Quake engine explained

The Quake engine (id Tech 2), is the game engine developed by id Software to power their 1996 video game Quake. It featured true 3D real-time rendering. Since 1999, it has been licensed under the terms of GNU General Public License v2.0 or later.

After release, the Quake engine immediately forked. Much of the engine remained in Quake II and Quake III Arena. The Quake engine, like the Doom engine, used binary space partitioning (BSP) to optimise the world rendering. The Quake engine also used Gouraud shading for moving objects, and a static lightmap for non-moving objects.

Historically, the Quake engine has been treated as a separate engine from its successor, the Quake II engine. Although the codebases for Quake and Quake II were separate GPL releases,^{[1] [2]} both engines are now considered variants of id Tech 2.^[3]

History

The Quake engine was developed from 1995 for the video game Quake, released on June 22, 1996. John Carmack did most of the programming of the engine, with help from Michael Abrash in algorithms and assembly optimization. The Quake II engine (id Tech 2.5) was based on it.

John Romero initially conceived of Quake as an action game taking place in a fully 3D polygon world, inspired by Sega AM2's 3D fighting game Virtua Fighter. Quake was also intended to feature Virtua Fighter-influenced third-person melee combat. However, id Software considered it to be risky, and it would've taken longer to develop the engine. Because the project was taking too long, the third-person melee was eventually dropped.^[4]

Derivative engines

On December 21, 1999, John Carmack of id Software released the Quake engine source code on the Internet under the terms of GPL-2.0-or-later, allowing programmers to edit the engine and add new features. Programmers were soon releasing new versions of the engine on the net. Some of the most known engines are:

• GoldSrc – The first engine to be created by Valve. It was used in the Half-Life series, and gave rise to the Source engine. The Xash3D projects, as well as the FreeHL and FreeCS ports,^[5] use Quake source code in part to recreate this engine, even with a wrapper for running the game.^{[6] [7]}
• DarkPlaces – A significantly modified engine used in several standalone games and Quake mods.^{[8] [9]} Although the last stable release was on May 13, 2014, it has received numerous updates through its SVN repository since then.^[10] Its home page was hosted on Icculus.org until 2021, when the engine switched to a Git repository hosted on GitHub. The developers of Xonotic provide mirrors of DarkPlaces source code on various social coding platforms^{[11] [12]} since the game is built on and distributed with the development version of the engine.
• QuakeForge - One of the earlier major community ports.^[13]
• NPRQuake - Fork of Quake featuring non-photorealistic rendering giving it a pencil drawn look.^{[14] [15]}
• Tenebrae - Custom Quake engine with real time lighting and bumpmapping among other features.^{[16] [17] [18] [19]}
• Fisheye Quake - Custom Quake engine with fisheye distortion by the author of PanQuake.^[20]
• Blinky - Fork of the fisheye view along with the TyrQuake software renderer.^{[21] [22]}
• Engoo (Derivative of WinQuake) - Graphically enhanced software renderer based port.^[23]
• Fruitz of Dojo - Source port aimed at Mac OS X.^{[24] [25] [26]}
• TyrQuake - A conservative focused source port.
• NehQuake - Custom engine for the Nehara mod.^[27]
• FitzQuake (Derivative of GLQuake) - Seminal port whose SDL version was later forked into numerous others.^[28]
• MarkV (Derivative of FitzQuake, successor to DirectQ) - Came in both GLQuake and WinQuake derived versions.^[29]
• Quakespasm (Derivative of FitzQuake) – Commonly used source port.^[30]
• Quakespasm-Spiked (Derivative of Quakespasm) - Limit-removing fork. ^[31]
• vkQuake – (Derivative of Quakespasm) – Uses Vulkan API for rendering programmed by id Software employee Axel Gneiting, released under the GPLv2.^{[32] [33]}
• Ironwail - (Derivative of Quakespasm) – An engine aiming at maximum performance.^[34]
• FTEQW (Derivative of QuakeWorld) - A modern client for online multiplayer.^[35]
• ezQuake (Derivative of FuhQuake) - Multiplayer focused port often paired with the nQuake launcher.^{[36] [37]}
• JoeQuake (Derivative of FuhQuake) - A port popular with speedrunners.^[38]

Games using the Quake engine

Games using a proprietary license

Year	Title	Developer(s)	Publisher(s)
1996	Quake	id Software	GT Interactive
1997		Hipnotic Interactive	3D Realms
		Rogue Entertainment	3D Realms
	Hexen II	Raven Software	id Software, Activision
	Malice	Ratloop	Quantum Axcess
	Shrak	Quantum Axcess	Quantum Axcess
		Zero Gravity Entertainment	WizardWorks
1998	Hexen II Mission Pack: Portal of Praevus	Raven Software	id Software Activision
	Abyss of Pandemonium - The Final Mission	Impel Development Team	Perfect Publishing
2000	Laser Arena	Trainwreck Studios	ValuSoft
2001	CIA Operative: Solo Missions	Trainwreck Studios	ValuSoft
	Urban Mercenary	Moshpit Entertainment	Moshpit Entertainment

