Making of Doom
Encyclopedia
The making of Doom, id Software
's video game released on December 10, 1993, began in late 1992. Doom raised the bar for realism
in video games with its then-advanced 3D graphics
—central to its success was the new game engine
by John Carmack, whose main advances included texture mapping
of all surfaces, variable light levels, and floors at varying altitude. The world in Doom materialized through the artwork
of Adrian Carmack
, Kevin Cloud
and Gregor Punchatz
, and the level design
of John Romero
, Sandy Petersen
and Tom Hall
.
Doom evolved significantly during its development. Originally planned to feature an intricate plot, its gameplay
instead gradually turned to focus on fast action
and violence
. Conflicts surrounding this development led to the resignation of Tom Hall, who had written the Doom Bible, the game's initial design document
.
in May 1992, most of the id Software team set out to finish the sequel Spear of Destiny
. Since this game used the same game engine
as Wolfenstein 3D, lead programmer John D. Carmack could use the time to do technology research for the company's next-generation graphics engine. One of Carmack's early experiments was the Shadowcaster
engine. With significant effort, choosing to isolate himself from the rest of the team for a long period of time in order to avoid distractions, he implemented various new features, including diminishing light and texture-mapped
floors and ceilings and sloping floors. The Shadowcaster engine's "speed was about half that of Wolfenstein, but since this was an adventure game, built on exploration, it seemed appropriate to have a steadier pace." For Doom, Carmack implemented dynamic diminished lighting and a sector based map system (as opposed by the grid map systems of the Wolfenstein 3D and Shadowcaster engines) with wall angles other than 90°.
The making of Doom began after the release of Spear of Destiny in September 1992. The initial idea was to make a movie license game based on Aliens
, one of the team's favorite science fiction
-action films, and some negotiations were made with 20th Century Fox
. The plan was eventually ditched in order to get more creative freedom, halting the negotiations. John Carmack instead conceived of the basic theme for the game: demons versus technology. Doom was viewed to be a cross between Aliens and the team's favorite horror
B movie
, Evil Dead II
. The idea to include demons was also inspired by their most recent Dungeons & Dragons
campaign, which had ended with demons overrunning the entire planet.
instead wanted to continue the Commander Keen
series with a third trilogy, but the others felt that the cartoon style of the Keen games would not do justice to the new 3D engine. Conceding defeat, he instead set out to create the new game's design document
— which he titled the Doom Bible, while the others were programming and creating graphics.
Unlike Wolfenstein 3D, which had essentially been a plotless shooter game, Hall wanted Doom to have an elaborate story. The game was to take place on an alien planet
called Tei Tenga, on which the UAAF (United Aerospace Armed Forces) had two military research bases. There would be five player characters with different personalities and abilities: Lorelei Chen, John "Petro" Pietrovich, Dimitri Paramo, Thi Barrett and Buddy Dacote (some of these names would return in Rise of the Triad
); the game would start with the five characters playing a game of cards
, with creatures from hell suddenly bursting in. There would be a total of six episodes, with storylines involving traveling to Hell
and back through the gates
which the hellspawn used, and the destruction of Tei Tenga, for which the players would be sent to jail.
John Carmack disapproved of the detailed plot, instead conceiving Doom as a simple, action-oriented game, making the remark "Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important." This creative conflict, and others agreeing that Hall's levels emphasized realism at the cost of making the gameplay
entertaining, finally ended with Hall being forced to resign in mid-1993.
The Doom Bible as such was scrapped, but several of the ideas were kept for the final game. As in the Bible, Doom starts in a military research base and features a trip to Hell and back, although Tei Tenga was replaced with Phobos
and Deimos
, the moons of Mars
(though traces of Tei Tenga can be found throughout the first and second episodes). There is only one player character, an anonymous space marine
. Several of the locations, items and monsters mentioned in the Bible appear, with modifications.
