[HN Gopher] The 3D Software Rendering Technology of 1998's Thief...
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The 3D Software Rendering Technology of 1998's Thief: The Dark
Project (2019)
Author : suioir
Score : 124 points
Date : 2026-01-15 10:59 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nothings.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (nothings.org)
| tanepiper wrote:
| In 1999/2000 I worked on my own Thief levels using the dromed
| editor - it was both really fun to work with, and utterly
| frustrating - in a time before open source engines - there were
| so many small annoying bugs in the editor that would cause it to
| crash, so you SAVED often and even learned to version files as it
| was easy to screw up.
|
| But the geometry that could be created was stunning - from
| courtyards to cathedrals, levels allowed clever use of light and
| shadow.
| ozzymuppet wrote:
| "Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri" Oh my gosh, I remember that
| game. I picked it up at a computer swap meet, and it was awesome!
| Sharlin wrote:
| I'd love to see a modern interpretation of Terra Nova or Heavy
| Gear. There are few games about infantry equipped with powered
| battle suits and heavy weaponry, which I find sort of odd given
| how cool the concept is.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Helldivers 2 is probably the most vogue infantry with powered
| battle suits and heavy weaponry game right now.
|
| Also I suppose almost the entire Halo franchise was always
| about that.
| smitelli wrote:
| Never played Thief, but I logged a lot of hours in Unreal, 1998.
| I was (and still am) amazed at how full-featured the software
| renderer was. I always wished I could peek at the code behind it.
|
| If memory serves, the only thing my 3dfx Voodoo3 could do that
| software-only mode could not was surface reflections. Maybe
| something with colored lighting too, it's been a long time. Point
| is, it was a decent enough substitute for dedicated graphics
| hardware.
| qsera wrote:
| But I remember Unreal being unreachable for me at that time
| because I couldn't even dream of getting a graphics accelerator
| and it won't even start with out a one, or was it the sound
| card requirement that was the blocker?
| MisterTea wrote:
| Original Unreal had soft rendering just like Quake 1/2 and so
| on. Though at that point my brother and I had saved up enough
| beans to buy a Voodoo2.
| wincy wrote:
| I think it was the graphics card. I remember getting a paper
| route and waking up at 5am every morning to save up the money
| for my Voodoo card. Was absolutely mind blowing as a 13 year
| old.
| misnome wrote:
| Everything up to (and including) Unreal Tournament had
| software rendering. It was one of the selling points when its
| competitor (Quake 3) was Hardware-accelerated-only.
| anthk wrote:
| Deus Ex too.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| The guys in OldUnreal have access to the source code
| AFAIRemember. Epic gave them the source code so they can
| produce those patches. They also improved the UT99 engine I
| think.
| ronjouch wrote:
| Link: https://github.com/OldUnreal/UnrealTournamentPatches
| Aurornis wrote:
| I was too young to understand but I distinctly remember the
| 3Dfx version looking vastly better everywhere to my eyes.
| Reflections were amazing though. Could have been the higher
| resolution, or could have been the fact that I was playing on
| an older CPU at home at the time. I was jealous of the people
| with hardware acceleration.
| mfro wrote:
| The software renderer did display many effects and even
| textures different. This video does a great breakdown:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npMujOQsjGQ
| deltoidmaximus wrote:
| Did unreal have 16-bit color software rendering? Most software
| renderers back then that I recall only did 8-bit color and ran
| choppier than the 3D accelerated renderers on the hardware at
| the time. This made a pretty big difference especially with
| lighting in my experience.
| Match451 wrote:
| The (incomplete) Thief2 and System Shock2 source code was
| leaked years ago from a Dreamcast development kit. I imagine a
| Google search would find you a download. I think I saved a copy
| too, someplace.
| burmask wrote:
| People talk about the graphics, but it was the crescendo and
| decrescendo of guard sounds/singing/footsteps in Thief that made
| it one of the most immersive games I've ever played.
| ubercore wrote:
| It had a physically based sound engine I think?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Yeah, the graphics were honestly kinda underwhelming, in
| particular the models were behind the curve compared to
| contemporary titles like Half-Life, and this didn't really
| improve with later titles like System Shock 2, where half the
| horror was the distorted textures stretched across the faces of
| the models.
