Development of graphics in games. The evolution of computer graphics in games. Now you can play as a zombie

07.10.2023 -

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 the 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.

Description of flash game

Evolution of graphics

Evolution of Graphics

"Graphics Evolution" is an arcade platformer game that clearly shows how the gameplay will evolve as you play. 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.

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.

Computer games appeared almost half a century ago. Just think - almost fifty years have passed! This is a huge period of time, and it can already be compared with the time of the existence of cinema and television.

But unlike its “bigger brothers,” the gaming industry has been transformed beyond recognition many times. The appearance of games changed rapidly, and new technologies appeared in a matter of years, surprised everyone around and instantly became obsolete. The history of graphics in games is a history of technical revolutions that only stopped booming in recent years. It's time to look back and see where it all began.

In the beginning there was a lamp. And the lamp was information, and that information was bit. The first electronic entertainment device was created by a mathematician at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Raymond Redheffer in 1941. And this is not a typo. It was in 1941 that the first electronic game appeared!

Echo of war. Box for him.
It all started with him.

The device was a box with red lamps and black toggle switches. It was very primitive, but you can already play against it him- an ancient Chinese logic game in which players take turns removing chips from the table, and the one who removes the last one loses. The artificial intelligence for playing it is well algorithmized - that’s why, after some ten years, the British company “ Ferranti"created a computer" Nimrod”, which was a great success at science fairs. The rows of chips in it symbolized three rows of lamps.

Also in 1951, a British scientist Christopher Strechey taught by designed yet Alan Turing tube computer Pilot ACE play checkers. The computer also had no screen, and to make moves you had to spin a dial similar to a telephone dial.

Light bulbs of electronic machines for playing checkers and him were the first of their kind to play field "pixels". But the history of video games is usually counted not from light bulbs, but from the moment when computers had monitors. And these were not always raster screens. Sometimes ordinary cathode ray tubes or oscilloscopes were enough.

Throw like an oscilloscope needle

EDSAC emulator with OXO game. Note the dial in the corner.

In 1947, American physicists Thomas Goldsmith Jr. And Astle Ray Mann patented the first game using a cathode ray tube. The ballistic missile simulator had a simple name - “ Entertainment device based on cathode ray tube" The point of it was to hit a target drawn on top of the screen with a point of light, using the handles to change the speed and direction of the rocket. The authors were inspired by the concept of radars, which appeared just during the war. The inventors assembled a prototype, but neither it nor even its photographs have survived to this day. All we have are the drawings and diagrams from the patent application. It's a shame.

1952 British scientist Alexander Douglas, while defending his doctoral dissertation on human-computer interaction, created a tic-tac-toe game called OXO. It was the first game with a fixed “resolution” - 35 by 16 pixels on the screen. The screen, by the way, was round like a hobbit. They were all like that back then. OXO was also controlled by a “telephone” dial.

In 1958 (note the jump in chronology), American physicist William Hyginbotham, delving into an analog computer, decided to misuse its capabilities for calculating the trajectories of ballistic missiles. The scientist replaced the boring rockets with a cheerful ball, and it turned out Tennis for Two- a toy that many now consider the first in the world. It already had advanced realistic physics with gravity, impact kinematics and friction force. It was for this purpose that an oscilloscope was used instead of a full-fledged screen.

For the half-century anniversary of Tennis for Two, enthusiasts restored the game. For convenience, the picture from the oscilloscope (visible on the left) was displayed on a large monitor.

Spacewar! on the only DEC PDP-1 that has survived to this day (this is only a monitor - the cabinets with the computer itself are not included in the frame).

And in 1961, American scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created the well-known Spacewar!- the first semi-commercial game. It was, however, not sold on its own, but rather included with the computer. DEC PDP-1 as a testing program. Screen in Spacewar! It was also round, but against the backdrop of real constellations ships flew and fired at each other. All this could already be called graphics - monochrome, but nice.

