Was Wolfenstein 3D actually 3D?

[Kebab_Hill12]

The theory that DOOM is 2D is now very false (well atleast) but i haven't heard of anyone debunking that Wolfenstein 3D is actually 3D and not a 2D

 

 

So is Wolfenstein 3D is actually 3D?

[Wadmodder Shalton]

More like 2.5d to me.

[Kebab_Hill12]

4 minutes ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

More like 2.5d to me.

 

How is it 2.5D to you?

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

I do believe so

[MrFlibble]

I'm not sure if this thread is serious but Wikipedia has a good article on 2.5D:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5D

 

The 3-D part in Wolfenstein 3-D refers to the pseudo-3D first-person perspective -- the previous two Wolfenstein titles were two-dimensional top-down stealth action games. Similarly, Duke Nukem 3D follows two side-scrolling platform games with the same character.

 

Apparently it was felt to be symbolic to have a third instalment in a franchise to also be "3D" as the industry slowly transitioned towards true 3D games like Quake -- not right there yet, but a few years ahead. Also don't forget that Carmack was at least in part inspired by Ultima Underworld when writing the Wolf3D engine, and Ultima Underworld has a true 3D environment with 2D sprites for objects and enemies/NPCs.

[Kebab_Hill12]

3 minutes ago, MrFlibble said:

I'm not sure if this thread is serious but Wikipedia has a good article on 2.5D:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5D

 

The 3-D part in Wolfenstein 3-D refers to the pseudo-3D first-person perspective -- the previous two Wolfenstein titles were two-dimensional top-down stealth action games. Similarly, Duke Nukem 3D follows two side-scrolling platform games with the same characters.

 

Apparently it was felt to be symbolic to have a third instalment in a franchise to also be "3D" as the industry slowly transitioned towards true 3D games like Quake -- not right there yet, but a few years ahead. Also don't forget that Carmack was at least in part inspired by Ultima Underworld when writing the Wolf3D engine, and Ultima Underworld has a true 3D environment with 2D sprites for objects and enemies/NPCs.

 

So Wolfenstein 3D is a 2.5D Game?

[MrFlibble]

It runs on a ray-casting engine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_casting#Ray_casting_in_early_computer_games

[Kebab_Hill12]

6 minutes ago, MrFlibble said:

It runs on a ray-casting engine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_casting#Ray_casting_in_early_computer_games

 

So is actually Wolfenstein 3D a 2.5D and not a 3D?

[Koko Ricky]

If we stipulate that a dimension must be fully functional, then no, Wolf 3D is not 3D. It cleverly draws a tile's pixels on screen through ray casting, in which rays from the camera are traced to a given tile, altering appearance based on angle and distance. This workaround is not the same as rendering texture mapped triangles. 

 

If we stipulate that a dimension does not need to be fully functional, then it's sort of 3D. There is no height component to any gameplay feature, but the tiles imply height. So we might say that even though the map data is strictly 2D, the apparent perception of height could count as 3D.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Since there wasn't even 3D textured models back then.

[Woolie Wool]

2 hours ago, ILIKEDOOM2 said:

The theory that DOOM is 2D is now very false (well atleast) but i haven't heard of anyone debunking that Wolfenstein 3D is actually 3D and not a 2D

 

 

So is Wolfenstein 3D is actually 3D?

Who cares? In an era when smooth-scrolling platformers were considered cutting edge, it was extremely radical and immersive, and that's all that really mattered.

[P41R47]

are the movies that you have to look with 3D glasses actually 3D movies?
Its a simple effect made out of overlap different shades of the same image.

So, in fact, they are still 2D movies.

Even so, the effect is incredible and totally awesome (for those that tolerate it, at least. Overexposure to that effect gives me headache)

 

The same applies to Wolfenstein 3D, Shadowcaster, Heretic, Doom, or whatever old game that was deemed 3D backthen.

It doesn't matter if it really is, it seems like it, and the effect is good enough to be inmersive as hell.

[Blzut3]

Wolfenstein 3D is certainly a more interesting example to debate than Doom since in that case it actually is a 2D playsim with a perspective correct 3D renderer.  Of course ROTT uses the same engine but does have a 3D playsim so it's not like there's a massive difference.

 

Otherwise I think I said everything I have to say on the topic in the thread about Doom.  Basically, I don't know if there's any taxonomic benefit to classify Wolf3D as 2D, but there's certainly more room for debate than with Doom.

[Charlie Love]

In every case but perspective it is a 2D experience. There's is no concept of a z axis, every single calculation is done in 2D space. Also, fun fact is that the door insets aren't actually even physical spaces. The doors are square boxes just like the walls. The insets are just a perspective rendering trick.

[Bauul]

The reality is that "is a game 3D" has many different answers.  Are you talking about the perspective?  The capabilities of the engine?  The level design?  Player movement?

 

Wolf 3D has a proper 3D perspective, but the other aspects are 2D.  It's not so simple to call it a "2.5D" game or whatever because that doesn't properly capture what it was about Wolf 3D that made it 3D.  It's probably best described as a 2D game with a 3D perspective.

[Kebab_Hill12]

44 minutes ago, Bauul said:

The reality is that "is a game 3D" has many different answers.  Are you talking about the perspective?  The capabilities of the engine?  The level design?  Player movement?

