First-person shooter engine

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A diagram on the history of fps engine
A diagram on the history of fps engine

This page gives an overview of FPS graphics engines and the games that use them. Engines that included games that have first person view and a third person view are included. Some of these hybrid TPS/FPS run on what are otherwise FPS graphics engines. For more on graphic engines in general and other types of game engine see Game engine.

Contents

[edit] 1970s and 1980s: Early FPS graphics engines

A wireframe tank from Battlezone
A wireframe tank from Battlezone

Widely varying requirements and characteristics, but with game rendering point intended to be from the first-person perspective and with the need to shoot things mostly made up using Vector graphics engines.

[edit] Early 1990s: Wireframes to 3D Worlds and Textures

An Imp from Doom - a 2D sprite
An Imp from Doom - a 2D sprite

Planar worlds (rectangular grid in Wolfenstein 3D, sector-based plane levels in Doom) with sprite objects. Average Video Hardware requirements: CPU-powered software rendering. The Build engine used sprites for many things, but had arbitrary 3D-level geometry.


[edit] Late 1990s: The rise of 3D Models

Gunner from Quake II - a texture skewed over a 3D model
Gunner from Quake II - a texture skewed over a 3D model

For the first time, game engines recreated true 3D worlds with arbitrary level geometry. Instead of sprites the engines used simply textured (single-pass texturing, no lighting details) polygon objects. Average Video Hardware requirements: first 3D-accelerators (Voodoo, Voodoo 2). Quake used fewer animated sprites, following the trend to 3D rather than 2D game objects.


[edit] Early 2000s: More polygons, increasing detail

A Skaarj warrior from Unreal 2 - texture-filtered and texture-mapped polygons in plain light
A Skaarj warrior from Unreal 2 - texture-filtered and texture-mapped polygons in plain light

New graphics hardware provided new capabilities, allowing new engines to add various new effects, such as particle effects, fog, coloured lighting, as well as increase texture and polygon detail. Many games featured large outdoor environments, vehicles, rag-doll physics. Average Video Hardware requirements: GeForce 2 (or similar).


[edit] Mid 2000s:Lighting and Pixel Shaders and DirectX 9

A Hell Knight from DOOM 3 - self-shadowing and bump mapping
A Hell Knight from DOOM 3 - self-shadowing and bump mapping

The maps may feature seamlessly integrated indoor/outdoor environments. Some, or all of the Pixel shader-based textures, bump mapping, vertex shaders used for animations, lighting and shadowing technologies are common. Average Video Hardware requirements: GeForce 3 (or other cards with shader support).

[edit] 2007: DX10 and the approach to Photorealism

Developers of this era of 3D engines often tout their increasingly photorealistic quality.

Berserker from Unreal 3 technology demo - a detailed model, bump-mapping, and real-time soft self-shadowing
Berserker from Unreal 3 technology demo - a detailed model, bump-mapping, and real-time soft self-shadowing

The first games using Unreal Engine 3 were released in November 2006, and the first games to use CryENGINE 2 will be released in 2007. These games will include realistic shader-based materials with predefined physics, environments with procedural and vertex shader-based objects (vegetation, debris, human-made objects such as books or tools), procedural animation, cinematographic effects (depth of field, motion blur, etc.), and unified lighting models with soft shadowing.

Another interesting prospective is the Sauerbraten FPS game and engine. Although it is still in early development (as a continuation of Cube), the simple engine framework and in-game map editing make the game stand out.

Titles marked with * are not released yet. Release dates are estimates.

[edit] See also

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