Of course, super-powerful hardware helped create such a miracle. The DEC PDP-1 was a unique computer of its kind. It had 9 kilobytes of memory (the volume could be increased to 144 kilobytes!), a 200 kilohertz processor and a high-speed punched tape reader. Externally, this computer most looked like several cabinets full of electronics, which were accompanied by an electric typewriter and a round monitor. The PDP-1 took up half the room. However, the widespread distribution of Spacewar! Not only the physical dimensions of the “gaming platform” interfered, but also the price. In modern dollars, the PDP-1 cost about a hundred thousand!

Timelessness and the Big Bang

Spacewar! was created in 1961. First home entertainment system Magnavox Odyssey appeared on sale after some eleven years. Check out the speed of technology development! True, the first console was conceived by an American defense engineer. Ralph Baer back in 1966, but it was launched into production only five years later. You can also remember the first electronic arcade machines Computer Space And Galaxy Game— they also appeared in 1971. But, one way or another, there is a gap of a decade.

It was a timeless period, when games seemed to be forgotten and only a few enthusiasts tried to convince their superiors of the promise of the non-existent gaming industry. The idea of video games took shape very, very slowly, and just as slowly computer technology took off from the ground, only to then, obeying Moore's law, soar exponentially into the sky.

We won’t talk much about consoles here (this is a separate interesting topic), but the first console in history, Magnavox Odyssey, should be described at least for the sake of contrast. It was a large plastic box, to which two smaller plastic boxes were attached with rigid cords. The games were controlled by twisting three handles.

Three rectangles on the screen provide exhaustive
representing
talk about Magnavox Odyssey graphics.

And the graphics... they were two or three glowing rectangles that could be moved on the screen. The most advanced game was something like ping-pong, where a square could be thrown back and forth. At least somehow it was like shooting rectangles with the light shotgun that came with the console. In other games, the graphics were replaced by colored translucent background pictures - they had to be superimposed on the TV. One sheet depicted an abandoned house, the other a labyrinth or a ski slope. There was no gameplay at all. White squares simply replaced game pieces - they were moved back and forth across the dark screen, depicting a cat chasing a mouse, a hike through a haunted mansion, or a cross-country ski race. Many of the games generally came with stacks of cardboard “board” cards with questions like “where is the state of Texas?”, and the whole “video game” was to move the square to the desired location on the screen by making a move or guessing the state. The console couldn't even keep score or check if the answers were correct!

But the camel doesn’t really spit on the Odyssey. Its creators cannot be denied imagination. In twelve games included in the console, they laid the foundations for the genre of puzzles, quizzes, racing, horror, roulette - and all this on extremely primitive hardware. It was indeed very cheap and prehistoric even by the standards of the early seventies. Even Spacewar was too tough for the Magnavox Odyssey console! - a game eleven years ago! But the device did its job - it caused the Great Boom of game consoles and arcade machines.

In the same 1972, the legendary Pong. And then off we went, new systems, already with some gameplay, began to appear like mushrooms after rain - Atari Pong, Coleco Telstar, Nintendo Color TV Game... In the second half of the seventies, the first color consoles with decent (more than 100x200 pixels) picture resolution appeared - Fairchild Channel F, Atari 2600, Mattel Intellivision. There were a lot of them. And there were very few of them after the notorious crash of 1983.

However, we are not interested in consoles, but in computers. What happened to them in the seventies?

We are so different, diverse

And this is what happened to them: technology developed, parts became smaller and cheaper. There was a demand for home cars.

In 1975, the first “personal computer” appeared Sphere 1, which, however, became famous only for introducing the Ctrl+Alt+Delete key combination into use. The first mass-produced personal computer was released in 1977. Commodore P.E.T., and then - Apple II And Tandy TRS-80. A “triad” of home computer manufacturers was formed, which was later joined by Atari 8-bit, Sinclair with famous people ZX, Acorn With BBC Micro, Amstrad With Color Personal Computer, Texas Instruments and other companies.

The Apple II, like many other computers of those years, was its own keyboard. The drives hung separately and often served as a monitor stand.

