Introduction

Published by: Infogrames
Outcast Official Page: http://www.outcast-thegame.com
Estimated US Release: September 1999

We don't need no stinking 3D card!

Pop Quiz: A brand new 3D game has come out, and it does not require, (heck it can't even utilize) a 3D accelerator card. What year is it, and who is publishing the game? If you guessed 1994 and Novalogic, you're wrong. It's 1999 and we're talking about Infogrames' much hyped 3D adventure game, Outcast. Back before Voodoo 1 or even the S3 ViRGE, Novalogic popularized 3D combat games that used voxel technology for the graphics engine. Anyone who remembers playing the original Comanche can remember the then cutting edge graphics that voxels provided. But in this day and age of super high resolution 3D games, who is daring enough to develop a 3D title without the benefit of 3D polygon acceleration - the answer is Infogrames.

Hi there

A Twon-Ha comes to investigate

Outcast- an appropriate name for a rebel

Infogrames is indeed going against conventional wisdom by using voxels for their terrain (characters are still polygons) and not providing 3D acceleration for Outcast. But as you can see from the beautiful graphics, maybe they're on to something here. The development team shunned using a polygon driven engine because they felt it was too constraining. The fear was looking like all the other 3D games out there. If the goal was to be unique from the rest, they are definitely on the right track!

The water has beautiful ripple effects

A wider angle shot

What are Voxels?

Voxels are just a different way of creating 3D objects - basically they're good old pixels with information about the 3rd dimension stored in them. Instead of using polygons to flesh out the outer frame of an object, voxel processing utilizes a series of cross sectional images to "make" a 3D figure. The same type of technology is used for MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and other medical applications in order to visualize soft human tissue like organs and tendons. Infogrames appears to have taken the best of both worlds with their hybrid engine - polygons for characters and voxels to illustrate vast expanses of land and terrain (which polygon based engines still have some amount of trouble doing).