Some of the ideas from the Doom Bible, though discarded for Doom, showed up in later games. Instead of employing separate levels, Doom was initially supposed to use a hub system to enable a large, continuous world; in the game, the different areas would be connected by a monorail
. Hubs were later used in id Software's Quake II
, Doom RPG
and Raven Software
's Hexen
. Monorails also make an appearance in Doom 3
, although not as a Hub system. The game would include interactive computer terminals; this first appeared in Doom 3. Tom Hall additionally used concepts from the Doom Bible in Rise of the Triad and Terminal Velocity
, which he designed after leaving id Software for Apogee
and 3D Realms
. Also, a laser weapon referred to as "the Unmaker" in the Doom Bible made its only appearance in Doom 64
.
workstations, under the NEXTSTEP
operating system
. The Doom game engine
was programmed in C
, and the editing tools were written in Objective-C
. The engine was first compiled
with Intel's C compiler for DOS
, but later Watcom
's C/C++ compiler was used.
The bulk of the Doom game engine
was programmed by John Carmack. John Romero
implemented code to save and load games, interactive features such as flickering lights, doors, raising stairs and crushing ceilings. Dave D. Taylor
was hired as a "spackle coder", adding things such as the status bar, sound library integration, the automap, level transitions, cheat codes, and the network chat
system. The sound library, DMX Sound Library, was an external piece of software created by Paul Radek, and not included in the 1997 release of the Doom source code
.
The editing tools used to build the game included scripts to generate source code for monsters from definition tables, a tool to link together WAD files from data lumps, the BSP
nodes builder by John Carmack, and DoomEd, the Doom level editor
. DoomEds structure and basic functionality, such as drawing lines and reading sector information, was implemented by Carmack; Romero added texture viewers and dialogs. Among the editing utilities, only the BSP nodes builder has been released to the public.
, but as they were constructed and placed in the game, the others found them banal and uninspiring. Hall's levels were mostly flat and square, like Wolfenstein 3D, and decorated with real-life wallpapers, floor tiles and office equipment. To show off the game engine's capabilities, John Romero
instead began creating levels that were more abstract. The team settled for Romero's less realistic but more vivid style, which is found throughout the game's first episode, Knee-Deep in the Dead.
Romero only designed the levels for the first episode in Doom, due to being occupied with programming and other tasks. When Tom Hall resigned, an extra level designer was needed in order to complete the game on schedule, and Sandy Petersen
was hired about 10 weeks before release. In those 10 weeks, Petersen finished all of episodes two and three, and one level for the first episode — 19 levels in total, of which eight were overhauled versions of levels by Tom Hall. Petersen paid less attention to aesthetics than Romero, but the others thought his levels were as fun to play.
Adrian Carmack
and Kevin Cloud
were the chief artists behind Doom. Additionally, Don Ivan Punchatz
was hired to create the package art and logo, and his son Gregor Punchatz
created some of the monsters.
A mixed media
approach was taken to the artwork. Most of the sprites
were drawn by hand, but some of the characters were digitized from sculptures. These were the player character, the Cyberdemon and the Baron of Hell, all done in clay
by Adrian Carmack, and the Arch-Vile, the Mancubus, the Spider Mastermind and the Revenant, created in latex
and metal by Gregor Punchatz. The sculptures were photographed from five to eight different angles so that they could be rotated realistically in-game, and finally touched up, colored and animated digitally with a program created by John Carmack, the "Fuzzy Pumper Palette Shop". The background in E1M1 is derived from Yangshuo karst mountains in China.
The shotgun
and the pistol
seen in the game are photographs of toy weapon
s bought at Toys "R" Us; the shotgun a TootsieToy Dakota cap gun; the chainsaw
is a McCulloch Eager Beaver, borrowed from Tom Hall's girlfriend. The hands seen holding the weapons, and the brass knuckle fist, are Kevin Cloud's. Textures were both painted and created from scanned pictures. Among the more unusual sources, one texture was based on Adrian's snakeskin
boots, and a bloody texture for the hell levels was created from a photograph of a wound on Cloud's knee.
records and told him to create something similar for Doom. Prince created heavy metal-style soundtracks as instructed but also composed some more ambient tracks since he felt that heavy metal might not be appropriate for the entire game. As design progressed, it was decided that this was the case, and the music tracks were finally assigned to the individual levels by Romero.