The graphics of this gaggle of motley computers were... okay! Actually, computer games began with them - it was only later that IBM PC-compatible machines came ready-made.

"Breadbox" is an unromantic but apt nickname for the Commodore 64.

Take the Apple II, for example. This computer had excellent graphics capabilities by the standards of the late seventies. Resolution up to 280x192 pixels and a palette of sixteen colors made it an excellent gaming platform. Started with the Apple II The Bard's Tale, Castle Wolfenstein, Flight Simulator, Karateka, King's Bounty, Lode Runner, Prince of Persia And Ultima. Why, using only monochrome mode, Ken and Roberta Williams created Mystery House, the forerunner of all Sierra quests.

Cars Atari 8-bit were weaker graphically, but this did not stop them from snatching their share of glory. They began publishing in 1979. Their resolution was good, 320x192, but the palette was not very good. Up to four colors in regular graphics modes is frankly sparse. Only with the help of clever tricks could it be possible to force the computer to display 256 visible colors on the screen - albeit with low resolution and not on all TVs.

The most famous home computer of those years was the one released in 1982. Commodore 64, affectionately nicknamed “bread box” by the people for its characteristic shape. It could boast of many advantages - a relatively low price, a resolution of 320x200, an honest palette of 16 colors and support for eight sprites on the screen. Games came out for the first time with the Commodore 64 Maniac Mansion(precursor to Day of the Tentacle), Wasteland(precursor to Fallout) and Sid Meier's Pirates!(just a forerunner).

We remind you: Sprites are two-dimensional, often animated pictures that are usually superimposed on a background. Characters in the form of sprites do not take up a lot of computer resources and at the same time can be very realistic (in fact, sprites successfully lived up to the Doom era and even survived it).

The Phantom Menace

And here is the hero of the occasion - the IBM PC 5150. With a keyboard separate from the system unit -
swarm that many had to
to your liking.

There were many computers - good and different. But the heavy one came IBM PC and broke the tower. With an open architecture that also turned out to be very successful and conveniently extensible, IBM tricked everyone - including itself. PC-compatible machines took over everything around, and in the early nineties other platforms almost died out (with the exception of Apple Macintosh).

Who then, in August 1981, could see the IBM PC 5150 as a competitor to home computers? Well, yes, powerful hardware, processor Intel 8088 about 29,000 transistors, a speed of five megahertz, addressing up to a megabyte (where is that much?), a gorgeous keyboard, floppy disks... But why all this if the screen displays four colors at best? The resolution of 320x200 was considered quite decent, but the graphics adapter C.G.A.("C" for "Color") only supported a four-color palette, so old PC games are easily recognizable by their two dominant colors: cyan and magenta. Of course, some craftsmen managed to show more colors on CGA, using features (“artifacts”) of the television signal. But few game creators stooped to such hacking techniques, especially since these tricks did not work on every TV. They cannot be reproduced at all in modern emulators.

The "alternative" to CGA was the adapter MDA— its resolution was higher, but it was monochrome and supported only text and pseudo-graphics. And this, you understand, is not serious at all. More precisely, on the contrary, it is serious and suitable for business, but not for games.

For your information: the lack of graphics is not the end. After all, in text mode you can visit “multiplayer dungeons” MUD, play text role-playing games ( Zork) or even use pseudographics ( Rogue, NetHack, Adom).

Hercules video cards were creaky, but could show a color game on a monochrome monitor.

Finally, the price... It made me think. IBM charged a hefty price tag for its first PC. In modern terms, a computer in its “bare” configuration cost three and a half thousand dollars, and with a monitor and a disk drive (without a hard drive) - about seven thousand. For that kind of money you could buy half a dozen Commodore 64s!

The lack of sensible sound did not help the IBM PC either. The built-in tweeter was of little use; extracting something vaguely reminiscent of music or a voice from it was possible only with great tricks. And sound cards became popular only in the late eighties.

So players bought home computers. “Pisyuki” remained business machines for many years for those who were willing to overpay for powerful hardware, an advanced keyboard and convenient floppy disks. Well, of course, for those who didn’t care about the narrow CGA palette and the complete lack of graphics in MDA adapters.