|
| I think what modern games have lost, that some of these late
| 90s titles absolutely nailed (Thief in particular), is the
| sound design and ambiance, which is just so dang evocative.
| Even the smallest incidental sounds had so much character.
| Picking up an item, pulling a lever, footsteps on the floor.
|
| Modern games use such flat sounds for everything. Sure it's
| more realistic, at the cost of character and vibe.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| I never played Thief, so I can't compare two. I was really
| impressed w/ System Shock 2.
|
| re: the graphics - I don't remember being particularly
| underwhelmed by the graphics, but I didn't play many
| contemporary titles to compare it to. I was drawn-in by the
| System Shock franchise, but otherwise didn't really game.
|
| For me the horror element came from the voice acting on the
| audio journals, the voices of "the many", and those goddamned
| cyborg assassins.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| The weird graphics is mostly because they used extreme low
| poly models with low res textures compared to contemporary
| titles. This is a bigger complaint with the relatively late
| System Shock 2, which was just a few months apart from e.g.
| Deus Ex.
|
| Compare:
|
| SS2 unmodded: https://imgur.com/psb30TT
|
| Deus Ex unmodded: https://imgur.com/TWjoNSV
|
| Obviously neither game is a marvel of graphical fidelity,
| but SS2 has these weird distorted proportions that make the
| characters look like weird inflatable sex dolls that with
| were stored in the same supply closet as the Necronomicon
| and now they're all weird and whispering of
| incomprehensible horrors. Like the polygons don't really
| correspond to the anatomy of the character at all, which is
| something that contemporary games were beginning to figure
| out.
|
| I really like SS2 (and Thief 1 & 2, and Deus Ex for that
| matter), and I don't really mind them not looking that
| great. But man they did not look that great by late 90s
| early 00s standards..
| evilturnip wrote:
| 5-hour interview with Sean Barrett where he also talks about the
| technical details of the Thief engine:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1tXepGXDDM
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| and "the Digital Antiquarian" just did a great, deep two-parter
| on the history of Looking Glass last autumn. (covers Thief,
| Thief 2, System Shock, and some forgotten oddities)
|
| https://www.filfre.net/2025/10/a-looking-glass-half-empty-pa...
| ronjouch wrote:
| To Thief heads who played I and II and want more of it: play The
| Black Parade, an enormous mod 7 years in the making that is
| actually an entire new game.
|
| New gigantic maps full of secrets, style faithful to the
| original, weird universe, new story with cutscenes and voice
| acting. https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152429
|
| I am not affiliated, just a fan.
| rimunroe wrote:
| From what I've heard The Black Parade mission style hews close
| to the style of Thief: The Dark Project. If your tastes are
| closer to Thief II: The Metal Age (or you'd just like more
| taffing about), I enjoyed T2X: Shadows of the Metal Age[1]
| quite a bit. The voice acting was pretty rough in places, but I
| found that kinda charming. I've also heard good things about
| Death's Cold Embrace[2].
|
| [1] https://www.thief2x.com/
|
| [2] https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148371
| ronjouch wrote:
| Agreed, thx for the additions :) . While we're here sharing
| Thief goodies:
|
| 1. The essentials: TFix
| (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134733) and
| T2Fix (https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149669)
|
| 2. The best place to find Fan Missions (FMs) is
| https://www.thiefguild.com/fanmissions/ , and the best GUI to
| manage & play them is
| https://github.com/FenPhoenix/AngelLoader .
|
| 3. For a good "enhanced, yet true to the original" visual
| textures + models pack, grab
| https://github.com/NamelessVoice/Thief-Enhancement-Pack
|
| 4. These days even Thief III is enjoyable, thanks to the
| https://www.moddb.com/mods/thief-3-sneaky-upgrade megapatch
| doing crazy things like stapling back together maps that had
| to be cut-with-loading-screen due to Xbox limitations!
| pawelduda wrote:
| How would you compare The Black Parade to The Dark Project?
| ronjouch wrote:
| Both are fabulous community efforts, and I agree with the
| sister comment by HN user klaussilveira. Now, they are very
| different things:
|
| - The Black Parade is a single experience: one campaign with
| a beginning and end, on the oldschool Thief I foundations.
