Nature as a model

Gamers typically notice major improvements in 3D graphics every two or three years. When Microsoft bundles a new version of DirectX with Windows, or when AMD/Nvidia announce cool new GPU features (if developers find them equally interesting, of course), you can expect new effects to appear over time.

Iconic games like Morrowind, Doom 3 and Far Cry are renowned for their iconic water reflections, stunning lighting effects and authentic island worlds. The most significant breakthrough was the development of pixel shaders, which today provide the movement of water waves, lighting effects on surfaces, and cinematic effects such as motion blur. Today, the most advanced effects are provided using DirectX 10.1 and Shader 4; DirectX 11 and Shader Model 5 have also been announced, they should bring the next level of realism in games.

Far Cry is very reminiscent of the world of an island paradise. Click on the picture to enlarge.

High Dynamic Range Rendering (HDR-R) is responsible for bright lighting effects; artificial 3D light sources that create believable reflections on surfaces; as well as for glare and glare when looking directly at the sun. Users of Shader Model 3 graphics cards were amazed by the gleaming silver swords and sun-drenched white stone temples in Oblivion. Today, HDR-R with DirectX 10 allows you to bring out the long beams of light that are visible in Crysis or Stalker: Clear Sky; they make their way through the branches and leaves and create a wonderful play of shadows.

Hollywood began to exploit this potential much earlier, often using special cameras that better capture the intensity of light to get closer to the perception of the human eye and brain. On the following pages we will provide many visual comparisons between 3D graphics and natural effects, all of which will help us clearly demonstrate the development and current state of PC gaming.

The article consists of two parts. In the first, we discuss the development of games and characters, and also focus on an overview of modern lighting effects and surface depth effects. Second part focuses on the elements of fire and water, in it we will compare Hollywood monsters and special effects, talk about physics, and also make some predictions for the future.

Evolution of games

Real-time strategy (RTS) games have gone through an impressive evolution. The graphics have, without a doubt, improved the most, although the controls have also continually improved. But in recent years, ideas and opportunities have floundered, leaving many gamers with the impression that things were better before.

Warcraft triumphantly swept the world in 1994. It used simple single-angle graphics with fixed drawn shadows added to make objects look plastic. The sequel, released in 1995, improved the graphics slightly, but the most significant change was an increase in resolution, which made the pixels less noticeable. This was a necessary step forward, in particular in terms of text readability. Real 3D graphics were not yet used at that time. She first appeared in the third part of the series, which was released in 2002 - you immediately notice that the environment and characters seem to have fallen into a box of paints. Everything was overly colored and saturated, every effect demonstrated visually. Magic and special abilities were accompanied by lighting effects, making the game sparkle and glow throughout.

Appearance of strategies from 1994 to 2007. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Further advances in the field of real-time strategy games have toned down the bright colors a bit, increased the level of detail in objects, and generally resulted in a more natural look. It became possible to distinguish individual characters by their uniforms, you can zoom in and out of the camera, and the number of troops has increased significantly. However, this required a powerful CPU. Distributing characters on the map, calculating artificial intelligence, and managing an increasing number of individual units required a considerable amount of computing resources. And modern video cards should provide enough resources to render shader effects at an acceptable speed. Modern games like World in Conflict put more emphasis on lighting effects, massive explosions, realistic smoke, sun rays and massive water surfaces.

3D games need to improve faster and become closer to nature. The graphics change quite quickly thanks to new shader effects. The water looks quite realistic, the effects of weather and sunlight become more natural. Mass Effect's film filter is somewhat controversial - the somewhat coarse grain creates a blur that throws edges and colors slightly out of focus. This results in a more realistic display of the environment and people, but not everyone likes this blur.

Knights of the Old Republic certainly influenced the developers of Mass Effect. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Lighting and glare

HDR rendering has become the most important step in environmental lighting; Without a shining effect, it is almost impossible to create reflections on silver and gold. HDR rendering blurs illuminated surfaces and strong light sources. The sun illuminates the clouds in the sky, metal objects reflect the light. Hollywood also uses similar effects, for example, when the camera operator points the camera directly at the light source, computer graphics blind the viewer or create special effects. The potential of this has been understood for a long time, and new cameras capture natural HDR effects much better than before.

HDR rendering was a good reason to switch to DirectX 10. Click on the image to enlarge.

The glow effect can look completely different from one game to the next. In Oblivion, the developers got better results with gold and silver. Rainbow Six Las Vegas uses the UT3 Engine with DirectX 10. Light sources and neon lamps are quite unpleasantly blinding, scenes look milky and overly bright. Blacksite Area 51 (UT3 Engine) is also quite blinding, although you'll spend more time in the game traveling through the desert, where there are virtually no excessive light sources. Only Mass Effect seems to have taken control of the UT3 Engine. The glare effect has been reduced to an acceptable level. Assassins Creed (DirectX 10) also produced convincing results. The sun and candles give off a golden-yellow glow, and the graphics have an almost photographic quality.

