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Doomkid

Game Theorists "Doom Wasn't 3D" video and my refutation

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I enjoy watching bullshit youtubers that whiz through a few Wiki articles and pass judgement on something they know truly nothing about get the debunk treatment and ridicule they deserve. It's even more humorous watching them try to defend themselves and manifest whatever excuse they can find to justify it, only to be ripped apart all over again.

Doomkid, you have earned my unconditional love and support.
 

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I think Doom's rather peculiar use of dimensionality makes it hard to dissect. 2.5d can be misleading (since as mentioned it can refer to polygonal games with restrictive movement mimicking a traditional 2D game) and 3D implies full polygonal rendering which of course isn't the case in Doom. But calling it strictly 2D doesn't work since it literally has a Z axis. If they had just said, "Doom uses three axes but they are have extreme limitations, particularly in regards to Z," they would have described the engine pretty succinctly.

 

EDIT: I'm watching the original video now, for the first time (d'oh!). The author actually does a really good job of explaining why Wolfenstein isn't really 3D. It's weird that he doesn't understand why Doom sorta is.

Edited by GoatLord

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I find both the Theorist channels to be highly irritating. Faulty research, clickbaity premises, overanalyzing things that aren't important, and completely misinterpreting the most straightforward of things. Alongside Cinema Sins, I've never been able to understand the appeal. 

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Can we call Doom 2.75D or something? I have seen some Doom mods pulls stuff off in the visual department that looks kinda at home with early N64/ PS1 graphics. Though most of the stuff in Doom in terms of architecture is still blocky and consists of rectangles, cubes and slopes.

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Why call doom anything other than what it is: a 3D game? 2.5, 2.75; what? Pretty sure that fireball just went over my head. Pretty sure that other one hit the floor. Where is the lack of 3D? Because the engine handles 3D checks just fine.

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I thought the term 2.5D refers to 3D Platformers that have sidescrolling camera to simulate 2D Gameplay.

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At minute 4 : autoaim means the game is 2d? Really stupid since he can easily put the imp out of sight and never hit it. On min 8 looking up\down supposedly means the game is 3d, Well good thing heretic can do it with the 2d map format!

 

The movement is in 3d space, that's pretty much what matters the most. The mapping format is limited as fuck (2D) but otherwise the game has the 3 axis for you to navigate in. actors having infinite height yet projectiles and hitscan is mostly free from it (and autoaim makes it playable, Imagine cacos that can't be hit except at player's eye level?). Cacos and Lost souls can fly above\below projectiles and ascend\descend when a wall blocks their path. Arch-Viles send actors flying over ledges at rocket speed, getting killed by a revenant sends you flying down ledges\staircases, trying to run over a gap makes you fall into it (can't believe I am writing that). Next we'd talk about how fake movement in Doom is, Actors move in set amounts of units instead of fluidly doing it, very immersive breaking combined with the shitty 320x240 resolution and sub 60 fps. Or the almighty doors that don't swing and instead move up\down, can't be destroyed, smash corpses and weapons alike, and are generally the strongest thing in existence after walls and crushers.

 

Would love to see the video maker play heretic where a lot of those excuses are unusable, is heretic 2.5D or 3D?!

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1 hour ago, Ajora said:

I find both the Theorist channels to be highly irritating. Faulty research, clickbaity premises, overanalyzing things that aren't important, and completely misinterpreting the most straightforward of things. Alongside Cinema Sins, I've never been able to understand the appeal. 

They're for pricks who want to feel smarter than others without the work of learning anything, which is also why the presenters have such irritating, smug personalities.

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2 hours ago, Ajora said:

I find both the Theorist channels to be highly irritating. Faulty research, clickbaity premises, overanalyzing things that aren't important, and completely misinterpreting the most straightforward of things. Alongside Cinema Sins, I've never been able to understand the appeal. 

With Game Theory its his voice, while the Game Theorist (different guy on the same channel) he has low mic quality and that's irritating . I used to watch them... then I just couldn't get past their voices, well MattPatt's in general. Wow I would hate to be around that guy just to put up with him more than 30 minutes every week or two.

 

Clickbait works... as does talking about the biggest franchises.

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The Theorist channels (and CinemaSins) and some of the most lackluster content I've seen in a while. As a person who enjoys theories and analysis of different media, they often resort to nitpicking, clickbait, and demonstrable falsehoods to further their claims. It's disappointing to see them become so popular, but their success is expected given the creators' knowledge of YouTube's mechanisms.