Several of the music tracks are inspired by parts of songs, written by famous heavy metal bands.
In addition to heavy metal albums, several of the songs were inspired by the activities of the id Software team. Prince and John Carmack would often stay in the office at hours when no one else was around; "Deep Into The Code" refers to Carmack's habit of programming for long periods without leaving the computer, oblivious of his surrounding. Before sound effect
s had been added to the game, Romero was noted to energetically supply his own while playing, and Prince created the track "Waiting For Romero To Play" after observing the anticipation of people lining up to watch Romero in action. The final sound effects for the monsters were mixed from various animal sounds and recordings by Romero and Prince. Some of Doom's sound effects were acquired from Sound Ideas
' General series sound effects library.
, variable light levels and non-orthogonal walls. The player can move around a small, completely flat level and press keys to change the light level and the textures. The Imp, Demon and Baron of Hell monsters are in place, but do not act or interact with the player. The heads-up display
(HUD) is more complex than in the final game, including a small automap view and what appears to be a display for messages from other player characters; it is, however, non-functional and most likely a placeholder. The HUD also lists three items: "Captain's hand", "Heart of Lothar" and "Sandwich", items from Tom Hall's design document for the game.
Id Software
Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...
's video game released on December 10, 1993, began in late 1992. Doom raised the bar for realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
in video games with its then-advanced 3D graphics
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...
—central to its success was the new game engine
Doom engine
The Doom engine is the game engine that powers the id Software games Doom and Doom II. It is also used by HeXen, Heretic, Strife, Freedoom, and HacX, and other games produced by licensees. It was created by John Carmack, with auxiliary functions written by Mike Abrash, John Romero, Dave Taylor and...
by John Carmack, whose main advances included texture mapping
Texture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
of all surfaces, variable light levels, and floors at varying altitude. The world in Doom materialized through the artwork
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
of Adrian Carmack
Adrian Carmack
Adrian Carmack is one of the four founders of id Software, along with Tom Hall, John Romero, and John D. Carmack . He had worked there as an artist. He was a major stock owner of id Software until he left the company....
, Kevin Cloud
Kevin Cloud
Kevin Cloud is a computer games graphic designer from Shreveport, LA. He was hired in 1992 by id Software to work as an assistant artist to the then lead artist, Adrian Carmack. Prior to that, he was employed by Softdisk, where several other id founders worked. During part of his employment at...
and Gregor Punchatz
Gregor Punchatz
Gregor Punchatz is an artist hired by id Software to create sculptures for the Arch-Vile, Mancubus, Revenant and Spider Mastermind monsters for the Doom video game series...
, and the level design
Level design
Level design, environment design or game mapping is a discipline of game development involving creation of video game levels—locales, stages, or missions. This is commonly done using level editor, a game development software designed for building levels; however some games feature built-in...
of John Romero
John Romero
Alfonso John Romero is a game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software and was a designer for many of their games, including Wolfenstein 3D, Dangerous Dave, Doom and Quake...
, Sandy Petersen
Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen is a game designer.Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology....
and Tom Hall
Tom Hall
Tom A. Hall is a game designer born in Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received a B.S. in Computer Science. In 1987, he worked at Softdisk Inc., where he was both a programmer and the editor of Softdisk, a software bundle delivered monthly...
.
Doom evolved significantly during its development. Originally planned to feature an intricate plot, its gameplay
Gameplay
Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and player's connection with it...
instead gradually turned to focus on fast action
Action game
Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some...
and violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
. Conflicts surrounding this development led to the resignation of Tom Hall, who had written the Doom Bible, the game's initial design document
Design document
A software design document is a written description of a software product, that a software designer writes in order to give a software development team an overall guidance of the architecture of the software project. An SDD usually accompanies an architecture diagram with pointers to detailed...
.