A side effect of direct sunlight is lens flare, which is tiny circles of light in the field of view. In older games, the sun and glare effects were drawn onto the frame and simulated, just like background graphics. In newer games, circles of light can move across the field of view, and even appear when the light source is slowly revealed by an object.

Flare is caused by the reflection of light in the lens. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Light 2.0

Another effect of HDR rendering is the display of rays that literally pierce the dark environment. In Hollywood films, you can probably remember bullet holes in plywood walls through which light pierces the room. The new generation of DirectX 10 games use this effect, in particular to enhance the sunset. If the shining circle of the sun is hidden behind trees or a window, then the light penetrates through them in the form of clear rays.

Blinding effects were possible in DirectX 9; DirectX 10 allows for more precise ray placement. Click on the picture to enlarge.

The peculiarity of Crysis and Stalker: Clear Sky is the realistic change of day and night, lighting conditions change depending on the location of the sun and the player. However, such a computer effect still does not reach the intensity of photographs or Hollywood films; the situation should improve with the new generation of GPUs.

Dark Messiah has many levels that use complex lighting effects. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Shadows

Where there is light, there is also shadow. To make objects in a lit environment look more realistic, shadows are needed, and they must move with the light source. But enabling shadows almost always costs a lot of valuable 3D performance, so the faster the graphics card, the more sophisticated effects it can pull off without taking too much of a performance hit. In Oblivion, it was possible to invest up to 30% of the graphics performance just in shadows on faces, shadows from grass and foliage.

Special use of light sources to illuminate cellular structures. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Older games with standard shadows often displayed shadows as a darkened circle; the object was always located in its center, regardless of lighting. In the next generation of games, the character was applied to the surface like a stencil, and a simplified model was often used. This can be seen quite clearly in Morrowind, as clothing is completely ignored and the naked body is superimposed on the surface.

Doom 3 was a bit of a revolution. Suddenly, the game had multiple light sources, such as ceiling lights or spotlights, that simultaneously cast shadows on the walls, floor, and ceiling. As the player and monsters move, the shadows move, following the fixed light sources, becoming longer or shorter. To further tickle your nerves, the game features hanging, flashing and rotating lamps that create twitching and dancing shadows on the walls.

In DirectX 10, shadow edges are softer and more detailed. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Modern games use soft shadows that completely overlay the character template with good detail. Depending on the position of the sun, the shadows of the character and the environment sometimes become longer, sometimes shorter. In Stalker or Crysis, you can even see shadow images of individual branches or leaves on the floor. Even if this sounds like a simple graphics trick, it is very important for the perception of real-time games because it allows you to react to movements more quickly.

Contrasting shadows are no longer a problem; they become more interesting with soft edges. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Character development

The following illustrations show the development of the characters with whom you shared computer screen time. Let's start with 1997; Diablo can be considered an iconic game because it allowed the appearance of the character to change depending on the armor or weapon used. In terms of 3D graphics, Morrowind was also an important step forward. A naked character looks unsightly, but once you put on complex and multi-component armor, the level of detail changes simply dramatically. There are shoes, shirts, trousers, cloaks, jackets, armlets, breastplates, shoulder pads, helmets, weapons and shields.

The level of detail in real-time or adventure games could not be matched for a long time. In 2004, Half Life 2 set a new standard for facial expressions and character animation. It was at this time that Nvidia launched a campaign to promote shaders that made it possible to create realistic skin tones and individual facial expressions. In 2006, strategy and role-playing/adventure games have become so detailed that even if you zoom in closely, you can hardly tell the difference between them and real 3D games.

Character development between 1997 and 2008. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Being a sequel to Morrowind, Oblivion also became a landmark event in the world of graphics. For the first time, the game began to use HDR rendering (Shader Model 3), and the armor and swords began to really shine. The complexity of drawing the character's faces was very impressive; many adjustment engines additionally included an individual cut and color of the eyes, the shape of the lips, chin, mouth and head, as a result of which the hero could become distinguishable, with his own face. However, such a wide adjustment of options in the game did not lead to any effect. In Oblivion, you can only play as yourself alone, and computer characters (NPCs) are not at all interested in your appearance and face.

New games like Hellgate London should benefit from this complication, since characters can be met over the Internet, and there's no harm in having a different look. The difference is limited to figure size, hair, skin color and various equipment that allows the character to stand out from the crowd. If you look at the development that occurred between the Oblivion and Drakensang games, you will probably notice a current situation of stagnation. The environmental effects are evolving, but the detailing of the characters remains the same.