 

I respect channels that show things in a new light. They can help change both the individual's and collective's opinion on a specific topic. But the newer Theorists and CinemaSins are not good by any stretch, although their earlier videos were somewhat decent.

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I don't really hate the guy and I don't find his voice irritating. I used to watch GT but now... I can't. I don't like the content anymore. But I respect the guy cause he's got good marketing/advertising skills imo.

 

As for theory videos I do enjoy, there's this other channel called Gnoggin which also does video game theories. I find his content much more entertaining and enjoyable.

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Okay so please forgive this over-a-year-later bump, but I just HAVE to check with the local gurus..

 

Some guy has been arguing with me about this on YouTube today. Is there some kernel of truth to what he's saying, or his he just insane/lying? I can almost always tell, but in this case it's hard and me no smart enuf 2 werk it out.

 

Here's a summarized transcript of the interaction:

 

Quote

TheZyreick:

The z axis is faked all by the perspective. people see the game, see that it is designed as a first person shooter, and immediately relate that to how you perceive things from your eyes, in doom however what appears to be "up and down" is along the Y axis, and side to side is the X axis. there is no Z axis anywhere. the ceiling and floor are walls at the top of the screen and bottom of the screen as the perspective was designed on a top down layout over the 2d space. this allows projectiles to appear to fly above and below the character as well, the visual interpretation of distance is just shrinking and growing the sprites, and the game knows if a projectile flies over or below a certain number along the Y axis of the screen, it does not hit the player. so since there is no Z axis anywhere in the coding, the game can fun on sole 2d engines, while giving the appearance of a 3rd dimension very nicely. to better explain this, just take a sheet of graph paper and draw a sketch of the screen on it, then cut out a hole around where the distance changes, take another sheet and draw everything rendered on that layer, and repeat. that is how it works.

DoomKid:
I’ve observed the source code myself and there are references made to x y and z axes even beyond what I’ve already demonstrated in the video..

TheZyreick:
in some source code yes, in others no. It all depends on what source code you are referencing in relation to games lifespan. The very early releases of the game never had the source code publicly released as by the time it was released they had already given the game engine an internal overhaul. In the very early versions of source code there was no z axis referenced anywhere. In the later ones closer to when it was publicly released, yes there are z axis referenced, but the z axis referenced isn't even an actual game engine axis. It is a custom variable tied to an advanced algorithm put in for the sake of making referencing easier as well as identifying it's purpose easier. It is easier to look at a variable labeled z axis and understand what is purpose is than an entire algorithm. Also trims the code up so it performs a little better. However despite having this intricate rendering algorithm, none of the games logic runs based on an actual z axis, just a complex algorithm that's main goal is to create an optical illusion

DoomKid:
I mean, when we get into this territory, ALL “3D” games are just engines performing unique optical illusions, even those that are far more advanced than Doom. At the end of the day they’re all being displayed on a flat screen. That’s not all though, you’re wrong about Doom never referencing a z axis - You can literally see references to it everywhere in the only public version of the source code. It’s used to determine if an actor can pass through doorways or will be blocked by them, this is determined based on the actors z height.. it’s used to calculate the trajectory of hitscans and projectiles fired by the player, to make sure they aim at the correct altitude on the z axis, it’s also used when calculating momentum (the longer a player falls, the harder he hits the floor, this even effects how loud the “oomph” sound effect is! Beyond that, I’ve spoken to many prevalent source port developers about this video to make sure it’s accurate and they have reassured me that there is a z axis that’s used in a ton of ways despite being more limited than the X and Y. Finally, not you nor anyone other than id staff circa 1993 knows exactly what changed in the source between development and release. The only available source for Doom is the 1.9 version with all the sound code stripped out as it was trademarked. However just by observing the alpha builds they clearly already had a functional z axis, else you wouldn’t have sectors with x, y and z heights like you see in Doom 0_3 and above.

TheZyreick:
when you take one of the first floppy disks that the game was sold and marketed on and analyze the source code from them it does not have a z axis anywhere.

 

So, is this just a nut or are there really some strange, altered-source-code early versions of Doom floating around out there on floppies? Additionally is there some  weird "actually it's not a z axis we fooled you haha" algorithm going on? My gut instinct here is that I'm conversing with an insane person or a liar but.. Here's the part where I sheepishly admit I can't make heads or tails of the source other than when I'm accompanied by friends who are smarter than I am. However I am so damn sure the various source port authors hanging around would have mentioned this theoretical algorithm that somehow renders the z axis non-existent when talking to me about this topic!

