@database TMapFAQ.guide
@$VER:TmapFAQ.guide 1.05
@wordwrap

@node Main "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"

@{b}Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05@{ub}


@{u}Table of contents@{uu}

    I.   @{" Introduction                                         " link intro}

    II.  @{" Short reviews of all demos/games/sources known to me " link Reviews}

    III. @{" Rumours and other infos department                   " link Rumors}

    IV.  @{" Doing texturemapping with emulators                  " link Emulators}

    V.   @{" Algorithms                                           " link Algorithms}

    VI.  @{" The Amiga Texturemapping online conference           " link conference}

    VII. @{" What can YOU do to support this FAQ ?                " link Support}
@endnode


@node intro "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Main

@{b}Introduction@{ub}

 1. @{" History                                                " link History}
 2. @{" What is Texturemapping ?                               " link Whatis}
 3. @{" What are the problems of Texturemapping on the Amiga ? " link Problems}
 4. @{" How can they be solved ?                               " link Solve}
@endnode

@node History "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc intro

@{b}History@{ub}

V 0.1  First release
V 0.25 Added some more demos, layout is 80 charachters/line
V 0.26 Added History, layout is 75 characters/line
V 0.3  Added some additional info, added 3d-demo,
       added Albas engine, added Wayne engine, added 
       source section.
V 0.35 Added A1200 smoothness values. Thanks to all the people
       who sent me email, by the way... they help improving
       the FAQ :))) Added some frame rates ...
V 0.4  Added short reviews of TextDemo57 and Alien Breed 3D
V 0.5  FAQ converted to AmigaGuide format by John Corigliano
       Basics of Raycasting article added by John Corigliano
       Some minor changes in the introduction by me.
       Invitation to the second TMap converence on irc at 1st March.
V 0.55 Added info about Union Interactive's engine.
       Added full review of the current working executable of Reality AGA.
       Added Basics of Copper Chunky chapter.
       Keep on sending algorithms, coder guys !!!
V 0.60 Added info about the game that will be made out of the Motion engine.
       Added info about ongoing work with Warp_S.       
       Added info about Waynes Engine.
       Added info about John Hendrikx RTG library project 
       (section TextDemo57). Graphics Libraries for use in games.
       Corrected some minor things.
V 0.61 Added some BAD news about DSA 2 in the info section
       Added some GOOD news about Whales Voyage II in the info section
       Info about third texturemapping conference in may included
V 0.65 Added latest info about Albas engine ("Breathless")
V 0.70 Included information about preview of Commercial Fears, the first
       real playable DOOM clone demo on Amiga, with Monsters and all...
       Some info updated in infos and rumour section
       Some questions from me :
       1. Does anybody know, what got out of POOM ? If i remember correct,
          it was said, the REAL V 0.3 should be there in April... now
          IS April... :)))
       2. Somebody interested in another texturemapping conference ?
       By the way, at 20th/21th April Commodore will be sold !!! :)))))
V 0.71 Included some things i heard about a game called Za Zelazna Brama
       (and yes, the source IS reliable...), updated info about commercial
       Fears...
V 0.73 Latest info about Warp_S, POOM, Dentaku26 and AlienBreed3D included...
       Updated rumours section.
V 0.74 Included info about rtg.library
V 0.75 Created game-demos entry about Gloom
       Included info about possible pickup of Rot3D engine
V 0.80 Updated info about playable Beta of Warp_S (!!!)
       Updated info about Gloom
V 0.85 The statement about Gloom being No-AGA was wrong. I corrected this.
       I inserted the info about Phoenix, a new engine.
V 0.90 Added information about Damagewolf, Lech and Deep. Added rumoured
       release dates for GLOOM, AB3D and Whales Voyage II. Added something
       about another texturemapping conference (the third...) in June.
       By the way, if i do not list your FAVOURITE not-Game-Demo, sorry...
       there are SO MUCH Not-Game-Demos... simply send me mail what Not-Game-Demo
       you want to get included (but i think that FAQ will now mainly review
       the Game-Demos...)
       Added latest info about rtg.library
V 0.95 Corrected bug in V 0.90 (concerning DamageWolf)
       Added info about "Behind the iron gate"
       Added info about "Frank's Engine"
       Added info about "Donald's Engine"
       Updated info about Fears, Textdemo and Dentaku26
V 1.00 Updated info about Behind the Iron Gate
       Updated info about Union Interactives Engine (GREAT NEWS !!!!!!!!! :))))) )
V 1.05 Updated info about Fears (New demo !!!) and Dentaku26
       Included info about Whales Voyage II Demo
       Updated info about Switchworld, DamageWolf and rtg.library
       Updated info about the Amiga Texturemapping Conference
       Updated rumour department
       From now on, the latest version of this FAQ is available over WWW
       on http://www.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/fachschaft/adressen/haeuser.html
@endnode

@node Whatis "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc intro

@{u}@{b}What is Texturemapping ?@{uu}@{ub}

Texturemapping is a method of wrapping bitmapgraphics around
vectors or 3D based graphics in common. For games, texturemapping
is mostly used doing very realistic Dungeons.

In contrary to a dungeon like in Dungeonmaster or Eye of the Beholder,
the player is not limited to some few directions, but he can turn
around in TRUE 360 degrees, like in real life. Often the graphics
gives a more realistic feel than the graphics of such block graphics 
games and especially the opponents of the player are done very well
(using texturemapping and vector graphics ...)

Texturemapping is used for role playing games and for dungeon action
games (some of them able to handle more than one player at the same time).
The most famous such games are Castle Wolfenstein and DOOM. Castle
Wolfenstein is for PC and Mac, DOOM is for PC (and soon for Mac too).
There are probably more texturemapping action games than texturemapping
role playing games.

The original creators of DOOM did no port to the Amiga and won't do
so in the future. All the talk about "Amiga DOOM" is to do a similar
game on Amiga, not the original DOOM. Most people speak of "Wolfenstein
style" and "DOOM style" graphics engines to describe how GOOD the used
texturemapping in a game is. DOOM engines are superior to Wolfenstein 
engines.
@endnode

@node Problems "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc intro

@{b}What are the problems of Texturemapping on the Amiga ?@{ub}

Texturemapping needs to put single pixels to a screen, not only LINES 
like in vector graphics. So you need both a fast CPU and a fast graphics 
for doing texture mapping.

On PC (and on Mac) the color of each pixel is described by ONE BYTE... 
this is the so-called CHUNKY PIXEL MODE. On Amiga, the color of each pixel 
is described by EIGHT VALUES (for 256 colors). This is the so-called
BITPLANE GRAPHICS. Easy to understand, Chunky pixel is better for 
texturemapping than bitplane graphics, as bitplane graphics only 
has 12.5% of the speed of chunky graphics (if you take a simple algorithm
that only takes one pixel at a time. Of course you can speed things up
handling 8 pixels at a time (eight Bytes). Of course, if you take less
thean 256 colors the speed is better, and i was told, in this way you even
may get a better speed than doing chunky graphics.

Second thing, even if the 68040 is very fast, not everybody has got such 
a thing(i have :)))) ). But on PC most gamers have got a 80486 (Which 
probably is slower than the '040, but much faster than the '020). It is 
probably not possible doing texturemapping with an 68000. In addition, 
texturemapping should probably have 64 colors AT LEAST (maybe extra 
halfbrite on ECS ...)

Third, a lot of companies let the Amiga alone (Boooooh... :((( ), and in 
special they did not want to risk coding something DIFFICULT on Amiga. 
And some coders simply are moronic DOS-lovers (greetings to ID Software 
(they did DOOM) and to Richard Garriot of Origin at this place... i hope 
they $"&$/&$"/$"/& (censored) !!!)
@endnode

@node Solve "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc intro

@{b}How can Problems of Texturemapping on the Amiga be solved ?@{ub}

A) @{i}Copper Chunky Modes@{ui}

I told you before, that the Amiga is not capable of doing chunky modes. 
That is not 100% the truth. There is a type of copper cheat (the copper 
is one of the Amiga's graphics coprocessors), that in fact DOES chunky 
modes. The problem with this graphics mode is, it can only handle a 
resolution about 100x100 to 130x120 pixels (i do not know exactly, as i 
am no specialist in coding texturemapping ...) Compared to PC Games with 
320x200 texturemapping this may look ugly ... (but it should be mentioned, 
games on PCs (at least on PCs that are not these absolute high-powered
ones...) often do not use full screen graphics, and so often too use such 
resolutions. Copper chunky can't do 1x1 or 2x1 pixel resolution or
something like that (i do not know exactly what are the limits for that
Copper tricks... maybe an expert inc coding such things could tell me ?)
Of course, to get a real nice graphics it is better to take the more
CPU intensive Chunky to Planar routines... just compare Alien Breed 3D
and TextDemo57 :)))

B) @{i}Chunky to Planar Conversion Routines@{ui}

A Chunky to Planar Conversion Routine is a part of a texturemapping code, 
that takes graphics in chunky (one Byte per pixel) as input, and puts it 
as Bitplane Graphics on the Screen. Of course, this method needs much 
CPU-power. For most demos/games, you should have at least a '030 to get 
it smooth... and a lot of demos using this technique do not have FULL 
texturemapping... that is, they for example have no stairs, and everything 
on screen is on the same height level. Copper Chunky does this better, but
has a low resolution... of course a '040 with a Conversion Routine can 
do fine things...

C) @{i}Using a graphics board@{ui}

Graphics boards for the Amiga do not use Bitplane graphics, but, in fact, 
Chunky graphics. The problem is, not many people have such boards in their 
systems, in difference to the PC, where all graphics is based on such 
boards. But some coders said, they maybe will do an additional "graphics 
board version", that features the fast graphics chips with their chunky 
graphics... there is even a texturemapping demo running on EGS (EGS is
a standard for Amiga graphics boards).

D) @{i}Demo-Groups do the Games@{ui}

As those people who can do texturemapping best (on PC) often are 
DOS-lovers, on Amiga a lot of people of the demo-scene and others, who 
are not employed at software firms, began to code... and as software firms 
want to SELL, they will probably sell the finished products, even if they 
are Amiga-only... And of course there are firms DEDICATED to the Amiga, 
like Team17 ... they are in this texturemapping business, too ...
@endnode

@node Reviews "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Main

@{b}Short reviews of all demos/games known to me@{ub}

 1. @{" Demos       " link "Demos"}
 2. @{" Game-Demos  " link "Game-Demos"}
 3. @{" Games       " link "Games"}
 4. @{" Sources     " link "Sources"}

The short reviews are done in a specific format, mentioning Name, Author 
Name (or name of one of the authors), Minimum System, Recommended System, 
Engine style, How smooth the scrolling is and how good the pixelresolution 
is. Then they are followed by a short description of the demo (of course i 
could say more of the most, but there are a lot of demos reviewed...) Then 
i list the E-Mail of the author (if available) and where on Aminet sites to 
find the demo (if possible). I recommend using ftp.uni-paderborn.de or 
src.doc.ic.ac.uk or another site with complete Aminet. Some smaller sites 
only have got the latest uploads to Aminet. Wuarchive is a good choice, 
too. And there is another good site called ftp.netnet.com or something 
like that. You could look at ftp.luth.se, too.