This is interesting: and in 1982 video cards came “from outside” Hercules. They could emulate color on monochrome displays by “dithering” (imitation of halftones with scatterings of dots). The picture turned out to be, let’s say, specific. But for those who didn't have access to color monitors, it was the only way to play natively color games.

There should only be one left

Prince of Persia screensaver in three graphics
ical modes. From top to bottom: CGA, EGA, VGA.

Three years have passed. It's August again - but already 1984. IBM releases "improved" graphics adapter. Enhanced Graphics Adapter. Abbreviated as E.G.A..

This is already 64 colors, of which sixteen are displayed on the screen. This resolution is up to 640 by 350 pixels. Not photorealism yet. You won't be able to watch video on this screen yet. But from sixteen shades you can create a very colorful picture! From now on, nothing stops you from creating and porting modern games to the latest IBM PC-compatible machines.

In 1984, new computers with EGA graphics were very expensive. But over time, it becomes more and more widespread, and the general passion for open architecture leads to the fact that the “weepers” slowly but surely begin to crush in mass - and therefore become cheaper.

Despite the fact that the CGA format survived until the nineties due to its low cost, games on PC in the second half of the eighties were released mainly in sixteen EGA colors. Typical EGA games - first quests Sierra (King's Quest, Space Quest) and arcades Apogee (Duke Nukem, Commander Keen). However, many games supported both formats, and sometimes even monochrome screens.

The appearance of the 16-color adapter from IBM and an army of imitators marked a clear "Atari" for Atari and other home machines. In addition, Commodore's price war against Texas Instruments (and everyone else) greatly disrupted the market and wiped out many participants. But those who remain afloat do not sleep and update their models. Cars with a new 16-bit processor are coming out Motorola 68000 — Apple Macintosh 128K, Atari ST And Commodore Amiga 500. There were even more colors, and the Macintosh 128K introduced the “mouse” graphical interface for the first time - long before the first versions Windows.

But, despite all their advantages, Atari and Commodore can no longer do anything. A “sweat wave” of PC-compatible devices is flooding the market. It's time for IBM to enjoy the confusion. Including our own, because third-party manufacturers are very successfully competing with the “original” IBM PCs and the market is rapidly slipping out of our hands. It gets ridiculous - in 1986, the first IBM PC-compatible machine based on a super-powerful 32-bit processor 80386 turns out to be a computer Compaq, not IBM.

100000000 flowers

Phantasmagoria is one of the best "movie" games out there. The actors are real, the backgrounds are pre-rendered.

In 1987, IBM launched the computer model PS/2, and with it comes a new graphics specification - VGA, that is Video Graphic Array. He comes and stays.

The maximum VGA resolution - 640x480 - has become classic. Later, craftsmen learned to “stretch” it to 800x600, and these numbers are also now considered sacred. Game creators were more interested in the 320x200 mode, because it was in it that VGA blossomed with 256 shades out of 262,144 possible.

The VGA specification gave games a "modern" look and feel that has not aged well to this day. The palette of 256 colors turned out to be a new revolution in graphics. It not only provided a realistic picture, but also allowed video clips to be inserted into games. By the mid-nineties, the craze for video in games reached its maximum ( The 7th Guest, Phantasmagoria, Companions of Xanth, series Wing Commander, Command & Conquer, Star Wars: Rebel Assault). The massive distribution of CD drives, ten years after their invention, also played a big role in this video madness.

By the way: the ability to insert full-fledged video into games opened the way for “cartoon” games. Including plasticine quests, of which the best was, of course, the great The Neverhood.

Without VGA, there would be no famous LucasArts cartoon quests such as Day of the Tentacle.

Quests LucasArts (Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Full Throttle, The Curse of Monkey Island) have become classics largely thanks to the new graphics and the hitherto unprecedented “interactive cartoon” effect. Old games were widely re-released in VGA mode. Sierra was especially keen on this, converting many old quests with a text interface to VGA. Computers with EGA cards first moved into the “budget” range, and then completely left the market. There has been a complete transformation of the industry.

