Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
game levels in most cases were made of plain parallelepipeds, but for its time, that
was a sensational breakthrough! Just imagine that 3D graphics in the early 1980s
was so costly that when director John Carpenter wanted to use a 3D wire-frame an-
imation of a city for his science-fiction movie, Escape from New York (released in
1981), it was not easy to render it on a computer. He simulated CGI by creating a
model of the city made of cardboard, plywood, and other materials that were painted
black and used reflective tape to imitate 3D-edges.
Nevertheless, the real widespread acceptance of 3D actions was related only with
the appearance of first-person shooters in the early 1990s. This process is mainly
associated with id Software, the company that started paying maximum attention to
3D engines and games based on them. The evolution of this genre can be seen by
the following projects released by the company. Everything started with experiments
with mazes and imitation of 3D spaces. Hovertank 3D , which was published in 1991,
featured various monsters vaguely resembling those that would later appear in the
game series Doom , but level design, story, and gameplay were pretty primitive.
The concept was transformed into a more valuable game, Catacomb 3-D (1991).
Few people know that this game could be considered as a role model for all further
first-person shooter games, setting some standards of the genre, for instance, the
game displayed an arm of the main characters on the screen. The famous title
Wolfenstein 3D appeared the following year. It was critically acclaimed and became
a commercial hit. This was a signal for the entire industry that a new era had begun!
Later, Doom (1993) would be released, and the world would be revolutionized with
the introduction of a real 3D engine in Quake (1996). The end of the story is famil-
iar to you. Now, 3D action is one of the most popular and commercially successful
game. Being mixed with various other genres, 3D action games provide stories for
every taste; so, a very large audience can be covered.
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