All speed remarks are relative to my own system (hehehe...), an A4000/040 
with 14 MB RAM and a Piccolo SD64 graphics board (not the standard Amiga, 
isn't it ?) If you have an Amiga 1200 without accelator and did some tests 
you may wish to mail your results to me ...

I have to remark too, that the comments are NOT objective... i like some
demos and games, and do not like others... no one should take it as an 
insult, if i give his favourite demo a bad mark... it is only a try done 
by me... if you think the other way round, tell me... maybe you can 
convince me to change the FAQ as to one specific demo :))) I chose to be 
STRICT in the remarks i had to do ... in order to show the differences 
between the tested engines ... but of course i know how much work it is 
even to do a texturemapping demo in LOW resolution with a TM-Engine that 
suxx...

Sometimes i wrote something like Low/Wolf... then i did not want to say 
Low, and not Wolf... again... everything very subjective ...

Ah... about that "recommended system" things... Just guesses...

Nearly all of the demos are on Aminet and for most of the demos
you will find in the FAQ in which directory. Most of the demos
also are (for the Germans reading this FAQ) available on the
Birdland BBS (number found at the end of this FAQ).
@endnode

@node system "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
Minimum/Recommended System

All  = All Amigas with 1 MB chip at least
020  = All Amigas with 68020 at least
AGA  = All Amigas with AGA
030  = All Amigas with '030 at least
040  = All Amigas with '040 at least
060  = All Amigas with '060 at least (Joke! :))) )
FPU  = All Amigas with FPU at least
EGS  = All Amigas with EGS graphics boards

 - Click @{b}Retrace@{ub} to return...
@endnode

@node engine "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
Engine style

Low  = Engine worse than Wolfenstein, 
Wolf = Wolfenstein-style engine
:)   = A little Better than Wolfenstein, worse than DOOM
:):) = MUCH better than :), but not DOOM ...
DOOM = DOOM-style engine
Bey  = Engine BEYOND DOOM
Simply SUXX = This is the special entry for the 3D Part of Jurassic Parc :)

 - Click @{b}Retrace@{ub} to return...
@endnode

@node smoothness "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
Smoothness

VSm  = Graphics very Smooth
Smo  = Graphics smooth
NSm  = Graphics nearly smooth
Not  = Not very smooth graphics

 - Click @{b}Retrace@{ub} to return...
@endnode

@node resolution "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
Pixel resolution

Cop  = Probably copper chunky or some other copper cheat, maybe i am 
       wrong. In special CopL says low pixel resolution, CopM medium
       and CopH says high resolution (but i think it is impossible
       of doing a copper display with a pixel resolution you could call
       HIGH). CopM probably is worse than Med. I used the CopL-CopM
       abbreviations only to have SOME METHOD to differentiate
       between different kinds of copper displays.
Low  = Low resolution (probably something around 2x2 or worse...)
Med  = Medium resolution (probably something around 2x1 or 1x2 ...)
High = High resolution (probably 1x1 ...)

 - Click @{b}Retrace@{ub} to return...
@endnode

@node coded "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
Coded by

(P)  = Single Person
(G)  = Demo group
(PO) = listed person is one of those doing the thing... but there are 
       others...
(SF) = Software firm

 - Click @{b}Retrace@{ub} to return...
@endnode

@node Demos "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Reviews

@{b}Demos@{ub}

Only Demos with texturemapping parts that could be used in games are 
mentioned... no textured spheres, cubes and such things... all things 
mentioned in the chapter "Demos" will probably never get games ...

    @{" Mindflow        " link "mindflow"}
    @{" Motion          " link "motion"}
    @{" Doomed          " link "doomed"}
    @{" Phobos          " link "phobos"}
    @{" Fullmoon        " link "fullmoon"}
    @{" HOI-SAGAIII     " link "hoi"}
    @{" Waynes Engine   " link "wayne"}
    @{" Lech            " link "lech"}
    @{" Deep            " link "deep"}
@endnode

@node mindflow "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Demos

Mindflow      Stellar (G)     AGA (4 MB RAM)     AGA (4 MB RAM)
:)            NSmo            CopL

One of the effects of this demo is a dungeon that looks nearly like the 
dungeons of the game Ambermoon. The textures of the ceiling and floor 
are MUCH better than in Ambermoon, but Ambermoon is smoother ...

Author : Stellar (One email of a Stellar-Member is 
         jsaarinen@kone.fipnet.fi, this is Nose/Stellar)
File   : /pub/aminet/demo/aga/mindflow.lha

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node motion "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Demos

Motion        Bomb (G)        AGA                AGA
:)/DOOM       Not/NSm         CopL

One of the effects of this demo is a FULL texturemapped DOOM engine with 
stairs and all. Bravo, Bomb !!! You should do a game out of this :))) 
This demo did not run on my A4000/040, but i did get a patch from some-
one... i do not think this patch is on Aminet, though ... one last word
to the engine... there are stairs and all included, but the Speed i think
is not that sufficent for a game ... okay for a demo though...
The walls are only rectangular.

Latest info about this : Bomb decided to do a game with this engine, and
the game is already 85% complete. It will be called FEARS (a little
strange, as Bomb already released a Wolfenstein clone with this name).
But this FEARS will use the Motion-engine. It should be out next month.
It will be a commercial game. Bomb started a new company called Manyk
to market this game. As soon as i know more, i will move the Motion
entry to Game-Demos.

Some Info even later : A preview of this game ("Commercial Fears") is out.
Take a look to the game-demos-section about it...

Author : Gengis/Bomb
File   : /pub/aminet/demo/par94/MotionDisk1.dms
         /pub/aminet/demo/par94/MotionDisk2.dms

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node doomed "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Demos

Doomed        Pearl (G)       All                All
Low           VSm             CopL

A demo where you can use the joystick to wander around... but i decided
not to do it to the Game-Demos, because the only intention to do this one 
was, to prove it is possible of getting 50 fps on a plain A500. Someone 
of Pearl tried to enhance the engine, but as this did not work, the demo 
died. Talking about resolutions, there are copper chunky demos with 
better resolution.

Author : Netrunner/Pearl (9308938m@lux.levels.unisa.edu.au)
File   : /pub/aminet/demo/euro/Pearl.Doomed.lha

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node phobos "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Demos

Phobos        Cydonia (G)     All (???)          All (???)
Low           Smo             CopL

One of the earlier approaches to Amiga texture mapping. It has no floor 
textures and turning around does not look like it SHOULD... but asides 
from that the speed is impressive. You can use your joystick to walk the
dungeon, in contrary to most not-game demos. The resolution is weak.

Author : ???
File   : ???

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node fullmoon "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Demos

Fullmoon      Fairlight (G)   AGA                AGA
Low           NSm/Not         Med

Even if Fullmoon is a very nice demo, the texturemapping part is not very 
well done. The scrolling is not smooth, there are no floor and ceiling 
textures and the resolution is low. The not texturemapping related parts 
of the demo are nevertheless great !

Author : ???
File   : ???

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node hoi "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Demos

HOI-SAGAIII   TEAM HOI (G)    AGA                AGA
Low           NSm/Smo         Low

The texturemapping part of the demo has no ceiling textures, and the floor 
textures are not very well done. The speed is better than that of most 
such "little hacks", but there are better texturemapping demos than this 
one. Aside from this flaw, HOI-SAGA III is (looked upen on it as demo in 
common) okay.

Author : Teamhoi@SterrBBS.nl (or was it TeamHoi@SterBBS.nl ???)
File   : ???

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node wayne "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Demos

Waynes Engine Wayne Mendoza   ???                020+Fast Ram
DOOM          ???             ???

This one will be DOOM-like graphics. But sadly Wayne_m said on irc he
would probably not do a game with it. I HOPE he changes his mind about
this :))) I do not know what the final name of the thing will be.
According to the author, The engine runs with 24-30 fps on a 4000/040, 
14 fps on a 1200 with Fast Ram. There are 1x1, 1x2, 2x1 and 2x2 pixel 
resolutions available. It uses c2p and NO copper tricks. Uses Data
from DOOM .wad-Files.

Author : wayne@msq.ruhr.de
File   : Not yet available

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node lech "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Demos      

Lech          Freezers(G)      ???                020+Fast Ram
:)            Smo/VSm         Low/Med

A little dungeon effect doing 10 fps on an A1200 with Fastram. Looks a bit
"Ambermoon-like". The rest of the demo is fine too...

Author : ??? (Freezers probably :)))))) )
File   : On Aminet ? Maybe ftp-Site "Papa" (on irc /dcc chat Papa,/query =papa,ls)

@node deep "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Demos        

Deep          Parallax (G)    AGA                 AGA
Wolf          VSm             CopL

Nice effect with a blurring chunky copper dungeon, but probably not useful for a
game. Nice effect in a nice demo... by the same Group like POOM... (by the way, if
someone of Parallax reads that... someone from your group (i think it was Bandog)
said some time ago on irc, there would be soon a new POOM release... what about
that ?)

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode     

@node Game-Demos "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Reviews

@{b}Game-Demos@{ub}

Game-Demos are Demos that are probably on their best way of getting games. 
Some of them actually will get Games, some not ...

    @{" Warp_S                    " link warp_s}
    @{" POOM                      " link poom}
    @{" BSP                       " link bsp}
    @{" Tmapdemo                  " link tmapdemo}
    @{" Dentaku26                 " link dentaku26}
    @{" ChunkyMaze                " link chunkymaze}
    @{" TextDemo                  " link textdemo}
    @{" Rtg.library               " link Rtg}
    @{" Phoenix                   " link phoenix}
    @{" Commercial Fears          " link comfears}
    @{" Gloom                     " link gloom}
    @{" Reality                   " link reality}
    @{" Albas Engine              " link albas}
    @{" Alien Breed3D             " link alien}
    @{" Dogenstein3D              " link dogenstein3d}
    @{" 3D-Demo                   " link 3d-demo}
    @{" Union Interactives Engine " link Union}
    @{" Wolf23_ish                " link wolf32_ish}
    @{" Wolf3D                    " link wolf3d}
    @{" Rot3D                     " link rot3d}
    @{" DamageWolf                " link damwolf}
    @{" Frank's Engine            " link frank}
    @{" Donald's Engine           " link donald}
    @{" Whales Voyage II          " link whale}

@endnode

@node warp_s "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Warp_S        O. Groth (PO)   020+HD             AGA + Fast Ram
:):)          Smo/Vsm         Low/Med

Really a nice engine, the only DOOM style engine on Amiga with monsters 
running around. This one will be a game 100%. Playable demo will be out 
maybe February or March. The resolution and graphics are not the best at 
the moment, but the next Demo out will (according to the beta i saw) be 
much better. They got a new graphician, who is very good (i know this 
one :))) ). Maybe the most promising demo of them all. It will get a 
graphics board version, too, and an extra version that is '040-optimized 
(higher resolution !!!) was promised sometimes... Was in the beginning 
called Texmapp... The release version probably will be faster than the 
demo. Uses not only 90 degree walls. Decompresses monster GFX in real 
time. Just got a new beta from Oliver. Some bugfixes, you can shoot
(but there is no explosion graphics yet) and you have the option of
doing a speedup of the graphics. And next beta : You can getting objects 
lying on the ground (munition) and you can shoot with real shooting
graphics. The monsters shoot back. But nobody dies, and the shooting
graphics is up to now a bit poor.

