Freescape
Encyclopedia
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
used in games such as 1987
1987 in video gaming
-Notable releases:* January 14, Nintendo releases Zelda II: The Adventure of Link in January for the Famicom Disk System in Japan only. The game would go unreleased in America for nearly two years afterwards.* February 20, Konami releases Contra...
's Driller.
History
Developed in-house by Incentive SoftwareIncentive Software
Incentive Software Ltd. was a British video game developer and publisher founded by Ian Andrew in 1983. Programmers included Sean Ellis, Stephen Northcott and Ian's brother Chris Andrew. Later games were based around the company's Freescape rendering engine...
, Freescape is considered to be one of the first proprietary 3D engines to be used in computer games
Computer Games
"Computer Games" is a single by New Zealand group, Mi-Sex released in 1979 in Australia and New Zealand and in 1981 throughout Europe. It was the single that launched the band, and was hugely popular, particularly in Australia and New Zealand...
, although the engine was not used commercially outside of Incentive's own titles. The project was originally thought to be so ambitious that according to Incentive designer Ian Andrew, the company struggled to recruit programmers for the project, with many believing that it could not be achieved.
Paul Gregory (graphics artist for Major Developments, Incentive's in-house design team) mentions that Freescape was developed on an Amstrad CPC
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom,...
, as it was the most suitable development system and had adequate power to run 3D environments. Due to the engine's success, it was later ported to all the dominant systems of the era: the ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
, the IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
, the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
.
Geometry
The Freescape engine allowed the generation of complete 3D environments that consist of a floor and as many primitives as memory and processor speed realistically allowed for. These primitives were cuboidCuboid
In geometry, a cuboid is a solid figure bounded by six faces, forming a convex polyhedron. There are two competing definitions of a cuboid in mathematical literature...
s, four-sided frustum
Frustum
In geometry, a frustum is the portion of a solid that lies between two parallel planes cutting it....
s (called pyramid
Pyramid
A pyramid is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a single point. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilateral, or any polygon shape, meaning that a pyramid has at least three triangular surfaces...
s by Freescape), triangle
Triangle
A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted ....
s, rectangle
Rectangle
In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is any quadrilateral with four right angles. The term "oblong" is occasionally used to refer to a non-square rectangle...
s, quadrilateral
Quadrilateral
In Euclidean plane geometry, a quadrilateral is a polygon with four sides and four vertices or corners. Sometimes, the term quadrangle is used, by analogy with triangle, and sometimes tetragon for consistency with pentagon , hexagon and so on...
s, pentagon
Pentagon
In geometry, a pentagon is any five-sided polygon. A pentagon may be simple or self-intersecting. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagram is an example of a self-intersecting pentagon.- Regular pentagons :In a regular pentagon, all sides are equal in length and...
s, hexagons and line segment
Line segment
In geometry, a line segment is a part of a line that is bounded by two end points, and contains every point on the line between its end points. Examples of line segments include the sides of a triangle or square. More generally, when the end points are both vertices of a polygon, the line segment...
s. A further primitive, "sensor", was used for gaming purpose to detect the position of the camera relative to the sensor in the game world.
Freescape was designed with limited hardware in mind and as such contains a number of inherent limitations that are necessary to enable the games to run properly on these computers:
- Individual regions were restricted to a size of 8192 × 4096 × 8192 units. These units were arbitrary but each region always corresponded to the dimensions.
- The engine did not allow for fractional movements. On 16bit machines each movement — camera or object — must be a multiple of one unit. On 8bit machines the angles at which the world may be viewed are further restricted to steps of 5 degrees.
- The x and z axes were subdivided into only 256 discrete locations, and the y axis is subdivided into only 128 discrete locations. As a result, objects can only be placed at 32 unit intervals, for example, 0,32,64 or 128,128,32.
- Objects may not overlap.
- All objects possessed a "bounding cube", for which detection rules apply as per a cube, i.e. no overlapping.
Interaction
Games used the Freescape Command Language ('FCL'), an early in-game scripting language, to add interactive elements to Freescape worlds. Scripts may be set to run constantly for the entire world or run constantly for a certain area, or may be attached to individual objects where they will be run once if the object is shot, activated or collided with. Versions of Freescape for the Amiga, Atari ST and PC also supported 'animators', which were FCL programs that use a few extra instructions to create on-screen animations.Software using the Freescape engine
- Driller (1987)
- Dark Side (1988)
- Total EclipseTotal Eclipse (1988 video game)Total Eclipse is a first person adventure game released for the Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, PC and ZX Spectrum computers in 1988...
(1988) - Castle MasterCastle MasterCastle Master is a 1990 computer game written by British developers Teque Software Development and published by Incentive Software. It was released for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and IBM PC.-Gameplay:...
(1990) - Castle Master II: The Crypt (1990)
- Total Eclipse II: The Sphinx Jinx (1991)
- 3D Construction Kit3D Construction Kit3D Construction Kit , also known as 3D Virtual Studio, is a utility for creating 3D worlds in Freescape. Developed by Incentive Software and published by Domark, it was released in 1991 on multiple platforms. The game originally retailed for £24.99 in the United Kingdom...
(1991) - 3D Construction Kit II3D Construction Kit II3D Construction Kit II , also known as 3D Construction Kit 2.0, is a utility for creating 3D worlds in Freescape...
(1992)