Id Tech

id Tech (also known as the "Quake engines") is the family of game engines designed and developed by id Software. Prior to the presentation of the id Tech 5-based game Rage, the engines lacked official designation and as such were referred to as "the Quake engines", from the name of the main game series the engines have been developed for. "id Tech" numbers 1, 2 and 3 have been released as free software under the GNU General Public License.

id Tech 1

Full BSP tree-based 3D graphics technology. Notable for being one of the first mainstream technologies that used 3D models (as opposed to sprites) not only for the game world, but also for in-game objects. A development of the Doom engine.

Commercial titles that use this engine

* Quake - id Software
* Hexen 2 - Raven Software
* Half-Life - Valve Software

Valve Source engine

The Valve Source Engine is distantly related to the original quake engine

id Tech 2

Previously known as the "Quake II engine". id Tech 2 is based on the Quake 1 engine, and features some enhancements such as colored lighting and a new model format. Game code is now written in C and loaded from a DLL, in place of the original Quake engine's "QuakeC" scripting language. Fact|date=July 2007

Commercial titles that use this engine

* Quake 2 - id Software
* Heretic 2 - Raven Software
* SiN - Ritual Entertainment
* KingPin: Life of Crime - Xatrix Entertainment
* Soldier of Fortune - Raven Software
* Daikatana - Ion Storm
* Anachronox - Ion Storm

id Tech 3

Previously known as the "Quake III Engine", it was derived from id Tech 2, although a large portion of code is new or re-written Fact|date=July 2007

Commercial titles that use this engine

*"Quake III Arena" (1999) — id Software
**"" (2000) — id Software
*"" (2000) — Raven Software
*"Return to Castle Wolfenstein" (2001) — Gray Matter Interactive (SP) / Nerve Software (MP)
**"" (2003) — Splash Damage
*"" (2002) — Raven Software
*"" (2002) — Raven Software
*"" (2003) — Raven Software
*"Call of Duty" (2003) — Infinity Ward
**"" (2004) — Gray Matter Interactive
*"Severity" (2007) — Cyberathlete Professional League

id Tech 3 with Ritual’s ÜberTools

*"American McGee's Alice" (2000) – Rogue Entertainment
*"" (2000) – Ritual Entertainment
**"" (2002) – 2015, Inc. (based on the modified FAKK2 code base)
***"" (2003) – EA Los Angeles
***"" (2003) — TKO Software
*"" (2003) – Ritual Entertainment

id Tech 4

Formerly the "Doom 3 engine", originally based on id Tech 3. It has a C++ based engine framework, and a new renderer, AI framework, physics engine, gameplay trigger system, and sound framework.Fact|date=July 2007

This engine based titles:
*"Doom 3" - id Software
* Quake 4 - Raven Software
* Prey - Human Head Studios

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars engine

This engine uses MegaTexture Techniques, parallax mapping, soft particles, new physics engine and improved radiant toolsets (megatexture toolsets). Fact|date=July 2007
* Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - Splash Damage
* new Wolfenstein series - Raven Software [citeweb|author=id Software|title=Technology Licensing|url=http://www.idsoftware.com/business/idtech4/|accessdate=2008-04-06]
* Sequel to Prey - Human Head Studios Fact|date=July 2007

id Tech 5

This is the engine being used for id software's new games.

The engine is based on the Doom 3 engine, but reuses much of the technology from the Quake Wars engine, including MegaTexture technology, parallax mapping, bloom, motion blur, soft particles, soft shadows and pixel shader effects.Fact|date=July 2007

* Rage - id Software
* "Doom 4" - id Software

ee also

Doom engine - the 2.5D ancestor of "id Tech 1"

References