The Sith engine is a 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...

 developed by LucasArts

LucasArts

LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...

.
The game Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II is a first person shooter computer game. It was developed and published by LucasArts and released on October 9, 1997. It was made available on Steam on September 16, 2009. It is based on the Star Wars franchise and is a sequel to Star Wars: Dark Forces...

is based on this engine, and its expansion, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith is an expansion pack for the first person shooter Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II. It was developed and published by LucasArts, and released on January 31, 1998. The expansion includes a single-player mode and fifteen multiplayer maps. The...

, is based on a slightly updated version.

The engine has also been used in Grim Fandango

Grim Fandango

Grim Fandango is a personal computer game in the graphic adventure genre released by LucasArts in 1998 and primarily written by Tim Schafer. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered, static backgrounds...

as a basis for the GrimE

GrimE

GrimE is an adventure game engine, created by Bret Mogilefsky at LucasArts using the free software scripting language Lua. It was first used for Grim Fandango. Partly based on the Sith engine, GrimE was the successor to SCUMM, preserving some of that engine's features...

 engine, and used in Star Wars: Droid Works

Star Wars: Droid Works

Star Wars DroidWorks is an educational video game made by Lucas Learning, where the purpose is to create a droid using many different parts that can be assembled in almost endless combinations and have said droid complete a mission...

. A modified third-person view version of the code with drastically rewritten lighting, collision, rendering and tools was renamed to Jones engine and used in Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine

Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine

Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine is a multi-platform action-adventure video game by LucasArts released in late 1999. The first 3D installment in the series, its gameplay focuses on solving puzzles, fighting enemies, and various platforming sections...

.

Technical features

The Sith engine is an early example of a scripted game engine. Most object behaviors are implemented with the integrated COG scripting language

Scripting language

A scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...

 or defined parametrically

Parameter

Parameter from Ancient Greek παρά also “para” meaning “beside, subsidiary” and μέτρον also “metron” meaning “measure”, can be interpreted in mathematics, logic, linguistics, environmental science and other disciplines....

 using a template system which allows simple inheritance

Inheritance (computer science)

In object-oriented programming , inheritance is a way to reuse code of existing objects, establish a subtype from an existing object, or both, depending upon programming language support...

.

The engine is also an example of a portal engine

Portal rendering

In computer-generated imagery and real-time 3D computer graphics, portal rendering is an algorithm for visibility determination. For example, consider a 3D computer game environment, which may contain many polygons, only a few of which may be visible on screen at a given time...

. Level geometry is rendered as a series of negative-space convex

Convex polytope

A convex polytope is a special case of a polytope, having the additional property that it is also a convex set of points in the n-dimensional space Rn...

 polyhedrons

Polyhedron

In elementary geometry a polyhedron is a geometric solid in three dimensions with flat faces and straight edges...

 connected by adjoining polygons

Polygon

In geometry a polygon is a flat shape consisting of straight lines that are joined to form a closed chain orcircuit.A polygon is traditionally a plane figure that is bounded by a closed path, composed of a finite sequence of straight line segments...

. Levels require no preprocessing and hidden surface determination

Hidden surface determination

In 3D computer graphics, hidden surface determination is the process used to determine which surfaces and parts of surfaces are not visible from a certain viewpoint...

is computed at run-time.