Latest info : Soon they will have finished a Beta release, which is
PLAYABLE... but probably only the NEXT version after this beta will
get a public release... they are working hard on graphics board versions,
are interested in versions with WB-Emus as well as in John Hendrikx
rtg.library. They are looking for contacts to software firms currently.
Interested firms would get that Beta-Release as soon as this one is finished.

NOW i got the playable demo. As to the level design there has to be done
a LOT of work, but as to the graphics engine : It is fantastic. Now i would
say Warp_S is the most promising DOOM clone for Amiga. As to its features
there is nothing new (maybe some smaller changes in the textures), but the
greatest thing is, it is real playable. And NO copper chunky crap... on
my A4000/040 it is still playable with around 200x136 to 240x136 with
a pixel resolution of 1x1. 2x2 is VERY playable (probably on low powered
systems too), but there some bugs with the graphics left. This version
up to now does not run on graphics boards.

To talk another time of the features : No different height walls, but a
nice resolution, explosions, fighting monsters (some sort of robots...),
some things standing on the floor, not rectangular walls, bobbing
movement. I do not know what is wrong with the frame rate in this latest
version. Some times i got 40 fps, sometimes 8 fps. But anyway, if the
frame rate tells the truth or not, it is good playable (if you got a
030 at least or use 2x2... as soon as the bugs in 2x2 are fixed...)
The windowsize is free configurable (but in y direction, 136 is the
maximum...). The graphics is, as i said, really cool, for that sort of
game on Amiga (because being playable AND high resolution), but there
is no great gameplay up to now... but one thing after the other probably...

Author : O.Groth@link-M.muc.de
File   : /pub/aminet/gfx/misc/warp_s.lha
A1200  : Smoothness Smo

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node poom "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

POOM          Parallax (G)    AGA                030+AGA
:):)          Smo             High

Maybe the most famous Amiga texturemapping demo. But it got very quiet 
around it since October '94. Maybe they dropped it? Or maybe they will 
bring out a complete game from one day to the other? There is a V0.3 on a 
finnish BBS ... the coders did some talk about a "maybe" graphics 
board version. POOM0.2 only has rectangular walls. The phone number of 
the Finnish BBS is +358 18 161 763.
POOM0.2 is on Aminet ... As to V0.3 Beta, it is much smoother, you can
select a resolution from 32x32 up to 320x256 (the latter did not work
on my system, though...), you see the gun and there are some new
textures (a complete floor texture too...). As soon as you quit the
Beta, it crashes. The Beta does not run with 2 MB. Someone said,
the guys of Parallax would be working on something else at the moment,
so the next release of POOM would be some time away.
THE AUTHORS DO NOT WANT THE 0.3b BEING SPREAD. The real V0.3 will be
there somewhere in april.

Latest info : POOM will get the official V0.3 SOON, BUT NOT TOO SOON.
This release will feature different height walls, monsters, you can shoot,
and simply, it will be nearly a game... at least, that Parallax guy on
irc (Bandog) said so...

Author : Jussi_Salmi@sonata.fipnet.fi
File   : /pub/aminet/gfx/aga/poom_02.lha
A1200  : Smoothness Not (V0.2)

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node bsp "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

BSP           John Fehr (P)   All                040
DOOM          Not             Low/Med

This Demo reads an original DOOM-Wad-File and tries to interpret it. This 
is SLOW. The WAD-interpreter BSP has no ceiling or floor, but many features 
(because of the WAD ...) As it is No-Aga and not very smooth, i do not 
think it is more interesting than for example POOM or Warp_S. But it was 
probably VERY MUCH work to make this thing reading .wad-Files ... and 
those multiple textures things probably cost a lot of speed too... there 
are AGA versions in the archive too... they too do not have floor and 
ceiling, but look better than the ECS-version ... I was told, it seems, 
John Fehr now is doing something further with his engine, but as to now i 
have no conformation from himself (so, what about, this, John, if you 
read this FAQ ? :) )

Author : fehr@rpm2.aes.mb.doe.ca
File   : /pub/aminet/gfx/misc/bsp1.0.lha

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode


@node damwolf "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Damagewolf    A. Lankila      All                030 + Fastram
:)            Not-VSm

Damagewolf is another Wolfenstein 3D Clone on Amiga. From the abilities of the engine
it is about the same as POOM V0.2 (but no doors and worse GFX). It has independent floor
and ceiling textures and a lot of different textures. There are two different screen
sizes and of each there are versions for ECS and AGA. The BIG versions are quite slow,
the SMALL versions quite FAAAAAAST.

The author now works on an "Amiga Rise of the Triad clone" engine. That is a DOOM type
engine that supports JUMPING and such things. He wants to bring out a demo as soon as
possible. As to texturesizes, he wants to use 64x64 and 128x128. He probably will use
rtg.library, if it is out soon.

Author : andezl@kastelli.otol.fi
File   : On Aminet...    

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode   

@node frank "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos                                     

I did not see this demo up to now, but what i can tell you about it up to now :
The author is Frank Hoffmann, a guy with whom i swapped a LOT of mail since i
heard of his engine. The engine is probably the first engine, that ONLY runs on
graphics board equipped Amigas (!!!) It is a Wolfenstein Engine, but it even
uses 15 Bit modes (>32000 colors !) It runs using CyberGraphics, but as the author
is interested in maybe doing the CyberGraphics-version of rtg.library somewhen in
the future, maybe we will see it running on rtg.library too... but up to now, no
releases are planned...

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode         

@node donald "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos                                     

Uuhm... i only know the name of the author from his email... it is Donald J somewhat...
in any case, this engine is coded in AMOS. But no texturemapping, this time, instead,
some blitter tricks, according to the author. The very early Beta i received shows
nearly full screen, very fast 3D freely scrolling graphics (at least in turning around,
in moving forward, similar to Deathmasque...). As it is no real texturemapping, the
perspective is not ABSOLUTELY correct when turning around, but that could be the fault
of the very early stage of the developpement too... it probably will be some kind of
Wolfenstein engine. The author maybe will get a new graphician soon, but nothing sure...
and he will probably switch from AMOS to C. The engine is coded on a 68000, and is not
too slow on such a system... so if he manages to make it looking a bit more "real" (it
looks quite fine, but as i said, not as good as some others...), that may get a great thing
for the low end... even if he does not manage to correct this FULLY, it may get a
REVOLUTION for 68000 games and maybe even 68020 games... there is no public release up
to now and no one planned...

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode         

@node tmapdemo "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Tmapdemo      C. Green (P)    AGA                AGA
???           NSm             High

This demo comes with complete source... the author allowed doing a game 
with his routine (he probably won't do himself ...) The engine is quite 
cool, but very incomplete... just some blocks with Pics on the walls... 
no collision check... but a floor...

Author : chrisg@commodore.COM (this email of course does not work ...)
File   : /pub/aminet/gfx/aga/tmapdemo.lha

*************************************************************************

Tmapdemo      S. Boberg (P)   EGS                EGS + EGS board
???           VSmo            High

A Port of Chris Green's texturemapping engine to EGS... according to the 
author a quick hack... probably won't get any further...

Author : ???
File   : ???

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node dentaku26 "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Dentaku26     A.J.Amsel (PO)  AGA/CD32           AGA/CD32
Wolf          VSm             CopL/CopM

Dentaku will be a Wolfenstein/DOOM-style game (probably with level editor 
and serial device support). A.J.Amsel said to me, a demo will probably be 
released in April 1995. An older demo (executable from September) is
available on ftp.luth.se. According to the mail information A.J.Amsel gave 
me, he and the others formed now a software company which is called 
Silltunna Software. They are two Coders (one of them A.J. Amsel), one 
artist and Alistair Brimble doing the sound. The game uses a copper display 
for its texture mapping routine. If you are a coder, an artist or a sound
specialist, you may wish to contact Mr. Amsel. Maybe you could join them 
in there project (Mail to A.J.Amsel@exeter.ac.uk). A former Demo of 
Dentaku was DentAWolf, but it has not much to do with Dentaku as
it is now. The ratings for DentAWolf are Low/Wolf,VSmo,Low.
The version of Dentaku found at ftp.luth.se is only optimized for
low end machines (but in my opinion it is good enough on high
end machines... maybe there is even room for an improvement of
the engine :))) And the engine does >20 fps on low end machines
too...) On high end machines you can even do 50 fps. The graphics
is of lower resolution as other games, but looks great anyway.

Not too much news about this one... Alex Amsel currently does Finals, as he
said... and has not that much time for his game... but there IS work in
progress at least...  just little time ago, he told me, they intend
to do MUCH MORE level design in the thing than other guys... they intend
to get the leading Amiga 3D game as what level design concerns...

Some days ago i got some info from Silltuna Sofware concerning Dentaku26,
including that Alex Amsel now again is fulltime coding for Dentaku.

And here the infos go (I write it here, like i got it from Silltuna) :

- HD installable
- Serial link AND splitscreen (and single player, of course...)
- cool soundtrack
- More monsters than in DOOM and DOOM II together
- Weapons : Single/Double barralled shotguns, 3 types of plasma guns, chainsaw,
  rifles, mini-gun, knifes, missile launchers, laser pistols,...
- special effects : scrolling floors, walls, strobing, weather,...
- Dozens of different textures and (scrolling) backgrounds
- More GORE than any other Amiga game... you can even shoot the dead bodies...
- 2 death scenes per creature, dependent of the power of your weapon
- Lots of different scenery and graphics (and animated scenery and objects)
- Varying screen sizes
- Sound FX by Alistair Brimble
- Different behaviour for different creature types
- Wide variety of level design (10 different level designers...)
- Colored windows
- 25 levels, each level with a lot of secret areas
- Player inertia
- Power-Up system based on chemical intake
- Lots of lighting effects
- Walls of any angle and length
- Lots of cheat modes (the way this is done in DOOM...)
- 17-25 fps on a standard A1200

Author : A.J.Amsel@exeter.ac.uk
File   : /pub/aminet/demo/aga/dentwolf.lha (DentAWolf...)
         /pub/aminet/demo/aga/dentects.lha (Sept. Executable of Dentaku)
A1200  : Smoothness VSm
Frame  : 50 fps on A4000/040

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node chunkymaze "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

ChunkyMaze    D. Bryson (P)   AGA                AGA
Wolf          VSmo            Med

A little dungeon with flickering torches and some pictures pinned to the 
wall. It has no floor or ceiling textures and in some distance the 
textures do not look nice. But there are worse tries. This project is 
(even if there are better approaches) still alive, but as David Bryson 
told me, the problem is the TIME. Anybody willing to help him, should 
contact him per email. He did not do anything further by himself, but 
Lee Metcalfe did some very nice graphics for the demo, and Paul Heams 
coded a little further. David would like it, if someone with LOTS of time 
picked this demo up. He would help this one with the source, of course.
I found a very similar demo on my harddisk (even the same textures...) 
which is called wolf. I think it is an earlier or later version of 
ChunkyMaze, but i do not have the docs.

