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

[Doomkid]

Well imo Doom is 3D, so Duke is well and truly 3D. The engine is kinda similar to Doom as I understand it, so the room-over-room areas are usually either dummy sectors or clever insta-teleports, but it’s still the same concept where the player can move on all 3 axes, each room has height, width and depth, etc

[TheMightyHeracross]

I believe Build engine room-over-room is mainly achieved through portals, comparable to Eternity Engine or more recently GZDoom, aside from those simple texture bridges.

 

Also I thought vertical aiming was disabled in Doom due to the warping it caused (later Doom engine games, advanced software-renderer Doom ports and Build engine games all have this). It certainly didn't seem too difficult to implement.

[VGamingJunkie]

That wouldn't explain Quake initially not having mouse aim, id Software simply didn't comprehend the idea of using the mouse to aim at the time. Looking back on it, Doom's default control scheme is straight up awkward to use and it's much better to change it in the setup to a more WADS approach with left and right arrow keys to turn.

[Doomkid]

2 minutes ago, MetroidJunkie said:

That wouldn't explain Quake initially not having mouse aim, id Software simply didn't comprehend the idea of using the mouse to aim at the time. Looking back on it, Doom's default control scheme is straight up awkward to use and it's much better to change it in the setup to a more WADS approach with left and right arrow keys to turn.

Wait do mean looking up and down, or just using the mouse in general? There’s no need to use the arrow keys as a mouse substitute even in the 0.9 version of Doom, it had mouse support from very early on.

[VGamingJunkie]

The problem is that the mouse is also tied to moving forward and backward so, apart from using some hacky methods, it'll just feel awkward.

[Jayextee]

15 minutes ago, MetroidJunkie said:

That wouldn't explain Quake initially not having mouse aim, id Software simply didn't comprehend the idea of using the mouse to aim at the time.

 

This is demonstrably-bullshit. Watch the demo, the first demo, which clearly has the player mouselooking up at the crushing ceiling close to the ogre area near the start; with the nailgun. The default control scheme for Quake was likely a legacy thing so as to remain familiar to people who came to the game from DOOM.

[VGamingJunkie]

You hit the nail on the head without even realizing it, that's the reason mouse look wasn't in Doom. People didn't consider the possibility of using mouse to look around, and I guess id didn't deem it necessary either. If they wanted to, they could've included it in the DOS version of Doom, but I guess they figured it'd be easier to rely on auto-aim.

[TheMightyHeracross]

You said mouselook wasn't in Quake though. 

[Wraith777]

Don't bother listening to I D I O T S: DooM IS a TRUE 3D game.

 

Yes, it's a limited 3D, but still 3D (and it's limitations are drastically artificial, as we see with Heretic's and Hexen's noninfite tall actors).

Those who didn't went to school (or even preschool) should pin it in their heads: "3D" means "3 dimentions". In this case it's x, y and YES - Z.

Height in DooM does affect gameplay, not only first person visuals. If you stay close to a fence/balcony the enemy up there can't see you and won't shoot. If caco shoots at you from above you can run UNDER it's projectile. Your Z-position affects the distance you can jump to from a high platform.

Wolf3d is 2D shooter, DooM is threeDeee.

 

This goes to the guy's like TheZyreick: who to hell cares how the third dimension is implemented into the game? As long as it affects gameplay and environment perception it does absolutely no matter if it's a directly coded as Z-axis or it's a some sort of workaround.

Regarding up/down looking: main characteristic of DooM's rendering engine (as well as other similar technologies like Build) comparing to full 3D Quake or Descent is that it renders everything in 2-point perspective rather than 3-point. But, HELL, you can have a 3d game rendered even in 1-point perspective or even WITHOUT perspective at all! You just need 3 dimensions - 3 space arguments.

 

In over words, die UNBELIEVERS)!!!!

Edited July 8, 2019 by Wraith777 : extended post

[SaladBadger]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "there was no mouselook in doom" is more because of technical limitations (y-shearing is not elegant (carmack might have rejected it on those grounds), and the renderer would have to be much slower in order to support it properly) rather than people not considering the idea of looking up and down with the mouse. Surely there were flight sims and the like that would allow for you to look around like that. Just the fact that id was already even using the mouse to turn as early as Wolf3d suggests they're perfectly fine to experiment.

