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

Astral Rag

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There were others before Quake but Quake was not just a technical marvel but also a very good game not to mention the first great competitive online FPS.

People who are disrespecting Quake are:
*confused
*retarded
*trolling
*popamolers who should be redirected to ign or gamespot
*the kind of people who watch modern MTV and reality shows while drinking the cheapest beer they could find, this type of degenerate doesn't have the ability to appreciate art and the finer things in life
*were still in diapers or not even born when the game was released
*were born but couldn't into computers and played the game on a 386 or slow 486
*were terrible players who got owned constantly and are still severely butthurt about this fact, these people later became the worst type of popamoler, the type that thinks he's a very skilled player when he wins a round of cod or BF5

A combination of some of the above options is also possible.
 
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mondblut

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Vehicles and landscapes are easy to appear nice in early 3d. Bring in some actual people that won't make you wake up screaming in cold sweat at nights. LOL at Quake mention, back in 1996 it was a foolproof argument why 3d must be banned forever.
Virtua Fighter 2?

11650-virtua-fighter-2-windows-screenshot-lion-wins-s.jpg

Did they acquire the Lego license? :smug:
 

mondblut

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There were others before Quake but Quake was not just a technical marvel but also a very good game not to mention the first great competitive online FPS.

People who are disrespecting Quake are:
*not the kind of drooling twitch kiddies who play FPS crap while touching themselves

Fixed :obviously:
 

DraQ

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There were others before Quake but Quake was not just a technical marvel but also a very good game not to mention the first great competitive online FPS.

People who are disrespecting Quake are:
Indeed, who exactly?

Aside from mondblut.
Or is refusing to recognize Q1 graphics (vanilla, with vanilla content) as timelessly awesome now grounds for "behead all who insult Quake!!11 :insert_squigglies_here: "?
 

Nutmeg

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DwarvenFood,

Thank you, I'm glad you like the thread.

Rasterization refers to drawing polygons directly on the screen after their vertex co-ordinates have been transformed from their position in the world, to their position relative to the camera, to their 2D position on the camera plane, and then to their pixel position on the screen. Because doing this for many (textured and lit) polygons requires many computations to be performed, few programmers managed to write a procedure which, when executed for an entire game scene, would complete under the 33 miliseconds needed for a reasonable frame rate. 3D acceleration refers to this procedure being performed by a fixed electronic circuit, instead of a computer program.

Ray tracing is a different approach to rendering which instead "traces" back the in-world ray of light represented by each pixel to illumination sources, in order to determine the resulting pixel color.

Ray casting, by contrast, is a trick which extends a segment (casts a ray) for each possible horizontal pixel position to determine what part of corresponding vertical scan line to texture as the floor, wall and ceiling. This short article explains ray casting very well: http://lodev.org/cgtutor/raycasting.html. Advanced ray casters like Build or Dark forces were loaded with clever tricks to render a larger variety of geometry than you'd think the technique was capable of.

N.B the distinction between ray tracing and ray casting is very informal, and only really used in the context of early computer game rendering engines. Elsewhere, the terms are often synonymous.

Finally, voxel engines aren't characterized by their rendering technique, but rather the assets used. Like mesh assets, they can both be rasterized or ray traced. AFAIK, games like Commanche and Outcast (of which there are screenshots in this thread) ray traced their voxel assets (in this case the terrain).

There have been a few examples of early GPU rasterized games. My favorite shown so far is Unreal. All Nintendo 64 games were GPU rendered; I always thought Majora's Mask was particularly beautiful (I know it doesn't qualify for this thread by date):

qfc2z58

nzvulvs

lu477uj
 
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Astral Rag

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For those who don't know you can play the Marathon Trilogy on a modern PC with Aleph One:

Aleph One is the open source continuation of Bungie's Marathon 2 FPS game engine. Aleph One plays Marathon, Marathon 2, Marathon Infinity, and 3rd-party content on a wide array of platforms, with (optional) OpenGL rendering, Internet play, Lua scripting, and more.

http://marathon.sourceforge.net/

Make sure to play in software mode also don't forget to disable mouse acceleration and lower the mouse sensitivity.
 
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Keldryn

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Unreal (old version, so as it was back then - no patches, no fancy new renderer or texture packs) - software renderer, max settings, running in window.

