Talk:LithTech

Untitled
Does Condemned: Criminal Origins use the Lithtech engine? 69.118.247.101 17:49, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Legends of Might and Magic
Legends of Might and Magic is listed here among those games using Lithtech 1.0. I'm quite sure the first Lithtech games to be released were Shogo and Blood II in 1998. Also, a 1997 release date is indicated here, while Legends of Might and Magic article states the release date is 2001. Obviously I could be wrong, but based on my informations either Legends of Might and Magic doesn't use Lithtech or its release date is wrong. Anyone knows which is the case? Berserker79 14:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You are correct, Shogo and Blood II were the first Lithtech games. LoMM does use Lithtech, and it was a variant of Lithtech 2.x. The release date of 2001 is right, I believe. LoMM came out after Counter-Strike. LoMM was originally a FPS/RPG but later was changed into a direct clone of Counter-Strike using a Fantasy theme.

Animating large characters
Is it just me, or does Lithtech have a problem animating large characters (i.e. over 15 feet in height)? In Blood 2, Aliens vs. Predator 2, and even Tron 2.0, large characters (i.e. the final bosses) just seem kind of wonky (for example, their walking animations are way off so they seem to slide across the floor instead of running across it). Joylock 04:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

That's probably just an artist issue. "Scale" in a 3d engine is usually completely trivial. It could be that the polygon and animation budget the game had for characters just made visual flaws more apparent on larger characters.

Something Awful
If you read through Something Awful's game reviews, you'll find a couple of reviews that say Lithtech engine sucks (here's one). Just curious - why? Does it really have technical flaws compared to other engines, or is it only big flaw that budget game companies can afford to licence it? =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 23:37, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Still have to read those reviews, but I suppose your second guess is the correct one: after its initial release LithTech had quite a few bugs and from the graphics pov wasn't that good when compared e.g. to the Unreal engine. This, coupled with the fact it was licensed to many low budget companies for low budget games, made a reputation for LithTech to be a crap engine. Honestly I believe LithTech not to be that bad: its latest incarnations are very good, in particular Jupiter/Jupiter-EX, and the games they released more recently are not quite low budget stuff. Berserker79 07:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree... most people forget that the main ingedient for "good graphics" are talented artists and are less dependent on the engine itself. Graphical effects are only the icing on the cake, and LitTech never featured significantly less than the competition on the "effects" department. Littech being licensed for more budget-like games would also result in more budget like production values which in turn results in less polished art assets, which directly influence the perceived graphics quality. I wish non-developers would finally learn to make that distinction; I doubt many of the people at Something Awful have the experience to judge what is a technical and what is an artistic issue.

The article says LithTech is somewhat better than Quake II engine. While I dont think Wikipedia should carry should judgements over something so subjective (and as stated above, its a matter of "good art"), I strongly disagree. I have both Shogo and QuakeII. Maybe is becouse Shogo is VERY BUGGY (maybe contradicting the theory that the low budget third parties famed the engine) and I couldnt really run it on its maximum configuration, but on lower settings, Quake II engine beats Shogo BADLY. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.87.149.23 (talk) 22:26, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I edited the article with several sources stating that, on the contrary, it was inferior (up to Jupiter, which was considered good by reviewers apparently ). Hervegirod (talk) 11:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I can't honestly speak about Shogo, but I've played quite a lot of Blood II, and the superiority of Lithtech over Quake II is quite obvious. Quake II doesn't "blend" pixels like Lithtech and Unreal do. This form of pixel-blending makes low-resolution textures look like much higher-resolution textures. I'd also like to see ONE game, based on either id Tech 3 or Unreal 1.5, that features the lighting and shading effects that were so brilliantly used in AvP2.69.109.254.77 (talk) 21:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Lithtech Versions Wrong
Your Lithtech versions are completely wrong! There is a Lithtech 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, Jupiter, and Talon. Lithtech Talon is NOT 1.5. Talon is a branch off 2.2. There is also a Lithtech MMORPG varation (Matrix Online) which is also banched off 2.2 and a RealArcade Lithtech (Tex's Atomic Battle Bots) that they don't sell.


