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> early wolfenstein and doom days.

Wolfenstein yes, Doom no. Wolfenstein 3D used a very simple raycasting method that just shot rays out from the player's position to render a 2D level in psuedo-3D. Doom, while still technically using raycasting, uses a much more complicated method that involves BSP trees.

A quick google search found this page, which explains it much better than I can: http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_rendering_engine




The Doom community left Wikia to host their own, independent, non-profit wiki, please always try to use and link that one instead: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_rendering_engine


For anyone interested in the inner workings of Doom[1], I can't recommend Fabien Sanglard's blog enough. He also released a book on Wolfenstein 3D which goes into tremendous detail on the code, company, and hardware of the time.

[1] http://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/doomClassicRenderer.php


He's actually working on a companion book covering the Doom / id Tech 1 engine now, too.


Correct. The doom adage was in reference to ceiling and floor casting support; wolfenstein painted the ceiling and floors a solid color.




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