[ketmar]

there is another reason: not everybody had mouse back than. no, really -- it wasn't necessary, and many people just didn't bought it. making doom rely on free mouselook and mouse aiming would hugely cut id's audience. and requiring keyboard for vertical aim was way too much for players, as id thought at that time (and they prolly were right). so they balanced doom around autoaim, and then there was no reason to include y-looking. it was more like ugly-looking (sorry for stupid pun), and i think that Carmack was happy to throw it away.

[Jayextee]

Also consider the super-low spec considered for DOOM's minimum -- a 386DX with 4mb of RAM.

Well, I used to have one of those. And lemme tell ya, DOS mouse drivers were enough of a resource hit to have a noticable impact on DOOM's performance. I used to remap the strafes and shoot to ZXC (X for shoot; and I could rest my pinky on left SHIFT for running) so I could actually circle around things, pre-mouse. Because actually, it was just a bit too slow with the mouse drivers running.

[NaZa]

15 hours ago, Doomkid said:

the room-over-room areas are usually either dummy sectors or clever insta-teleports

Usually yes, but with very clever geometry usage you can make two literal rooms on top of each other (1 px difference in size). Detailing them becomes a bitch, but it's very much possible if you don't merge geometry.

[ketmar]

"true ROR" in Doom will most likely break BSP builders. yet you can use height transfer and bridge things to make a walkable floor in the existing room. this doesn't require 3d floors support, so may work in prboom+, for example.

[kb1]

Most prey animals have eyes on either side of their head. They see a perspective (far away things are smaller than near things) 2D, yet near 360 degree spherical view of the world. This helps them see oncoming predators. Most predators have 2 eyes facing forward. Each eye sees a 2D, near 180-degree representation of the world, but having 2 eyes looking at a target provides a 3D perspective view and a distance sense. This helps predators determine distance, which helps them calculate trajectory to catch prey. This includes humans.

 

Each eye on a predator (including humans) is in a slight different position in space. The brain automatically moves both eyes to the exact angle in which the image converges. Each eye's image is slight different than the other, because the eyes are in a different position in space. This difference is perceived as distance, and it provides a sense of 3D. But, each eye separately only sees a 2D image.

 

Like the human eye, all computer games portray the game on a 2D surface - your monitor. So the only true 3D games are those that have separate images for each eye, like the Oculus Rift and other VR setups. These devices provide that slight different view, to provide a true sense of distance. However, each eye is still seeing a 2D monitor. If you close one eye, the distance sense is gone. (with only one eye, you can get an intellectual sense of distance, by knowing the size of common objects in the world, but you can be fooled by scale models, whereas with 2 eyes, the distance is actually triangulated in the brain.)

 

So, technically, there are no 3D computer games - the term is a misnomer. But, if you exclude that definition, and use "simulated 3D" as your definition, then yes, of course Doom is 3D, as is Wolf3D, as is the arcade Star Wars game, and the ancient arcade BattleZone game. If it's showing a perspective view of the simulated world, it's 3D, period (using the simulated 3D definition).

 

 

[Wraith777]

12 hours ago, kb1 said:

Like the human eye, all computer games portray the game on a 2D surface - your monitor. So the only true 3D games are those that have separate images for each eye, like the Oculus Rift and other VR setups. These devices provide that slight different view, to provide a true sense of distance. However, each eye is still seeing a 2D monitor. If you close one eye, the distance sense is gone. (with only one eye, you can get an intellectual sense of distance, by knowing the size of common objects in the world, but you can be fooled by scale models, whereas with 2 eyes, the distance is actually triangulated in the brain.)

 

So, technically, there are no 3D computer games - the term is a misnomer. But, if you exclude that definition, and use "simulated 3D" as your definition, then yes, of course Doom is 3D, as is Wolf3D, as is the arcade Star Wars game, and the ancient arcade BattleZone game. If it's showing a perspective view of the simulated world, it's 3D, period (using the simulated 3D definition).

Sorry, but the fast that I close my eye and look at REAL things around me with another one doesn't make them 2D in real, they remain in 3-dimentional space, no matter how I see them. Same goes to a 3D game on your monitor: Yes, DooM is a simulated 3D. But.. it's a simulation relative to real world, nothing more, nothing less - it is still a 3D game because it has 3D workspace in it, no matter how you see it.

 

And NO, Wolf3D is NOT a 3D game.

Don't mix type of perspective (first-person / third-person) with number of dimensions in a workspace (x,y = 2D / x, y, z = 3D).

By workspace I mean a space which includes interacting objects (player vs monsters + pickups/obstacles), no matter how they are graphically rendered.