 * If the versions listed in the article are wrong, please correct them. As an alternative post here your information or supply a link to some source for the data. Thank you. Berserker79 10:06, 16 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I worked at company that made a game using Lithtech. We had many variations of Lithtech. What was released to the public and what was sent to developers are two different things. I have made the changes the best I can including the game I worked on and the very obscure version of Lithtech known as RealArcade Lithtech. I also revised your listing of Lithtech games so it includes more games and is version correct.


 * (PS: if you search Google for "Lithtech 3.0" you can clearly see that Lithtech extended its versions to 3.0. Lithtech 3.0 was never actually used. Jupiter eventually replaced Lithtech 3.0. I will explain in the main article.)


 * Thank you for supplying all those corrections: this article was surely in need of someone with specific knowledge on LithTech to be updated. Thanks for clarifying also that LoMM issue: I was pretty sure it couldn't have been based off 1.0, still I hadn't any proof except the fact a 1997 release was very odd. Berserker79 13:48, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


 * The original Lithtech was called DirectEngine, when Microsoft owned it. I'll add that to the Wiki. I'm not sure if the "ease of programming" is debatable. Comparatively speaking, I personally didn't consider Lithtech "easy" to program for. I mean its easy for someone like me (professional programmer), but not so much for a hobbist or modder. There are much easier engines to program for.


 * Yes, I had forgotten the engine was going to be called DirectEngine and it's something worth mentioning. I remember now that back in '98 I was in touch with one of the Blood II programmers and he told me they had switched the name after parting with Microsoft. As for the "ease of programming", I'm afraid I can't supply any info, unforutnately I'm not a programmer... I believe the sentence you refer to meant to suggest that LithTech, compared to other well known engines, might be easier to program, but if you believe this is not completely true, then the sentence should be reworked. Can you supply any example of engines that are easier to program than Lithtech? Berserker79 08:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
 * BTW, I've done some "copyedit" on your additions, to make the reading a little smoother, removing a few repetitions and adding some wikilinks. If you notice I may have altered the meaning of something you wrote feel free to correct. Berserker79 12:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you. It reads better; the change in meaning is fine. Few people will understand the minuete differences in meaning anyways. It wouldn't be meaningful to supply an easy to program engine. Anyone whose used Lithtech knows that Lithtech doesn't have a scripting language (something which by its own very definition means it is easier to program for). Not that I'm complaining. I rather liked Lithtech's straight C++. Just I personally would not categorize it as "easy".

You were killed!
I've noticed that in both NOLF and F.E.A.R. (and possibly NOLF 2) the above message is displayed when the player is killed in action. Could someone specify if this is unique to those games, or is it a running never-changed feature of LithTech game engines? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Krang (talk • contribs) 13:33, 13 April 2007 (UTC). It shows up in AvP2 as well. 98.236.141.47 (talk) 20:08, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Isn't NOLF Lithtech 2.5?
I think No One Lives Forever uses Lithtech 2.5, but I'm not sure. Take a look at these back covers for NOLF: ,

Lithtech 1.5?
Might and Magic IX is a computer role-playing game developed for Microsoft Windows by New World Computing and released in 2002 by the 3DO Company. It was the first installment of the Might and Magic series to feature a significant game engine overhaul since 1998's Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven. Powered by the Lithtech 1.5 engine, it was also the first game in the series to feature fully three-dimensional graphics

??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.106.30.60 (talk) 20:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I can confirm that this is running Lithtech 1.5. It states as such on my gamebox.

