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Aesthetically pleasing early 3D (<= 1998) computer graphics.

H-K

Learned
Joined
Oct 14, 2011
Messages
81
Location
Sweden
Chasm: The Rift from 1997:

607259-chasm-the-rift-dos-screenshot-mission-briefings.png


11418-chasm-the-rift-dos-screenshot-lava-floors.jpg


607254-chasm-the-rift-dos-screenshot-auto-mapping-became-rare-in.png


607255-chasm-the-rift-dos-screenshot-zombies-stay-up-despite-grievous.png


607256-chasm-the-rift-dos-screenshot-close-up-and-personal-with-a.png


607264-chasm-the-rift-dos-screenshot-gross-was-lurking-behind-that.png


613276-chasm-the-rift-dos-screenshot-a-close-encounter-with-a-zombie.png


613283-chasm-the-rift-dos-screenshot-this-courtyard-looks-really.png
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
It looks a little bit like Quake but they used their own engine.
 
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Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
Wing Commander 3
65d08560f4f496a0876a219ca718eb172ed43c8e.jpg

Grand Prix 2 (1995)
gp2opu3s.jpg

skynet_112v7ks4.png

Flight Unlimited (1995)
371451-flight-unlimit3pult.png

Flying Corps (1996)
n28_1ccnpuse.jpg

Moto Racer
moto-racer-pc-windows-screenshots__323_2.png.jpg

Need For Speed: Special Edition
dosbox2014-10-2012-335vuhu.jpg

Hexen 2
Hexen_II_Screenshot.jpg

Tomb Raider 2
a0b0673202c72f44827bdc05d624927677a0b5c6.jpg

Interstate 76
i76gnus1.jpg

POD
e060ef9e21975cd74c30e0d1b3704bdd01e6733a.jpg

G-Police
pp_g-police.jpg

GP Legends (1998 :oops: )
l.jpg
 
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Peter

Arcane
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
1,544
Wheel of Time
Chasm: The Riff

God damn. I hadn't heard of either of these, but they look stunning. :bro:

I'm cheating somewhat, since the game came out in 1999 (though also bear in mind that it was a PS1 game), but to me Silent Hill (along with Quake) is the high water mark of early 3D graphics. Incredible art direction and texturing, and a really clever way of using the PS1's technical limitations as an advantage (the fog and darkness, the warping textures, the abstract low-poly monsters that get your imagination going). MGS is really good for some of the same reasons. I guess I just like the harsh look of PS1 graphics in general.

2j1ndjt.jpg

w9dxec.jpg

25fsgg2.jpg


Images courtesy of ghostdog's fantastic LP.

And it doesn't need repeating, but yeah, idTech 2 looks gorgeous to this day. The really crisp, chunky textures are a beautiful fit with the low-poly models. Quake is packed with really expressive, precisely painted and modelled creatures and environments.
 
Joined
Mar 30, 2012
Messages
7,045
Location
Elevator Of Love
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.

As much as I like old Bullfrog stuff, SW is really horrible in the graphics department if you didn't play it back in the time. The wonky camera, the sprites plus boring colours of the city... I keep in on my HD and try it from time to time but it's no use. Crusader : No Regret from 96 is much better looking than this.
Syndicate with sprites and 16 colours looked much better.

syndicate-7.png
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
I disagree, I liked SWARS visuals and I still do. The fully rotatable, destructible 3D cities and the (dynamic) vertex lighting were mind blowing, each vehicle and character could cast dynamic shadows. If you managed to destroy all light sources the map would be covered in total darkness.
You can destroy every building on the map, you can even burn grass and trees, the water ripples when it's hit by debris or bullets. You can enter and drive/ fly every parked vehicle, you can even ride trains on some maps.

Sadly the game's SVGA mode was very demanding at the time of release and few people could enjoy the game in all its glory, Magic Carpet (same engine) had the same problem.

SWARS also has a great soundtrack, excellent sound effects, 2 long and challenging campaigns (+ the unfinished but partly playable Unguided campaign), a very satisfying arsenal, great multiplayer, ....

I don't see anything wrong with the game's colour pallet, in fact I think it fits the game's theme perfectly. You can rotate the camera in any direction (you can change keys to make the camera controls more intuitive) and you can also temporarily hide buildings if you so desire. The standard camera height is often less than ideal because the height of the camera is tied to the active weapon, equip an Uzi and the camera will be very close to your agents, equip a sniper rifle and the camera will zoom out.

Another thing I dislike about SWARS is the somewhat random nature of the research component, more pedestrian types would have been nice too.



edit: The final build has more detailed destruction, much better AI, explosions look somewhat different and the shadows look even better.
Also that music
:love:
 
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Destroid

Arcane
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
16,628
Location
Australia
1998 is too late I think to call it early 3d, I mean Half-Life came out in 1998!