Conception
Following the successful release of Wolfenstein 3DWolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded by critics and gaming journalists as having both popularized the first-person shooter genre on the PC and created the basic archetype upon which all subsequent games of the same genre would be built. It was created by id Software and...
in May 1992, most of the id Software team set out to finish the sequel Spear of Destiny
Spear of Destiny (computer game)
Spear of Destiny, often also called Spear, Wolfenstein 3D: Spear of Destiny or just SoD, is a 1992 first-person shooter computer game developed by id Software and published by FormGen Corporation, and is the prequel to id Software's Wolfenstein 3D...
. Since this game used the same 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...
as Wolfenstein 3D, lead programmer John D. Carmack could use the time to do technology research for the company's next-generation graphics engine. One of Carmack's early experiments was the Shadowcaster
Shadowcaster
ShadowCaster is a first-person/role-playing computer game from 1993 developed by Raven Software. It was released by Origin Systems after Electronic Arts acquired them...
engine. With significant effort, choosing to isolate himself from the rest of the team for a long period of time in order to avoid distractions, he implemented various new features, including diminishing light and texture-mapped
Texture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
floors and ceilings and sloping floors. The Shadowcaster engine's "speed was about half that of Wolfenstein, but since this was an adventure game, built on exploration, it seemed appropriate to have a steadier pace." For Doom, Carmack implemented dynamic diminished lighting and a sector based map system (as opposed by the grid map systems of the Wolfenstein 3D and Shadowcaster engines) with wall angles other than 90°.
The making of Doom began after the release of Spear of Destiny in September 1992. The initial idea was to make a movie license game based on Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
, one of the team's favorite science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
-action films, and some negotiations were made with 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
. The plan was eventually ditched in order to get more creative freedom, halting the negotiations. John Carmack instead conceived of the basic theme for the game: demons versus technology. Doom was viewed to be a cross between Aliens and the team's favorite horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
B movie
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
, Evil Dead II
Evil Dead II
Evil Dead II, also known as Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, is a 1987 horror comedy film directed by Sam Raimi. It is a retcon sequel to the 1981 film The Evil Dead. The film was written by Raimi and Scott Spiegel, produced by Rob Tapert and starring Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams...
. The idea to include demons was also inspired by their most recent Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
campaign, which had ended with demons overrunning the entire planet.
Tom Hall and the
Doom Bible The horror-tech theme was not accepted unanimously. Creative director Tom HallTom Hall
Tom A. Hall is a game designer born in Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received a B.S. in Computer Science. In 1987, he worked at Softdisk Inc., where he was both a programmer and the editor of Softdisk, a software bundle delivered monthly...
instead wanted to continue the Commander Keen
Commander Keen
Commander Keen is a series of video games developed by id Software in the early 1990s. The series focuses on the adventures of Billy Blaze, an 8-year old boy who travels through space and assumes the identity "Commander Keen". The series was successful at replicating the side-scrolling action of...
series with a third trilogy, but the others felt that the cartoon style of the Keen games would not do justice to the new 3D engine. Conceding defeat, he instead set out to create the new game's design document
Design document
A software design document is a written description of a software product, that a software designer writes in order to give a software development team an overall guidance of the architecture of the software project. An SDD usually accompanies an architecture diagram with pointers to detailed...
— which he titled the Doom Bible, while the others were programming and creating graphics.
Unlike Wolfenstein 3D, which had essentially been a plotless shooter game, Hall wanted Doom to have an elaborate story. The game was to take place on an alien planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
called Tei Tenga, on which the UAAF (United Aerospace Armed Forces) had two military research bases. There would be five player characters with different personalities and abilities: Lorelei Chen, John "Petro" Pietrovich, Dimitri Paramo, Thi Barrett and Buddy Dacote (some of these names would return in Rise of the Triad
Rise of the Triad
Rise of the Triad: Dark War is a first-person shooter video game that was first released on February 17, 1995 and developed by Apogee Software . The members of the development team involved referred to themselves as "The Developers of Incredible Power"...
); the game would start with the five characters playing a game of cards
Playing card
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games...
, with creatures from hell suddenly bursting in. There would be a total of six episodes, with storylines involving traveling to Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
and back through the gates
Teleportation
Teleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...
which the hellspawn used, and the destruction of Tei Tenga, for which the players would be sent to jail.
