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It was just as new as the fantastic new pre-rendered photorealistic (with integraded reallife videos!) point and click adventure MYST, which dates from the same year as the very first DOOM. Nothing 3D, yet alot of people where charmed by the story and mysteries it brought. It was something new, it brought up a feeling of adventure, anxious to know everything about the story of MYST.



I liked Myst. However, it was, in my opinion, the obvious extension of what had already been offered on computers since back in the days of the old Apple computing systems (like the AppleII+, etc). The graphics were just fancier. By the time Myst was released, we had already gotten used to playing text adventures, graphical text adventures and zillions of side scrolling games. Myst was exciting, but it was, in my opinion, the logical next step.

I suppose that raytracing engines and real-time 3D were also the "logical next step" as well, but there was something new about them. Perhaps it was the complexity of putting them together. We were no longer thinking in terms of 2D, but in 3D.

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The 3D was way more spectaculair.. and you were part of the mass crowd developping that area.



Ha! In those days there was not a "crowd" per se. The "movement" started fairly small. Remember, the Internet was in its infancy, computer stores were not plentiful and DOOM was mainly distributed on three floppies by means of a fairly NEW concept called SHAREWARE.

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Maybe most developments in the gaming industry do not feel as new anymore as it used to, but that is because you aren't actively involved with it.



Not actively involved in it? I am not sure what you mean by that. I develop real-time 3D content for a living and have supported my family doing so for about 10 years now. While I certainly don't work for id or any of the other big named game companies, I am a bit involved.

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Well just my guess, because I do not see (or better said, feel) any more difference in the change from 2D to 3D, than the change from static environments to highly dynamic physic environments. They're just as revolutionair to me.



What has happened here is I have derailed my own thread by getting us off track. I did so by talking about possible new technologies instead of what was really on my mind. Let me try this again .

The difference ... the thing that made all of this an adventure for me is that there used to be quite a different "spirit" that surrounded the development of real-time 3D engines and content. Everyone (for the most part) was willing to help each other as if we were all some kind of "kindred spirit" or something. There were new guys trying to create an engine. They wanted artists to make their engines look good. The artists did not know much about how to create the content for these engines and the programmers would tell them what they needed. The programmers did not really seem to understand how the artists made what they made or what tools they used. In fact, most artists did not have the tools needed and so the programmers created them for the artists. We all sort of just worked together, side by side, hacking things out, trying to make things work and ... wow ... it was like an adventure!

Back in those days, as things were just beginning to take off, there were programmers that would crop up creating all kinds of tools. There were tools for editing Quake MDL models and creating your own from scratch, tools for creating levels, tools for making WAD files ... they seemed to be everyone and in various states of completion, each having its own unique vision. It was FUN. There were so many ideas floating around ... so many ways that people were trying to resolve all these "new" problems and make these 3D worlds accessible to whomever wanted to venture into the world of real-time 3D content creation.

The flavor of it all ... the excitement and the newness of it ... I don't think I can capture it in writing. Yes, advances in new physics engines are exciting. However, I don't think it can touch what I am talking about. Lighting techniques and new methods of producing realistic shadows ... great! But these things seem to be lacking in comparison.

Is this some sort of "glory days" sentimentality for me? Perhaps. But I suppose that these sorts of advances come about from time to time. I just wonder what the next one will be all about?

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