Wolf3d's workspace is flat, it has only 2 (TWO) degrees of freedom. There is no third degree (Z / height) implemented in it's workspace, all objects interact in on the same flat surface.

Imagine changing a perspective in a wolf3d or similar game from 1st to 3rd person (overhead):

Black out everything outside of yellow view zone - you will get the same game (only the looks will change) and you will immediately see that it's a 2D arcade.

Vise-versa situation: take the overhead view in Quake (which is a full 3d game) and you'll get a something like Mage Slayer (which is still a full 3d game), but it's gamespace will remain 3D.

 

In Wolf3D only visuals show a 3D simulation, but it doesn't add third dimension to the gameplay. And the gameplay is the main thing in any game, visuals/graphics will always be SECONDARY. That's why Wolf3D is a 2D first person shooter, no matter how you see it (C) (L).

 

[Koko Ricky]

Wolf definitely seems to be fundamentally 2D in that, while its rendering method is calculating height for the tiles, that height information has no impact on gameplay whatsoever. It's purely aesthetic.

[kb1]

15 hours ago, Wraith777 said:

Sorry, but the fast that I close my eye and look at REAL things around me with another one doesn't make them 2D in real, they remain in 3-dimentional space, no matter how I see them. Same goes to a 3D game on your monitor: Yes, DooM is a simulated 3D. But.. it's a simulation relative to real world, nothing more, nothing less - it is still a 3D game because it has 3D workspace in it, no matter how you see it.

That's because you already know the size and distance of your environment, and you know hoe big things in your world are. The brain does an excellent job at filling in the missing information - in this case, a sense of distance. But, with only one eye, that can be fooled:

 

Imagine being in an empty huge circular tunnel painted white, and fully illuminated. Image that at the end of that tunnel was a backdrop painted carefully with close up trees and shrubs, and huge mountains in the distance. With only one eye, you could be fooled into thinking that there were far away mountains. With two eyes, it immediately becomes obvious that it's a backdrop, because of the real distance sense that comes from having 2 eyes in different places in space.

 

There are experiments where people had one eye covered up, and they were fooled into thinking that small model cars in the distance were real, full-size cars.

 

In everyday life, there are always familiar objects which can provide distance clues.

 

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That's why Wolf3D is a 2D first person shooter, no matter how you see it (C) (L).

Wolf renders a perspective simulated 3D world viewed in first person.

 

Quote

In Wolf3D only visuals show a 3D simulation, but it doesn't add third dimension to the gameplay. And the gameplay is the main thing in any game, visuals/graphics will always be SECONDARY.

When released, the visuals/graphics of Wolf3D amazed a lot of people, because it was their frist 3D-like game...and the graphics was the amazing part.

 

10 hours ago, GoatLord said:

Wolf definitely seems to be fundamentally 2D in that, while its rendering method is calculating height for the tiles, that height information has no impact on gameplay whatsoever. It's purely aesthetic.

Of course Wolf3D is a 3D shooter:

• You navigate by walking thru a space that rendered in 3D perspective, first-person view.
• Enemies get larger as you get near them.
• You shoot enemies by aiming at them by seeing them via 3D first-person view.

If you're navigating thru a view where things get larger as you approach them, it's a 3D experience. Sure, Wolf did a simplified, severely limited simulation. You shoot 3D-like monsters inside a 3D simulation. Sure, it's crude.

 

[Maes]

On 7/6/2019 at 4:44 AM, Doomkid said:

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

 

The story about source code remnants being unintentionally left on a floppy disk (even as deleted files) may have some founding in reality, but as far as I can recall, it had happened on the v1.0 release of the Amiga Workbench, where they reused one of their working floppy disks as a master for duplication. Never heard something like that happening for Doom, unless there are some super-rare alpha floppies lying around.

[Graf Zahl]

 

51 minutes ago, kb1 said:

a lot of stuff

 

 

Ugh...

 

A lot of words missing the forest for the trees. The question was not about what's visible on screen but how the game mechanics work.

Wolfenstein is not a real 3D game, the entire game mechanics are two-dimensional, it never ever considers height for anything - it simply does not exist in the game data. All you got is x, y and angle on the two-dimensional plane.

 

Of course you can render a 3D representation of a two-dimensional game but that doesn't change the game. Just consider chess: Would you consider a chess game three dimensional just because the board gets rendered with a three-dimensional view? Just like this, you can easily render Wolf3D as a 2D top down view and lose no relevant information, unlike in Doom where height is an important element.