VGA mode was the last one to be introduced by IBM. An attempt in 1990 to create a new one called XGA("eXtended VGA") failed. IBM no longer decided anything, because the market had been in a regime for a year SVGA(800x600 and higher), created by an independent consortium VESA(Video Electronics Standards Association). Later, in the nineties, video cards and systems with higher resolution and even greater color depth appeared. But the difference between 256 and 65535 colors ( Hi-Color) and even 16 million colors ( True Color) is not so great as to be called revolutionary.

So, it's the early nineties. The golden era of quests, the flourishing of new genres, the time of the rapid rise of computer technology. The latest IBM PC-compatible machines have become a paradise for the eyes and purgatory for the wallet. Two dimensions have been mastered - along and across. Where to go?

It's clear where!

Doom as a mirror of the technical revolution

In 1993 Doom blew up the gaming industry by making the game not a living picture, but a window into another world. But id Software's creation, of course, was not the first three-dimensional game, or, if we're being picky, even three-dimensional at all.

For your information: It's worth remembering that Quake, released in 1996, is not the first first-person game with "real" 3D interiors. She was beaten at the turn System Shock from the studio Looking Glass, released two years earlier. System Shock is considered the first 3D first-person action game, but that's not why we love it.

Where would we be without the devils and chainsaws of the Doom series!

The heroes of Exctatica certainly cannot be called “angular”.

The first successful attempts to draw three dimensions on the screen were made back in the seventies. Computer Spasim with honest “wire” planets and ships was invented in 1974. In the eighties, American fans of arcade machines played Battlezone, shooting enemy tanks - also "wire". Racing games on early consoles and home computers carefully simulated 3D perspective, and in some cases rendered it faithfully. Simple monochrome vector 3D could be drawn even on the Atari 2600 from the second half of the seventies, and even more so on the first personal computers. After all, it was on the Apple II that the first version was created Flight Simulator.

In the first half of the eighties, 3D vector graphics became commonplace, and developers learned to make objects “opaque” by cutting off invisible lines. In 1983, Atari created I, Robot- the first arcade machine with “painted over” models and with luxurious shading for those times. And in 1983 the famous Elite- on some platforms it was “wired”, on others it was “painted”.

The models became more and more complex, they had shadows, and the speed of scene calculation was constantly increasing. Hitherto unprecedented possibilities of three-dimensional graphics gave rise to the heyday of vehicle simulators - automobile, aviation, and even tanks. But it came to textures only in 1991. The first conventionally three-dimensional game with textures is considered Catacomb 3-D from the well-known team of John Carmack. Everyone knows what happened next - Wolfenstein 3D(1992) and Doom (1993).

This is interesting: Check out the growing appetite for id Software products! Catacomb 3-D also had EGA graphics. A year later, Wolf 3D already required VGA and an 80286 processor. Another year later, Doom rolled out a lip on the 80386 processor and four megabytes of memory on top of the usual 640K, and Doom II: Hell on Earth (it came out another year) was terribly slow on anything less than to 80486.

Quake turned out to be a little stupid, but it was it that popularized Internet battles and acceleration
3D graphics.

After Doom, the first-person action genre was born and began to rapidly develop. A crowd of imitators arrived, and the first competitors appeared.

Other genres have been slow to adopt the latest 3D technology. In cosmosims Star Wars: X-Wing And TIE: Fighter(LucasArts) the developers used textures very conditionally, saving computer resources. In quests, 3D was rather a hindrance at first. “Early 3D” looked very unattractive compared to “late 2D”. But drawing games by hand was already a thing of the past. The quest heroes became three-dimensional, and the scenery was created in 3D editors ( Syberia, 2002). Not all games benefited from the 3D craze - the fourth part of the Monkey Island series (2000) was simply destroyed by the third dimension.