Games based on the GPL source release

Year	Title	Developer(s)	Publisher(s)
2000	OpenQuartz[39]	OpenQuartz Team	SourceForge
2001	Transfusion[40]	Transfusion Project	SourceForge
2002	Eternal War: Shadows of Light	Two Guys Software	Two Guys Software
2005	Nexuiz	Alientrap	Alientrap
2007	The Hunted[41]	Chris Page	ModDB
2011	Xonotic	Team Xonotic	Team Xonotic
	Steel Storm	Kot-in-Action Creative Artel	Kot-in-Action Creative Artel
2012	Forced: Leashed[42]	Kepuli Games	Kepuli Games
	RetroBlazer[43] [44] [45]	Hydra Game Works	Hydra Game Works
2013	Choas Esque Anthology[46]	Chaos Esque Team	Chaos Esque Team
2015	Rexuiz[47]	Rexuiz Team	Rexuiz Team
2017	FreeCS	FreeCS Team	GitHub
2018	FortressOne[48]	FortresssOne Team	FortressOne Team
	The Wastes[49]	Vera Visions L.L.C	Vera Visions L.L.C
2019	LibreQuake[50]	LibreQuake Team	GitHub
2021	Doombringer[51]	Anomic Games	Anomic Games
2023	[52]	Killpixel	3D Realms 1C Entertainment

See also

• List of game engines
• First person shooter engine
• id Tech
• Quake II engine
• Quake modding

External links

• Quake's Lighting Model

Surface caching by Michael Abrash

• Quake engine code analysis by Fabien Sanglard
• Source code for winquake, glquake, quakeworld, and glquakeworld