 

[Maes]

The best quote I've heard about Doom's third dimension was something along the lines of "The z-axis is something of a second-class citizen in Doom". It exists, it's considered, but it's not as important as the other two.

[Graf Zahl]

That's a very good description of how it is.

 

[Zulk RS]

8 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

 

A lot of words missing the forest for the trees. The question was not about what's visible on screen but how the game mechanics work.

Wolfenstein is not a real 3D game, the entire game mechanics are two-dimensional, it never ever considers height for anything - it simply does not exist in the game data. All you got is x, y and angle on the two-dimensional plane.

 

Of course you can render a 3D representation of a two-dimensional game but that doesn't change the game. Just consider chess: Would you consider a chess game three dimensional just because the board gets rendered with a three-dimensional view? Just like this, you can easily render Wolf3D as a 2D top down view and lose no relevant information, unlike in Doom where height is an important element.

 

 

Wait... so if we forget about the source code and the visuals for a sec, does this make vanilla Doom 2D or 3D as far as game mechanics is concerned? Though projectiles can pass over the player's head, the player is usually confined to 2 dimensional movement (no jumping, room over room, bridges, infinitely tall actors etc). If we call it 3D, would that make a bunch of CAPCOM beat-em-ups and Arcade games 3D because things can also pass "over" the player's head. My memory is a bit spotty but possible examples of such games may be the Golden Axe games, Knights of the Round, Shock Troopers, Punisher (Not sure if it has any examples of what I'm talking about because bad memory), Captain Commando (Again, bad memory so not entirely sure) and maybe some others.

 

Oh, forgot a few good example of what I was taking about: Spiderman: Separation Anxiety (SNES) and The Death and Return of Superman (Genesis)

[Graf Zahl]

Wolfenstein's game is entirely 2D.

Doom's is a weird mixture of 2D and 3D, but in the end closer to 3D than 2D, although a few things in the engine are closer to 2D than real 3D. 2.5D is a very astute description of how Doom works.

Quake is fully 3D.

 

For the Build engine I'd say it's closer to 3D than Doom but the code is too messy to make a definitive assessment.

 

I cannot say anything about those other titles because I neither know them nor can investigate their source code.

 

[Jayextee]

1 hour ago, Zulk RS said:

If we call it 3D, would that make a bunch of CAPCOM beat-em-ups and Arcade games 3D because things can also pass "over" the player's head.

 

They are though. Although rendered with 2D sprites and whatnot, I'd argue that if there's a third dimension in play; even if partial/selective like DOOM's; then it is a three-dimensional game.

Space Harrier is 3D. Snake, Rattle 'n' Roll is 3D. And so forth.

[Bauul]

On 7/9/2019 at 8:01 PM, kb1 said:

If you close one eye, the distance sense is gone. (with only one eye, you can get an intellectual sense of distance, by knowing the size of common objects in the world, but you can be fooled by scale models, whereas with 2 eyes, the distance is actually triangulated in the brain.)

 

That's a little over-simplified.  There are lots of ways you can judge depth, and they're all "intellectual" regardless of whether they use one eye or two. They're all examples of the brain using individual images to estimate distance, including triangulation using two eyes (Stereopsis).  

 

Humans use a bunch of different techniques to calculate depth, many using a single eye, for example Accommodation - the way a single eye physically changes shape to accommodate for focusing.  Stereopsis is just one approach and isn't fool proof - that's how 3D movies work.  

 

The wikipedia article on depth perception does a good job of explaining all the different ways we understand depth.   

[TheMightyHeracross]

2 hours ago, Zulk RS said:

 

 

Wait... so if we forget about the source code and the visuals for a sec, does this make vanilla Doom 2D or 3D as far as game mechanics is concerned? Though projectiles can pass over the player's head, the player is usually confined to 2 dimensional movement (no jumping, room over room, bridges, infinitely tall actors etc).

 

No jumping doesn't mean the player is confined to 2D movement because the player can still move up and down in other ways. Also items are another example of things than can be passed over.

 

No room over room or bridges is more a result of the map being built off a 2D grid, and taking one measurement for floor and ceiling height, per sector. But that doesn't mean the in-game space cannot be 3D, just that it conforms to the limitations of the map being drawn on a 2D grid, without a modern feature like dummy sector 3D floors or portals being used.

 

As for infinitely tall actors... well I'm honestly confused why that stayed a thing. Clearly, as shown with items and projectiles, they were able to allow you to pass over other Things in the game, so why didn't they apply that to all things?