--Sscripko (talk) 02:25, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Game devs
Both the Super Bubble Pop and Purge (video game) articles list different developers than are listed here. Who's correct? SharkD (talk) 20:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

ID tech 4 similarities?
I've just played F.E.A.R and it looks virtually identical to Doom 3. At first I assumed they had used the id tech 4 engine to make this game. 79.66.57.191 (talk) 19:50, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

POV modifications on the game
I partially reverted a previous revert. Some of the reverts were OK IMHO, but some others were not sourced, and seemed to be WP:POV or WP:OR-based. For example: Hervegirod (talk) 20:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * "One writer for Maximum PC magazine referred to it as a "poor man's game engine" because it was cheaper to license than the Unreal or Quake II engines": this is not what the source says. The source was: "Lithtech could best be described as the poor man's game engine. (...)we noted that "The first clue that you're in for a slapdash experience comes from the Lithtech logo on the box. With the notable exception of No One Lives Forever, Lithtech is the engine of choice for cheap, quick games. It says to the customer, 'This game wasn't worth the effort of paying for Quake or Unreal.".
 * "though it was technologically superior to Quake II and roughly on par with Unreal": source?
 * "The 2.x branch of the engine sported dynamic lighting and shading effects that would not be seen in any other engine until Far Cry and Doom 3 were released four years later": source?
 * "Despite being slightly more advanced than its competitors of that time, id Tech 3 and the Unreal Tournament version of the Unreal engine, a few writers thought of it as inferior due to the often bland color palettes used by NOLF and AvP2": again, 3 different sources say different. Putting the bad reviews on the engine on the video games is WP:OR, because that is not at al what the sources say (for example: ""It’s built on the same engine, LithTech’s Talon, so don’t expect much in the way of graphical upgrades").
 * the Distributed Object System, a revolutionary system for MMORPGs: again no source for the "revolutionary" terminology.


 * The problem with all of those "Lithtech sucks compared to Unreal/id Tech 3" articles is that, as mentioned elsewhere on this discussion page, the authors don't demonstrate any understanding of the engine's technical abilities; they see a game that doesn't look as good as Quake III or Unreal, and assume that the engine is to blame. However, I'll be happy to drop the issue if you can point me in the direction of a game that is powered by Unreal 1.0 or id Tech 3 but has real-time lighting and shading effects like those in Lithtech. 69.109.232.160 (talk) 05:21, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe they don't understand the technical abilities of the engine, but without valid sources saying that they are wrong (say for example a valid sourced sentence such as "Lithtech x.x engine is more advanced than xx engine"), we can not contradict them ourselves. That would be POV. Hervegirod (talk) 09:44, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Id Tech 3 or Lith Jupiter?
First of all, sorry for my English. I believed, Medal of honor:Pacific Assault isn't build on Lith Jupiter.I have a copy of this game, and when it starts, it shows the same game console as any Id Tech 3 game has(even Call of Duty 2 and other IWEngine-based games).File structure also similiar to Quake 3, and differs from Lith Jupiter file structure(REZ-files for example).I think, that Pacific Assault build on a modified version of Allied Assault engine with new Directx powered graphical engine. 95.189.61.88 (talk) 14:29, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

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Might and Magic IX engine
Which version of the engine does MMIX use? MMIX is included under both Lithtech 1.5 and Talon headings. Octurion (talk) 11:50, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

LithTech versions overhaul
I can see the discussion about versions was already held quite some years ago, but I think the page is still misleading or even wrong regarding versions. It seems that this wiki page tries to distinguish variants of LT that are not officially declared as such, have overlapping codebases etc., and that makes it error-prone. Monolith have recently (?) created a page on their internal versioning of the engine; it seems very logical and it might be a good idea to follow that: https://www.lith.com/our-studio Don't get me wrong, it may still be interesting to discuss engine variants such as 1.0 vs. 1.5, but I would consider them more part of the "technical insights" discussion than a reliable main structure to organize the engine versions by. It would IMO be much more relevant to put them under a "LithTech 1" heading. Similarly, Jupiter and LT3 are officially the same thing and therefore the major heading - possible distinctions would be a very technical consideration. On the other hand, another major heading would be LT5, which is entirely overlooked in this current versioning or merged with Jupiter EX (for which the LT4 version that is officially used is missing), though it is technically VERY different. LT6 is missing as also. So consider this a suggestion to re-structure the page according to a more appropriate scheme following the major versions. MicTronicc (talk) 13:29, 5 June 2024 (UTC)