Notes and References

1. Web site: Quake engine GPL release . May 24, 2020 . GitHub.
2. Web site: id Tech 2 GPL release . May 24, 2020 . GitHub.
3. Web site: id Tech 2 page. id Software. https://web.archive.org/web/20080917045739/http://www.idsoftware.com/business/idtech2/. 2008-09-17.
4. Next Generation. 30. June 1997. 9–12. Does John Romero Still Enjoy Shooting People?.
5. Web site: Larabel . Michael . 2017-11-10 . FreeCS: Aiming For An Open-Source Counter-Strike Implementation . 2024-07-14 . Phoronix.
6. Web site: Half-Life: Absolute Zero mimics Half-Life's original vibe, run on Linux with Xash3D FWGS. BTRE. 2020-08-03. 2024-07-15. GamingOnLinux.
7. Web site: Play the original Half-Life in the browser. Rob. Beschizza. 2022-03-09. 2024-07-16. Boing Boing.
8. Web site: DarkPlaces – Quake modification. 2023-10-29. 2024-07-16. Steve. Emms. LinuxLinks.
9. Web site: DarkPlaces Homepage . icculus.org . November 6, 2017.
10. Web site: Darkplaces subversion repository. svn.icculus.org. August 9, 2019.
11. Web site: DarkPlaces Quake Engine on Xonotic GitLab . February 3, 2020.
12. Web site: DarkPlaces Quake Engine on Xonotic GitHub . . November 6, 2017.
13. Web site: Stevenaaus . 2010-03-01 . Game Engines . 2024-07-15 . Linux Quake HOWTO.
14. Web site: Quake on me: classic shooter rendered with pencil sketch filter. Rob. Beschizza. 2018-07-30. 2024-07-15. Boing Boing.
15. Web site: Non-Photorealistic Rendering Techniques for a Game Engine. 2014-09-11. 2024-07-15. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. SlideServe. Adrian. Ille.
16. Web site: New Tenebrae. Maarten. Goldstein. 2002-09-25. 2024-07-16. Shacknews.
17. Web site: TenebraeQuake, an Enhanced Quake Front End. Simon. Royal. 2015-10-10. 2024-07-16. Low End Mac.
18. Web site: New Tenebrae Release for PC. 2003-07-14. 2024-07-16. Galen. Wiley. Inside Mac Games.
19. Web site: New PC Tenebrae Quake, Mac Update Soon. 2002-10-27. 2024-07-16. Andy. Largent. Inside Mac Games.
20. Web site: Part 5: Source Ports and Fisheye Quake. Patrick. Bosworth. 2021-07-02. 2024-07-16. Shacknews.
21. Web site: Peripheral vision in games goes ultrawide with new Quake mod. Andy. Chalk. 2015-10-10. 2024-07-16. PC Gamer.
22. Web site: Peripheral Vision in game goes Ultrawide thanks to the new Quake Mod. Aditya. Chakrabarty. 2015-03-12. 2024-07-16. sportskeeda.
23. Web site: Baxter . Joel . 2015-05-03 . Quake Engines, Old and New . 2024-07-16 . Neogeographica.
24. Web site: Quake Gets Universal Binary. Brad. Cook. 2006-03-19. 2024-07-15. The Mac Observer.
25. Web site: Classic Games: Quake. 2003-08-01. 2024-07-15. Neale. Monks. MyMac.com.
26. Web site: Frank's Craptacular House of Mac Quake Stuffs. 2019-07-01. 2024-07-15. pOx's Playhouse.
27. Web site: Mods. Linux Quake HOWTO. Stevenaaus. 2010-03-01. 2024-07-15.
28. Web site: Nods to Mods Interview: Rubicon 2 for Quake. 2022-08-18. 2024-07-15. Joshua. Boyle. Slayer's Club.
29. Web site: Quake Xmas Jam 2018 adds 21 new maps to id Software's classic shooter, available for download. 2018-12-11. 2024-07-15. John. Papadopoulos. DOSGaming.
30. Web site: Quake Renaissance: a short history of 25 years of Quake modding. Robert. Yang. 2021-08-23. 2024-07-14. Rock Paper Shotgun.
31. Web site: Block Quake is basically Quake made into LEGO. Liam. Dawe. 2022-04-27. 2024-07-14. GamingOnLinux.
32. Web site: My Vulkan Quake 1 Port running "In the Shadows" mod. Some stuff still missing. Code is here https://github.com/Novum/vkQuake . Gneiting . Axel . July 20, 2016 . . August 6, 2016.
33. Web site: Vulkan Quake port based on QuakeSpasm . github.com/Novum/vkQuake. August 6, 2016.
34. Web site: Ironwail, a high-performance QuakeSpasm fork. 2022-01-30. 2024-07-14. Spirit. InsideQC.
35. Web site: This mod turns Quake into a top-down shooter. Andy. Chalk. 2021-02-17. 2024-07-16. PC Gamer.
36. Web site: We're running a Quake server all week—come play with us!. Alex. Campbell. 2016-05-20. 2024-07-16. PC Gamer.
37. Web site: We're running a Quake multiplayer server all week for the 25th anniversary. Wes. Fenlon. 2021-05-22. 2024-07-16. PC Gamer.
38. Web site: Quake Engines & Source Ports: A Beginners Guide. Fairweather. 2022-02-19. 2024-07-15. Slipgate Sightseer.
39. Web site: neozeed. Open Quartz. Virtually Fun. 2018-06-24. 2023-02-08.
40. Web site: Devoted to the cause - Blood Transfusion to save aging game. https://web.archive.org/web/20030408231711/http://www.gameindustry.com/interviews/int030320.asp. Game Industry News. Gareth. Von Kallenbach. 2003. 2003-04-08.
41. Web site: The Hunted Chronicle 2 review . Nixbit . 2023-04-23 .
42. Web site: Force: Leashed. Jay Is Games. Tricky. 2012-08-25. 2023-04-24.
43. Web site: RetroBlazer (Alpha). TIG Source. Derek. Yu. 2012-01-16. 2023-04-24.
44. Web site: RetroBlazer Has The Fast Pace, Bright Colors Of 1990s FPS. Chris. Priestman. Siliconera. 2015-01-21. 2024-07-14.
45. Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20120321034052/https://www.diygamer.com/2012/01/retroblazer-demo/. 16-Bit Killer – RetroBlazer Demo Offers 2.5d FPS Nostlagia With A Twist. Dominic. Tarason. 2012-01-12. 2024-07-14. 2012-03-21. DIY Gamer.
46. Web site: Chaos Esque Anthology Free 3D FPS, fork from Xonotic. 2024-04-03. 2024-07-15. FOSS Games.
47. Web site: Rexuiz FPS. Indie Gamer. 2024-07-14.
48. Web site: Get some classic FPS action on with QuakeWorld Team Fortress. Liam. Dawe. 2018-11-21. 2024-07-29.
49. Web site: The Wastes. 2024-07-14. Frag-Net.con.
50. Web site: Robert. Yang. Quake Renaissance: how to start playing the original Quake today. Rock Paper Shotgun. 2021-08-05. 2023-02-08.
51. Web site: DOOMBRINGER is a new first-person shooter from veterans of the Doom and Quake communities. GamingOnLinux. Liam. Dawe. 2021-06-05. 2023-12-26.
52. Web site: 3D Realms' VP Talks 'Exceeding' Quake with Wrath: Aeon of Ruin and 'Dumbed Down' Call of Duty. Russell. Bradley. March 7, 2019. Game Revolution. November 30, 2024.