadcast UDP for communications with the other players, so you needed one expensive Unix box per player. You also needed an Ethernet, but anyplace with multiple workstations already had that.
    --
    Nothing for 6-digit uids?
  15. Re:Errors. by dmorin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    On that resolution of 320x200..? For years I've been under the impression that DOOM was one of the first games to use "Mode X" (made famous by Michael Abrash) which is what enabled the killer frame rate at a time when 320x200 plain VGA gave you really inefficient 1byte/pixel linear buffers. Mode X also gave you funky increased resolution like 320x340.

    --
    www.HearMySoulSpeak.com