This is interesting: There were also attempts to do something completely new, three-dimensional, but not tied to triangles. In the mid-nineties, an interesting attempt to “twist heroes out of balloons” was a series of action “slasher” films. Ecstatica (Andrew Spencer Studios). There was not a single triangle and not a single texture in them - the backdrops were pictures, as in Alone in the Dark(I-Motion, 1992), and all the characters, enemies and objects are made of multi-colored ellipsoids.

However, in action films, “3D with textures” technology developed rapidly, and after the release Quake(1996) it ran into insufficient hardware performance. Even the latest processors Intel Pentium, which appeared in 1993, raised a white flag when it was necessary to texture too many surfaces in the frame.

A new solution was required. New magic was needed.

What do you know about voodoo?

Initially, 3D hardware acceleration was the domain of specialized computer systems, such as workstations Silicon Graphics, on which Hollywood films were created. The first “3D video card” that could be plugged into a personal computer appeared in 1984, and was simply called IBM Professional Graphics Controller and cost about nine thousand dollars in modern money.

Diamond Monster 3D - a dream, a vo-
polished in silicon and textolite.

It was intended specifically for professionals working with graphics and engineering design. At that time, her opportunities were very rich. Firstly, it speeded up work with both 2D and 3D. Secondly, at a time when VGA did not yet exist in nature, the card made it possible to display a picture with a palette of 256 colors and a resolution of 640x480! It’s clear that players needed it like a fish needed an umbrella - there were still twelve years left before the first games supporting 3D acceleration were released.

3D acceleration came to computer games in the mid-nineties, but did not take off right away. In 1995, a video card was released S3 ViRGE, which technically could speed up 3D, but was so unsuccessful in practice that it was nicknamed the "graphics slower".

Only a year later the company 3dfx released a graphics processor Voodoo Graphics. He marked a new revolution. The first accelerators on Voodoo chips were not video cards - a separate expansion card that was connected to the monitor. Finally, ugly square pixels are a thing of the past - textures are smooth and neat, and gaming speeds have noticeably increased. The world was conquered. The legendary series of accelerators has become the players' dream Diamond Monster 3D.

At first, there were few games that supported hardware acceleration, but the popularity of Voodoo accelerators proved to be explosive. They entered the life of every player Glide, OpenGL, Direct3D and other scary words. By the end of the nineties, there were no problems finding a game for Voodoo. Another problem appeared - the newest games were capricious, demanding the coveted Voodoo, Voodoo2, or even something better. In 1998 Half-Life, for example, launched without hardware acceleration, but it looked so pitiful, and the processor chugged so helplessly that it became clear that we couldn’t do without the “Monster.” And already in 1999, an action movie Aliens vs. Predator cast aside modesty and most impudently refused to work without hardware 3D.

Half-Life taught players to love 3D acceleration and fear cascading resonance.

Crysis is the last game of the romantic era. After it, the progress of computer graphics finally froze.

In the same year with the advent DirectX 7.0 and video cards Nvidia GeForce 256 hardware generation of geometry and lighting has become the new standard. This made it possible to free the central processor from potential bottlenecks in scenes with a large number of triangles.

By the end of the twentieth century, the speed of development of computer technology was completely unimaginable. Hardware and game graphics became outdated within a year. Accelerators, video cards, interface connectors, hundreds of megabytes of memory, processors with proud icons, motherboards with colorful tails - they all flashed before us, they all were here.

The last big revolution in graphics was provided by the GeForce 3 video card, which, together with DirectX 8.0, gave us pixel shaders. Without these little programs there would be no realistic water The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, no shabby interiors BioShock, nor the brutal faces of his partners Crysis.

Then the technology developed smoothly. The picture improved (anisotropic filtering of textures, smoothing of “ladders”), shaders increased their index, the number of triangles in the frame grew, and post-processing effects became popular.

But then everything changed. The revolutions are over.

Voxel-moxel

Do you know what is voxels and what are they good for? How long have you seen them in games? (Personally, for a very long time.)

Comanche: Maximum Overkill. The squares in the snowdrifts are voxels.