Of course, there is no way that you would get more than about 0.25 frames per second running it with those settings on a PC of that era. ;)

Here are a few that I haven't seen on here yet, in rough chronological order:

Another World/Out of the World (Amiga) (1991, Delphine)
This game used flat-shaded polygons with rotoscoped animation for its characters.
31577-out-of-this-world-amiga-screenshot-prepping-experiment-for.gif


31583-out-of-this-world-amiga-screenshot-tricking-the-beast-but-for.gif

322726-out-of-this-world-amiga-screenshot-the-bridge-is-out-s.png

322747-out-of-this-world-amiga-screenshot-these-aliens-want-to-kill.png


Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom (1995, Origin Systems):
8580-9-wing-commander-iv-the-price.jpg

8580-12-wing-commander-iv-the-price.jpg

8580-7-wing-commander-iv-the-price.jpg


Cybermage: Darklight Awakening (1995, Origin Systems)

aka D.W. Bradley's CyberMage: Darklight Awakening
They were going for a comic book aesthetic here, and I think it comes across pretty well. I don't recall liking the game very much.

115624-cybermage-darklight-awakening-dos-screenshot-my-friend-mung.png


526442-cybermage-darklight-awakening-dos-screenshot-this-area-looks.png



699176-cybermage-darklight-awakening-dos-screenshot-an-impressive.png


NiGHTS into Dreams (Sega Saturn) (1996, Sega)

nights_into_dreams-6-article_image.jpg

GS-9046_10,,Sega-Saturn-Screenshot-10-Nights-Into-Dreams...-JPN.jpg

GS-9046_11,,Sega-Saturn-Screenshot-11-Nights-Into-Dreams...-JPN.jpg

GS-9046_3,,Sega-Saturn-Screenshot-3-Nights-Into-Dreams...-JPN.jpg


Ultima IX: Ascension (1996, Origin Systems)

moonrot1.jpg


u93.jpg


Oh, wait... never mind.

Privateer 2: The Darkening (1996, Origin Systems)

screenshot_pc_privateer_2_the_darkening004.jpg

screenshot_pc_privateer_2_the_darkening002.jpg



Wing Commander Prophecy (1997, Origin Systems)

91440-wing-commander-prophecy-windows-screenshot-ready-to-land-after.jpg

91435-wing-commander-prophecy-windows-screenshot-we-cover-a-marine.jpg



Outlaws (1997, LucasArts )

Re-used the Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight engine and experimented with a cell-shaded look.

16168-outlaws-windows-screenshot-reloading-a-shotgun-s.gif


13302-outlaws-windows-screenshot-nailed-him-to-the-walls.gif


Red Baron II (1997, Dynamix)

22771-red-baron-ii-windows-screenshot-maximum-details.gif


22773-red-baron-ii-windows-screenshot-one-of-the-better-looking-aircraft.gif


Grandia (Saturn/Playstation) (GameArts, 1997/1999)

Grandia used sprite characters with fully-rotating 3D environments, and there is a bit of a pastel/watercolor look overall. These pics from the U.S. Playstation version (1999), but apparently this was a sloppy port, with the Saturn (1997) version having sharper image quality and better colors.

702644-grandia-playstation-screenshot-as-opposed-to-the-fairly-bland.png
702645-grandia-playstation-screenshot-visiting-an-inn-in-one-of-the.png
702625-grandia-playstation-screenshot-this-is-parm-the-first-town.png
702626-grandia-playstation-screenshot-nice-indoor-locations-this.png
702654-grandia-playstation-screenshot-a-quiet-day-in-the-laine-villages.png

Xenogears (Playstation) (Squaresoft, 1998)

Uses a very similar graphical style to Grandia.
696971-xenogears-playstation-screenshot-exploring-the-peaceful-city.png
696981-xenogears-playstation-screenshot-indoor-gear-dungeons-are.png
696991-xenogears-playstation-screenshot-finally-we-made-it-to-solaris.png
696976-xenogears-playstation-screenshot-lavishly-decorated-rooms.png


Tex Murphy: Overseer (1998, Access Software)

10342-tex-murphy-overseer-windows-screenshot-gideon-s-bedroom-apparently.jpg

598116-tex-murphy-overseer-windows-screenshot-john-klaus-law-and.png

598134-tex-murphy-overseer-windows-screenshot-security-room-at-gideon.png



Ultima IX: Ascension (1998, Origin Systems)

ultima9-1.jpg


ss-009.jpg


orig_ss_guard.jpg


What, this still wasn't out yet? Sigh.

Oh well, I'm sure it was awesome when it finally did hit the shelves, right? Right? Guys?
 

DraQ

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Unreal (old version, so as it was back then - no patches, no fancy new renderer or texture packs) - software renderer, max settings, running in window.

Of course, there is no way that you would get more than about 0.25 frames per second running it with those settings on a PC of that era. ;)
Not in that resolution. But on a very top-end machine (in terms of RAM and CPU) you might get it to run fluently at those setting in 640x480 even in software.
PII 450MHz was released in 1998 so theoretically you could build a consumer rig powerful enough for that even on release.

