A few years ago I became interested in first person shooter games and in particular how the world levels are created and rendered in real time. At the same time I found myself in between jobs and so I embarked on an effort to learn about 3D rendering with the goal of creating my own 3D rendering engine. Since I am a developer and not an artist I didn’t have the skills to create my own models, levels, and textures. So I decided to attempt to write a rendering engine that would render existing game levels. I mainly used information and articles I found on the web about Quake 2, Half Life, WAD and BSP files. In particular I found the Michael Abrash articles that he wrote for Dr. Dobbs magazine while working at Id to be very illuminating.
