The Marathon engine is a portal-based, 2.5-D graphics engine that renders environments in two-point perspective. Slanted surfaces and free-floating bridges are impossible, but both can be approximated with creative use of Forge, the level editor.
Changes are constantly being made to the engine, because Bungie has released its source code. For information on the ongoing development of the engine, visit the Marathon Open Source site.


Engine Limitations:

1024: The maximum number of polygons per level
8: The maximum number of sides per polygon
64: The maximum number of light types per level
8192: The maximum number of vertices per level
384: The maximum number of sprite-based objects per level
16: The maximum number of liquid types per level
64: The maximum number of doors or elevators per level
20: The maximum number of map annotations per level

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