| Nothing more, nothing less.
|
| - The Dark Project as of today is more of a "platform": a
| modern base engine for creators and players who want a
| shinier Thief, and who acknowledge that with today's
| graphical standards comes extra effort to create a satisfying
| map/campaign (need bigger assets, less "blunt" architecture,
| etc). To add to the "platform-ness": as of today, out-of the
| box TDP has only a couple built-in missions and no meaty
| story arc. There are many _excellent_ 3rd-party Fan Missions
| (maps in Thief lingo, go visit
| https://www.thiefguild.com/fanmissions/ ) for TDP, but it's
| not "a game" the way Black Parade is clearly a game. This is
| not a judgement call and I had an excellent time with many
| TDP maps, and community members do discuss expanding the
| campaign & story... but for now it's more of a technical
| foundation to download maps and tinker with, than "a game" :)
| . You can do some spelunking on the TDP forums if you want
| more details, the maintainers make no mystery of this.
| keyringlight wrote:
| It's interesting to see parallel development of certain features
| in the early 3D era and how they were used. The original Prey by
| 3D Realms was shown in demos in 1997/98 with portal tech
| including rotating it in a level prop, so it's interesting and
| ties into the game fiction instead of being only functional to
| stitch map areas together. There's likely more examples during
| that period when licensing an engine was less common.
| pvo50555 wrote:
| I loved Thief 1/2, these games were way ahead of their time and
| defined the genre for years to come.
| klaussilveira wrote:
| Also worth mentioning for Thief fans: The Dark Mod started as a
| Doom 3 mod, but now is a completely standalone, free and open
| source game: https://www.thedarkmod.com/main/
|
| Hundreds of missions, an amazing Radiant fork maintained by the
| team, as well as an active and passionate community. They are
| awesome.
| izacus wrote:
| What's the best way to find the high quality missions or
| campaigns in those lists? Ones that are closer to what the
| Thief 1 and 2 games were?
| sagacity wrote:
| For reference, the surface cache referred to in the article is
| similar to the one in Quake. Basically, you have a bunch of
| regular textures that you want to use when rasterizing your
| polygons. On top of that you want to blend low resolution
| lightmaps. These lightmaps need filtering (typically bilinear) to
| appear smooth when blended on top of the original texture.
|
| It's wasteful to do this expensive filtering and blending every
| frame since the player typically sees those blended textures for
| a large number of frames when they're traversing the environment,
| so you keep a LRU cache of blended textures around. That's the
| surface cache.
| pawelduda wrote:
| Whaat, I started replaying the game literally a few days ago, and
| now I see this on HN! The graphics and obviously didn't age well,
| although there are some higher res texture packs, which help when
| you play it in 4k. The Steam version worked for me almost out of
| the box, after patching it with TFix
|
| The gameplay is okay-ish, probably due to nostalgia, but the AI
| is not the smartest, which creates a lot of fun situations - two
| guards trying to hit a giant spider inside a locked prison cell
| with swords, hitting only the cell door, instead of pressing a
| button next to them to open it, while calling the spider by name
| of the protagonist. But I remember that it was one of the
| scariest games for me as a kid, when it suddenly turned into dark
| fantasy horror from "just a thief game". I really had to push
| myself to walk past some of the undead and absolutely needed to
| make sure I cleaned the level thoroughly to be able to walk
| around comfortably.
|
| The world building, sound design (especially the ambient sound
| loops) and the aesthetics/general visual style is something
| really unique that keeps drawing me to this game and it's really
| telling by how well I remember some of the places, despite having
| not played the game for 10 years or so.
|
| Really a shame they gutted the franchise with the 2014 game and
| the very recent VR one.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| Thief pretty much defined the stealth game genre, at least it
| did for me, where it's game over basically if you try to go all
| out on enemies. I may be wrong but I don't believe cleaning a
| level of enemies is the way forward in later levels.