 

Anyway, Heretic, Hexen, and Strife all add jumping and remove infinite actor height, and Hexen adds 3D thing bridges. Would you consider vanilla Heretic, Hexen, and/or Strife to be "3D"? Or modern source ports that add all of the above and more?

 

[Graf Zahl]

4 minutes ago, TheMightyHeracross said:

As for infinitely tall actors... well I'm honestly confused why that stayed a thing. Clearly, as shown with items and projectiles, they were able to allow you to pass over other Things in the game, so why didn't they apply that to all things?

 

Actually quite simple: The collision detection code they had was so wonky and broken that they couldn't make it work. As much as we all love the game, some of the code it is built upon is so utterly misguided and outright shitty it truly defies belief.

 

When Raven got to it they had to add a new flag for any kind of actor that is 3D aware - because doing it universally would have made the game break apart. They also had to add lots and lots of things that Doom originally never handled but which are essential to make 3D collision detection work properly. They still could not fix the basic design flaws, though.

 

 

 

[kb1]

18 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

 

 

Ugh...

 

A lot of words missing the forest for the trees. The question was not about what's visible on screen but how the game mechanics work.

I thought the question was "Is Doom 3D?", to which I answer 'of-course.' As is Wolf3D...it's in the name, after all.

 

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Wolfenstein is not a real 3D game, the entire game mechanics are two-dimensional, it never ever considers height for anything - it simply does not exist in the game data. All you got is x, y and angle on the two-dimensional plane.

What game is "real"?

 

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Of course you can render a 3D representation of a two-dimensional game but that doesn't change the game. Just consider chess: Would you consider a chess game three dimensional just because the board gets rendered with a three-dimensional view? Just like this, you can easily render Wolf3D as a 2D top down view and lose no relevant information, unlike in Doom where height is an important element.

 

Ok, I ask you this: Why not just play Doom from the IDDTx2 auto-map, with auto-aiming on? Sound fun? Maybe a little. But what made Wolf3D, Doom, and countless others so intense, so involving, so visceral is the 3D renderer. Never before were people turning and swaying in their seat. It's the renderer that makes the game a 3D game, not the mechanics. Otherwise, just play from the automap.

 

Oh, and I typically do a top-down view of my chess games :)

 

 

8 hours ago, Bauul said:

That's a little over-simplified.

Yes, it is. I didn't want to write a book! But, beyond all, stereo vision is the winner. It provides an innate, accurate sense of distance. Other methods require intellectual powers to deduce probable distance.

 

An easy test is to stand a couple feet away from a pegboard. Because of the repetition, it's possible for the eyes to "mis-align", and each eye ends up looking at a near-identical, yet different portion of the pegboard. When this happens, the pegboard appears to jump further away, or more near than it actually is.

 

Over time, you can train your eyes to do this, and easily solve those "What's different about these two pictures" puzzles!

[Graf Zahl]

2 hours ago, kb1 said:

I thought the question was "Is Doom 3D?", to which I answer 'of-course.' As is Wolf3D...it's in the name, after all.

 

 

... with as much justification as calling a chess game 3D because it displays its board in 3D.

Nobody was ever disputing that Wolf3D and Doom were rendering their game view in 3D, denying that is utterly preposterous.

The question has always been whether the game mechanics are 3D and that's an entirely different story I won't repeat.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, kb1 said:

 

What game is "real"?

 

Ok, I ask you this: Why not just play Doom from the IDDTx2 auto-map, with auto-aiming on? Sound fun? Maybe a little. But what made Wolf3D, Doom, and countless others so intense, so involving, so visceral is the 3D renderer. Never before were people turning and swaying in their seat. It's the renderer that makes the game a 3D game, not the mechanics. Otherwise, just play from the automap.

 

Sorry but that doesn't fly. Although you can play Doom from the automap it doesn't render a fully representative view of the game, you cannot see where stairs, doors, lifts or other interactive elements are, where dropoffs are which block progression and such. So you will inevitably run into obstacles because the 2D view cannot represent them. Ergo, Doom is a 3D game, albeit with some limitations on its third axis. On Wolfenstein, on the other hand, a top-down 2D view would 100% represent the state of the game, there are no dropoffs, no lifts, only doors and moving blocks, and those are entirely representable in a 2D view without any loss of information.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, kb1 said:

 

Oh, and I typically do a top-down view of my chess games :)

 

Good try evading the issue. :P