The following illustration shows the additional characters and differences that the lighting model used provides. Doom 3 uses a lot of light and shadows, which allows the graphics to look more detailed. Gothic 3 and Oblivion hit the market in 2006. But while Gothic 3 continued to use the old bloom lighting effects, Oblivion was based on new HDR rendering that highlights shiny areas and highlights colored surfaces more softly and accurately. The transition to DirectX 10 can be seen in the games Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect. Improved HDR rendering (Shader 4) allows the graphics to look more realistic.

With the right type of lighting, characters look more realistic. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Depth effects and bump mapping (Bump Mapping)

The first games had to make do with a global light source, shadows and structures were simply added to the scene. The evolution of 3D graphics has given objects more detail, and different light sources have provided additional shadows. Since many objects were still made from large surfaces, structures like glass, leaves, or sand were simply laid down as a flat texture. If something, for example, rails or stones, needed to go beyond the plane, then they had to be defined on the stage as full-fledged 3D objects.

Per-pixel lighting gave the surface a more flexible structure. Click on the picture to enlarge.

The simplest form of this technique is called bump mapping, where bump information is simply simulated. The surface remained smooth, the geometry of the object did not actually change.

The shift in texture simulates the effect of depth. Click on the picture to enlarge.

In modern games, the parallax mapping effect is even better developed. If you look at the surface, the structure is very detailed. However, texture detail depends on lighting and viewing angle. The smaller the angle, the less noticeable the depth effect will be.

Comparison of steep, parallax and bump mapping. Click on the picture to enlarge.

The next generation of technology is displacement mapping. With this technique, the surface receives an appropriate structure that even generates shadows; irregularities also change the geometry of the object. The viewing angle is no longer important, since the depth effect is always noticeable.

Ball with bump mapping (left) and displacement mapping (right).

Vegetation, trees and forest

With the advent of the GeForce 256, transformation and lighting tasks became the responsibility of the graphics chip. Before this, calculations were performed on the CPU. Faster graphics cards were expected to increase the level of detail and the number of 3D objects.

This complex foliage structure is calculated by the video card. Click on the picture to enlarge.

A 3D game requires a lot more than one tree made of real leaves, although even the most modern games continue to use tricks. To keep the computational load as low as possible, only rough structures such as a tree trunk, thick branches or the main frame of a bush are created as real objects. Grass, reeds, leaves and branches are textures, that is, painted surfaces that simulate lush vegetation. This allows you to draw a full-fledged forest, but neither the leaves nor branches will respond to touch - the player will walk through them as if they did not exist. If the game is not so difficult, then foliage and bushes do not even provide the ability to hide behind them from the enemy, although you cannot see anything through them.

Tree trunks and thick branches are 3D objects: grass, leaves and reeds are simply simulations in the form of textures. Click on the picture to enlarge.

In old games, the forest consisted of several trees spaced out. Only recently, with Far Cry and Crysis, has it become possible to create the impression of an impenetrable jungle with lush vegetation arranged in no particular order. Oblivion can be upgraded with the Qarls Texture Pack, which transforms the monotonous landscape into a more vibrant, rich and vibrant one. 3D games still can't reach the level of detail in nature; even in Hollywood the stunt results are better. In the left picture you can see the trees after digital processing, this can be seen by the slightly lighter shades.

The forest on PC has improved significantly; In Crysis, vegetation is arranged without any order. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Could it be better?

Some screenshots of Crysis and Far Cry 2 are quite interesting. The top left picture from Crysis is standard - in DirectX 10 mode the lighting is a little blinding, the colors are not so well-developed. The top right picture was most likely taken with Natural Mod: the colors and lighting are better matched, the overall impression is much stronger. Below right is the official screenshot from the manufacturer. Even if it was taken with a motion blur effect, the intensity of the colors and the rich green color of the transparent leaves are not observed in the real game, even on HD 4870 or GTX 280 video cards.

Comparison of screenshots: Crysis with Natural Mod and the official screenshot. Click on the picture to enlarge.

When it comes to Far Cry 2, there are different versions of the same game. The largest image was probably obtained on the Xbox, the 3D graphics are quite reliable. The small picture in the middle corresponds to the PC version: there is a slight defocus, the lighting effects create a slight fog. The two pictures on the right, again, are official screenshots of the manufacturer. You can see that the intensity of the light rays is very deep, the details on the ground look better, the structure of the rocks is realistic, and the complex trees and shrubs are simply impressive.

