Editing Tomb Raider (section)

==Technology==
Over the lifetime of the franchise, four custom proprietary game engines have been built to support the main titles. ''Shadow of the Tomb Raider'' (2018) was the final main series title to use a proprietary engine, as the franchise is now moving to [[Unreal Engine 5]]. The change reflects a wider industry shift in recent years away from proprietary engines.<ref>{{cite web |last1=McWhertor |first1=Michael |title=A new Tomb Raider is coming, built on Unreal Engine 5 |url=https://www.polygon.com/23011809/tomb-raider-new-game-unreal-engine-5 |website=Polygon |date=5 April 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Skilled Unreal Engine Developers are the Most Demanded in 2022 |url=https://gamestudio.n-ix.com/skilled-unreal-engine-developers-are-the-most-demanded-in-2022/ |website=N-iX Game & VR Studio |date=20 May 2022}}</ref>

===Tomb Raider Engine (1994–2000)===
The first ''Tomb Raider'' used a custom-built game engine, as other equivalent engines available to Core Design at the time were not versatile enough to realise the team's vision. The engine was designed by Paul Douglas, who handled the game's [[Artificial intelligence (video games)|artificial intelligence]] (AI) and the three-dimensional (3D) graphics. The choice of a 3D game was influenced by the team's opinion that the game type was under-represented when compared to [[first-person shooter]]s such as ''[[Doom (1993 video game)|Doom]]''. Its 3D style meant multiple elements were difficult to implement, including the AI and camera control. Another noted aspect was the multi-layered levels, as compared to equivalent 3D action-adventure games of the time which were limited to a flat-floor system. Lara's movements were hand-animated and coordinated rather than created using [[motion capture]]. The reason for this was that the team wanted uniformity in her movement, which was not possible with motion capture technology of the time.<ref name="TRsecrets"/> For ''Tomb Raider II'', minor upgrades were made to the engine, with the main improvements being to the AI and smoothing out Lara's model.<ref name="EGMtr2"/> ''Tomb Raider III'' underwent major revisions, including rewrites to the graphics engine and improvements in the lighting and AI systems.<ref name="TR3engine"/> The engine was given a major overhaul for ''The Last Revelation''. The first five games make use of full-motion video cutscenes. For the first three games, they were primarily used as transitional periods depicting Lara moving from one level to another or one location to another.<ref name="GSlastrev1"/><ref name="GSlastrev2"/> For ''Chronicles'', fairly minor revisions were made.<ref name="GTretroC"/><ref name="GSchronicles"/>

===Angel of Darkness Engine (2000–2003)===
For ''The Angel of Darkness'', a new engine was built from scratch, but due to being unfamiliar and unused to the technology of the PS2, the team encountered multiple problems such as needing to remove areas and characters due to polygon restrictions. Due to the deadlines imposed, the team were forced to cut corners, meaning that the game reached store shelves in a poor condition.<ref name="EdgeMakingof"/>

===Crystal Engine (2003–2008)===
For ''Legend'', the staff at Crystal Dynamics created a proprietary engine from the ground up, named the Crystal Engine.<ref name="GDMpostmortem"/><ref name="ShackEngine"/> The engine and the game's content were developed in parallel, leading to scheduling and workload difficulties.<ref name="GDMpostmortem"/> ''Anniversary'' used the same engine as ''Legend''.<ref name="AnniversaryEngine"/> ''Underworld'' used a new engine built specifically for the game, although its basic codebase was shared with ''Legend''. The group of developers who were working on this new engine were not tied specifically to the ''Underworld'' project, but rather shared by other projects, and this led to issues of prioritisation and communication. There were also problems with complicated [[Coupling (computer programming)|dependencies]] and over-ambition.<ref name="GamaUnderPost"/><ref name="UnderEngine"/> In ''Underworld'', Lara's movements were animated using full motion capture, with Olympic gymnast Heidi Moneymaker providing the character's animations.<ref name="GuardMotion"/>

===Foundation Engine (2013–2019)===
For the 2013 reboot, an updated version of the Crystal engine called Foundation was created for the game.<ref name="RebootEngine"/>{{Failed verification|date=May 2024}} Motion capture was again used for this title.<ref name="GImotion"/> An updated version of the Foundation engine was used again for ''Rise of the Tomb Raider''.<ref name="RoTengine"/> Lara's hair movements were made more realistic using a technology called [[TressFX]] in ''Tomb Raider'' and PureHair in ''Rise of the Tomb Raider''.<ref name="TombHair"/> The Foundation engine remained in use for the third entry in the reboot series, ''Shadow of the Tomb Raider'', and featured new graphical enhancements from developer [[Eidos-Montréal]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-tech-analysis |title=Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a beautiful tech showcase |website=[[Eurogamer]] |date=11 September 2018 |access-date=8 September 2020}}</ref>