How did developers manage to create the vibrant 3D worlds of Tomb Raider III with machines that would now struggle to play a simple game? Using clever workarounds and limited hardware, they pushed the boundaries of what was possible.

In Tomb Raider III, developers introduced triangle primitives for greater geometric flexibility, while a portal-based visibility system helped manage rendering costs. The sky sphere trick saved on geometry by baking the sky into textures – clever!

Transparency with colour-key methods and flip-book texture animations added visual variety without complex calculations. It's a testament to human ingenuity that such limitations could be overcome.