ZDoomGL (v1)

From DoomWiki.org

Revision as of 07:05, 12 May 2020 by Redneckerz (talk | contribs) (Update: Reworked page. Kept the section about Timmie in, slightly rewritten. Won't add Date and Version yet because of the naming discussion at the moment.)


ZDoomGL (v1)
Codebase ZDoom 1.18b
Developer(s) Michaël Ryssen (Kokak)
Initial release 0.01 (1999-10-15, 24 years ago)
Latest release 0.81 (2005-08-07, 18 years ago)
Development status Discontinued
Written in C++
Target Platform Windows
License Doom Source License, 3-point BSD, others

ZDoomGL (v1) was an OpenGL port of ZDoom, originally developed by Michaël Ryssen (Kokak). It introduced hardware accelerated rendering to ZDoom and various other visual improvements.

History

The port saw its first release on October 15, 1999 as version 0.1. It was created by incorporating the DoomGL OpenGL renderer with the then current ZDoom release, 1.18b. As such, bot support, network support and DeHackEd support was working out of the box. Being an alpha release, several things were missing. There was no menu present, nor a map.

Kokak initially iterated quickly between releases, releasing versions 0.02, 0.03 and 0.06 before the end of October. Not only were the menu's and the map fixed, they also introduced more significant changes, such as a Quake style console, particle support, MD2 models, dynamic lighting and corona effects. In November, versions 0.08, 0.09, 0.1 and 0.11 followed under the same ZDoom 1.18b codebase, further enhancing the port with colored sectors, polyobjects, support for fog and fake bridges support as well as mouselook.

At the end of November, ZDoomGL would move to newer ZDoom versions as these released. 0.12 was based off ZDoom 1.19 and supporting transparent and translucent walls, 0.12b got based off ZDoom 1.20 and versions 0.2 and 0.2b relied on 1.21. The last release of 1999, version 0.3 dated December 22, saw ZDoomGL move to ZDoom 1.22 and implemented floor mirrors.

The year 2000 saw the start of a reduction in activity for the port, but progress still continued, more focussed on iterating existing features with details and fixing bugs. Notable releases include version 0.4 which introduced support for 3dfx's Voodoo cards utilizing the MiniGL, which did not require Glide and 0.5, where the player is able to control the maximum number of lights that a model can recieve. In 2001, iteration speed got further reduced: 0.6 saw the introduction of lens flare support which was followed by a string of intermediate bugfix releases, one of which implemented level of detail (LOD) support to the engine.

Legacy

As 2001 progressed further, development of ZDoomGL reduced significantly, due to Kokak finding a job at UbiSoft. Version 0.66 was released on May 14, 2001 which disabled the LOD system as it was considered too unstable. The final release followed less than two weeks later as Kokak was focussing his full attention on his work at UbiSoft, as version 0.66.2 dated May 25, 2001. This version was later used as reference for a new, rewritten port by Tim "Timmie" Stump, confusingly using the same name.

Features

  • All supported features of ZDoom 1.22
  • OpenGL 1.1 based renderer supporting:
    • Dynamic and colored lighting
    • Coronas
    • Lens flares
    • Support for 3D models in MD2 format
    • Transparent MD2 models
    • Level-of-detail support for MD2 models (Disabled in engine)
    • Floor mirrors
    • Mipmapping
  • Polyobject support
  • Scrolling textures
  • Support for high resolutions
  • Mouselook support
  • Joystick support

Differences between versions

Timmie's version

In 2002, Tim "Timmie" Stump picked up development, and rewrote the port from scratch to be up to date with what was, at the time, the latest version of ZDoom. The latest official release, 0.81, was released on August 7, 2005.

On Feb 13th, 2006, Timmie announced ZDoomGL v2, another complete rewrite of the engine. However, development stalled again and the project was ultimately abandoned, and no version of ZDoomGL v2 was ever released. Timmie later confirmed that he was no longer working on it.[1]

References

  1. DRD forums post on May 02, 2010: "Personally I don't really have the time nor desire to do that anymore . . . I stopped working on ZDoomGL."

Trivia

  • The source code to ZDoomGL 0.4b and 0.5 was released as ZDoomGLS04b.zip and ZDoomGLS05.zip.
  • The source code to ZDoomGL 0.66 and 0.66.2 was also released, but the naming was done in a rather confusing manner:
    • For 0.66 the file is named ZDoomGLS06.zip.
    • For 0.66.2 it is ZDoomGLS066.zip.

External links


Source code genealogy
Based on Name Base for
DoomGL ZDoomGL (v1) None
ZDoom 1.18b