Comparison of Far Cry 2 screenshot with the PC version and official screenshots. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Evolution of buildings

Thanks to faster video cards and high-quality textures, the level of detail of buildings has improved significantly. In the first 3D games, houses, stone walls and tunnels appeared flat, with uneven structures created by simple rendering. As computing power increased, more and more built-in structures appeared in games; interiors and architecture became more complex, the number of niches, corners, pillars, projections and columns quickly increased. In modern games you can see more complex structures that look more and more realistic. Of course, PC gaming still can't compete with Hollywood. Even computer-generated buildings in films are much more detailed.

The evolution of buildings in PC games. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Cities are a completely different matter. Game developers today are quite capable of creating the illusion of a small town. However, most buildings will be just a screen - a house with four walls and a roof, but no interior. To prevent the gamer from getting lost, there are two methods: Morrowind, Gothic and Oblivion allow the gamer to enter almost all houses, but the number of buildings is small, even in cities. GTA, Assassin's Creed and Half Life 2 simulate a big city, but you can only enter buildings that are important to the game. Everything else is just a screen.

Large cities on PC are just window dressing; It will be possible to enter only a small number of buildings. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Not high enough

Cracked paint and rusty areas can also be simulated well, but scale is not so easy. Game developers don't think big, so it's rare that structures you can enter are three stories tall. There's always a fear of distance: in multiplayer shooters, people get lost, weapon range is too short, and the viewable area on PC is limited by either 3D performance or other graphics card limitations.

The buildings are graphically drawn well, but they could be taller and larger. Click on the picture to enlarge.

Technique

The realism of racing has long been limited by computing power. Tricks such as reduced environmental detail, blurry textures, and limited visibility through fog were often used. Recently, such tricks have become unnecessary, since the 3D performance of computer systems is already quite sufficient to display the street along which the track runs in the same detail as the car itself. Now the racing has added speed effects, reflections and various damage models. It's hardly surprising that artists will focus more on cars that look more realistic than ever.

In the second part of the article we will talk about fire, water, Hollywood monsters, special effects and physics.

Space Race (1973)

It is the second game developed by Atari after Pong. For two or one player. It was necessary to fly on rockets, dodging obstacles. Those who did not have time to evade lost. It was produced in the form of a set-top box and a slot machine.

TV Basketball (1974)

This game was the first in three “categories” at once:

• the first ever basketball game;
• the first game to use sprites;
• the first game to feature images of people.

The goal of the game is to move the “basketball players” to hit the ball so that it ends up in the basket.

Gun Fight (1975)

A Western game in which you had to defeat your opponent in a pistol duel. The first game to feature man-to-man combat. Each player had two joysticks: one controlled the character, and the other aimed the gun. The number of cartridges was limited - 6 per drum.

Death Race (1976)

In the 1970s, people were not yet so corrupt, so after its release the game was widely criticized for promoting violence. One or two players controlled the cars using steering wheels and pedals, and crushed the so-called “gremlins”. The more you crush, the more points you earn. A cross appeared in place of the innocent victim, and soon the screen turned into a cemetery. At the same time, it was necessary to avoid collisions with graves. 20 years later, the game idea will form the basis of the epoch-making Carmageddon.

Canyon Bomber (1977)

One or two players were enthusiastically flying over a certain canyon filled with spherical stones. They had to be bombed, and the more accurate the hit, the more points you earned.

Space Invaders (1978)

An era-defining game that gained immense popularity and was ported to many platforms. When these slot machines appeared in Japan, initially there was even a shortage of coins of a suitable denomination, so many wanted to play Space Invaders. The goal was simple: you had to shoot the hordes of invading aliens, gradually descending to the ground and also shooting at you. At the same time, the player's cannon moved behind a row of four protective shelters, which were gradually destroyed by alien hits. As the levels progressed, the enemies maneuvered and descended faster and faster.

Despite the primitiveness of the graphics, developer Tomohiro Nishikado had to create his own hardware platform based on the Intel 8080 processor. But it still did a poor job, and the speed of drawing sprites slowed down significantly when there were still a lot of aliens on the screen. The author turned this flaw into a feature - the fewer enemies remained on the screen, the faster they became and the more difficult it was to hit them.

The Rise of Racing Simulators

Speed ​​Freak (1979)

One of the first first-person racing games, and the world's first vector racing game. The goal is to get to the finish line without crashing into obstacles or oncoming traffic, or flying off the road.

Pac-Man (1980)

In terms of the degree and duration of its influence on popular culture, this game can be compared to a megaton explosion in the middle of a metropolis. The player had to control an ever-hungry kolobok that crawled into dungeons teeming with unfriendly fauna. There are a total of 255 levels in the game, and the kolobok is sometimes given useful tricks that increase its speed and even make it temporarily invulnerable to ghosts.

