@c -*-texinfo-*-
@node Genesis, Authors, Feedback, CS Introduction
@section Genesis of Crystal Space
@cindex Genesis

The Crystal Space project was initiated by Jorrit Tyberghein.  Here are a few
words from Jorrit, himself.

@quotation
I created this project by accident.  I was always fascinated by games like
Doom, Hexen, Duke Nukem 3D and later Quake and I wondered how one would write
such a game.  My first effort was a Doom like engine.  It had some nice
features (like static lighting with shadows and sectors above other sectors)
but it was @emph{very slow}! I abandoned the project (it became a bit clumsy)
and forgot about 3D for a short while.  But the urge was still there.  Every
now and then I would think about 3D engines.  But I wasn't thinking about Doom
anymore.  I wanted something more.  After months of thinking I still wasn't
planning to start writing code.  But then I read an article about portals.  I
wasn't sure what they were but from the little explanation in that article
things started to become clear.  Portals were the perfect way for me to write
a 3D engine quickly.  It was a very easy technique with which I could achieve
real 6@sc{dof} 3D! At that point the knowledge I gathered during the past few
months had to get out of my head.  In a bit more than one month I wrote the
first version of Crystal Space (during my free time).  At that point I had a
portal engine with 6@sc{dof}, colored static lighting with shadows, primitive
scripting, mipmapping and moving objects.  Since time became a precious
resource I decided to release Crystal Space to the general public and put an
announcement on the newsgroup @samp{comp.graphics.algorithms}.  And this was
the start of the Crystal Space project.

I must say that I didn't expect the kind of response that I got (I received
mails from hundreds of people and all were very positive).  Many thanks to all
of you.
@end quotation

@noindent
Jorrit can be reached via email at @email{jorrit.tyberghein@@gmail.com}.
