A Bump Map in the Night: The Pioneering Tech of DOOM 3

When DOOM released in 1993, it wasn’t just a major gaming phenomenon – it was a technical marvel. Since then, the mainline DOOM series has strived to not just bring bigger and more badass battles against Hell with each entry but also push the technical envelope.

"I look at id Software as innovators in tech,” says Robert Duffy, CTO at id and a member of the team for over 20 years. Today, we look at a moment in DOOM history that not only pushed the boundaries of the genre, but what a video game could even look like with id Tech 4 and the game that debuted it: DOOM 3.

"The way we started doing DOOM 3 was we finished Quake III Arena and, internally, we were looking at doing Quake 4,” continues Duffy. “We had been exploring moving on to Quake 4 as a single player game and exploring technology directions for that because back then tech drove a lot of game design, versus the way it is now."

id Software’s next project, however, would not be a Quake title. “It was one of those famous times internally where Carmack, on a dime one day, decided we were going to go back to DOOM and do DOOM 3,” recalls Duffy.

The single player design and technological direction found its way to DOOM 3, with id developing a game that didn’t just expand on DOOM as a series, but what was possible in a video game – no small feat for a group of developers that would be considered tiny by modern industry standards. "We were a very small (team), maybe 12 people - 13 maybe,” said Duffy. “With a group that small, everyone wears a lot of different hats.”

Dynamic Lighting & Bump Mapping

"We did some amazing things in DOOM 3. It was a technology showpiece,” says Tim Willits, who served as lead designer on the game. “We had technology in DOOM 3 that was so new that we could not even hire artists that had experience because we were defining a whole new art style.”

These breakthroughs were no novel gimmicks for an early-aughts video game. Among these features were dynamic lighting and bump maps – features so ubiquitous that they’re employed even by lower-budget indie games today.

The world got its first taste of id Tech 4 in 2001 at an Apple event in Tokyo. A demo reel showing a demon menacingly approaching the camera in a dimly lit sci-fi corridor demonstrated real time lighting and shadows – all rendered dynamically and at a fidelity not seen in a game prior. We must stress that dynamic lighting – the alteration of light and shadow to actions in the game – seems trivial now, but only because innovative games like DOOM 3 introduced it to the world.

Another major innovation was bump mapping – graphics that could simulate wrinkles, bumps and detailed texture on an object. This not only made the possessed corridors of Mars City pop with added detail but made the demons of DOOM all the more grotesque compared to the flattened polygonal textures of yesteryear. It was hard work for a relatively small staff, but the results spoke for themselves.

"It was a labor of love for the studio,” concludes Duffy. id Software has continued to build upon its powerful id Tech engine since DOOM 3, with DOOM Eternal serving as the formal debut of id Tech 7. If id’s track record is anything to go off on, we can’t wait to see what digital magic they’ve conjured up for the Slayer’s latest bout with Hell.