Author : ceedb@cee.hw.ac.uk
File   : /pub/aminet/gfx/aga/maze.lha
A1200  : Smoothness VSm

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node textdemo "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

TextDemo5     J. Hendricks(P) 020                030                    
:)            VSmo            Med

In Fullscreen probably the fastest engine on Amiga (okay, POOM has floor 
and ceiling textures and is not much slower...). Textdemo has Lightsources, 
not-rectangular walls and the resolution and screen size can be 
customized. The demo has OCS, ECS and AGA versions. It uses some very 
tricky Chunky2Planar code (using even the blitter...). There is a 
TextDemo6 in work, and as i was told this one will probably be one of the 
best texturemapping demos on Amiga.

Author : john.hendrikx@grafix.xs4all.nl
File   : /pub/aminet/gfx/misc/TextDemo5.lha
A1200  : Smoothness Not to VSm, according to screen size

*************************************************************************

TextDemo57    J. Hendricks(P) 020                030+Fast Ram
:):)/DOOM     VSmo            High

A long time, there was nothing new about Textdemo, but now it is on
Aminet !!! And it is probably the BEST texturemapping engine available
on Amiga, striking even Alien Breed 3D, POOM and Warp_S. I hope the
other coders won't take it this harsh and continue their projects
nevertheless :). On a fast '030 or a '040 it FLIES at near full screen.
I did it at 224x168 with 1x1 pixel resolution on my A4000/040 and
that looked ABSOLUT PHANTASTIC. John Hendrikx claimed he will do
a texturemapping engines for high end Amigas that will be AT LEAST
as good as DOOM, if not better...

Some features :

- Realtime movement (smoother on better systems, but not faster
  than acceptable...)
- 128x128 textures (looks MUCH better ...)
- Multiple height walls :)))
- Floor textures (no ceiling textures yet...)
- "Bouncing movement" (I think the bouncing movement of TextDemo
  looks better than that of DOOM !!!)
- Object-mapping-code for monsters included (but no animated
  monsters implemented yet...)
- Textures take 24 Bit as original (so port to graphics board version
  would be easy)
- something that looks like water (and the bouncing movement looks
  like swimming :))) )

There are two teams doing games with this engine, John doing the engine
itself. The first team (the "Shade-Team") are five guys. They intend
to do a game with RPG elements that will be a mixture of DOOM, Dungeon
Master and Magic Carpet. The other Team ("Mystic tank") is doing a
two-person tank game.

Look forward to the next release (that shouldn't be a insult to the other
coders, but TextDemo is really GREAT ... did a long way from Textdemo5).
Maybe with that graphics board talk it would be nice if John did a
Cybergraphics version (if he reads this suggestion ... :) )

John currently leads a project for a set of graphics board custom
libraries that offer a standard interface for coding games, with the
same library calls on ANY graphics board. There are currently versions
for Picasso II (by John himself), Retina (i do not know who does that
version), EGS (by me) and if i heard right, Merlin, in the making.
The first engine that will use these libraries will be TextDemo6.
The libraries routines offer functions for opening/closing screens,
writing chunky pixels in 8/24 Bit, choosing screenmodes, modyfing
8 bit color palettes and double buffering. But it is probably some
way to go till the library package will be released, as for some
functions there is not even a specification of the interface. The
current working name is "rtg.library" (good, joke, guys... Commodore
never brought RTG to a release... now the Amiga users themselves
will do it ... but probably this RTG is very different from Commodores
RTG ...)

TextDemo57 is a sort of pre-release to TextDemo6. (Yeah! It is possible
on the Amiga! :))))))))))) )

In the meanwhile, TextDemo has floors AND ceilings... and John is beginning
to convert the engine to rtg.library ...

Author: John.Hendrikx@grafix.xs4all.nl
File: wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/gfx/misc/TextDemo57.lha
Frame: 8-26 fps according to screen and pixel resolution (according 
       to the fps display... sometimes it seems to me better than the
       display says... at the low rates...)

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node comfears "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Fears         BOMB (G)         AGA                AGA
DOOM          VSm              CopL

As i wrote in the section about the Motion-Demo, BOMB started doing a game out of their
engine. A preview of this game with one playable level is already out. (Yes, you can shoot
the monsters, they shoot back, you can die, they can die, you can pick up things, and all
that,...)

The engine looks very similar to that of the Motion demo, but it is MUCH faster and smoother.
And they say, the release version will be faster than the preview.

The only critics i could say aboutthis GAME :

- The control keya are LAME (but in the preview is said they will change the controls
  till the release)
- If you go to the map, and than back to the game, the machine crashes... at least my
  A 4000/040... i think this is a BUG ... THIS BUG DOES NOT APPEAR ON A1200, as i now
  know... Please, BOMB, correct this Bug before the release... your game
  CRASHED on A4000/040, as soon as you go to the Automap and then back
  to the game...
- If you stand near a wall or corner, and start turning around, it looks a bit strange.
- I did not find any teleporters or lifting platforms in the demo
- The pixel resolution is LOW.
- It is not Harddrive installable

But anyway, with all that stairs, switches, monsters, weapons, bobbing movement, and all
that stuff, this may be one main competitor for Alien Breed 3D. Bomb even announced a
serial link option for the full version. And that resolution stuff... probably they
can't change it much, because they do copper chunky. But to be reasonable, most of
the games intending for a SOON release use copper chunky, and there, Fears does not look
bad (of course it is no challange for TextDemo, but TextDemo lacks of monsters, weapons
and is no game up to now...)

I think maybe before such PERFECT texturemapping games like Shade and Brassman will come,
maybe there will be some cool copper chunky games. Fears sure will be one of the leading
ones...

The releasing company is called Manyk.   

Frederic Heintz, the author, just said, there would be ANOTHER demo out THIS WEEK.
By the way, that "full version", that, according to Frederic Heintz (he reported it on
comp.sys.amiga.misc himself), was illegally spreaded, is only a some MONTHS old
Beta not intended to be spreaded !!!

At this point i want to emphasize : If you get Beta releases of future games from the
author of a game... DON'T SPREAD THEM, IF THE AUTHOR DOES NOT WANT IT... about spreading
Betas from someone NOT being the author, i probably do not need to say ANYTHING... this
is as illegal as spreading the FULL VERSIONS !!! DON'T DO IT !!! You want those authors to
continue their work for the Amiga, hmmm ? :)

New info : The June version of Fears looks a bit different. The textures are MUCH better,
there is a dithering option added (makes the graphics look much less blocky), there are
four weapons in the demo, and in the game menu there are menu items for a map editor and
for serial link (but up to now these menu items do not do anything...). There are new monsters,
too, that look much better. Everything together i would say, if i hadn't see it, i would not
believe something like that with copper chunky possible... there are water textures (but
no mirroring effects like in AB3D) and the whole thing turned from  "motion demo that got
a game" to a "demo of a game". You can now change screen sizes with function keys, by the
way...

Ah, by the way, in Germany the game will be distributed by Attic... so it is a professional
work now... :)

After all that positive things, now the negative ones :

- Still not HD installable
- Map still crashes on A4000/040 (on 030 it works...)
- There are some locations in the demo, if you fall down there,
  you will never come up again...
- turning around in a corner still looks a bit strange

Author : Frederik Heintz/Bomb
File   : Aminet

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@toc Game-Demos

@node reality "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Reality AGA   K.Picone(PO)     AGA                ???
Wolf          Not              High

This project is at present a Wolfenstein type engine that has up to now
not made it to a public release. I got some infos about it :

- Aimed for A1200 and CD 32
- Static and moving objects
- Solid and see through walls
- Floor and ceiling textures (will be done later)
- 1x1, 2x1, 1x2 and 2x2 pixel resolutions
- walls at any angle and of any length
- 64 colour GFX, maybe soon 128 or 256 colour GFX
- external back drop pictures
- simple multi height walls
- graphics board version (will be done later)
- ECS/OCS version (later, with some reduction)
- 320x256 1x2 in 7-8 fps on A1200 with 4 MB Fast
- 320x256 1x1 in 5-6 fps on A1200 with 4 MB Fast

There will probably be a demo release in 2-3 weeks ...

As to the beta up to now... there are quite some problems the coder has
with it and it is some way to go to a public released... it does not
run optimal on A4000, because of the bigger caches and the slower
chip ram, as the coder said. This will change in the future (i think
the current speed is in no way related to the speed at the release
version...) There is a polygon "monster" already in the beta ...
The graphics now changed to 256 colors...

Author: ???
File  : Not yet publicly available
Frame : 8 fps on A1200 with Fast Ram

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node rtg "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos    

rtg.library is a Library project leaded by John Hendrikx (TextDemo),
to provide a standard interface for coding Texturemapping with
ECS/AGA AND graphics boards. The library contains the c2p routines
of TextDemo for ECS/AGA. It provides code to directly access the
video RAM of the graphics boards. Asides the ECS/AGA c2p routines
there is NO texturemapping code in this library. It is coded in
ASM. Up to now, there is work in progress for ECS, AGA, EGS and
Picasso II. But the goal is to support ALL boards. Up to now there
are functions (at least in the EGS version finished, i currently do not
know how far John is with his code...) to o0pen and close screens,
do doubble buffering, get the adresses of the video ram of the Boards,
and to support segmentation on the boards that need to do so...
With the adresses of the video memory it is already possible to use that
library (functions for screen locking and unlocking are finished too...)
Later there will be library functions to write to the screen (but you can
still do it yourselves then, by writing directly...) and for the graphics
board blitters... The library will be freeware, so if you are interested,
write to the authors !!!

Rtg.library got now most primary functions finished, and we are starting
putting our code together. I just finished the Triple Buffering code in
my EGS part of it, and there probably will be a "developper only" Beta soon...
We have still to do some things about the Screenmode-Requester and finish
to put our code together...

Up to now, rtg.library still is not out. But should be soon. Maybe the
creators of Switchworld will do a Retina and a Impact Vision version of
the library. Someone other maybe will do a Merlin version now.

Author : John.Hendrikx@grafix.xs4all.nl (nearly all of the code)
         Me (EGS-version)
File   : Not yet publicly available
Frame  : Like TextDemo57, better on graphics boards
A1200  : Like TextDemo57

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode   

@node albas "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Albas Engine  F. of Vision(G) AGA                ???
DOOM          ???             ???

A DOOM style engine
with 1x1 and 2x2 pixel resolution. It is done by the italian
team "Fields of Vision". There goal is to do a DOOM type game
that is playable on a standard A1200, but better on better
systems.

The game will have NO copper screen and will support variable
window size (320x200, 288x180, 256x160,...,32x20) and variable
pixel sizes (1x1, 2x1, 1x2, 2x2), ceiling and floor textures,
variable height floors and ceiling, lifts and doors, bouncing
movement, sky textures in the open, animated textures, variable
lighting, multitasking, AGA and Picasso II graphics board.

The game will be called Breathless and if this date is still valid,
it will come out in June. The engine still gets optimized. It
will get a commercial game. Up to now there are no demo versions
(and probably won't be till the release of the full game).

The main author is Alberto Longo whose email is given below.