Pac-Man became the founder of a new genre - “maze chase”. As one of the game designers, Toru Iwatani, later admitted, they wanted to make a humorous game without any violence, so that it would be comfortable for the widest possible audience to play. Although initially in his native Japan, Pac-man - then called PUCK MAN - was met with complete indifference. But in the USA the game broke all patterns, charts and sales records. As a result, Pac-Man began its victorious march around the world.

The era of platformers begins

Donkey Kong (1981)

One of the early representatives of the platformer genre. A character in a cap named Mario had to save a certain mamzel named Pauline from the aggressive gorilla Donkey Kong. Mario would later become one of the most popular video game characters, if not the most popular. And he started out as a monkey fighter.

Pole Position (1982)

Formula 1 racing: you first had to complete a qualifying race and then participate in the competition. The configuration of the racing tracks replicated real tracks. This game set the standard for the display of racing games for many years to come: sprite graphics, third-person view.

Tapper (1983)

Bartender simulator: you need to throw full mugs to hungry visitors in time, and grab the empty ones. If one of the half-drunk customers reached the end of the bar, the bartender was thrown out the window. By the way, check out the inscription on the cover: “The most innovative slot machine game of 1984.”

Duck Hunt (1984)

Another icon game. Duck Hunt slot machines and Nintendo Entertainment System consoles (manufactured until 1995) were equipped with pistols that worked on the “light pen” principle. On the screen, ducks were flying out of the thickets, which had to be shot with a minimum number of misses. And the dog happily grabbed the prey. If desired, you could switch to the skeet shooting mode. In terms of sales, the game ranks second on the NES platform - 28 million copies.

Super Mario Bros. (1985)

Four years after the release of Donkey Kong, an Italian plumber with no fear of evil primates began to conquer the world. In this arcade game you had to control the mustachioed plumber Mario in overalls and a cap and his brother Ludji. While traveling around the world, you had to evade enemies or defeat them by jumping on their heads, and also collect hidden coins along the way. The goal is to reach the end and save the princess.

This game was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling game in history - 40 million copies. In fact, few other game characters can compete with Mario in terms of recognition. The echoes of Mario's popularity war still linger in popular culture.

The Legend of Zelda (1986)

This game marked the beginning of a very popular series of games of the same name that were released for many years. The main character - a certain Link - must save the kingdom from the invading army of the Prince of Darkness. He travels the world in search of a magical Artifact, fights enemies, upgrades his characteristics and uses his inventory: hello, RPG!

The rise of fighting games

Street Fighter (1987)

And this game gave birth to an entire era of fighting games - games in which you had to fight hand-to-hand with each other or with enemies. Combo attacks and six-button character control appeared here. In Street Fighter, you had to win fights, each round lasted 30 seconds (if none of the fighters had been knocked out by that time, the one with the most health left won).

Galaxy Force (1988)

A third-person shooter in which you control a futuristic space fighter while fighting the forces of the evil Fourth Empire. The battles took place both in space and on six planets.

Prince of Persia (1989)

Another legend of the gaming world. Making your way through the labyrinth of dungeons, you had to save the princess with the help of the blonde Persian prince. You only had one hour to do this. Along the way there were traps, puzzles and enemies. The game was incredibly popular and was ported to many platforms. For the technology of the time, the character had surprisingly realistic movements, and the game itself was very atmospheric. The MS-DOS version soon reached the USSR and quickly spread throughout institutes and factories, often paralyzing the work of entire departments. I discovered this game in 1993, and it made an indelible impression on me. I still remember that Shift was responsible for the sword strike.

Castle of Illusion (1990)

A platformer for SEGA consoles, in which Mickey Mouse saved his mouse passion Minnie Mouse, who was kidnapped by an evil witch and imprisoned in a castle. The game was distinguished by a variety of opponents, each type of which had to be dealt with in a different way in terms of destruction, although in general the gameplay was similar to games about Mario.

Sonic The Hedgehog (1991)

In the early 1990s, this game was the face and icon of Sega consoles in post-Soviet Russia. A piece of the gameplay was demonstrated in television advertising, and it was very cool and colorful, where are the Chinese clones of Dendy. Of course: 16-bit Sega was head and shoulders above the quality of graphics and special effects than 8-bit Dendy. The main character of the game is the jet hedgehog Sonic, charged with incredible adrenaline, who was driven by the thirst to find the villain named Dr. Eggman, a scientist who imprisoned animals inside robots and stole the magical Chaos Emeralds.

Mortal Kombat (1992)

This is one of the best fighting games in the history, which actually set a new bar for the quality of animation, the variety of combo attacks, and at the same time poured tons of blood on the players. Initially, the game was developed for slot machines, but was ported to set-top boxes and personal computers (the graphics were better there). Mortal Kombat had many playable characters that fought between them. Each character had their own cunning techniques, their own strengths and weaknesses. The game turned out to be incredibly entertaining, playable and bloody. During our fights, so much adrenaline splashed out, as if we were fighting each other in the ring. It's truly epic, there's no other way to put it. An excellent means of relaxation after a hard day, like all games in the Mortal Kombat series. By the way, you will be surprised, but this fighting game even has a storyline.

