Jedi (game engine)

Jedi
Original author(s)Ray Gresko
Developer(s)LucasArts
Written inC[1]
Operating systemMS-DOS, Mac OS[1]Sony PlayStation[2]
TypeGame engine
LicenseProprietary

Jedi is a game engine developed primarily by Ray Gresko for LucasArts.[3] It is very similar to the Build engine used in Duke Nukem 3D. While not a true 3D engine, it supported a three-dimensional environment with no limitations in the 3rd dimension (Z). In Doom, environments or levels were limited to existing in the X-Y plane only – levels were laid out two-dimensionally: while floor and ceiling heights could differ, areas could not overlap vertically. The Jedi Engine had support for areas or rooms (called "sectors") on top of one another, a trait that it shared with the Build engine.[2] In the Dark Forces revision of the engine, the renderer could not display two rooms situated on top of each other simultaneously. This capability was added for Outlaws.[4]

The Jedi Engine also included the ability to jump and crouch, the ability to look up and down,[3] and atmospheric effects (achieved by careful manipulation of 256-color palette files).[5] The engine is limited in its rendering capabilities, however, and used two-dimensional sprites (pre-rendered in different angles) for most of its object graphics.[4] Other LucasArts techniques such as the iMuse sound system were incorporated.[1]

Its lifetime was short-lived, being used in two titles, Star Wars: Dark Forces and Outlaws.[6] The sequel to Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, used the Sith engine.

There have been attempts of open source game engine recreations based on reverse engineering the original source code.[7]

  1. ^ a b c "Byte.com article on Dark Forces and the Jedi engine". Archived from the original on April 5, 2007. Retrieved January 3, 2009.
  2. ^ a b "Star Wars: Dark Forces". Internet Video Game Library. Archived from the original on 2023-07-23. Retrieved 2020-12-12.
  3. ^ a b Jedi at MobyGames
  4. ^ a b Lampert, Guilherme. "Reverse engineering LucasArts Outlaws". Lampert's game dev journal.
  5. ^ John, Papadopoulos. "The Force Engine is a source port of the Jedi Engine, will support Dark Forces & Outlaws". DSOG.
  6. ^ Paul Lilly (2009-07-21). "Doom to Dunia: A Visual History of 3D Game Engines". maximumpc.com. Maximum PC. Archived from the original on July 8, 2015. Retrieved 2016-01-16.
  7. ^ Dawe, Liam (2020-05-19). "The Force Engine is a fresh attempt to rebuild the Jedi Engine". GamingOnLinux.