Author: alblon@skylink.it
File  : Not yet available
Frame :  8 fps on 50 MHz 68030    1x1 320x200
        16 fps on 50 Mhz 68030    1x1 224x140
        22 fps on 50 MHz 68030    2x2 320x200
         8 fps on A1200 + Fastram 2x2 320x200
@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node alien "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Alien Breed3D Team17 (G)      AGA                AGA+Fast Ram
DOOM          NSm/Smo         CopL

The famous Alien Breed 3D Demo is finally there. What do i have to say ?
It is a full Doom engine based on chunky copper. The demo is non playable,
but it seems to me, the game is nearly finished. I think the full game
should show up in 2 months or something like that. The demo does not
run on A4000 properly up to now, but it is said they will fix that
before the release. The graphics resolution is low, but as to nearly
finished games, it is probably the nearest to DOOM available on the
Amiga up to now. I think it will sell fine. :)))

There is a playable demo for Alien Breed 3D out on Aminet. I think it
plays quite cool (it supports Fast-RAM :) ), but of course it is still
a copper screen, and that probably won't change :( As to a rumour,
there will be a serial link demo out in some time... The level design
is much better as in Fears2, but there is no Automapping. The game
runs perfectly even on A4000/040.

As to a rumour, we will have to wait till september for AB3D :((( I hope,
this is not TRUE...

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node dogenstein3d "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Dogenstien3D  J.D.Doig (P)    AGA                AGA                    
Low/Wolf      VSmo            Low

Texturemapping engine where you can see the gun while walking around. As 
to the graphics, most other engines are better. I don't think this one is 
still around. The first version was called Dog3D.

Author : jasond@cee.hw.ac.uk (it seems, that this is no longer valid)
File   : /pub/aminet/gfx/misc (if it is still there ...)
A1200  : Smoothness VSm

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node Union "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Switchworld   Union Int.      020+Fastram        020+Fastram at least or CD32
:)-DOOM(???)  Smo(???)        Mid/High

SwitchWorld is a fully 3D texturemapped game, that will use NO chunky copper, and
therefor it will support pixel resolutions from 1x1 to 2x2. Screen resolutions are
available from 32x32 to 320x192. The calculation of the graphics will be done
using the main processor (c2p...). It will work on DblPal and on GFX boards too.
The CD32 version will use Aikiko and has music created by synthesizers. A special
language for all objects will be used to make them programmable and more intelligent.
There are walls, floors and ceilings (floors of any height, steps etc. are possible...),
where floors and ceilings can be switched off or on. There are TEN weapons available,
including grenades and flamethrowers. The game itself consists of five episodes, each
of them consisting of some stages. The game is, according to Union Interactive, fast
on a A1200 with Fastram. On CD32 the speed will be achieved using Aikiko. If i got it
right, the AGA version will come first, an ECS version later. The game will be released
BEFORE September (before AB3D and Fears...). A first running demo will be available end
of this month on Aminet. :)))) This game is from the creators of "Behind the Iron Gate".

Latest info : Date for the demo now is first or second week of July. You may also want
to read the transcript of the third Amiga texturemapping conference, where a guy from
Union Interactive was present. If rtg.library will be out soon, Switchworld maybe will
use it.

Author : Union Interactive
File   : Not yet publicly available ...

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness "link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node phoenix "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos      

Phoenix       Posse (G)       AGA                030/040
Wolf          Smo/NSm         CopL/High

This nice demo was done by Stuart MacLean of Posse Interactive Software (the coding). He is
known as Bonez too. Graphics were done by Shamus and Artvark, and Music was done by Feekzoid.
The engine is a Wolfenstein engine without ceiling and floor. It is only a single room, but
there is a Mod in the background. A unique thing is : This demo supports two copper chunky
modes AND 5 different resolutions in a c2p mode !!! I never saw something like that before...
GOOD IDEA !!!

It does not run perfectly (i got some graphics errors on my 4000/040), and turning around
is very slow. The mapping, though, is very fine, even if the walls strech a bit. If that
engine would not be that slow in turning around (but i am not completely sure if that is because
it is that slow or because they wanted it that way...), this would probably be one of the
leading engines. The graphics is smooth (but slow, as i said).

But in any way : Bonez showed he really KNEW how to do Texturemapping on the Amiga. And now
the real BIG thing : This engine probably won't get developped any further, if i take it
right. BUT Bonez will work on a NEW AND BETTER engine. Some of the deatures that he is
promising : Full raycasting, matrix transformation, Z-Buffer algorithms, BSP tree
structures for polygon storage, new and improved texturemapping routines and Cyrus-Beck
polygon clipping algorithms. As he says he finished all the theory for it, and can start
to do the coding :) What comes out of this shall be a commercial game by Posse called
"Rise of the Dawn".

Author : s.a.maclean@pp.dundee.ac.uk
File   : Should be on Aminet soon...

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness "link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode     

@node 3d-demo "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

3D-Demo       J.Corigliano(P) 020+2MB+OS2.0      030+2MB+OS2.0
Low/Wolf      Smo/VSmo        Low

The first try of a completely OS-friendly texturemapping engine. Does
9 fps on my A4000/040. As to the Smoothness i HAD to say VSmo, but the
movement is very slow and you can see a bit of the screen refresh when
you turn around. But if this is the first try (the file is not very big),
maybe later versions will get much better. The main problem of the engine
probably is the speed... maybe an updated graphics would enhance it
too... up to now it does not have floor or ceiling textures and the 
other "serious" engines are better... but remember, that is not a
public available demo version, but a frist executable...

Author : jcorig@strauss.udel.edu
File   : Not yet publicly available ...
Frame  : 9 fps

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node wolf23_ish "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Wolf23_ish    Chris Colman(P) AGA                AGA                    
Low           VSmo            Low

A "first try" texturemapping demo. In the Readme the author writes he will 
make this one better. It is NO copper chunky. But "as is" it is not very 
good. An older version was wolf2.lha. Maybe another demo i found 
somewhere (but lost the readme...) is an older or newer version of this
demo (it is quite similar). It is called wolf10. But maybe it is only a 
similar demo from another author.

Author : cpc16@mp-s4.phy.cam.ac.uk
File   : /pub/aminet/gfx/misc/wolf3.lha 
         (wolf10 is /pub/aminet/gfx/misc/wolf.lha)

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node wolf3d "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Wolf3D        T. Russell (P)  All                All                    
Low           NSm             Low

Another "first try" demo. I do not know anything about what got with it 
after this release.

Author : russell@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
File   : /pub/aminet/dev/src/Wolf3D-2.lha (with source)

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node rot3d "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Rot3D         J. Freund (PO)  FPU+1.5 MB         FPU+1.5 MB             
Wolf          VSmo            Med/High

One of the first, if not THE first texturemapping engine on Amiga 
(now in its latest version). The wood textures of the demo look quite 
well, as do the stone textures, but there are no floor or ceiling 
textures and POOM, TextDemo5 and Warp_S are better. If no one picks this 
one up, it will die. The authors said they would help a potential 
"up-picker". It now seems it is dead. (I chatted with someone just
reasently who said, he maybe pick up than one...)

Author : freund@cis.uab.edu
File   : /pub/aminet/demo/euro/rot3d.lha

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node rot3d "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos   

Gloom         Black Magic(G)  AGA                AGA
Low/Wolf      VSmo            CopL

Gloom is a Texturemapping action game in the way of Castle Wolfenstein.
The resolution of the game is low, even compared to AlienBreed3D and
other copper chunky games/demos. But it seems, there was much work
about level design already done, and the sound is quite cool.  There
are no different height walls, only slight floor and ceiling textures
and no Automapping. But the game supports one player, split screen
and serial link modes. You can modify the game resolution and window
size. The dying sequences of the monsters are, quite... hmm... bloody
(if you know what they are, with all that big pixels on screen...).
There are two player cooperative and death match modes. The game is
a lot of fun in two player mode (but the split of the screen is quite
strange, one window is above, the other one below, instead of left and
right). The demo consists of one playable level. Gloom is one of the
two rumoured texturemapping games of Acid Software (probably the one
for the low powered Amigas...) In an interview in "The One Amiga" Mark
Sibly said he probably would do MORE 3D graphics on Amiga ... As to a rumour,
this one will be out in july.

Author : Mark Sibly/Black Magic
File   : On Aminet ...

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode     

@node whale "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Game-Demos

Whales Voy. 2 NEO             ECS,AGA,CD32       030 or 040
Wolf          Smo             Low/Mid

Whales Voyage 2 is a mixture between tradinggame and role playing game.
The dungeon section of the game features a chunky 2 planar texturemapping
engine. The guys from NEO said, on a 4000/040 it should be comparable to
the PC version of the game.

I simply HOPE, this demo is only some sort of FIRST DEMO, because it did
not impress me that much. The textures do not look very nice (I think,
Warp_S and Textdemo use much better textures), there is no real floor and
ceiling (but i remember having seen floors and ceiling in screenshots...
i really hope, that Whales Voyage 2 won't get a "crippled" Amiga version,
in case these Screenshots were from the PC version...

The speed of the engine is a bit slow, but as the Texturemapping itself works
fine, i think, maybe only the speed of the code used to walk around is slow,
not the engine itself...

I think, using that engine (that probably is not THAT bad...) they could do
much better... but probably this only was a first demo...

Author  : NEO
File    : Maybe on your local BBS ?

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node Games "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Reviews

@{b}Games@{ub}

    @{" TrickOrTreat        " link trickortreat}
    @{" Fears               " link fears}
    @{" Ambermoon           " link ambermoon}
    @{" Za Zelazna Brama    " link brama}
    @{" Legend of Valour    " link legend}
    @{" Liberation          " link liberation}
    @{" Jurassic Parc       " link jurassic}
    @{" Behind the Iron Gate" link behind}

A last remark for this chapter : The game DeathMask is no real 
texturemapping. It is a block graphics game which scrolls around while you 
turn 90 degrees. Better play Hired Guns ...
@endnode

@node trickortreat "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Games

TrickOrTreat  D. Stuart (P)   All                All                    
Wolf          Smo             Low

Little texturemapping game, where two players try to shoot each other. The 
graphics is not the best and there is no floor or ceiling texture, but it 
is the first texture mapping action game on Amiga (yes, it is this one, NOT
Fears !!!) Even if the graphics is not comparable to Wolfenstein, the game 
is a lot of FUN. The author wrote he was looking for some work in coding 
the Amiga.

Author : ???
File   : Amiga User International 11/94 (Coverdisk 45)
         Or : Duncan Stuart,10, Bramble Close, The Beeches, Uppingham, 
         Rutland, LE15 9PH

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node liberation "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Games

Liberation    ???             All/AGA (???)      AGA+Hard drive or CD32
???           ???             ???

This is a SF RPG that uses texturemapping. If you have a harddisk you are able to get
a lot of stuff preculculated (already done on the CD using a CD32). I do not know much
of this game at all. It is a commercial game.

Author : ???
File   : Several Software Shops...
            
@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode     

@node jurassic "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Games       

Jurassic Parc ???             AGA                AGA
Simply SUXX!  ???             ???