John Carmack disapproved of the detailed plot, instead conceiving Doom as a simple, action-oriented game, making the remark "Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important." This creative conflict, and others agreeing that Hall's levels emphasized realism at the cost of making the gameplay
Gameplay
Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and player's connection with it...
entertaining, finally ended with Hall being forced to resign in mid-1993.
The Doom Bible as such was scrapped, but several of the ideas were kept for the final game. As in the Bible, Doom starts in a military research base and features a trip to Hell and back, although Tei Tenga was replaced with Phobos
Phobos (moon)
Phobos is the larger and closer of the two natural satellites of Mars. Both moons were discovered in 1877. With a mean radius of , Phobos is 7.24 times as massive as Deimos...
and Deimos
Deimos (moon)
Deimos is the smaller and outer of Mars's two moons . It is named after Deimos, a figure representing dread in Greek Mythology. Its systematic designation is '.-Discovery:Deimos was discovered by Asaph Hall, Sr...
, the moons of Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
(though traces of Tei Tenga can be found throughout the first and second episodes). There is only one player character, an anonymous space marine
Space marine
The space marine, an archetype of science fiction, is a soldier that operates in outer space or on alien worlds. Historical marines fulfill amphibious roles: ship defence, landing parties, and general high-mobility deployments...
. Several of the locations, items and monsters mentioned in the Bible appear, with modifications.
Some of the ideas from the Doom Bible, though discarded for Doom, showed up in later games. Instead of employing separate levels, Doom was initially supposed to use a hub system to enable a large, continuous world; in the game, the different areas would be connected by a monorail
Monorail
A monorail is a rail-based transportation system based on a single rail, which acts as its sole support and its guideway. The term is also used variously to describe the beam of the system, or the vehicles traveling on such a beam or track...
. Hubs were later used in id Software's Quake II
Quake II
Quake II, released on December 9, 1997, is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Id Software and distributed by Activision. It is not a sequel to Quake; it merely uses the name of the former game due to Id's difficulties in coming up with alternative names.The soundtrack for Quake II...
, Doom RPG
Doom RPG
Doom RPG is a mobile phone game developed by Fountainhead Entertainment. It combines the Doom first-person shooter franchise with role-playing elements. The storyline incorporates many of the events of Doom 3, but involves different characters than those in the computer version...
and Raven Software
Raven Software
Raven Software is an American video game developer. The company was founded in 1990 by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel. In 1997, Raven made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequently acquired by them...
's Hexen
Hexen
Hexen is a first-person shooter video game developed by Raven Software, published by id Software, and distributed by GT Interactive beginning on September 30, 1995. It is the sequel to 1994's Heretic, and the second game in the Serpent Riders series...
. Monorails also make an appearance in Doom 3
Doom 3
Doom 3 is a science fiction horror video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. An example of the first-person shooter genre, Doom 3 was first released for Microsoft Windows on August 3, 2004. The game was later adapted for Linux, as well as being ported by Aspyr Media for Mac...
, although not as a Hub system. The game would include interactive computer terminals; this first appeared in Doom 3. Tom Hall additionally used concepts from the Doom Bible in Rise of the Triad and Terminal Velocity
Terminal Velocity (computer game)
Terminal Velocity is a video game developed by Terminal Reality and published by 3D Realms on May 1, 1995. It is an arcade-style flight combat game, with simpler game controls and physics than flight simulators...
, which he designed after leaving id Software for Apogee
3D Realms
3D Realms is a current video game publisher and former video game developer based in Garland, Texas, United States, established in 1987...
and 3D Realms
3D Realms
3D Realms is a current video game publisher and former video game developer based in Garland, Texas, United States, established in 1987...
. Also, a laser weapon referred to as "the Unmaker" in the Doom Bible made its only appearance in Doom 64
Doom 64
Doom 64 is a video game for the Nintendo 64 released by Midway Games in April 4, 1997. It is part of the Doom first-person shooter video game series.-Features:Key differences from the computer games in the series include:*32 exclusive new levels....