But since I know that era better than earlier eras I'm gonna post some anyway:

Battlezone, 1998
b_zoned.jpg


Starsiege: Tribes, 1998
vehicle.JPG


Total Annihilation, 1997
total-annihilation.jpg


X-wing, basic but effective in 1993.
VXlGJ0T.gif
 

Black_Willow

Arcane
Joined
Dec 21, 2007
Messages
1,866,230
Location
Borderline
SWARS was great and looked great, fcuk the haters.
Like Astral Rag said, the game's problem was not that it looked bad per se, but that it was ahead of its time in terms of GFX, but also hardware requirements.
I played the game in 2000 (when I had a decent graphics card) and I was astounded by the great lightning, music, level design and overal atmosphere. The mood of the game was IMO far better than in Syndicate 1. And don't get me wrong - I still think the first part looked great. But so did SWARS (but in a different way).
 

potatojohn

Arcane
Joined
Jan 2, 2012
Messages
2,646
I disagree, I liked SWARS visuals and I still do. The fully rotatable, destructible 3D cities and the (dynamic) vertex lighting were mind blowing, each vehicle and character could cast dynamic shadows.
Weird. From what I remember SW was basically unplayable. It combined a (voxel?) 3d renderer that looked like it always rendered at 100x100 @ 10 fps internally with a bizarre 'floaty' effect to everything as you moved the camera. Literally, the scene did not transform the way my brain expected it to.
 

Black_Willow

Arcane
Joined
Dec 21, 2007
Messages
1,866,230
Location
Borderline
Pandemonium looked great, not in screenshots but in actual action because of creative use of 2.5D (something Trine didn't have)

Also, a game that's mostly 2D but looks great: Disney's Hercules
 

warpig

Incel Resistance Leader
Manlet
Joined
Mar 24, 2013
Messages
7,364
Location
lmaoing @ your life
Wipeout 2097
N3iArKh.jpg

qQPkxFx.jpg


Inferno:
051ph7h.jpg
1aFU3dj.jpg
eRzxt9G.png
jQMditx.jpg

Very simplistic but "atmospheric" graphics.

Earthsiege 2:
r1CSVoB.jpg
vJKmRUk.jpg

Same goes for MW2 and MW2 mercs, but Earthsiege looked better imo.

Wing Commander Armada:
VN5iiyz.gif
4hHVOfB.gif

Wing Commander games in general have nice looking spaceships, Armada was the first 3d Wing Commander game.

Tekken 3

KYxVsyi.jpg
oaF7ZAl.jpg

It's a Japanese game so it has some silly looking crap in it but the character models and animations were awesome for the time.
 

Baron Dupek

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2013
Messages
1,870,765
Props for Chasm: The Rift. Played it more than decade ago, was pretty cool but didn't managed to beat last boss. Should try again.

Pył [1998/1999]
609340-py-windows-screenshot-the-scopes.png

609344-py-windows-screenshot-open-fire-play-of-lightss.png

609351-py-windows-screenshot-small-perversion-for-relaxations.png

Speaking about performance - this game was hard cooklie years back and still is. Because it was combo of DOS and Glide and windows game. Hard bitch to emulate, max I managed to get 20FPS.
There is project that try to remake this game.
 

DragoFireheart

all caps, rainbow colors, SOMETHING.
Joined
Jun 16, 2007
Messages
23,731
I just looked at the current suggestions.

Every single 3D game that could look pleasing aesthetically looks like shit because early 3D graphics back in the day were shit. Some of the games that use pseudo 3D graphics like FFT are just fancy sprites. Sprites were vastly superior to 3D graphics in 1998 era.

It's not until stuff like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker where 3D graphics really become pleasing to look at.
 

Nevill

Arcane
Joined
Jun 6, 2009
Messages
11,211
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Hmm I always thought Vangers (which has a great subtitle, "one for the road") was pure 2D gfx. Pretty hard game from what I recall.
Nope. Glorious 3d. It had a very specific voxel-polygonal engine that I can't quite compare with anything else. But the game clearly had 3 dimensions and even better, made a constant use of this fact. You could drive over a bridge, or pass under it, or if you were driving a sufficiently big truck that didn't fit under it, you could ruin the bridge and make it impossible to cross.

The hard part was to understand what the game wants from you, as you were rarely explicitly told what your next steps should be, and even the small bits of information the Advisors did give you came in a lingo that needed to be deciphered through trial and error first. The game was an example of the exploration of alien worlds done right. :salute:

Once you know what to do and learn all the shortcuts and tricks, the game can be completed in about 3 hours.

Interestingly enough, RPS made a retrospective on it a week ago. Apparently, the game was re-released for multiple platforms half a year ago and made available both on Steam and GOG. For anyone who wants to try it out, be aware that GOG version is currently the superior one, as it comes with an experimental feature from the original that allows the landscape changes to persist (i.e. a ruined bridge stays that way after you leave the map). The feature was turned off for the Steam version because it may have caused crashes, but they fixed it since then... I think.
 
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Joined
Mar 30, 2012
Messages
7,045
Location
Elevator Of Love
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I nearly forgot Motorhead, it was released in 1998 and had stunning visuals for it's time. You didn't even have the 3d accelerator to see all those neat effects made by in-house engine from Digital Illusions which is now known as DICE.



Dat music.

:love:
 

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