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Geek Culture / Unlimited Detail Technology

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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 16:42
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but If you believe them, this won't be a problem anyway


Not Spanish, Not Eight, Just Ocho

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Isocadia
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 19:59
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Also, even if we say repetition is needed, that isn't a problem.

If we want to make a tree, now we would model a tree, or in the most extreme case a tree where some branches could be missing or not. With this system, it should be able to instead of modeling 35 different trees, model 2 types of tree stumps and 4 types of leaves and some branches, and then stick them all together and have a algorithm of some sort make a smooth transition, it doesn't reguire that much more space, but the amount of possible different trees is HUGE. Some goes with houses, instead of modeling a house, model a few bricks. That way you can get complete random houses.

I think the problem right now is, we are still thinking as if we were using polygons, and we want to apply rules we learned that work with polygons to this new type of engine, which obviously doesn't work.
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Fallout
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 20:27
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But you can do that all with polys. Right at the moment I am making a random map generator using a tile system and random character generator using a limb pool. It's messy, but it's fun. And that tree magic program you can get from TGC. Never used it myself, but I believe it essentially generates different tree limbs and sticks them together. There's nothing to stop you doing that yourself at load-up in a poly engine ... or maybe even at runtime if you're brave enough.

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Isocadia
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 20:37
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The difference is that we can put alot more poly's in those point cloud trees, and the extra amount of memory can be reduced by cutting it in multiple parts, which can be connected smoother with the editing of points than with poly's.
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DJ Almix
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 21:29
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Quote: "The difference is that we can put alot more poly's in those point cloud trees, and the extra amount of memory can be reduced by cutting it in multiple parts, which can be connected smoother with the editing of points than with poly's."


Plus,

were talking about

Polygons

Randomize planes to different textures and change the angle of stumps and branches, just some simple stuff

Point-Cloud

Changing individual leafs, change individual branches, change the actual texture model of the wood, and a lot more detailed randomization

[center]
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Isocadia
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 21:44
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Not entirely, if we look at the tree stump ( don't know how to call it, the center thing ) and the branches attached. Everywhere where you want to be able to attacht a branch, you need a circle in that center cylinder to attach it to, cause obviously the seams from just sticking it in are hidious. That means that you are limited to 1 branch starting size. Also, I cannot place a branch where ever I want. With the point cloud system, you can attach branches everywhere you want without worrying about seams with sticking in or vertecis having to match up, cause the amount is frankly: Unlimited ( not trully, but unlimited enougg ).

Therefore, creating a random looking tree requires a few center stumps, some branches, and these can be scaled and replaced everywhere, and with polygons you are once again limited by the amount of poly's you have to spare to create places where to attach the branches to, and the branches are limited in the size they can be.
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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 21:46
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I'm not the only person who simply doesn't care about intimate detail, right?

Perhaps it's because I'm an avid TF2 player. A game that offers no pretensions of being realistic, yet has a unique style that, four years on, still looks very appealing to me.

Whereas CoD 4 went the realistic route, and now looks terrible having played recent CoDs.

One thing I do like in modern games, especially Halo: Reach, is the balance between the intimate and the distant. Lots of battles far off while the player is battling up close, it lets them use their imagination to expand the battlefield in their mind to the whole area, and feel more immersed.

With this, it'll slowly become the case that players will either ignore 90% of your detail and simply steamroll through the game for the gamerscore/trophies, or demand a simply stupid increment in detail with each new series.

I mean, imagine if we had unlimited detail. Without graphics to entice players to new consoles or games, the market would simply stagnate. Gameplay? How can you sell a game based on its playability, you sell it on the looks! Be it visceral or stylised. And after every game incorporates this, there'll be no real differentiation or advancement after this supposed perfection we'd achieve.

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Quik
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 21:47
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so textures works totally different with point clouds?

and for the record, I am a man.

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Fallout
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 22:22
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Quote: "so textures works totally different with point clouds?"


There is no texture. Each point has a colour, and when they get dense enough, they look as detailed as a texture.

Quote: "Therefore, creating a random looking tree requires a few center stumps, some branches, and these can be scaled and replaced everywhere, and with polygons you are once again limited by the amount of poly's you have to spare to create places where to attach the branches to, and the branches are limited in the size they can be"


I disagree. Point clouds are a series of points. Polys are a series of points with the space between them filled by a polygon. They are just as flexible. Their only weakness is they're slow to render when reduced to the level of detail of a high-res point cloud system.