Victory March 3D

Doom (1993)

Once upon a time there was no need to explain to anyone what Doom was. Everyone knew about this game. There was even a meme in circulation: “I’ll go along doom ayu." Doom set the standard for first-person shooters for many years. The plot is primitive and is not revealed in the game itself. Essentially, you play as a certain special forces soldier on Mars, who shoots with extreme cruelty hordes of monsters that ended up on the planet due to a failed teleportation experiment that opened a portal to hell.

Compared to Wolfenstein 3D, which was released by the same id Software just a year earlier, Doom looked like an expensive foreign car next to an unsightly Zhiguli car (although both of them will look alike to twenty-year-olds):

Tekken (1994)

A bright representative of Japanese fighting games, with a specific character design. However, unlike other fighting games, Tekken allowed players to control each fighter's arm and leg individually. It is curious that the game was originally created as an internal project of Namco, intended for testing 3D animation. But in the end it turned into a full-fledged hand-to-hand combat simulator.

Time Crisis (1995)

A first-person shooter game that had to be played with a gun (which is a "light pen"). The game itself controlled the camera movements, and the player had to shoot all the enemies on the screen.

Quake (1996)

The successor to Doom, far superior to its ancestor. The first truly three-dimensional shooter, in which you could approach the corpse of an enemy and look at it from different angles - in the same Doom, these were just sprites that were displayed on the screen the same way from any angle. It was with the release of Quake that the concept of eSports arose, because this game reached a new level of realistic graphics and demands on the players’ reactions. People affectionately called him “kvaka.” And also the rocketjump appeared in Quake! This is when a player jumped up while running and shot at his feet with a rocket launcher, so that the explosion would lift him higher and throw him further, albeit at the cost of reducing his health. This way it was possible to move much faster and jump to heights inaccessible in the usual way.

The plot is even more primitive than in Doom: you are some kind of abstract soldier, destroying monsters that are swaggering around your military base. But Quake was originally created with multiplayer in mind. True, at first only in local networks, since in those years the Internet was still a novelty, and modems and telephone lines did not provide the required level of delays.

Gran Turismo (1997)

This game marked the beginning of a whole series of racing games. Here, for that time, real examples of cars were modeled quite carefully, and the features of their behavior on the track were imitated. A functioning tuning system was implemented that made it possible to change the behavior of the car by adjusting/replacing various components.

Final Fantasy VII (1997)

A fantastic Japanese RPG, one of the many games in the very popular Final Fantasy series. By the way, this is still the best-selling part of the saga.

The first shooter to tell the story using a game engine

Half Life (1998)

Another landmark game in the first-person shooter genre. During a failed scientific experiment at the top-secret Black Mesa research complex, aggressive aliens enter our world. You, scientist Gordon Freeman, an employee of the complex, begin to fight the creatures in the hope of correcting the situation.

The game was innovative in that the story was told as the game progressed, through character conversations and other scripted scenes, rather than through cutscenes or blocks of text. Half Life was one of the first games where the player gained allies as he progressed through the game. Moreover, the AI ​​that controlled them acted surprisingly intelligently, which became one of the breakthroughs in computer games. The plot and its unusual presentation were so exciting that Half Life is considered by many to be one of the turning point games in history. And the gameplay itself was very cheerful.

Unreal Tournament (1999)

Continuation of the Unreal game, released in 1998. Unreal Tournament perfected the multiplayer mode, and for several years this series of games became a serious competitor to the Quake series.

Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed (2000)

Perhaps one of the most harmonious in terms of playability in the Need For Speed ​​series. It was also the first of the NFS to be entirely dedicated to cars of one brand - Porsche.

First use of the bullet time effect

Max Payne (2001)

Third person shooter. You are DEA agent Max Payne, forced to evade arrest on false charges. This game was the first to implement a bullet time mode, which, combined with all sorts of tricks during firefights, created a kind of cinematic storytelling effect. By the way, the authors of the game did not borrow the slow-motion feature from The Matrix; the game began to be developed before the release of the film, and its gameplay was initially based on this effect.

Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven (2002)

The beginning of the Mafia series of games. The title says it all: you start from the very bottom to build a career in the Italian organized crime group. The authors perfectly conveyed the atmosphere of the Great Depression in the USA. Thanks to this, as well as the excellent plot and good playability, the first Mafia is still considered by many to be the best game in the series.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (2003)

A stealth action game promoting the difficult job of an American NSA special forces agent who must prevent a war between the United States and China, as well as carry out another delicate task related to the President of Georgia and some secret weapon.