Okay, i only saw it once... but the 3D part of this game really SUXX on Amiga. I do not
think it is even real texturemapping. Maybe they do every 30 degrees or such things.
Unplayable, if you ask me... Commercial Game.

Author : ???
File   : Several Software Shops ...

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode     

@node fears "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Games

Fears         BOMB (G)        AGA                AGA                    
Low/Wolf      VSmo            Low/Med

This is a Wolfenstein clone for Amiga. The walls are better than nothing, 
the floor textures nearly nothing, the monsters do slide instead of walk, 
but it is a COMPLETE GAME. It is shareware. There is even sound while 
playing. And it is really FAST.

Author : Gengis/Bomb
File   : /pub/aminet/games/demo/fears.lha
A1200  : Smoothness Smo/NSm

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node ambermoon "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Games

Ambermoon     Thalion (SF)    All                030                    
:)            VSmo            Med

Ambermoon (do i have to explain this ?) is probably the best fantasy RPG on 
Amiga. Using a cool texturemapping routine. Okay, the monsters of Ultima 
Underworld on PC are better, but what do you want? This one is LoRes, 32 
colors !!! One minute of silence for Thalion... may they rest in peace... 
OR be back and do something like that in AGA ??? :))) But sure, that won't 
happen... and the programmers for Ambermoon are now at Blue Byte, doing 
Ambermoon's sequel Albion for PC only... BLUE BYTE SUXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!! 
Ambermoon is a commercial game.

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node brama "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Games

Za Zelazna Brama ???          All                No-Aga
Shading Trick    VSmo         Low

This game, made by some polnish guys, has (i think) no real
texturemapping, but it does some tricks using shading. The graphics
does not look very well (at least this is what i heard about it, as i
did not see it myself...) I heard, it does not run 100% on AGA
machines... As i only heard of this game, i do not know who the
coders etc. are, and if it is commercial... but i think Fears
does a MUCH better job... these guys should kick off No-Aga and
do a ChunkyCopper screen instead of those ugly shading tricks...
The main function could be used by both, i suppose :)

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode 

@node legend "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Games

Legend of valour ???          All                ???                    
Wolf(???)        ???          Low (???)

Legend of Valour is a texturemapping fantasy RPG on Amiga. It is a 
commercial game. I do not own it and only saw it once, so i can't say much 
about this one. But it is not such BIG stuff like Ambermoon.

A1200 : Smoothness NSm (on the biggest screen)

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode

@node behind "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Games  

Behind the ...   Bl.Legend(G) All                All
Shading Trick    ???          ???

Behind the Iron Gate is, strictly, no texturemapping game. It uses some kind of
shading ... which looks worse than a texturemapping engine, but is much faster.
It is some sort of Wolfenstein-Engine. The monsters are shaded robots, that look
quite nice on the screenshots i saw. I do not know, how fast this game is in fact,
but as to the article about it in the German "Amiga Magazin" it is intended for
68000 systems and low-end A1200 (And even the screenshots i saw were only very
small...) There shall be an AGA version later , with (i am citating the mag
article) "additional textures". Hmmm, up to now there were no Textures at all...
so is "more" more shading or Texturemapping at all ? :)

As to what i heard now, the creators of this game are UNION INTERACTIVE, Black Legend
probably is only the publisher of the game, not the creator...

@{" System " link system} @{" Engine " link engine} @{" Smoothness " link smoothness} @{" Resolution " link resolution} @{" Coded By " link coded}
@endnode      

@node Sources "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Reviews

@{b}Sources@{ub}

There are some demos available with sources. Additional you can find
the sources of Chunky2Planar routines on Aminet. My comments to these
will be rather short, as i am not familiar in coding texturemapping.
If you have comments to some of these sources, mail me ...
The format of the short reviews of the sources of course is different
to that of the demo reviews. I will download these sources too and
look them through. Maybe then there is something more i could say
about them.

*************************************************************************

c2p4.lha          /pub/aminet/dev/src     31KB

Very fast c2p converter using cpu+blitter for the conversion. Needs
68020 at least.

*************************************************************************

chnky2plnr.lha    /pub/aminet/dev/src     14KB

Various fast c2p conversion algorithms.

*************************************************************************

fastc2p.lha       /pub/aminet/dev/src     25KB

Two fast c2p converters.

*************************************************************************

chunky.lha        /pub/aminet/dev/src     54KB

Example of how to create a chunky copper display.

*************************************************************************

rot3dsrc.lha      /pub/aminet/dev/src    184KB

Complete source of the above reviewed Rot3D texturemapping demo.

*************************************************************************

wolf3d-2.lha        /pub/aminet/dev/src   56KB

Above reviewed texturemapping demo including source.

*************************************************************************

tmapdemo.lha        /pub/aminet/gfx/aga  131KB

Above reviewed texturemapping demo including source.

*************************************************************************

flick-14.lha        /pub/aminet/gfx/show 71KB

FLI/FLC viewer with source including a c2p routine.

*************************************************************************
@endnode

@node Rumors "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Main

@{b}Rumours and other infos department@{ub}

1. DSA 2 for Amiga cancelled :(((
2. There are rumours about ACID Software doing a clone.
   In a german mag i read, they would do one Clone for low systems,
   and one clone for High systems. One of the two clones is GLOOM. The
   full version will be there (as to a rumour) in july...
3. According to Amiga Report 233, AGE Entertainment is working at a
   scrolling dungeon game. The game should come out as "Paranoia" and the 
   project began quite a time ago. According to the article in the 
   meanwhile the programmers think of the Amiga as a dead platform (the 
   programmers of Paranoia, not AGE Entertainment !!!), and even if they 
   wanted to finish the ECS version of the game, they wouldn't do the AGA 
   version and the CD 32 version that were planned at the beginning. Nor 
   would they do the planned sequels to the game. (But now i heard,
   Paranoia, if it ever would have been out, would NOT be with Texturemapping,
   but i do not know for sure...)
4. Some time ago a group looked for coders for porting the game BOOM that
   they were doing for the Atari Falcon to the PC and Amiga. I do not know, 
   if they found any Amiga programmers for doing the port. The game should 
   be in three parts, and one of the three parts would be a DOOM style 
   action game. I heard, it would be near finished (or finished...) for 
   PC ... (EMail : rrfriede@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de)
5. In the latest add from my software dealer there were announced some
   games for Amiga AND PC that use texture mapping. These games are Body 
   Count, The castle of Dr. Radiak and the sequel of Elder Scrolls, 
   Daggerfall. I do not know, if this is an error or what (as i never 
   heard anything about it before ... and usually such things do not go 
   unnoticed...) And some of these releases were marked as CD and there 
   was NOTHING written about CD 32 ... this looks strange... but maybe at 
   least ONE is TRUE (if so, i hope it is Daggerfall :))) ).

   Later info : Seems, some of them where printing errors... this seems to
   Elder scrolls and The Castle of Dr. Radiak. (I now got a later add from
   the software dealer). Body count AGAIN was announced for PC and Amiga.
   (But as this one is done by GameTek, maybe it could be true, that they
   try something with Texturemapping and Amiga... but nothing for sure ...)

   In the latest add, Body count wasn't any more announced for Amiga...
   but Dungeon Keeper from Bullfrog was, and this game also uses texturemapping.
   But i, myself, think that only can be a rumour too (unless they do a
   version for graphics board only... then i think it should be possible...)
6. It is said Renegade is doing a Wolf/DOOM clone.

@endnode

@node Emulators  "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Main

@{b}Doing texturemapping with emulators@{ub}
 1. @{" Hardware-Emulators                                     " link Hardware}
 2. @{" Software-Emulators                                     " link Software}
@endnode

@node Hardware "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Emulators

@{b}Hardware-Emulators@{ub}

Hardware-Emulators, that is ... putting INTEL-PROCESSORS in your poor 
little Amiga. You want to do THIS ? Oh, than you are running PC games, 
not Amiga ones... therefore i do not write ANYTHING about it in my FAQ. 
Because this is nearly no emulation anymore... it is ... gaming on PC ... 
there are quite well emulators of this style called "GoldenGate".
@endnode

@node Software "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Emulators

@{b}Software-Emulators@{ub}

There are some software PC emulators, but for games like DOOM they are not 
useful. They are slow and only emulate a 8088 or 80286. DOOM needs a 
80386 AT LEAST to run. Maybe on PC Task 3.0 Wolfenstein will run. But the 
speed (espescially the speed of the graphics) surely is a problem. Maybe 
with a graphics board, but probably even this is too slow. So ... wait for 
PC Emplant's CPU transcription mode (this one will not be included in the 
first version of the emulation software, it will come as a free update 
later ...)

As far as i heard Emplant PC is now capable to run DOOM and Wolf3D using
V2.0 of its emulation software (but CPU transcription is not finished, as far
as i heard...)

Second ... Mac emulation with software... there are two emulators... 
AMaxIV and Emplant... as i heard AMaxIV does not run on AGA ... and it uses 
tricks to be able running with a 128KB ROM ... i doubt games running on 
this one, but maybe i am wrong...

On Emplant (which i own myself) i tested four texturemapping games for Mac:
The demoversions of these games (which i tried...) are on ftp.hawaii.edu
in /pub/mac/info-mac/game/com. You will need StuffItExpander to decrunch 
them.

Wolfenstein : Runs on my A4000/040 with reasonable speed (even if i do not 
use the graphics board ... with PAL Hires AGA ...), but only with the 
smallest screen. Not very well coded, as it is not very smooth on the 
graphics board either... (okay, with 320x256 it is something near 
smooth ...)

Sensory Overload : Wolfenstein Clone, but i do not like the graphics... 
okay, the screen is bigger than most of these demos for Amiga... but the 
graphics is not much better... i think worse... Sensory Overload does not 
run well without a graphics board.

Pathways into Darkness : Wolfenstein clone from Bungie (Bungie1@aol.com), 
i think the graphics is better than Wolfenstein, but Wolfenstein has a 
background music and PID don't ... it is slow, but in LoRes playable 
without graphics board... not much faster with graphics board, though ...

Marathon : The absolute Mega-Game ... rating, if we do it as with the Amiga 
demos above : BEY !!! (Yes, this one is MUCH better than DOOM ...) If you 
are doing EVERYTHING to play DOOM on Amiga, take this one, take the 
smallest screen size, no music, select that the game only displays every 
second line... and run it on at least a 4000/030. But do not show it to 
your PC friends, they will LAUGH at you, if you do not own a graphics 
board... (i did, before i got mine :((( ) On a graphics board, Marathon is 
FANTASTIC, better speed than Amiga graphics demos, maybe even better than 
DOOM on PC (remember, Marathon is 640x480 ...) I use a resolution of 
probably 400x300 in Lores, and it is absolute smooth on the SD 64 ... 
Marathon is the sequel to Pathways into Darkness.

One Last : It is rumoured, at 15th April, DOOM II will be released for 
Mac... 68040 and PowerMac, to be exact...
@endnode

@node Algorithms "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Main

@{b}Algorithms@{ub}

In this chapter i will put algorithms or coding hints sent to me.
Please do not send code (this would be MUCH to specific for this
FAQ).