.
Programming
Doom was developed on NeXTNeXT
Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...
workstations, under the NEXTSTEP
NEXTSTEP
NeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
. The Doom game engine
Doom engine
The Doom engine is the game engine that powers the id Software games Doom and Doom II. It is also used by HeXen, Heretic, Strife, Freedoom, and HacX, and other games produced by licensees. It was created by John Carmack, with auxiliary functions written by Mike Abrash, John Romero, Dave Taylor and...
was programmed in C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
, and the editing tools were written in Objective-C
Objective-C
Objective-C is a reflective, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language.Today, it is used primarily on Apple's Mac OS X and iOS: two environments derived from the OpenStep standard, though not compliant with it...
. The engine was first compiled
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...
with Intel's C compiler for DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
, but later Watcom
Watcom
Watcom International Corporation was founded in 1981 by three former employees of the Computer Systems Group at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada...
's C/C++ compiler was used.
The bulk of the Doom 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...
was programmed by John Carmack. John Romero
John Romero
Alfonso John Romero is a game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software and was a designer for many of their games, including Wolfenstein 3D, Dangerous Dave, Doom and Quake...
implemented code to save and load games, interactive features such as flickering lights, doors, raising stairs and crushing ceilings. Dave D. Taylor
Dave D. Taylor
Dave D. Taylor is an American game programmer, best known as a former id Software employee and noted for his work promoting Linux gaming.In 1993 he graduated from University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering....
was hired as a "spackle coder", adding things such as the status bar, sound library integration, the automap, level transitions, cheat codes, and the network chat
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
system. The sound library, DMX Sound Library, was an external piece of software created by Paul Radek, and not included in the 1997 release of the Doom source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
.
The editing tools used to build the game included scripts to generate source code for monsters from definition tables, a tool to link together WAD files from data lumps, the BSP
Binary space partitioning
In computer science, binary space partitioning is a method for recursively subdividing a space into convex sets by hyperplanes. This subdivision gives rise to a representation of the scene by means of a tree data structure known as a BSP tree.Originally, this approach was proposed in 3D computer...
nodes builder by John Carmack, and DoomEd, the Doom level editor
Level editor
A level editor is a software tool used to design levels, maps, campaigns, etc and virtual worlds for a video game. In some cases the creator of a video game releases an official level editor for a game, but other times the community of fans step in to fill the void...
. DoomEds structure and basic functionality, such as drawing lines and reading sector information, was implemented by Carmack; Romero added texture viewers and dialogs. Among the editing utilities, only the BSP nodes builder has been released to the public.
Levels
The Doom Bible contained detailed descriptions of scenarios that were to appear in the game. Tom Hall studied real military bases to create realistic locations, such as "Recreation and Training Center" and "Supply Depot Two". He built several levelsLevel (computer and video games)
A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...
, but as they were constructed and placed in the game, the others found them banal and uninspiring. Hall's levels were mostly flat and square, like Wolfenstein 3D, and decorated with real-life wallpapers, floor tiles and office equipment. To show off the game engine's capabilities, John Romero
John Romero
Alfonso John Romero is a game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software and was a designer for many of their games, including Wolfenstein 3D, Dangerous Dave, Doom and Quake...
instead began creating levels that were more abstract. The team settled for Romero's less realistic but more vivid style, which is found throughout the game's first episode, Knee-Deep in the Dead.
Romero only designed the levels for the first episode in Doom, due to being occupied with programming and other tasks. When Tom Hall resigned, an extra level designer was needed in order to complete the game on schedule, and Sandy Petersen
Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen is a game designer.Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology....
was hired about 10 weeks before release. In those 10 weeks, Petersen finished all of episodes two and three, and one level for the first episode — 19 levels in total, of which eight were overhauled versions of levels by Tom Hall. Petersen paid less attention to aesthetics than Romero, but the others thought his levels were as fun to play.
