decade_of_doomsday.html

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<p>When the project was begun, the only goal was to create an enhanced OpenGL port of Hexen. Thus the starting point of the project, named JHexen, was the original Hexen source code released earlier by Raven Software. The code was for MS-DOS and the Watcom compiler. There were numerous parts where PC hardware was being accessed directly, for instance in the graphics rendering code. Since 32-bit Windows was going to be the engine's new platform, the incompatible low-level code was first replaced with routines from the <a href="http://alleg.sourceforge.net" title="Allegro" class="link-external" rel="nofollow">Allegro</a> game programming library. The first subsystem to be completely rewritten was the renderer. New texture management and player view rendering was implemented during the summer of 1999. Much of this code remains even today. However, the rendering algorithm has reached a point where future additions like advanced OpenGL techniques (such as bump mapping) are difficult to implement without making dramatic changes.</p>

<p>The first version of jHexen was released on November 1st, 1999. All dependencies on Allegro had been removed by that time. The Microsoft DirectX API was used for low-level network communications, playing sound effects, and getting input from game controllers. The majority of all improvements were technical: gameplay remained the same as in the original Hexen, with the only major addition being mouse look. The console, a Quake style in-game command line interface, was also included.</p>

<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/bigteaser1_thumb.jpg" alt="Screenshot depicting translucent, glowing flames in JHexen" />The first translucent glowing flames in JHexen.</p></div>
<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/wip240100_thumb.jpg" alt="Screenshot depicting heavy use of lens flare effects in JHexen" />The lens flares were initially not that subtle.</p></div>
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<p>Being a fan of DOOM and Heretic as well as Hexen, Jaakko started looking into the possibility of somehow utilizing the existing jHexen code to create ports of the two other games. During the spring of 2000, the jHexen project changed focus and became the Doomsday Engine. After studying the DOOM and Heretic source code and finding them to be very similar to each other, Jaakko decided to extract the common parts of all the three games and create a game-independent engine out of them. This took a couple of months to get working. In retrospect, too much of the code was left in the game modules. The engine became little more than a collection of subsystems: graphics, sound, input and low-level networking. Since then, a major trend in the development of the engine has been to further unify the code bases and move common code into the engine.</p>

<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/launcher_thumb.jpg" alt="Sreen grab of the first Doomsday Launcher" />The first incarnation of the Doomsday Launcher.</p></div>
<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/newdl_thumb.jpg" alt="Screenshot depicting dynamic lighting in jHeretic" />Dynamic lighting further improved for jHeretic.</p></div>
<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/jdoom_web_in_2002_thumb.jpg" alt="Screen grab of the jDoom website circa 2002" />The jDoom website back in 2002, before the DoomsdayHQ was created.</p></div>

<p>Active development work on the engine continued until 2006. During this period, other developers joined the project team. Over the years, the engine's visuals were greatly improved with the introduction of 3D models, high-resolution textures, particle effects, dynamic lighting, and shadowing effects. Customizability of the games was made possible with improved flexibility in the DED definition files and the addition of user-definable map line and sector types (XG).</p>

<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/guest_thumb.jpg" alt="Screenshot depicting the a 3D model of the DOOM Cyberdemon in jHeretic" />The Cyberdemon briefly visited Corvus during the development of 3D model support.</p></div>
<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/detail_thumb.jpg" alt="Screeshot depicting the effects of Detail textures in Doomsday" />Detail textures are superimposed on top of normal textures.</p></div>
<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/ptc_thumb.jpg" alt="Screenshot depicting a Particle Generator explosion in Doomsday" />Particle generators enabled more complex effects such as explosions.</p></div>
<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/1new_thumb.jpg" alt="Screenshot depicting the use of high-resolution textures in jDoom" />High-resolution textures make for a crisper appearance.</p></div>
<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/lightdecor_thumb.jpg" alt="Screenshot depicting the effects of Light Decorations in jDoom" />Light decorations allowed light sources to be attached to world surfaces.</p></div>
<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/radio1_thumb.jpg" alt="Screeshot depicting the effects of FakeRadio in Doomsday" />FakeRadio was developed to make ambient lighting look more natural.</p></div>
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<p>However, in 2006, the speed of development reduced substantially as Jaakko, the lead developer, withdrew from active participation in the project due to other time-consuming commitments. Unhappy with the increasingly messy code base of the project, Jaakko had in 2004 began investigating the possibility of redesigning the architecture and rewriting the engine in C++. While this work had progressed on the side, it had provided little benefit, being mostly just a further distraction from work on the main code base. Things took a turn for the better in the beginning of 2009 with the release of <a href="http://dengine.net/dew/index.php?title=Doomsday_version_1.9.0-beta6">version 1.9.0-beta6</a>. The development team now consisted of Jaakko and Daniel Swanson (danij), and motivated by a new vision for the project, active development was once again started. As the months passed and new releases were made, it become clear that larger changes in the code base were called for. Jaakko devised a plan to integrate his earlier architecture redesign work into the main code base. Soon after the plans for <a href="http://dengine.net/dew/index.php?title=Doomsday_2.0">version 2.0</a> of the engine were formed. The push towards 2.0 began in earnest during the summer of 2009 with the introduction of <a href="http://dengine.net/dew/index.php?title=libdeng2">libdeng2</a>, which featured a new networking subsystem and a powerful new scripting language core.</p>

<p>2009 has seen many other advances in the project as well. Disappointed with the less than organized working practices of the past, the development team made an effort to more systematically document the planned work items and proceed with a monthly release cycle. The team also decided that it was finally time to build a website dedicated solely to the project, for hosting user discussion forums, resource downloads, documentation wiki, and a developer blog. For the first time in the history of the project, there is now a single central place for all information about the Doomsday Engine and an official website for the user community.</p>

<p>Today, as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first release of JHexen, the project exists in a dual state. Development work in the Beta 6 series is subsiding and shifting towards the new 2.0 architecture. The future will see a more powerful, more flexible, and a more beautiful engine that will refine and perfect the ideas and work that was begun in the 1.x series.</p>

<div class="picture"><p><img src="http://dengine.net/images/misc/biaslighting_thumb.jpg" alt="Screenshot depicting the new Bias lighting model" />New Bias lighting model.</p></div>

<p><i>&mdash; the Deng Team, on November 1st, 2009</i></p>
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