    @{" Terence Russells algorithms used in Wolf3D-2.lha " link russell}
    @{" Basics of Ray Casting                            " link raycast}
    @{" Basics of Copper Chunky                          " link copper}

@endnode

@node russell "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Algorithms

@{b}Terence Russells algorithms used in Wolf3D-2.lha@{ub}

Basic structures and algorithms used to create the Amiga Wolf3D demo.

The techniques I have used do not involve ray-casting for the rendering
or BSP trees for hidden object removal. Instead my style of rendering
has more in common with flat-shaded polygon rendering used in many
older demos.

Sorry for the crappy organization. I'm a fourth year computer science
student and I haven't much time to do this properly.

The Maze and basic objects:

The maze is essentially two dimensional and if looked at from above it
would appear to be a grid whose squares are outlined with walls or are
bisected with doors.

Each square from above is 64 x 64 pixels in dimension. I use pixels as a
unit of measurement since in fact each point is represented by a pixel
column in a bitmap.

The use of the grid analogy is purely conceptual, however, since using a
grid structure would create some complications (which are described under
'collision detection' and 'door movement'). For purposes of discussion I
will refer to the X and Y axis' as being the east-west and north-south
axis' (respectively) of the grid from an above view. The Z axis will
refer to the axis that comes up out of the grid. (This runs contrary to
how I actually programmed the demo as the Y and Z axis are swapped).

Walls and doors are represented by the same basic unit: the block.
A 'block' is from a structural standpoint the canvas onto which wall and
door imagery is 'painted' or 'mapped'. Every wall and every door in
the maze is associated with a block. In fact a block may consist of
up to 4 walls that represent the 'north', 'west', 'south', and 'east'
faces of the block.

>From a programming view a block consists of 256 points plus a center
point. The center point positions the block relative to the bottom-left
corner (0,0,0) of the maze. The remaining 256 are divided into 4 groups
of 64 points, each of which are associated with a particular block face.
All 256 points are relative to the block's center point. (Hence,
only one set of these points need be maintained for all blocks within a
maze). As can be imagined the end-points for each face overlap.

The walls points are given the following offset ranges:

SOUTH: (-32,-32,0) to (31,-32,0)
NORTH: (31,31,0) to (-32,31,0)
EAST: (31,-32,0) to (31,31,0)
WEST: (-32,31,0) to (-32,-32,0)

Notice that for each face the ranges are given in an order which implies
counter-clockwise as viewed from above the grid. This is important for
properly rendering the wall graphics and for backface culling, that is,
removing walls that are facing away from the observer/player.

Each wall/door has an associated 64 x 64 pixel bitmap.  Each 1 pixel wide
column of the bitmap is represented by one of the points found along the
wall/block face. Hence point 0 of the south wall of a block may represent
the 0th column of a 'stone wall' bitmap. From the programmer's view I use
the wall point's ordinal value (it's relative position) to offset/toc
into the bitmap image.

Previously I mentioned that blocks are used for BOTH walls and doors.
The attentive reader may have noticed that the offsets for the walls
would create doors that are not located in the center of a block. Since
my aim was to create a near Id wolf-clone I had to specify extra offsets
just for the doors. These new offsets simply have either the X or Y
component zeroed depending on which direction the door is to lie along.
This allows the doors to appear in the center of a block. This also makes
it easy to have sliding doors since all I really need to do is move the
associated block's center point in the direction the door opens. The door
then slides 'into' an adjacent wall block which takes care of hiding the
door. (This is explained later in the next section).

RENDERING - this is just a quick and dirty algorithm

Translate the block centers by an amount equal to the players relative
maze position. Now rotate these centers using the players attitude or
angle of direction, also relative to the 0,0,0 point of the maze.

Next rotate the 256 wall points using the same players direction angle.
For each block center, translate a copy of the 256 wall points to the
block center such that the block center is in the middle of the points.

Now that we have a list of block points that are relative to the player's
position we want to render the blocks. To determine what blocks are
visible I simply sort them by there Y value, (which is now relative to
the player's position). I used this method since at the time I did not
know of the BSP tree method for determining visible polygons.

Once we have a list of sorted blocks, we can immediately discard the
blocks that fall behind the viewer. From this point we render each block
until the player's view is completely filled with graphics.

Since I don't want to draw all of the blocks that are in front of the user,
(just the ones that fill up the view), I use a pre-render loop which
determines what portions of walls/doors are visible. 

To determine what is visible I use the sorted list of blocks and an array
called the xBuffer. This buffer is one dimensional and has an entry for
every vertical column of the user's game display.

The algorithm involves a lot of simple parts that when put together create
a fairly complex program. Hence I will attempt explain it using two similar
explanations.

EXPLANATION 1:

I use the following algorithm:

clear the xBuffer

while xBuffer is not full do
    get the block closest to the player

    for each face of the current block do
        if current face is invisible then
            skip face
        else "current face is visible"

            for each of the current face's 64 points do
                perform a perspective calculation on the point to
                  get a screen X1,Y1 point.

                duplicate X1 into X2
                mirror Y1 across the center of the display to get Y2

                the line (X1,Y1)-(X2,Y2) forms a column of screen points
                  onto which a column slice of the wall/door bitmap will
                  be mapped/scaled.

                if X1 lies with in the range of the xBuffer
                   (usually 0-319 for a full screen) then
                    check xBuffer[X1].height to see if a column
                    hasn't already been written there.

                    IF height of current line > xBuffer[X1].height THEN
                        xBuffer[X1] = current column and it's associated
                                      bitmap imagery.
                    else
                        discard this column as being invisible.
                    endif

                    "If all I did was insert just the columns into the
                        xBuffer there would be gaps in-between the columns
                        do to the perspective transformation, hence
                        I need a little loop that makes a copy of the
                        current column back to the previous column of the
                        same wall."

        end-if
    end-for
end-while

For example suppose my maze viewing area is 320 pixels across the screen.
Then the xBuffer has 320 elements. Each element is a structure that
records: the half-height of the wall/door from the horizon or the equator
of the viewing area; the bitmap identifier; the pixel column offset into
the bitmap

Now using the xBuffer I have a routine take each element and read a column
of pixels from a bitmap and then stretch and clip the bitmap into the
hidden rendering buffer.

EXPLANATION 2:

while not done do
    check closest wall/door's extents
    (i.e. the starting and ending X locations as project on the view)

    if the extents are outside the viewing area then
        discard the wall/door
    else
        for each of the 64 points/columns of the wall/door
            determine where the column is relative to the view area
            if the column lies in the view area then
                check the corresponding xBuffer element to see if
                   something hasn't already been written there
                if empty then
                        write the columns height and bitmap column offset
                           and bitmap identifier to the xBuffer.
                else
                    if current column's height is greater then
                        write it
                    else
                        this part of the wall lies behind some other wall
                    end
                end
            end
        end
    end
end

Starting with the closest block I check each face to determine if it is
visible. Since the faces of the blocks are at angles of 90 and 180 degrees
from each other, at most 2 faces will be visible at any one time.

Once I determine a visible face I use the associated 64 points for that
face to determine visible columns. To each point I add to the Z component
an amount equal to have the height of a wall. Then I run the point
through a simple perspective calculation and I now have a somewhat correct
position for projecting the point onto the player's view.

I next create a duplicate of the point and mirror it across the middle
of the player's view. This gives me two points that represent a line or
column of the wall's bitmap. Since each point of a face is uniquely
associated with a column of pixels in a wall bitmap I can perform some
sort of 'texture' mapping now. Only one thing remains, and that is to
determine the next columns position. Since as you get closer to a wall
the 64 points will be spread out over a greater viewing area, gaps will
start to appear between the columns. These gaps are eliminated by copying
a column up to the next column.


Collision Detection:

Some authors have suggested using a static grid to perform collision
detection with walls. Generally this works very nicely, however, in the
case of Id's Wolf3D there is a slight problem. Id's game supports moving
walls (in other words the secret passage-ways). To perform collision
detection on these moving walls while using the static grid meant that
I would need to either create special case for checking when a wall was
moving, or would have to create a special kind of block: i.e. a moving
wall block. At the time I decided this was unsatisfactory so instead of
using a grid I decided to use the block's center point and a bounding box
around the player. Using this method, collision detection involves
checking each block center to see if it lies within the players bounding
box. This allows me to move blocks at will without worrying about special
cases and is generally pretty quick.

There are many more points to the algorithms I have used, and if you
are interested in understanding them and want to learn a maze rendering
technique that does not involves ray-casting then send some email.

Terence Russell
russell@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
@endnode

@node raycast "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Algorithms

@{b}Basics of RayCasting@{ub}

[REFERENCES: @{i}Tricks of the Game Programming Gurus@{ui} by LaMothe, Ratcliff,
Seminatore, and Tyler. It's blatantly geared towards PeeCee programming
("The Mysteries of the VGA Card", etc) but there's plenty of generic code
that applies to all computers.]

RayCasting (RC) is a fast and elegant way to create a psuedo 3D world. If
you've ever played Wolfenstein 3D, you've seen it in action. To achieve
the high speed of RC, some concessions are made: walls and doors are all
the same height/width, there are no curved or diagonal walls, there is no
floor or ceiling. Yet, even with these drawbacks, RC is a powerful tool.

The world of an RC game, if viewed from a bird's perspective, would be
a very structured 2D grid. Through the use of basic trigonometry, the
2D world is reconstructed, at run time, as a 3D illusion. For instance:

        ---------------------------------------------
        |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
        ---------------------------------------------
        |   | W | W | W | W | W | W | W |   |   |   |  W = wall
        ----------------\----------/-----------------  D = door
        |   | W |   |   |\  |   | / | W |   |   |   |  P = player
        ------------------\------/-------------------
        |   | W |   |   |  \|   /   | D |   |   |   |
        --------------------\--/---------------------
        |   | W |   |   |   | P |   | W | W | W |   |
        ---------------------------------------------
        |   |   |   |   |   |   |   | W |   |   |   |
        --------------------------------------------

Imagine this is part our game world as seen from above and 'P' is the
player. He is facing 'North' (90 degrees) and looking at a wall. The two
angled lines represent his Field of Vision (FOV) - in the real world, this
is about 90 degrees, but for the game-world 60 degrees works fine. Also,
assume the whole game-world is 64x64 cells, with each cell being 64x64
'virtual units' - making the entire game world 4096x4096 units.

To create the 3D illusion, we must cast some rays. What this entails is
casting out a series of 'rays' or 2-D vectors - each originating at the
players position (xp, yp) until they hit something - a wall, door, etc.
How many rays? The number of rays equals the number of vertical columns
on the video display - assume we are using a 320x200 display, so we must
cast out 320 rays. The rays must encompass the player's FOV - from player
view angle (p_ang) minus 30 degrees to p_ang + 30 degrees - which yields
a FOV of 60 degrees. So let's cast the first ray at p_ang - 30.

Now comes the trig. You may remember the 'point-slope' equation of a line:

             y2 - y1
        M =  -------
             x2 - x1

where M=slope of line and (x1,y1) and (x2,y2) are two points on that line.
We know M - the slope will be tangent(ray_ang) - where ray_ang is the
angle of the ray (60 degrees for our first ray). We also know x1 and
y1 - they are xp and yp (the player's position). The only things left
are x2 and y2 (let's call them xi and yi - for "intercept").

