Quake II engine
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id Tech 2 in Quake II | |
| Developer(s) | id Software, (John Carmack, John Cash, and Brian Hook) |
|---|---|
| Initial release | December 9, 1997 |
| Stable release | 3.21 / December 22, 2001 |
| Development status | Discontinued |
| Written in | C, x86 assembly (software rendering) |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS 8, Linux |
| Platform | PC, PowerPC Macintosh, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Amiga |
| Type | Game engine |
| License | GNU General Public License |
id Tech 2, popularly known as the Quake II engine,[1][2] is a game engine developed by id Software for use in their games, most notably Quake II. It is the successor to the Quake engine. Since its release, the Quake II engine has been licensed for use in several other games.
One of the engine's most notable features was out-of-the-box support for hardware-accelerated graphics, specifically OpenGL, along with the traditional software renderer. Another interesting feature was the subdivision of some of the components into dynamic-link libraries. This allowed both software and OpenGL renderers, which were selected by loading and unloading separate libraries. Libraries were also used for the game logic, for two reasons:
- id could release the source code to allow modifications while keeping the remainder of the engine proprietary.
- Since they were compiled for specific platforms, instead of an interpreter, they could run faster than Quake's solution, which was to run the game logic (QuakeC) in a limited interpreter.
The level format, as with previous id Software engines, used binary space partitioning (BSP). The levels were lit through a lightmap method in which light data for each surface is precalculated (this time, via a radiosity method) and stored as an image in the level file, which is then used to determine how much lighting intensity each model should receive, but not its direction.
John Carmack released the source code on 22 December 2001 under the terms of the GNU General Public License.[3]
Games using id Tech 2 (Quake II engine)
Games using a proprietary license
- Quake II (1997) - id Software
- Heretic II (1998) - Raven Software
- SiN (1998) - Ritual Entertainment
- SiN: Wages of Sin (1999) - Ritual Entertainment
- Kingpin: Life of Crime (1999) - Xatrix Entertainment
- Soldier of Fortune (2000) - Raven Software
- Daikatana (2000) - Ion Storm
- Anachronox (2001) - Ion Storm
- CIA Operative: Solo Missions (2001) - Trainwreck Studios
Games based on the GPL source release
- UFO: Alien Invasion (2003) - UFO: Alien Invasion Team
- CodeRED: Alien Arena (2004) - COR Entertainment
- Gravity Bone (2008) - Blendo Games
- Warsow (2012) - Warsow Team
- Thirty Flights of Loving (2012) - Blendo Games
- Paintball 2 (2013) - Digital Paint
See also
References
External links
- Official id Tech 2 licensing page at the Wayback Machine (archived November 8, 2009)
- Quake II engine full games list
- Source code of the engine version 3.19 as originally released
- Source code of the engine version 3.21
- Quake II code review by Fabien Sanglard
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