Graphics
Adrian Carmack
Adrian Carmack is one of the four founders of id Software, along with Tom Hall, John Romero, and John D. Carmack . He had worked there as an artist. He was a major stock owner of id Software until he left the company....
and Kevin Cloud
Kevin Cloud
Kevin Cloud is a computer games graphic designer from Shreveport, LA. He was hired in 1992 by id Software to work as an assistant artist to the then lead artist, Adrian Carmack. Prior to that, he was employed by Softdisk, where several other id founders worked. During part of his employment at...
were the chief artists behind Doom. Additionally, Don Ivan Punchatz
Don Ivan Punchatz
Don Ivan Punchatz was a science fiction and fantasy artist who drew illustrations for numerous publications, including magazines such as Heavy Metal, National Geographic, Playboy, and Time....
was hired to create the package art and logo, and his son Gregor Punchatz
Gregor Punchatz
Gregor Punchatz is an artist hired by id Software to create sculptures for the Arch-Vile, Mancubus, Revenant and Spider Mastermind monsters for the Doom video game series...
created some of the monsters.
A mixed media
Mixed media
Mixed media, in visual art, refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.There is an important distinction between "mixed-media" artworks and "multimedia art". Mixed media tends to refer to a work of visual art that combines various traditionally distinct...
approach was taken to the artwork. Most of the sprites
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
were drawn by hand, but some of the characters were digitized from sculptures. These were the player character, the Cyberdemon and the Baron of Hell, all done in clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
by Adrian Carmack, and the Arch-Vile, the Mancubus, the Spider Mastermind and the Revenant, created in latex
Latex
Latex is the stable dispersion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium. Latexes may be natural or synthetic.Latex as found in nature is a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants . It is a complex emulsion consisting of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins,...
and metal by Gregor Punchatz. The sculptures were photographed from five to eight different angles so that they could be rotated realistically in-game, and finally touched up, colored and animated digitally with a program created by John Carmack, the "Fuzzy Pumper Palette Shop". The background in E1M1 is derived from Yangshuo karst mountains in China.
The shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
and the pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
seen in the game are photographs of toy weapon
Toy weapon
Toy weapons are toys that mimic real weapons, but are designed to be fun for children to play with and not dangerous.-Types of toy weapons:Some are essentially similar to the real thing, but less powerful. Weapons for cutting and stabbing have dull blades usually in plastic. Weapons formerly made...
s bought at Toys "R" Us; the shotgun a TootsieToy Dakota cap gun; the chainsaw
Chainsaw
A chainsaw is a portable mechanical saw, powered by electricity, compressed air, hydraulic power, or most commonly a two-stroke engine...
is a McCulloch Eager Beaver, borrowed from Tom Hall's girlfriend. The hands seen holding the weapons, and the brass knuckle fist, are Kevin Cloud's. Textures were both painted and created from scanned pictures. Among the more unusual sources, one texture was based on Adrian's snakeskin
Snakeskin
Snakeskin may refer to:*Snakeskin, a material that is made from the skin of a snake*Snakeskin , a song by Australian band Gyroscope*Snakeskin , a New Zealand film*Snakeskin , a side project of Tilo Wolff from Lacrimosa*Snakeskin Glacier...
boots, and a bloody texture for the hell levels was created from a photograph of a wound on Cloud's knee.
Sound
For music and sound effects, id Software hired Bobby Prince who had previously scored Wolfenstein 3D and worked on the Commander Keen games. Initially, John Romero gave him a couple of heavy metalHeavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
records and told him to create something similar for Doom. Prince created heavy metal-style soundtracks as instructed but also composed some more ambient tracks since he felt that heavy metal might not be appropriate for the entire game. As design progressed, it was decided that this was the case, and the music tracks were finally assigned to the individual levels by Romero.
Several of the music tracks are inspired by parts of songs, written by famous heavy metal bands.