We need to cast each ray twice: one cast checks for horizontal intercepts
and the other one checks for vertical intercepts. For example - our first
ray gets cast at 60 degrees. If you look at the map you see it first
intersects with a horizontal line then a vertical line, etc. Things
become greatly simplified if we only check for either the vertical
intercepts or the horizontal: look at the first intersection - the
x-coord is unknown but the y-coord is easily determined: (yp / 64) * 64
(since each cell is 64 units). Now, look past the next intercept (which
is a vertical one) and look at the next intercept. Again, the x-coord is
unknown but the y-coord is the last y-coord minus 64. The same holds true
if you look at the vertical intercepts - the x-coord is divisible by
64 but the y-coord is unknown. This is why we cast each ray twice.

Okay. Let's cast the first ray - looking for horizontal intercepts. We
can get the y-coord (yi in our point-slope equation): (yp / 64) * 64.
The only unknown left is xi. Using the point-slope, we solve for xi:
 
        xi = [(1 / tan(ray_ang)) * (yi - yp)] + xp
        yi = [tan(ray_ang) * (xi - xp)] + y         <- For vertical ray

This yeilds the coords of the first intercept. Now we need to check the
cell above this coord to see if there's a wall. If there is we stop
casting - if not, we need to continue. In our map that cell is empty,
so we continue casting. The next y-coord is easy: yi - 64. However,
the x-coord is again a problem. Fortunately, trig comes the the rescue:

        xi = xi + [(1 / tan(ray_ang)) * 64]
        yi = yi + [tan(ray_ang) * 64]               <- For vertical ray

So, we continue casting until we find a cell with something in it. Then,
do the same thing for the vertical ray.

Now, we've cast the ray twice. Next, we need to determine the relative
distances of each intercept to the player, and we'll use the closest
one:
        y_distance = (xi - xp) / cos(ray_ang)
        x_distance = (yi - yp) / sin(ray_ang)

You may have been expecting to use the Pytagorean thm. here, but this
method is much simpler. Remember your trig!

               /|
              / |
           r /  |          sin(a) = y/r  <==> r = y/sin(a)
            /   | y        cos(a) = x/r  <==> r = x/cos(a)
           /    |
          /a    |
         --------
             x

Okay. Now that we have the distances, we choose the shorter of the two
since the one further away will be blocked out by the closer one. Now,
we need to calculate the scale - this will be the 'height' of the wall
sliver. Remember, we not trying to build a whole wall here, just the
part that will be represented on the particular video column. Imagine
cutting a thin slit in a piece of cardboard and looking through that.
Then, pan it right to left real fast, over and over. That's pretty
much how we're building our world.

Scale is very hard to calculate: scale = 1 / dist. Whew, that was
difficult! Actually, there's more to it. To make our world seem 'real'
we also need to multiply by some mysterious constant - K. Also, since
we've been mixing rectangular and polar coordinates in our calculations
we are going to end up with a sine wave modulated on top of everything.
This is easily fixed by multiplying by the inverse cosine. Thus:

        scale = K * (1 / cos(ray_num)) * (1 / dist)

Note that we did not use ray_ang here, but rather we used ray_num 
(ray_num will range from 319 to 0). This is because the sine wave
modulation is going to adversely affect the video display.

The last thing we need is which column of the wall have we hit? This
will be used by the texture mapping algorithm - i.e. which column of
pixels of the texture gets mapped onto the wall? The answer:

        column = yi % 64

That's it! Now, we need to repeat this for all rays, and we're done!

John Corigliano
jcorig@strauss.udel.edu
@endnode

@node copper "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc Algorithms

@{b}Basics of Copper Chunky@{ub}

Explanation of copper-chunky mode.

A "copper-chunky" mode is nothing else than a i.e. 7-bpl pattern in the
bitplanes + a real big copperlist. First you have to generate the
pattern in the bitplanes, which goes like this:
Color0,Color1,Color2,Color3,Color4,Color5...
Ofcourse you cannot display all 256 colors per line, just because
the copper is too slow for doing this, so we are restricted to
something about 128 colors per line to get a good look. A good way
to display a full-screen view would be to use a 2.5x2.5 resolution,
which exactly means something like that:

Color0,Color0,Color1,Color1,Color1,Color2,Color2,Color3,Color3,Color3..

You just perform alternating pixel widths of 2 and 3 and this way
you get to 128 colors throughout the full line (320 pixels width)
What you do to actually SET the colors you want on the screen
is to generate a big copperlist, with instructions like that:

[...]
dc.w $10C,$8000         ;display upper 128 colors
dc.w $106,$0020         ;change lower 128 colors
dc.w $180,Pix0,$182,Pix1,$184,Pix2,$186,Pix3...
dc.w $106,$2020
dc.w $180,Pix32,$182,Pix33,$184,Pix34,$186,Pix35...
[...]
dc.w $xx01,$FFFE        ;wait for next (2.5) row
dc.w $10C,$0000         ;display lower 128 colors
dc.w $106,$8020         ;change upper 128 colors
dc.w $180,Pix0,$182,Pix1,$184,Pix2,$186,Pix3...
dc.w $106,$A020
dc.w $180,Pix32,$182,Pix33,$184,Pix34,$186,Pix35...
[...]

Where Pixn is the color for the (2.5) pixel at position n.
This way you can set 128 pixels in one (2.5) row. This can be
seen as a 12-Bit RGB-Chunky-Pixel-Mode, as you can set all colors
available under ECS freely on the screen.
To prevent the pixels on the next row from looking strange because
of changing the copperlist AFTER the pixel has been displayed by the
video hardware, we have to use a trick (sometimes called
"Copper-Doublebuffering").

Now something about the $DFF10C register:

BPLTCON4 - Bit Plane Control Register (display masks)

+------+------------+----------------------------------------------------+
| BIT# | BPLCON4    | DESCRIPTION                                        |
+------+------------+----------------------------------------------------+
| 15   | BPLAM7=3D0 | This 8 bit field is XOR`ed with the 8 bit plane    |
|      |            | color address, thereby altering the color address  |
|      |            | sent to the color table (x=3D1-8)                  |
| 14   | BPLAM6=3D0 |                                                    |
| 13   | BPLAM5=3D0 |                                                    |
| 12   | BPLAM4=3D0 |                                                    |
| 11   | BPLAM3=3D0 |                                                    |
| 10   | BPLAM2=3D0 |                                                    |
| 09   | BPLAM1=3D0 |                                                    |
| 08   | BPLAM0=3D0 |                                                    |
| 07   | ESPRM7=3D0 | 4 Bit field provides the 4 high order colortable-  |
|      |            | address bits for even sprites: SPR0,SPR2,SPR4,SPR6.|
|      |            | Default value is 0001 binary. (x=3D7-4)            |
| 06   | ESPRM6=3D0 |                                                    |
| 05   | ESPRM5=3D0 |                                                    |
| 04   | ESPRM4=3D1 |                                                    |
| 03   | OSPRM7=3D0 | 4 Bit field provides the 4 high order colortable   |
|      |            | adress bits for odd sprites: SPR1,SPR3,SPR5,SPR7.  |
|      |            | Default value is 0001 binary. (x=3D7-4)            |
| 02   | OSPRM6=3D0 |                                                    |
| 01   | OSPRM5=3D0 |                                                    |
| 00   | OSPRM4=3D1 |                                                    |
+------+------------+----------------------------------------------------+

If you change bits 08-15, you can define an "offset" to the color table
in the copperlist. So you change $10C to $8000 and then you change to 
the upper 128 colors in the copper-palette. The trick is to display the 
previous changed colors while changing the other colors.
@endnode

@node conference
@toc main

@{b}The Amiga Texturemapping online conference@{ub}

 1. @{" The invitation                                         " link Invite}
 2. @{" Some hints for people who do not use IRC often         " link Hints}
@endnode

@node Invite "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc conference

@{b}The invitation@{ub}

The next texturemapping conference will probably be at 31st July,
17:00 GMT. Coders, who are interested in coming, please send me
mail (so i know, if there is interest for a fourth conference...)

@endnode

@node Hints "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"
@toc conference

@{b}Some hints for people who do not use IRC often@{ub}

IRC is the online chat system of the internet. Try out the command irc on 
your site. If this does not work, contact your system administrator and try 
to convince him to install an irc server :))).

As you entered irc, you specify your nick name (the name under which you 
will be known), with /nick Nick-Name. An alternative is starting irc with 
irc Nick-Name. To enter a channel (a channel is a place for people 
discussing a specific theme to meet), you type /join channelname. 
Each channelname starts with a #.

To send someone a private message (that other can't read) you type /msg 
Nick-Name "...", where Nick-Name is the Nick-Name of the user, to whom you 
will send the message. To send a message to all users in this channel, 
simply type what you want to say. Usually you should write it in the 
following way : Name of the user for whom this message is
primarily : Text.

/who * lists all users currently on this channel.

/list * counts the users on this channel.

/time returns the difference between your timezone and GMT.
For me for example it says +1, so if it is 17:00 GMT, it is
18:00 for me...

With /quit you quit irc.

That are only the basics for irc, but with that knowledge you can be with 
us at the conference :))). Irc also has a help-system installed, 
by the way.
@endnode

@node Support "Amiga Texturemapped Games FAQ V 1.05"

@{b}What can YOU do to support this FAQ ?@{ub}

1. Support Amiga
2. Write texturemapping demos/games on Amiga :)))
3. Buy Amiga texturemapping games, if they come to a release
4. If you know of any texturemapping game/demo not mentioned in this FAQ
   (dungeon-related, no texturemapped cubes and spheres),
   or if you have information relevant for me, mail to
   - haeuser@minnie.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
                         OR
   - call Germany 07021/861920 or 862428 or 862429 (Birdland BBS, 
     i am Magic SN on this BBS ...)
                         OR
   - Phone Germany 07021/51787 and ask for Steffen
                         OR
   - go in irc and look for MagicSN (that's me :))) )
                         OR
   - write a letter to Steffen P. Haeuser, Limburgstr.127,
     73265 Dettingen/Teck,Germany
                         OR
   - Do whatever you want ... :)

5. Do the same, if you want to send me critics or beta-releases of demos
   to test them :)))))))))))))))) (at least i tried it... maybe someone 
   would be in FACT that nice :))) )
   My internet-account is able to handle BIG UUEncoded mail... :))))))))
6. Spread this FAQ on all nets and BBS's.
7. If you are a coder, and you have a lack of time to code, or you have
   a serious problem in coding texture mapping, maybe you find some
   interesting EMail-Adresses all over this FAQ ...
8. Send me texturemapping algorithms you see no need anymore in
   keeping them private (for this new chapter V)

That's it... as soon, as i hear news about some of the mentioned demos 
(or of some new ones ...) i will do a later version of this FAQ. It will be 
found in comp.sys.amiga.games at least... maybe soon there will be a later 
version of Warp_S or POOM or TextDemo or DentAWolf or... or ...

ciao,

     Steffen Haeuser
     OR MagicSN (in irc)
     OR haeuser@tick.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (E-Mail, talk ...)

@endnode