 

Basically, I'm seeking validation that I'm not the crazy one in this exchange (or at least, the less crazy of the two)

 

EDIT: Just re-reading this thread has basically answered my question. I wonder why people spout off nonsense like this, rofl

Edited by Doomkid

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A few things I noticed off the bat.

 

First if all, he changed from arguing there was no axis to arguing that one was... added in a later release? I don't really know the source code but I can imagine that would drastically alter the engine. 

 

A source code release for one of the first versions of Doom? Can't recall that either...

 

If the projectile hits you from a "certain height on the screen"? What if it hits you from off the screen, like in the back? The game must know your real location in the 3D space to make that check. It's not done using the screen coordinates.

 

That's just a few points I noticed right away, someone who has worked with the code can probably refute this more in depth. 

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Agreed. Also fireballs hitting the floor as opposed to flying over the player's head into nothingness. And fireballs flying over the player's head to hit another enemy. Or fireballs barely clipping a ledge because an imp forgets where it throws fireballs from. Or homing missiles which visibly (both in-game and in the code) track their target's z position. Basically nothing of what he says makes sense; he's just regurgitating common talking points among the uninformed.

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Also, his point about "the visual interpretation of distance is just shrinking and growing the sprites" made me laugh. That's true of all graphics in all games. It's true on the Frostbite engine as much as it is idtech 1. Sprites are drawn bigger the closer they are to the player. That's how perspective works! Absolutely nothing to do with the z-axis.

 

He's got a half formed idea and is trying to make up reasoning to fill in the gaps as he goes along. 

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1 hour ago, Bauul said:

Also, his point about "the visual interpretation of distance is just shrinking and growing the sprites" made me laugh. That's true of all graphics in all games. It's true on the Frostbite engine as much as it is idtech 1. Sprites are drawn bigger the closer they are to the player. That's how perspective works! Absolutely nothing to do with the z-axis.

 

 

Isn't this how we see things in real life as well? Like we live in a 3D space but when you consider just our sense of sight, everything we see can be replicated on a 2D space (cameras) and things like distance and height is represented using how large or small something is. In that sense, is there really such a thing as 3D as far as visuals are concerned? (We live in a 3D environment and we can prove this because of our other senses besides sight)

 

As far as game design is concerned, I don't really know if I would call it 2D or 3D. I mean, when we think of 3D games (The really early ones) we think of stuff like Tomb Raider or Mario 64. You can jump, you can move in 3 dimensions and have rooms/platforms over other rooms and platforms. Then you have Doom where the map itself is strictly 2D but we can't also deny that there is a z-axis is here. On one hand projectiles and hitscan definitely go up or down but you can't jump, there's no room over room and there isn't even looking up or down. I mean you can only "move" in a X and Y axis because there's no room over room and that the map itself is 2D.

 

I didn't look at the code so what I am saying is just coming from comparing doom to more conventional 3D games gameplay wise. I don't know and thinking about it too much makes me go on logical loops. I am more willing to admit GZDoom to be conventionally 3D though. 

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Since this topic is bumped, I may as well share what I found out last month. A year ago on July 4th, the guy who did that video commit suicide. As much as we feel he was a quack, he is still better off alive than taking his own life. RIP Ronnie Edwards.

 

Now to lighten the mood. I want to chime in and say that no game is in 3D, because they're made with what's known as code. So it's all just a bunch of text on a flat surface. So what we think is 3D is actually a flat surface on our monitors and not actual three dimensions like true reality is. Just because you have a X, Y, Z axis in a game is irrelevant when it's all just drawn to a flat surface. Even 3D TVs are still a flat, two dimensional surface. Is a canvas painting 3D? Is a drawing on a sheet of paper 3D? A diorama is 3D, but Captain Toad's Treasure Tracker is still a 2D representation of a diorama.

 

You have your answers. * tips helmet * Good day to ye all midoomers.

Edited by geo

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2 hours ago, TheMightyHeracross said:

If the projectile hits you from a "certain height on the screen"? What if it hits you from off the screen, like in the back? The game must know your real location in the 3D space to make that check. It's not done using the screen coordinates.

In fact furthermore, multiplayer would be impossible with a screen-based model. The local node only processes of one actual screen location at a time (doing all 4 would be a colossal waste of time) so checking anything against the screen would be useless and would auto-desync given its strictly input only based nature.