In addition to heavy metal albums, several of the songs were inspired by the activities of the id Software team. Prince and John Carmack would often stay in the office at hours when no one else was around; "Deep Into The Code" refers to Carmack's habit of programming for long periods without leaving the computer, oblivious of his surrounding. Before sound effect
Sound effect
For the album by The Jam, see Sound Affects.Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media...
s had been added to the game, Romero was noted to energetically supply his own while playing, and Prince created the track "Waiting For Romero To Play" after observing the anticipation of people lining up to watch Romero in action. The final sound effects for the monsters were mixed from various animal sounds and recordings by Romero and Prince. Some of Doom's sound effects were acquired from Sound Ideas
Sound Ideas
Sound Ideas is the repository of one of the largest commercially available sound effects libraries in the world. It has accumulated the sound effects, which it releases in collections on CD and hard drive, through acquisition, exclusive arrangement with movie studios, and in-house...
' General series sound effects library.
Prerelease versions
Four prerelease versions of Doom originally intended for testers and the press have afterwards been released to the public due to historical interest. None of the prerelease versions have sound or music.0.2 Alpha
Released in February 1993, after two months of development, this early alpha version demonstrates three of the main technological advances in Doom: texture mappingTexture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
, variable light levels and non-orthogonal walls. The player can move around a small, completely flat level and press keys to change the light level and the textures. The Imp, Demon and Baron of Hell monsters are in place, but do not act or interact with the player. The heads-up display
HUD (computer gaming)
In video gaming, the HUD is the method by which information is visually relayed to the player as part of a game's user interface...
(HUD) is more complex than in the final game, including a small automap view and what appears to be a display for messages from other player characters; it is, however, non-functional and most likely a placeholder. The HUD also lists three items: "Captain's hand", "Heart of Lothar" and "Sandwich", items from Tom Hall's design document for the game.
0.4 Alpha
Many of the level structures from the final game are recognizable, but have significantly different textures and/or differences in layout. Lifts do not move. The enemies still do not attack. The player has a rifle weapon which can be fired.0.5 Alpha
More levels are present. Notably, most of Doom II MAP10 is present as the sixth level. Platforms now move, and doors can be opened. The player can take damage from slime, and can die. Various items are present, and can be picked up. Health kits will heal the player, and use the graphics from Wolfenstein. Magazines will give ammo. Keycards and bonus (point scoring) items are also present. The enemies still do not attack. They disappear when shot. The player now has a rifle bayonet as a melee weapon, in addition to the rifle.Press release
Functionally fairly close to the commercial release version, although sound and music are absent. Three levels are included, which would become E1M2, E3M5 and E2M2 in the release version. The Plasma Rifle fires red shots as well as green shots. The BFG 9000 fires many such shots in a wide field in front of the player, instead of the large plasma ball and invisible rays of the release version.Sources
- David KushnerDavid KushnerDavid Kushner is a writer who has contributed to publications including Wired, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, IEEE Spectrum and Salon. From 1994 to 1996 he worked as a senior producer and writer on the SonicNet website. The first edition of his non-fiction book, Masters of Doom, was published...
: Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, Random House Publishing Group 2003, ISBN 0-375-50524-5 - DoomworldDoomworldDoomworld is a news website dedicated to the computer game Doom, having been founded in 1998. It is hosted by AtomicGamer and is independently managed by a small staff of game fans with the help of many contributors...
: Interview with John Carmack. Retrieved December 4, 2004 - Doomworld: 1998 interview with John Romero. Retrieved June 1, 2005
- Doomworld: Doom music. Retrieved June 1, 2005
- "Bobby Prince is a Filthy Thief". Doomworld Forums discussion of Bobby Prince's music.
- John RomeroJohn RomeroAlfonso John Romero is a game designer, programmer, and developer in the video game industry. He is best known as a co-founder of id Software and was a designer for many of their games, including Wolfenstein 3D, Dangerous Dave, Doom and Quake...
: ROME.RO Photo Galleries: The Archives. Retrieved June 1, 2005 - Project DOOM: Q&A with John Romero about DOOM (III). Retrieved from the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
on June 2, 2005 - Tom HallTom HallTom A. Hall is a game designer born in Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received a B.S. in Computer Science. In 1987, he worked at Softdisk Inc., where he was both a programmer and the editor of Softdisk, a software bundle delivered monthly...
: The Doom Bible. Retrieved June 6, 2005