Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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 ;)

9 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. 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 ...

  3. 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 ;-)

  4. 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.
  5. 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 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);}
  6. 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.

  7. 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...)

  8. 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