838: Hibachi Enthusiasts
Giant Bombcast
Unprofessional Fridays 76
Unprofessional Fridays
Game Mess Mornings 04/29/24
GrubbSnax
The Community Spotlight 2024.04.27
The Community Spotlight 2024.04.20
The Community Spotlight 2024.04.13
Concept »
A game that uses a mixture of 2D & 3D techniques. Commonly used to describe the use of either 3D graphics restricted to a 2D perceptive, or 2D graphics used to fake the appearance of a 3D perceptive.
Sure, these days have almost every game sporting the newfangled 3D, but way back when, everyone had to live with plain old 2D. 2D, or two dimensions, limit the game to scrolling backgrounds, but some games even now make use of this basic concept.
Games where the characters are 2D bitmap images (sprites), but the environment and scenarios are made in a 3-Dimensional space. This technique was commonly used on consoles like the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo DS. Many 90's First-Person Shooters also used this technique. Some used it as a stylistic choice like Paper Mario and Rakugaki Showtime.
3D Platformers are games where movement, traversal and mainly jumping is the core of the gameplay. They are a tridimensional equivalent of 2D platformer one of the most popular video game genres in the third and fourth generation of video game consoles.
The spiritual successor to the Infinity Engine. This 3D engine made its appearance in the Neverwinter Nights series, and provided a toolset along with multiplayer where players could be Dungeon Masters and make their own stories and play them out with friends.
Using a 2D sprite that always faces the camera within a polygonal 3D environment to fake a 3D effect.
A genre of FPS games that are either designed to look and play like 90's shooters or built on game engines from that era.
A style of animation that gives games a more hand drawn look.
Bethesda's new graphics engine for their upcoming game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
The game engine that powers Crysis and several other upcoming games.
CryEngine 3 is a game engine developed by Crytek for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Digitized sprites, popularized in the early 90s, were a form of graphics that used footage of real actors, Stop-motion frames of a figure/clay model or 3D renders of characters that were then made digital and put into the game.
In video games, dithering is a graphical technique using pixel patterns to simulate additional colors or transparency. While far more common on CRTs, many games still use the technique, especially games which use pixel art.
Ubisoft's proprietary engine based on a heavily modified CryEngine. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal.
The Eclipse engine was developed by BioWare for Dragon Age: Origins. It is the successor of the Odyssey Engine used in Knights of the Old Republic.
Developed by Obisidan Entertainment, the Electron Engine is based on Bioware's Aurora Engine. The Electron engine is used in Neverwinter Nights 2 series of games.
Flat shading is a lighting technique used in 3D computer graphics. Its characteristic look is easily recognized.
Frostbite is a game engine developed by DICE, introduced with the release of Battlefield 3. It is also used by various other EA studios in non-FPS roles.
Frostbite 3 is a game engine developed by DICE, and will be featured in Battlefield 4 and the next Mass Effect game.
Developed by Swedish studio DICE, the Frostbite Engine focuses on destructible environments and HDR sound. The engine made its debut with Battlefield: Bad Company.
Gamebryo is a cross-platform engine, running on PC, GameCube, Wii, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox and Xbox 360.
An in-house engine created and used by Bungie to develop the Halo games.
Formerly known as the "Quake II Engine", id Tech 2 is the second generation of game engines from id Software.
id Software's engine that powered Quake III and derivative projects. Previously known as the, "Quake III Engine".
A page dedicated to the graphics engine that has powered games such as Doom 3, Quake 4 and Wolfenstein.
The fifth version in the id Tech engines designed by John Carmack and developed at id Software LLC for Rage and Wolfenstein: The New Order.
A graphical effect used in video games where an object blocks light and around the edges of the object the light is significantly brighter than normal.
Monolith's proprietary game engine used for their 3D games.
A stylistic choice of employing small polygon counts for meshes.
Released in 1988, the game's Namco System 21 "Polygonizer" arcade board was one of the first gaming systems dedicated to polygonal 3D graphics, and was the most powerful gaming hardware of the 1980's. Its 3D graphical capabilities would not be surpassed until the release of Sega's Model 1 arcade system in 1992.
This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:
Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.
Use your keyboard!
Log in to comment
Log in to comment