id Tech

id Tech is the family of game engines designed and developed by id Software. Prior to the presentation of the id Tech 5-based game Rage, the engines lacked official designation and as such were referred to as the Doom and Quake engines, from the name of the main game series the engines have been developed for. id Tech numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 have been released as free software under the GNU General Public License.

Predecessors to id Tech

id Software had developed 3D engines for several games before creating id Tech 1. Each game's engine had progressively more advanced 3D technology.

• Hovertank 3D (1991) used solid-color drawn walls and scalable sprites.
• Catacomb 3-D (1991) added texture mapping to the walls.
• Wolfenstein 3D (1992) increased the color palette from 16-color EGA to 256-color VGA. The game engine was also licensed out to other companies.
• Shadowcaster (1993) features diminished lighting, texture mapped floors and ceilings, walls with variable heights and sloped floors.

Doom engine

Main article: Doom engine

Sometimes known as id Tech 1 (Not to be confused with the Quake engine, which can also be referred to as id Tech 1), is the game engine that powers the id Software games Doom and Doom II. It was created by John Carmack, with auxiliary functions written by Mike Abrash, John Romero, Dave Taylor and Paul Radek. Originally developed on NeXT computers, it was ported to MS-DOS for Doom's initial release and was later ported to several game consoles and operating systems.

Commercial games using Doom engine

• Doom – id Software
• Doom II: Hell on Earth – id Software
  • Final Doom – id Software
• Heretic – Raven Software
  • Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders – Raven Software
• Hexen: Beyond Heretic – Raven Software
  • Hexen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel – Raven Software
• Strife – Rogue Entertainment

Quake engine

Main article: Quake engine

Less commonly, but also known as id Tech 1, the Quake engine is the game engine that was written to power 1996's Quake, written by id Software. It featured true 3D real-time rendering and is the first id engine to use the client–server model.

QuakeWorld

Main article: QuakeWorld

The Quake engine was updated with a new executable titled QuakeWorld that contained code to enhance the networking capabilities of Quake in response to the demand for across-internet network games that arose as a result of Quake's usage of UDP for networking.

Commercial games using Quake engine

• Quake (1996) – id Software
• HeXen II (1997) – Raven Software
• Half-Life (1998) - Valve Corporation (Half-Life uses the Quake & partially Quake 2-based GoldSrc engine)
• Laser Arena (2000) – Trainwreck Studios
• CIA Operative: Solo Missions (2001) – Trainwreck Studios
• Urban Mercenary (2001) – Moshpit Entertainment
• Silver Wings (2005) – Bampusht! (Silver Wings uses a heavily modified version of Telejano v7)

id Tech 2

Quake family tree, showing games and engines based on the Quake Engine

Main article: id Tech 2

Previously known as the "Quake II engine". id Tech 2 is based on the Quake engine, and features some enhancements such as colored lighting and a new model format. Game code is now written in C and loaded from a DLL, in place of the original Quake engine's "QuakeC" scripting language.^{[citation needed]}

Commercial games using id Tech 2

• Quake II – id Software
• Heretic II – Raven Software
• SiN – Ritual Entertainment
• Kingpin: Life of Crime – Xatrix Entertainment
• Soldier of Fortune – Raven Software
• Daikatana – Ion Storm
• Anachronox – Ion Storm

id Tech 3

Main article: id Tech 3

Previously known as the "Quake III Engine", it was derived from id Tech 2, although a large portion of code is new or re-written.^{[citation needed]}

Commercial games using id Tech 3

• Quake III Arena (1999) – id Software
  • Quake III: Team Arena (2000) – id Software
• Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force (2000) – Raven Software
• Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001) – Gray Matter Interactive (SP) / Nerve Software (MP)
• Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (2003) – Splash Damage
• Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix (2002) – Raven Software
• Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002) – Raven Software
• Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (2003) – Raven Software
• Call of Duty (2003) – Infinity Ward
  • Call of Duty: United Offensive (2004) – Gray Matter Interactive
• Severity (2007) – Cyberathlete Professional League
• Dark Salvation (2009) – Mangled Eye Studios
• Quake Live (2010) – id Software

Games using id Tech 3 with ÜberTools

• American McGee's Alice (2000) – Rogue Entertainment
• Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.² (2000) – Ritual Entertainment
• Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002) – 2015, Inc.
  • Medal of Honor: Allied Assault – Spearhead (2003) – EA Los Angeles
  • Medal of Honor: Allied Assault – Breakthrough (2003) – TKO Software
• Star Trek: Elite Force II (2003) – Ritual Entertainment

id Tech 4

Main article: id Tech 4

Formerly the "Doom 3 engine", originally based on id Tech 3. It has a C++ based engine framework, and a new renderer, AI framework, physics engine, gameplay trigger system, and sound framework.^{[citation needed]}

Games using id Tech 4

• Doom 3 (2004) – id Software
  • Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil (2005) – Nerve Software
• Quake 4 (2005) – Raven Software
• Prey (2006) – Human Head Studios
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (2007) – Splash Damage
• Wolfenstein (2009) – Raven Software
• Brink (2011) – Splash Damage
• Prey 2 (2012) – Human Head Studios

id Tech 5

Main article: id Tech 5

This is the engine being used for id software's new games.

The engine is not based on any previous id Tech engines, however it reuses much of the technology from the most updated id Tech 4 engine, including MegaTexture technology, parallax mapping, bloom, motion blur, soft particles, soft shadows and pixel shader effects.^{[citation needed]} id is requiring companies that use the engine to publish their games through id's sister company, Bethesda Softworks.

Games using id Tech 5

• Rage (2011) – id Software
• Doom 4 – id Software

id Tech 6

Main article: id Tech 6

id Tech 6 is an upcoming OpenGL-based game engine under preliminary development by id Software, which will tentatively follow id Tech 5 for id Software games following Rage and Doom 4. It will work by raycasting the geometry represented by voxels (instead of triangles) stored in an octree.

See also

• Wolfenstein 3D engine - the predecessor of Doom engine.