As for myself, originally I ran U1 on P133 with 16MB RAM and 2MB graphics card (unaccelerated), so below minimum listed requirements (P166).
No MMX so no volumetric lighting for me back then and the framerate was terrible even in low-res.

Another World/Out of the World (Amiga) (1991, Delphine)
This game used flat-shaded polygons with rotoscoped animation for its characters.
Not 3D (despite vector graphics) so doesn't qualify, despite looking good.
 

Keldryn

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Not in that resolution. But on a very top-end machine (in terms of RAM and CPU) you might get it to run fluently at those setting in 640x480 even in software.
PII 450MHz was released in 1998 so theoretically you could build a consumer rig powerful enough for that even on release.

My rig in 1998 was a PII Celeron-266 overclocked to 400 MHz (which actually performed almost as well as a true PII-400 on most tasks; the L2 cache didn't seem to make a huge difference in games), and I had a Hercules Dynamite 128 (Tseng Labs ET6000 chipset, pretty much the fastest 2D card at the time) with a Diamond Monster 3D (original 3dfx Voodoo chipset) hooked up via the pass-through cable. Unreal ran very well and looked absolutely stunning on the 3dfx. I remember that intro screen, and fiddling around with different settings to see what effect they had. Putting it into software rendering mode made it a slideshow unless I had it running with that low-res, grainy, pixelated look so typical of mid-90s software rendering.

I might be remembering wrong, or perhaps that missing L2 cache on the Celeron made a more significant difference than I realized.

As for myself, originally I ran U1 on P133 with 16MB RAM and 2MB graphics card (unaccelerated), so below minimum listed requirements (P166).
No MMX so no volumetric lighting for me back then and the framerate was terrible even in low-res.

That must have been unbearable. Like trying to play Strike Commander on a 386. ;)

Not 3D (despite vector graphics) so doesn't qualify, despite looking good.

Okay, I wasn't 100% sure about that one. StarFox came out for the SNES in early 1993, and my dad bought the Stellar 7 remake for the PC in 1991 (and its sequel, Nova 9), so there were some games using primative 3D models at the time.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/stellar7/stellar7pc-01.png
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/stellar7/nova9-02.png
http://sydlexia.com/imagesandstuff/snes100/snes17.png

I wouldn't call any of those games aesthetically pleasing though. :)
 
In My Safe Space
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Codex 2012

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The Adventure/horror game, D for Sega Saturn had amazing 3D graphics and extremely impressive realistic human animation in 1995. The animator for D went on to design ICO and Shadows of Colossus.
 
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Correct_Carlo

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Dug deep into the recesses of my brain to remember a kind of cool, PC exclusive, 3D fighting game from 1995: "FX Fighter." Haven't played it since I was a kid, but I remember it being a decent "Virtua Fighter" clone, only with slightly more gimmicky characters and an (obviously) less well thought out combat system. It was one of the rare fighting games on the PC in the 90s, and the only one I can think of that was only on the PC (although I'm sure there were others).

Obviously, it was also pre-dedicated video cards, which made it really demanding for the time (you needed at least a pentium to run it well). I got it when I had a 486 and it ran like shit until I got a pentium, although by that time I also had a 3Dfx card, so had moved on to better looking games.

14722-fx-fighter-dos-screenshot-kiko-is-attacking-so-suddenly-that.jpg




fxfighter_006.png




 
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TheGreatOne

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One must fall 2097 was also PC exclusive and was released a year earlier
one-must-fall-2097-ingles-1.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lK-DMh6pa8

The Adventure/horror game, D for Sega Saturn had amazing 3D graphics and extremely impressive realistic human animation in 1995. The animator for D went on to design ICO and Shadows of Colossus.
It was actually released for the 3DO first. It has a quite interesting development history, and the fact that you can't pause the game but must complete it in one sitting is an unique feature (to my knowledge)

D began production in 1994 for the 3DO console. With use of only three Amiga computers, WARP was able to harness impressive 3D visuals.

Because the storyline and graphic FMVs were more horrifying than any video game that had yet been released, head developer Kenji Eno resorted to a trick in order to get D published. The game was originally developed with no storyline, and Eno kept the story sequences a secret even from the other members of WARP. When the game was finished, he submitted a "clean" version (i.e. without the violent and disturbing story content of the complete version) for approval. He deliberately submitted the master late, knowing that part of the penalty was that he would have to deliver it by hand to the manufacturers in the USA. While on the plane ride to the USA, he switched the phony "clean" discs with the finalized discs, thus completely bypassing all censorship
 

DwarvenFood

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One must fall 2097 was also PC exclusive and was released a year earlier
I don't think that one is using a 3D engine though ? To me it seems more as if they pre-rendered the graphics and are using sprites. Playing the game was also always equally fluid which seems to reinforce the theory of a 2D engine instead of a 3D one.
 

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