/vr/ - Retro Games

They learned as they went. A lot of them didn’t make the transition well at all. Nintendo only had so many teams with 3D knowhow and they had to prioritize their biggest franchises. Metroid didn’t get an installment on the N64 for this reason.

Because these things didn't happen "all of a sudden". There were 6 years between super mario world and 64, for example

It was a slow moving process. Games like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom weren't even really 3D, but 2D games simulating a 3D space. More primitive 3D started coming later on and eventually games like Super Mario 64 started to be made that fully realized 3D.

>>8460403
Short answer, they didn’t. Long answer, there is a reason that there were so many dead consoles released around this era. 3D was a tough nut to crack. Sega didn’t even plan on making the Saturn a primarily 3D console until the final hour, at which point they decided that 3D scenes could just be built out of sprites lol lmao. PS1 has SquiggleVision and N64’s crown jewel title runs at 15 fucking fps.

>>8460403
lol fifth and sixth gen aged like a soiled diaper because so many people couldn't jump to 3D OMG UR SOOO STUPID
SOOO
STUPPIIID
hahahaha ur kinda cute actually ;) <333333

>>8460449
>they didn’t
this

>>8460403
>OP doesn't know or doesn't remember the slue of
absolutely shit 3D games that came out.

>>8460449
SEGA messed up so bad, they already had more experience than the rest with 3D thanks to their arcade hits. Shame they designed the Saturn so badly, they could've dominated the market

>>8461095
Yah it blows my mind how smoothly virtua on and dynamite deka controlled.

Have you played first gen 3D games? Literally 90% of them control like shit.

>>8460416
This sounds correct but I wonder if anyone has a citation

>>8460403
There were a ton of obligatory """"updated"""" versions of classic games during the 5th gen that were made to be 2.5D and a lot of new releases had retro gaming sensibilities but were developed in 3D to appeal to the current generation.

>>8460403
There were some trailblazers like Carmack but mostly each company figured it out themselves through trial and error. There was a lot of wacky shit that was tried out when things weren't yet set in stone. Companies developed engines and tools themselves. Eventually some companies started selling those tools to others and the knowledge spread.

>>8461124
Controls were one hurdle to cross, another was camera. Then there were obviously all the graphics stuff, lighting, shadows, shading and animation.

>dur hurr we want more of old thing but in 3D
>new thing changed too much bring back old thing
Customers are women, they don't know what they want. Fuck cumstomers and shove micro transactions up their ass like a good slut.

>>8461154
Out on winter break huh?

>>8460449
Mario runs at 30 and Zelda runs at 20

>>8460403

>>8461193
Amazing image ngl

>>8461095
constant bickering between sega of america and sega of japan ruined them

>>8460403
>OP doesn't understand survivorship bias.

They didn't.
There just wasn't a template to follow so they had to actually design games.

>>8461354
You mean that we only remember the good products of the past that made it? I get that. Why would I have knowledge about how people transitioned to 3D to at least create a full catalog of N64 and PS1 games in a couple of years?

>>8461143
This is the best answer for me, since it delves into engine territory which is what explains the developments.

>>8461440
>since it delves into engine territory which is what explains the developments.
Yeah the reality is that a lot of devs figured it out themselves. There was some early 3d modeling software available at the time but I don't know much about it. I just remember a note about Blizzard North using some modeling software to make the models for Diablo 1 and 2 which they then rendered into sprites. While they weren't 3d games thats one example of people figuring 3d out in the early days. Final Fantasy series also used a bunch of prerendered graphics in FF 7, 8 and 9.

>>8460403
The 90s and 2000s were a huge series of trial-and-error for 3D games, and many died on the frontline *coughbugsycough*. "Know[ing] how to produce" them is a fairly recent thing, and developers were originally afraid to transition to 3D because of how hard it seemed, until games like Virtua Fighter and Super Mario 64 (among others) came around. And even with those, you can see a number of errors in those trials that their own developers try to avoid since.

>>8461440
>Why would I have knowledge about how people transitioned to 3D to at least create a full catalog of N64 and PS1 games in a couple of years?
>in a couple years
Oh lordy.

>>8460403
A lot of developers never figured it out and went bust. Or dev budgets rose too much and smaller developers couldn’t make the numbers work, especially before the tools improved. We lost a lot of good developers during every generation change since the 16-bit years.

>>8461209
>>8461193

No one has attempted a realtime interactive version of this to play during the song's runtime? Would be interesting.