| pawelduda wrote:
| You can get rid of all human enemies by knocking them
| unconscious (I play expert mostly so killing is forbidden
| anyway). But right, if you go rambo even on lower difficulty
| levels, you'll most likely get overwhelmed
|
| For the rest, you're limited by supplies you buy or find but
| I believe it's possible to clear mostly everything if you
| don't miss. I know because I found myself running around the
| entire map to find the remaining 1% of the loot goal
| rimunroe wrote:
| > You can get rid of all human enemies by knocking them
| unconscious (I play expert mostly so killing is forbidden
| anyway). But right, if you go rambo even on lower
| difficulty levels, you'll most likely get overwhelmed
|
| I can't recall if they're in Thief 1, but in Thief 2 at
| least there are guards with helmets which are immune to the
| blackjack, but afaik none of them are immune to gas
| arrows/mines.
| nylonstrung wrote:
| Try the Dark Parade mod campaign. It's so much better than the
| vanilla missions. Some of the best modding I've ever seen
| shahar2k wrote:
| I found out about that one through mortismal games and loved
| it, i actually played through that campaign almost entirely
| on a stream deck!
|
| I don't know though if it would be as good to someone who's
| played it first before the main game(s)
| pawelduda wrote:
| Looks like I'm in for a treat. Enjoying TDP quite a lot
| already :)
| ronjouch wrote:
| > _the Dark Parade_
|
| You probably meant The Black Parade (a mod for Thief I), not
| to be confused with The Dark Mod (a standalone thief-inspired
| game based on the Doom3 engine)
| chroma_zone wrote:
| TFix is very nice but unfortunately removes the software
| renderer described in this article. It's very difficult to get
| the original exe working on modern systems.
|
| TFix also brings back the spatial audio / EAX support that was
| broken by Vista, which is a huge part of the experience IMO.
| Highly recommend installing and configuring OpenAL Soft for
| this game.
| rimunroe wrote:
| On a related note, I believe the the engine they developed for
| the first two Thief games and System Shock 2, the Dark Engine,
| was also the first to use an entity-component system.
| pkphilip wrote:
| I was amazed at the immersive nature of the thief game play. Used
| to love the game and it was quite different from the other FPS
| type games of that era.
| rickstanley wrote:
| I think I played Thief 1 & 2 over 15 times in total, no
| hyperbole. I really, really like the atmosphere, the world
| building and Hammerites old-english and tenets
| (https://youtu.be/1gnGITh1cw8)... all of it. I even created a
| question to understand a specific phrase construction:
| https://english.stackexchange.com/q/588796. Good times.
| honktime wrote:
| I'd love a black mesa style recreation of thief. I played it
| recently (its older than me) and I enjoyed it a lot, but its
| pretty rough in parts for me and my modern sensibilities.
|
| The Dark Project is really cool as a platform, and seems like
| it'd be ideal for that sort of recreation, but the community
| seems pretty nervous of the legalities of such a project which is
| a shame.
| nylonstrung wrote:
| Even cooler is that Entity-Component System was literally
| invented to create this game, in the form of the Dark Object
| System.
|
| It's one of the most successful patterns in game dev and it's
| remarkable it came from 90s game dev where "composition over
| inheritance" was not at all a virtue like it is today
| OldOneEye wrote:
| I really hope the author of this article can read this comment:
|
| I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the excellent
| games that you all built in that era. Thief 1 and 2 are part of
| my formative games. I played it when I was a teen. The lore, the
| ambient, the thrill of playing a non combat game (well, at least
| until you get the sword to beat the bad guys in the last stages,
| in Thief 1). I could never like mainstream games to the same
| extent all my friends did after playing Thief 1 and 2. They may
| have had better graphics, but they did not have the same soul,
| passion and love that those games had.
|
| It was with a lot of sadness that I read about the demise of
| Looking Glass studio.
|
| To add a funny anecdote to this, I enjoyed the game even though I
| barely understood the dialogue and text, being a Spaniard. But it
| was one of those games that sparked my interest to learn English
| (alongside Zelda, A link to the past xDD)
| fabiensanglard wrote:
| This is one of my all-time favorite page.
|
| Zero effort in presentation but the pure gold content proves that
| the fluff does not matter the slighest.
| programmanager wrote:
| It's wild how much Thief achieved with pure software rendering.
| The lighting and atmosphere aged better than a lot of early
| hardware-accelerated games--especially how darkness was integral
| to gameplay, not just visuals. Constraints really pushed smarter
| design.
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