 

@Doomkid Frankly his entire argument is useless from the start, we have the source code already, and by extension mostly know how Doom's 1.0 release worked as well (even though its source was never released, disassembly and the console versions make the changes clear), it's not that drastically different. And if he tries to play the "but the source code is open to interpretation" card, just tell him the people who did Strife: Veteran Edition strongly disagree with him. ;)

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@Doomkid everything he's talking about is total bullshit. i am the developer of one of the sourceports, and i investigated internal Doom workings almost since it was made public (the game, i mean; the earliest i've seen is prolly 1.2). bullshit, bullshit and bullshit. also, we CAN track code changes, because most of the code is intact between releases, so we can spot the differences by carefully comparing exes. most of the published source code wasn't changed since game release, and the game is surely using all three axes internally, and it was like that from the start. eh, even ShadowCaster had z axis.

 

that was a fake guru. ;-)

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3 hours ago, Doomkid said:

when you take one of the first floppy disks that the game was sold and marketed on and analyze the source code from them it does not have a z axis anywhere.

 

This jumps out at me specifically, source code is not distributed with the game on the floppies, the source was released later and further it was cleaned up Unix source code IIRC whereas 99% of people referencing Doom floppies will be referring to the DOS releases. You could decompile or disassemble the executable but then you’d have messy decompiled code with no relics as to what was or wasn’t the variable names and code organization assuming the builds were all production targets with no lingering debugger things (I’m not an expert on reverse engineering but this stuff is compiled away beyond variable names not even being a thing in executable code to the whole structure being mangled as the compiler sees fit relative to best optimizations it decides on).

 

So basically that right there just makes 0 sense and betrays a lack of understanding of source code versus compiled executables. And I don’t think I’m being nit picky either, the benefit of the doubt is he has access to the original source from the era of the floppy release but that’s not what he says, he refers to reading the source from the floppy. Or his idea that the naming convention of the variable suddenly alters everything about the intent behind rendering a 3D scene projected onto 2D space as if there is some magic naming scheme that validates a “3D rendering engine” as being legit.

 

But yeah, the source from the release floppies sounds like pure “I have you IP so I’ll hack you” just enough knowledge to make stupid boisterous 12 year old claims.

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This guy got some things seriously mixed up with the z-axis.

 

The reality is, that the z-axis feels tacked on to the game mechanics - much of the movement logic is pure 2D with some height adjustment after the fact.

But obviously it had to be a vital part of the game logic or we'd be in Wolfenstein territory.

 

It sounds to me that he read some technical analysis without fully understanding what was said and what the things that were said actually imply.

 

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1 minute ago, Graf Zahl said:

It sounds to me that he read some technical analysis without fully understanding what was said and what the things that were said actually imply.

yeah. he prolly heard something he couldn't understand, and made totally wrong conclusions. there is nothing wrong in being wrong (sorry ;-), of course. but trying to push your wrong understanding down other people's throats by using blatant lies (that one about "source code from floppies") is completely different story.

 

some people just cannot accept that they're wrong and/or don't know enough. ketmar, for example.

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Frankly I'll be less nice that people here and say that guy is too stupid to even know what the Z-axis is. He must've watched too many doom is a 2.5 engine vids without even understanding what a 2.5 is.

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Even if the Z-axis is faked, it's still a Z-axis. Ergo, a third dimension. And the player (the most important factor here) won't generally know it's faked, only that it exists.

DOOM being 3D is basically a non-discussion at this point.

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On 1/31/2017 at 8:53 AM, scifista42 said:

-Your points about looking up and down in 2.5D engines are off-topic in a video about the vanilla Doom engine, which doesn't have such a feature, and yet I've got an impression that you were implying that it does, maybe just due to my imperfect English skill, though. Anyway, mentioning looking up and down at all wasn't appropriate, IMO, or at least not while you were just explaining autoaim, and especially if it was in the same sentence as on-topic info about vanilla Doom.

Maybe they hacked the game to give it that feature. Heretic implemented the ability to look up and down, but the game still had auto aiming, so it seemed weird, but it actually helps because of how the game stretches when looking around in that game using DOS, Software Mode, and Chocolate Doom.

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I maintain that the only reason Doom didn't have mouse aiming is because it just wasn't a thought at the time, even Quake didn't come with it by default, at least at first. Software renderers like ZDoom prove that it WAS possible, even for the MSDOS version, it just distorts the view a bit similarly to Duke 3D's free look options.

 

Come to think of it, would people consider the Build Engine true 3D? It allows trickery for things like rooms above rooms and, via flat sprites, even has something that you could argue is a rudimentary form of polygons. You can see it with the bridge on the first level, for example. It also came with mouse aim and, via jumping and jetpacking, has more direct 3-dimensional control than just dropping down ledges. Shadow Warrior and Blood further complicate things by actually allowing voxels.

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