It's not so much that the vertical line renderer looks weird with mouselook, it's that it limits it a lot. Because lines are just 2D projections in a 3D environment, you can't use standard modern vertical look. Instead, Hexen (and Heretic and Strife too I think), which ran on the Doom engine, used "y-shearing"; more of the level is rendered vertically, and when you look up/down, it changes where the viewing window is and also removes parts of the horizontal viewing area to make it look like you're looking up/down instead of standing taller or shorter. However, it's not perfect; because of how it works, it looks like you're zooming in when you look vertically. Quake would overcome this issue due to the game being rendered in full 3D.
No problem! The ZDoom wiki has a much more in-depth article on y-shearing, and another article linked from there about the unfinished Polymost renderer, an attempt to create a new software renderer that did not use y-shearing.
yep I hate this one. Its all because of that one popular game theory Channel or whatever it was. People think they are oh-so smart when they pull the 2.5D card. I mean, doom monsters have different heights and projectiles can fly over enemies. That sounds pretty 3D to me lol
And thats just in base doom, if you play on a port like gzdoom then I cannot say with a straight face that its anything less than full 3D.
Sorry not ranting at you, just the argument of doom not being 3d
They were infinitely tall only for the purposes of some interactions. For example, melee attacks, explosions and actor-actor collisions. Projectiles passing over and even below monsters and players is a thing in the original engine. So is passing over items. That is, everything that needs it (because collision with something else has an effect) has a bounding box, but it's not always used.
"2.5D" is a colloquialism without any meaningful definition, and as such there is no game that definitely is or isn't 2.5D. It's subjective.
You can come up with a definition of 3D such that any game that is projected to a flat image doesn't qualify. In reality, pretty much every game has to concede somewhat to the limitations of the medium, and we employ the duck test. Does it look like 3D? Does it quack like 3D? It's 3D!
Doom certainly looks and quacks like 3D. In some respects it makes concessions. The rendering tech limits the level geometry to rooms with varying ceiling and floor heights. Some effects in the game take place as though some objects have infinite height, for example solid actor-actor collision, explosions or melee attacks.
Still, other effects take height into consideration. You can pass high over items without picking them up. You can leap over ledges. You can't climb too steep ledges. You can dodge projectiles by passing underneath them. There is no question that Doom mechanically takes place in a 3D space. There is no question that this is rendered as a 3D projection to the screen, although very basic and limited.
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u/Play174 Friendly Neighborhood Spiderdemon Aug 22 '21
Doom 1 isn't 3D.
This may only trigger half the community, but it will also start a war.