3d computer graphics, including such things like texturing and lighting techniques, and even sixth gen stuff like normal mapping, were already theorized in the 70s. All we had to do was to wait until the hardware arrives. Dudes like Carmack mostly optimized this shit for the contemporary hardware and invented the optimization techniques. They didn't suddenly invent "3d grafix" itself.
And there are plenty of 80's polygon graphics games, they just all look like shit. I mean, by 90's developers were already familliar with them.

>>8460403
how come they were so good with it after the jump, yet the ones now can't do shit and they've had years of experience and hindsight

>>8463331
see
>>8461354

>>8461143
Carmack wasn't a trailblazer, there were plenty of 3D games released for the ST, Amiga, DOS, and Acorn Archimedes in between 1986-1993. StarFighter for the Archimedes was a more advanced 3D game than anything Carmack had made until Doom 3. It had great controls, incredible view distance, and even object and terrain deformation. Carmack himself was inspired by Ultima Underground.

>>8463417
>Ultima Underground

It's Ultima Underworld you fag, but you're correct. If I remember correctly the story goes that Carmack saw the pre-release version running at some tradeshow and thought he could make a faster '3d' renderer, and immediately got working on the engine that would later power Wolfenstein 3D.

Ultima Underworld was completely batshit insane for its time, the game featured
> 3D environments with multiple levels and slopes
> NPCs with schedules
> a full conversation and bartering system
> crafting (including oddball shit like combining a lit torch and corn to make popcorn)
> storage bags inside of storage bags (this doesn't sound impressive but at the time it certainly was)
> dynamic music
> dynamic lighting
> textured floors and ceilings
> the ability to jump and fly
> cutscenes
> character stats
> an automap you can write notes on
> and a magic system
and it did all this while releasing two months before Wolfenstein 3D did.

Compared to Ultima Underworld Wolfenstein 3D is incredibly simplistic, but in John Carmack's defense it did run significantly faster on the average person's hardware at the time, as well as complete shitboxes. I have personally played Wolfenstein 3D on a 12MHz 286 with 2MB of RAM and while it ran choppy as shit it was still playable.

The Wolf3D/Doom/Quake engines are most notable for how they were reused and licensed out to other developers, in addition to having good tools available, forming the basis for today’s widely available engines and tooling

>>8463690
Was that a considerable source of income for Id Software?

They didn't and that's why half of the first 3d games were absolute shit.

>>8463417
>StarFighter for the Archimedes
That's basically Star Fox. Flat textured 2d plane that has some rudimentary 3d shapes plopped on it. Nothing too impressive by 1994 considering Ultima Underworld which came out in 1992. Maybe it's gameplay is a bit more advanced and complex but for the year it came out it's nothing special. Quake in 96 blew it out the water in terms of 3d.

>>8461176
brilliant BTFO
let the coping and SEETHING begin

>post in this thread
>youtube recommends me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyjyWUrHsFc
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
stop spying on me you megacorp shits

not an awful vid but kinda only goes skin deep, it does cover some early 3d stuff related to this thread

>>8460403
They didn’t. Have you seen early 3D console games? Look at shit like FF7. Looks like ass

>>8460403
they didn't. it took years before computer games were more than just basic shapes, and it took until Vagrant Story for Square for example, to realize that it's better to spend most of your budget on faces.
it's a shame because FF7 and 8 could look so much better.

>>8460403
The involved math didn't appear out of nowhere. Shit existed even before computers were a thing.

>>8460403
driving games: make to resemble driving
sports games: watch the game on tv. duplicate
war games: like driving except tanks, guns, & planes
Some genres required experimentation but these were straightforward.

>>8462013
>No one has attempted a realtime interactive version of this to play during the song's runtime? Would be interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEycLWrxsnw

The people who were responsible for that video formed Mainframe Entertainment, and they are now called Rainmaker Studios.

>>8460403
It's called learning you turbo-faggot.

>>8466712
No shit. I guess don't observe what's happening now to VR tech because it's just one big learning.

They hired kiddos who started out with 3D, which is why 3D games are mostly shit.

>>8460403
the transition from 2d to 3d wasnt instant,there was a slow build up to it from pesudo 3d to basic low poly 3d and it got more complex

>>8466983
Yeah but it was at least instant in terms of console jumps, i.e from snes to n64

if the 5th gen wasn't 3D, then the 6th would've had 5th gen graphics.

>>8461176
He was talking about Goldeneye, tendy boy.

>>8463637
UW really was the Crisis of it's time.
I fortunately ended up getting a copy by the time that 486s were common place so it always ran good for me, but I remember reading on BBSs people bitching endlessly about having to turn off all the textures to get runing smoothly on low end 386s.

>>8460403
I mean, by the mid 90s 3D games had existed for more than 10 years already. They sure took their time.