New level of physics simulation

Half Life 2 (2004)

Continuation of the first Half Life. You are still the same Gordon Freeman, fighting the totalitarian government appointed by the aliens who enslaved the Earth. The main feature of the game was the Source engine, which provided unprecedented graphics realism at that time. The advantages of the game also included excellent character animation, powerful AI, and shader rendering. Thanks to the Havok Physics physics engine, the player's interaction with the world was very natural.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (2005)

Continuation of the GTA game series. Essentially, the plot remains the same - you play as a certain character, whose life circumstances and/or character and upbringing flaws force him to wander around the city and do all sorts of obscene things, constantly breaking the law. The strengths of the game included a huge open game world, filled with numerous NPCs with whom you could communicate, which benefited the atmosphere. The main character learned to swim, dive and climb over a fence here. In addition to cars, it was now possible to travel on bicycles, tractors, tow trucks, motorcycles, ATVs, airplanes, combine harvesters, trains, and even with a jetpack. In general, about 200 types of transport were implemented in San Andreas.

A new generation of graphics in RPGs

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)

An epic continuation of The Elder Scrolls series. This RPG is set in an alternate world where magic and dragons are as real as swords and arrows. The main character fights against representatives of a cruel cult who wants to conquer the empire. One of the strongest aspects of the entire The Elder Scrolls series remained a completely open world, in which you could move freely, complete side storylines, freely hunt monsters and bandits, acquire houses in different towns, and generally do whatever came into your head. At the same time, the game boasted an excellent physics engine, an advanced AI system and beautiful graphics. For example, trainable generator programs were used to generate landscapes, providing greater realism to the world of Oblivion.

Halo 3 (2007)

The console series of first-person shooters Halo has a large army of fans thanks to its very cheerful gameplay and good graphics. The story takes place in the 26th century, you are an elite fighter, a genetically modified soldier in an exoskeleton suit, fighting aliens who have invaded Earth.

Now you can play as a zombie

Left 4 Dead (2008)

A multiplayer shooter in which an interesting idea was implemented. According to the plot, a pandemic arose on Earth, during which almost the entire population turned into the Infected. A group of four surviving people try to break through the hordes and find a place of salvation. So, the idea is that in multiplayer, random players are assembled into a team of four, and the rest play as the Infected. And thanks to advanced AI, the game adapts to the tactics and style of play, changing level parameters, respawn locations, and so on.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009)

The Call of Duty series has been competing with the Battlefield series for many years. Each brand has its own vast army of fans. In the campaign of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 you can try yourself as fighters of various special forces, and in the multiplayer mode you will find hurricane action, many types of weapons and military gadgets, as well as an interesting perk system.

BioShock 2 (2010)

A fantastic first-person shooter, which is a plot continuation of the first game. You are in an underwater city built by a mad scientist, and you play as one of the Big Daddies: a guy in a huge diving suit.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)

An epoch-making and, perhaps, the best game in the RPG genre to date. The plot of it is almost unrelated to Oblivion, so it can be safely played by beginners. The game set new heights in terms of the realism of the generated landscapes, graphics and physics. Although over the years it has become morally outdated, numerous fans still do not allow Skyrim to fall into the abyss of oblivion: they have riveted a huge number of updates, thanks to which the game today continues to look very modern and rich. In fact, it was fan updates that formed the basis for the recent re-release of Skyrim.

Far Cry 3 (2012)

Continuation of the famous series of action games Far Cry. This time you play as an American tourist who went with his friends to a tropical island and became a victim of an attack by bandits. The tourist turned out to be no mistake, he escaped and began saving his friends and taking revenge on the scumbags.

Tomb Raider (2013)

If in previous decades you managed not to play the adventures of Lara Croft, then the penultimate Tomb Raider is a great chance to catch up, since the 2013 game is a restart of the series. This is a third-person action game. The main character, a curvaceous young anthropologist, ends up on a ship with her fellow scientists on a secluded island ruled by a mysterious and ancient cult. To save herself and her comrades, Lara demonstrates miracles of acrobatics and weaponry.

The most lively gaming city

Grand Theft Auto V (2014)

For the first time, one of the most popular games in the world has three main characters, and you can switch between their storylines at will. Moreover, each character has its own unique abilities: slowing down time when driving, when shooting, berserker mode. The game world of GTA V is 3.5 times larger than in GTA San Andreas. There is a very detailed underwater world here, which can be explored with scuba diving or in a bathyscaphe; you can even find a UFO on the seabed. The variety of activities in the city has greatly expanded, sports facilities and facilities have appeared, it is possible to trade on the in-game exchange, visit entertainment venues, and so on. The total development budget for the game was $270 million. Two hundred and seventy million dollars, Karl!