 

Wolf 3D has a proper 3D perspective, but the other aspects are 2D.  It's not so simple to call it a "2.5D" game or whatever because that doesn't properly capture what it was about Wolf 3D that made it 3D.  It's probably best described as a 2D game with a 3D perspective.

 

I'm actually talking about the perspective

 

But for now on i think i leave this as an answer for this question

[MrFlibble]

I'll be honest, I'm not very savvy (to say the least) when it comes to the tech part of "2.D/pseudo-3D" vs "true 3D" engines, but I've always got the impression (which I read somewhere I no longer remember about) that a major test is whether you can have room-over-room (ROR) kind of architecture in the levels. If the engine natively supports that, it's true 3D. If ROR is achieved by tricks like portals, or not possible at all, it's 2.5D. Engine experts are free to correct me on this if I'm wrong.

[ClumsyDoomer]

Wolfenstein 3D is 2D, since the Z coordinate is not defined for any of the map objects.
I really dislike the "half a dimension" term, from a mathematical point of view it only makes sense in complex numbers and the "2.5D" cylindrical coordinate system, but Z axis is still defined there and can have various values. But anyway, all computer games are 2D since they're projected on a flat screen.

[Azuris]

6 hours ago, Bauul said:

 

Wolf 3D has a proper 3D perspective, but the other aspects are 2D.  It's not so simple to call it a "2.5D" game or whatever because that doesn't properly capture what it was about Wolf 3D that made it 3D.  It's probably best described as a 2D game with a 3D perspective.

 

Thats the best and most accurate Answer.

 

26 minutes ago, ClumsyDoomer said:

But anyway, all computer games are 2D since they're projected on a flat screen.

 

Absolutly, all just Trickery of Perspective.

Basicly just that:

 

 

[Gez]

Way back then, "true" 3D games were relatively few and and far between; and they generally paid the price for their world complexity complexity with really primitive graphics : very few polygons, rendering in wireframe or in flat colors, etc.

 

So since the "standard" was for games to be in a 2D perspective, where you looked at your character moving around a flat world on the screen, games that had a first-person, 3D perspective were kind of a novelty. At least for those that used real-time rendering of the world with full freedom to move around. (Not talking about those "step-by-step" dungeon crawlers like Eye of the Beholder.) So games like Hovertank 3D, Catacomb 3D, and Wolfenstein 3D ? They boasted about their 3D-ness.

 

Computers got more powerful, first person 3D perspective became less of a selling point. Doom was not called Doom 3D. People started to notice that some 3D games were more 3D than others, especially since you had games like Descent that boasted six degree of freedom, or like Quake that boasted that everything was fully polygonal 3D with zero sprite in sight, and so people started redefining what 3D means and then you had the whole 2.5D nomenclature appearing at some point, with nobody being really clear about that means.

 

And nowadays, graphic processing power has progressed enough that even when you want to make a game with 2D gameplay, you'll often make it from fully 3D assets anyway, because animating models is now simpler and faster (read: cheaper to develop) than creating a whole bunch of sprites. This is not just about in-game rendering, but also about the tools used to create the assets. When Doom and Doom II were developed, id Software made physical models of most monsters, put them on a Lazy Susan, and photographed them to create the sprites. When developing Doom 3, they still used physical clay models but just basically as concept art. (As a result, the models in question were never complete like for the Doom monsters, it was more like the right half of a torso or something.) Then they sculpted them in ZBrush, and from there made the low-poly versions and the textures. When developing Doom 2016, it was full digital from start to finish.

[printz]

The gameplay is all 2D. I don't even know if the renderer can be called 3D either. Your view height doesn't move vertically at all, so that dimension isn't used visually either. But marketing doesn't care about technicalities.

[Rhapsody]

The game could still be represented in a 2-dimensional plane (X Y), with this description it becomes 2d, I really haven't played the game much and I don't know if there are things that are representable in 3 dimensions

[Tigrou]

The proof gameplay is 2D only is that it could be play from start to finish using only a 2D map areal view (while in Doom for example it would be another story).

There is no floor/ceiling elevation, no stairs, no pit, nothing moving along the Z axis (eg : missiles in Doom).

[Dynamo]

It's actually 1D, but Wolfenstein 1D didn't sound as good so they named it 3D thus misleading the entire gamer population for decades to come.

[Kinsie]

okay which youtuber wrote a fart-brained thinkpiece about "real 3d" this time

[dasho]

A dimension is a dimension; you can't say it's only a half

[Fernito]

10 minutes ago, dasho said:

A dimension is a dimension; you can't say it's only a half

As a matter of fact, you actually can :)

 

 

 

[dasho]

3 minutes ago, Fernito said:

As a matter of fact, you actually can :)

 

 

 

 

Apologies; I'm not going to watch a 20 minute video to refute a meme reference

[Fernito]

Oh, I'm not aware of that particular meme. The video is quite interesting in any case :)

[Gez]

1 hour ago, Fernito said:

Oh, I'm not aware of that particular meme. The video is quite interesting in any case :)

an a press is a a press. You can't say it's only a half

 

 

That video is kinda off-topic, but it's actually quite fascinating so I recommend viewing it at least once even if you don't care about weird challenge runs for Super Mario games.