Lost Engines / Digital Image Design / 1994
Inside
Inferno.
Alien worlds, elaborate spacecraft and tunnels with a hidden map of their own. Explore the machinery behind Digital Image Design’s space combat game.
Original artwork from Inferno.
From TFX
to the stars.
After building a detailed military flight simulator, DID took its engine somewhere stranger. Inferno moves between planetary battles, orbital encounters and the interiors of alien bases.
We followed its files and code to understand how those worlds work. This is a guided selection from that investigation, with tools you can try in your browser.
Inside the graphics engine: an illustrated tour of how TFX draws a world, with the changes and additions we found in Inferno.
1,691model drawing programs
31stored scenery grids
64corridor profiles
17pieces in three synth arrangements
Take a closer look
Ships with moving parts
Rotate the craft and creatures, inspect their construction and walk through their animation states.
02 / World building
A whole place from pieces
Explore the terrain, cities and orbital layers one neighbourhood at a time.
03 / Beneath the walls
The invisible tunnel map
See the routes that guide actors and the boundaries that keep a craft inside.