Skyforge (2015)

MMORPG created on an engine developed by Mail.Ru Group. The game took quite a long time to complete, about 5 years. Here you can act on the side of the gods and immortal heroes, working together to destroy the invading mythical and alien creatures. One of the main features of the engine was the huge range of rendered space - 40 km: this was necessary in order to convey the vastness of the world, the “divine” capabilities of the players, and the scope of the tasks. Today it is one of the most “long-range” engines in the gaming industry.

Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)

A completely fresh RPG with an open world. Due to some kind of apocalypse, civilization almost came to an end, the world was enslaved by robots, people slipped to the level of primitive times. You play as a young hunter who explores the world, earns a living, fights - in general, lives a rich prehistoric life.

Here is an excursion into the history of the development of computer game graphics. The progress is not just impressive, it is like the evolution of life in miniature: from primitive graphic forms to the most complex models of the world with the highest level of graphic and physical simulations. So much so that even processors and video cards no longer demonstrate the same rate of performance growth. Of course, partly due to the difficulties faced by engineers, but largely due to a decrease in demand from the gaming industry. After all, not all games still use at least 90% of the capabilities of modern hardware.

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The site presents to your attention a visual representation of scientific progress using the example of computer graphics that are used in games.

Deus: EX

Near future, 2052, the entire planet is mired in chaos as a result of an economic disaster. World the government fell, almost the entire planet is controlled terrorist organizations. In addition to this, people are dying from epidemic of the "Grey Death". You play as a person specialist. agent, representing the remnant of reason on Earth. Home Your task is fight this chaos. The game is intense conspiracy theories such as the Illuminati's plans to rule the world, experiments in Area 51, etc.

Tomb Raider

Exciting adventure young archaeologist Lara Croft. You have to play for gentle girl(this is exactly what Lara may seem like), ready to strike at any moment death blow to your opponent. The heroine relies more on agility and stealth rather than by brute force. Crowds of evil bandits, huge bases, incredibly beautiful views, and, of course, gorgeous Lara.

DOOM

Dedicated to mesilov lovers! You play as a stormtrooper savior who goes in search of his missing squad. All the action of the game takes place on the planet Phobos. Shortly after your arrival, you learn that the entire planet populated somehow strange creatures after which it begins fun… Shotguns, machine guns, even a chainsaw- all this is at your disposal.

Fallout

Post-apocalyptic world, filled with mutants and bandits. Our hero is one of the few who survived nuclear war to the shelter. Decades later, you come to the surface, but everything is not the same as it was before. Now the world is filled with open violence and only those who survive better armed.

Mafia

One big family, gangster wars, money, girls, weapons, luxury cars and great music, betrayal. The game that showed everything charms and that's all nightmares last century in USA.

Mortal Kombat

Most likely everyone has heard about it at least once greatest fighting game of all times. Choose your hero, use special abilities, destroy the enemy in 1 on 1 combat, and don’t forget to finish everything beautifully with fatality!

Call of Duty

From Second World War before technological future the essence does not change, we - soldiers, who are ordered to defend their home at the cost of life! An excellent series that brought up a whole generation of guys.

Resident Evil

The game series is based on fight against evil as zombie. The characters change from series to series, as do the origins and capabilities of zombies. Great for lovers horror story with shooter elements.

StarCraft

Great War Protoss(super race), Zerg(monsters) And Terranov ( of people). An excellent strategy for those who like variety. This game series gives us almost endless possibilities in the conduct of war. Who will win this mortal combat?

Need for speed

Cars, tuning, girls, speed, great music, extraordinary plot- this is something that will definitely please you in the evening after work. Long-term series street racing simulator continues to delight its fans to this day.

Description of flash game

Evolution of graphics

Evolution of Graphics

"The Evolution of Graphics" is arcade game in the platformer genre, clearly showing how the gameplay will evolve during the game. And it will evolve as follows. The game starts in its simplest form. In front of the player is one block that needs to be overcome and get to the door. At the second level, there will be more platforming blocks and they will be located on different levels. Then, obstacles and traps will appear, for example, in the form of sharp spikes into which you cannot fall. So, step by step you will notice that the graphics, scenery and gameplay will change.

With each level, it becomes more and more difficult to overcome obstacles. In total, the game "Graphics Evolution" has 20 levels, which can be completed by reaching the secret door at the end. In terms of controls, the game is quite simple; you only need a mouse. But in terms of passing it is quite difficult. Some blocks are too small - one wrong move will send you straight onto sharp spikes. Show dexterity and accuracy to successfully complete each level.