The Driving Technology BehindQuake III: ArenaEric [email protected] 145: The History of Computer Game DesignMarch 20, 2001The Driving Technology Behind Quake III: Arenaby Eric ChanThe Next Big GameIt came as no surprise to fans of the successful Quake franchise when id Soft-ware announced that their next big game would be a first-person shooter titledQuake III: Arena. Started in 1991 by John Carmack, Adrian Carmack, andJohn Romero, id Software practically invented the first-person shooter (FPS)genre with the shareware Wolfenstein 3D in 1992, then cemented their place ingame history with the smash hit Doom the following year. Quake was the firstgame that showcased a true 3D environment with polygonal models instead ofsprites; Quake II achieved new levels of detail and realism by being the firstPC game to take advantage of 3D acceleration in hardware. With their newestaction title Quake III: Arena, id Software continues to push the envelope andto engineer cutting-edge technology. Indeed, while the games themselves havealways been fun to play, we shall see that technology is the driving elementbehind id Software’s continued success in the FPS genre.Quake III was fundamentally different from its predeces sors in that it wasdesigned from the beginning to be solely a multiplayer game. Rather than addsolo levels with a weak background story, id Software abandoned the single-player paradigm altogether and instead fo cuse d on its strength: multiplayerdeathmatch. Consequently, the game designers realized from the start that itwas essential to provide the best online gaming expe rience possible.Graphic DetailBefore settling into a game of deathmatch for the first time, one is usuallystruck by Quake III ’s stunningly detailed graphics. The game sports a multipass3D engine, des igned and implemented by lead programmer John Carmack, thatis capable of rendering curved surfaces for sleeker and more flexible level archi-tecture. The engine also supports volumetric fog, realistic lighting and shadows,mirrors, and a number of special effects, including lens flares, explosions, dy-namic lights, smoke trails, and energy burns. It also brings to life the richlydetailed textures, character models and animation created by Adrian Carmack,Kevin Cloud, Kenneth Scott, and Paul Steed. While graphic detail does notaffect the mechanics of game play, having superior visuals has always be en astrong selling point for FPS titles. Online previews often show in-game screen-shots of upcom ing games, and a game that can produce eye-catching screenshotsattracts more consumers.The fact that Quake III sports cutting-edge graphics may not be so surpris-ing, since fans of the Doom and Quake franchises have come to expect the bes tvisuals from id’s games over the years. John Carmack decided to use OpenGLover Direct3D for the 3D graphics API, a choice that one finds less and less com-mon in PC game studios today. Recently, more game developers have turned to1Direct3D, a part of Microsoft’s DirectX API, for 3D graphics work. Carmack’sinsistence on using OpenGL illustrated that GL is still a solid and effective 3Dgraphics API, and also encouraged 3D video card manufacturers to improve thequality of the GL software drivers for their products. Indeed, when it becameevident in early 1999 that id Software was aiming for a Christmas release, topvideo card companies ATI, 3dfx, and nVIDIA scrambled to ensure that theirlatest products would run Quake III flawlessly. They all knew that id Software’snext installment in the popular Quake franchise would be a sure winner in theholiday season. Since the Quake III engine is graphics intensive and requires avideo card with strong 3D hardware acceleration, the game succeeded in drivingvideo card sales.Reaching Out To Multiple PlatformsAnother solid reason to use OpenGL over Direct3D is that OpenGL im-plementations exist on all major platforms. From the beginning, id Softwareintended Quake III to be a multi-platform game, specifically for the MicrosoftWindows, Apple Macintosh, and Linux operating systems. OpenGL workssmoothly on all three of these platforms, whereas Direct3D currently runs onlyon Windows, not surprisingly. Not only did id Software design Quake III torun on these three platforms, but they actually develop e d and released the gamesimultaneously for all three. This is unlike most game studios, which usuallydevelop and release a title on a single platform (typically Windows), then hireother companies to port the title to other platforms.A famous example of this scenario is Epic Games’s Unreal, which was de-veloped and released for Microsoft Windows first. Epic then hired WestlakeInteractive to bring the popular FPS title to the Macintosh, a decision thatillustrates two major disadvantages of this general approach. First, the portsfor other platforms are usually released much later than the original, due to theadditional development time needed. Second, and more important, this delayproblem only gets worse when the game is updated or patched. Because ofvarious bugs and issues with the original Unreal release, Epic released a num-ber of minor patches. However, they were slow in sending the updated codeand communicating the changes to Westlake Interactive, which delayed updatesfor the Macintosh and alienated the Macintosh community. Furthermore, port-ing houses are traditionally contracted for the original game port only, not forupdates. Hence, Westlake earned zero revenue for the man-months needed topatch Unreal, but doing so was necessary in order to keep a solid fan base onthe Macintosh, the core of Westlake’s business. id Software avoided all of thesesticky issues by simultaneously developing Quake III for each of the three targetplatforms. Unfortunately, most development studios don’t have the experienceor the technical expertise to work out the nuances of multiple operating systemsagainst a tight deadline, and hence choose to focus on a single platform.2The PAK SystemTechnologically, the simultaneous development and release plan was madepossible by the use of the PAK virtual file system. As we shall see, the PAKsystem not only eases development, but also facilitates game expandability,helps to combat online cheating, and remains instrumental to id Software’stechnology licensing business. A PAK file is simply a file that encapsulatesand compresses a set of files or directories. In the case of Quake III, all gamedata files such as textures,
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