Nowadays, voxels are almost forgotten. But in the late nineties, 3D graphics based on them were very popular and competed with polygonal ones! Voxels (volumetric pixels) made it possible to create realistic landscapes without any special demands on the computer, which, in addition, could be destructible.

The most famous games with such landscapes were a series of helicopter simulators Comanche(1992) and action films Delta Force(1998) from NovaLogic. Domestic developers used this unusual technology to the maximum. Voxels were used in flowing landscapes " Vangerov", in the sponge " Perimeter» from K-D LAB and among the alien hills Z.A.R. from Maddox Games.

Voxels were also used to render objects in flat or three-dimensional games. Crosses and tombstones were made from cubes in the action movie Blood (3D Realms, Monolith), as well as vehicles on strategic maps in some games in the series Command & Conquer from Westwood.

"Perimeter". You can dig scam. You don't have to dig. You can do a zero layer, but you'll have to dig a lot to do it.

What ruined the original technology was its unusual nature. It wasn't good for much beyond drawing hills and simple objects, and complex models and detailed landscapes put a lot of strain on the computer. 3D graphics accelerators couldn't work with voxels, and it was easier for game developers to make a world out of triangles than to tinker with unruly "cubes." The last time voxel technology shone with its edges in Worms 3D And Worms 4: Mayhem from Team17. The islands, made of three-dimensional “parts,” were destroyed and “bitten” by explosions almost as effectively as the flat battlefields from the previous parts of Worms.

Now voxel technologies are used only in modeling and map editing. They left the games, but their work lives on. How exactly does he live? Not bad! Just look at Minecraft! Technically speaking, all these mountains and plains are piles of polygonal and textured cubes. But in spirit it is a typical voxel landscape.

End of story?

At the beginning of the 2000s, the development of graphics technologies slowed down sharply. The milestone after which all graphics look modern passes somewhere between 2002 and 2004.

In 2000, for example, a beautiful platformer happened American McGee's Alice. But its appearance became obsolete in a matter of years. Now it already looks like an artifact from the past - Wonderland, its inhabitants and Alice herself clearly lack triangles. Bandits Max Payne(2001) and soldiers Medal of Honor: Allied Assault(2002) also suffer from pinocchia. But on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time(2003) can already be watched without trembling. A Half-Life 2 And Doom 3(2004) have not aged at all - and more than seven years have passed!

Why? And who can explain the mysterious paradox with the subjective perception of graphics? World of Warcraft? After all, even before its release in 2004, it was considered by everyone to be morally outdated. But the further it goes, the more millions of players endure it. How so?

And the answer is simple: the extensive development of graphics has almost stopped. Previously, it seemed that in a few years the picture in games would reach a fundamentally new level - and this was a normal extrapolation, because this is exactly how it behaved before. Experience suggested that if at the end of the nineties everything around was transformed, then it would continue to be so. But now no one needs the bar set Crysis. Developers can no longer afford to focus on future hardware and create games that are obviously “overwhelming.” And the point, of course, is not that consoles have seized power. The current generation of consoles lasts so long for the same reason - there is no new hardware to rely on.

Is this really the end of the story? Really AMD, Intel And Nvidia Will they just languidly stagnate in the market ring, forgetting past battles? Players will no longer eagerly read test reports on processors and video cards, like reports from the battlefield. The art of overclocking hardware will become a thing of the past - after all, there is no point in delving into the computer, trying to wrest two or three more frames per second from the game. Few people will be interested in new products in graphics technologies - anyway, changes in the picture can only be seen through a magnifying glass. But full-fledged stereo will continue to be the domain of large cinemas.

It looks like this will be the case in the coming years. But every cloud has a silver lining! After all, you no longer have to throw your computer into a landfill every year, which means your wallet is safer. You no longer need to be an archaeologist to run last year's games. You don't need to muster up the courage to play some TES IV: Oblivion five years ago. And it’s good that console games ported to PC no longer offend the eyes as they once did Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. You can also live without revolutions. After all, sooner or later everyone had to come to the understanding that the main thing is not the graphics.