Point clouds will suffer from exactly the same seaming issues if you just connect a branch anywhere, since the points coloured to look like a node (the knuckle type bit of a branch where it connects to the trunk) won't be in the right place if you stick the branch anywhere. It'll look just as bad as sticking a poly branch through a trunk.

Also, you cannot rotate or rescale your point cloud instanced branch. It has to be exactly the same size and rotation, just offset along the axis. The overhead of rotating it is massive (hence why animation doesn't work). So all your trees will have the trunk at exactly the same angle, and all the different branches attached at exactly the same angle, just higher or lower. An instanced poly branch however can be rotated cheaply.

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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 22:24
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Each point stores it's own colour, so the texture data is stored in each atom, then you just need to modify it's colour based on lighting or shading and spit it onto the screen


Not Spanish, Not Eight, Just Ocho

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zenassem
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2011 22:32
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Maybe it's not fair of me, but I'm just not sold on the "we are not an artistic company", so that's why our unimited detail demo looks the way it does. I mean, all of that supposed detail even down to grains of sand, and it looks like that? If the engine is so good, work with an artisitic team and show us.

Secondly, until I see some progress I'm not all that excited about it. While I know graphics need to keep on improving, It's not the defining thing that makes a game good, at least to me. Not to say that they won't turn around and impress me. I'm also holding out until I see some even decent animated models. That humming bird animation left a lot to be desired.

So in short, if your engine is so "Amazing, and Ground-breaking"... show me something "Amazing, and Ground-breaking"

Your signature has been erased by a mod please reduce it to 600 x 120.
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Plystire
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2011 02:06
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Quote: "I mean, imagine if we had unlimited detail. Without graphics to entice players to new consoles or games, the market would simply stagnate. Gameplay? How can you sell a game based on its playability, you sell it on the looks! Be it visceral or stylised. And after every game incorporates this, there'll be no real differentiation or advancement after this supposed perfection we'd achieve."


DO IT! DO IT!! Get it over with and bring the "My game looks better than yours" to an end! I'm sick of games competing in graphics. I want things to go back to the way they were before, when everything was about the game being fun, when a game sold well because it was FUN, when nobody was saying "Just look at these graphics! So real and lifelike and blahblahblah" because everything was made up of little colored squares and everyone was damn well happy with it!

Maybe if graphics suddenly took a dip, these constant mudslides of FPS games coming out the door will change their tune. It's so hard to find a good FPS nowadays, as every one of them feels the same.

[/rant]


I think this is why I like playing indie games over the "AAA" games.


*ahem* On topic: If this has unlimited detail, why don't they at least make the "atoms" smaller? Make them, I dunno.... atom size? Maybe then things won't look so much like crap when you get too close. They should be able to pull this off right? I mean, they have UNLIMITED graphics potential... and a model converter... just tell the model converter to make the new model 1,000,000x bigger. Spread things out... and poof! The scene hasn't changed since everything has been scaled up by the same amount, just that we now have 1,000,000,000,000x more atoms in the scene, and we can look at a rock up close and personal without it suddenly looking like a stain-glass-window!


~Plystire

A rose is only a rose until it is held and cherished -- then it becomes a treasure.
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DJ Almix
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2011 02:06
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Quote: "Whereas CoD 4 went the realistic route, and now looks terrible having played recent CoDs."


CoD is horribly cartoonish.

[center]
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Agent Dink
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2011 02:37
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I don't really understand what people have against pushing the envelope graphically. If it really truly doesn't matter what the graphics look like to you then you should never worry about how good or bad a game looks and just focus on the gameplay. If you don't like CoD because it's same-ish and repetative, play something else. There are so many truly unique shooters out there, regardless of what you all say. Besides. Just jump on Steam there's hundreds of classic - esque arcadey games on there.

http://lossofanonymity.wordpress.com
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Diggsey
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2011 02:47 Edited at: 23rd Aug 2011 02:49
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Quote: "Also, you cannot rotate or rescale your point cloud instanced branch. It has to be exactly the same size and rotation, just offset along the axis. The overhead of rotating it is massive (hence why animation doesn't work). So all your trees will have the trunk at exactly the same angle, and all the different branches attached at exactly the same angle, just higher or lower. An instanced poly branch however can be rotated cheaply."


Not entirely true. Instead of transforming the points you can untransform the ray used by the search algorithm, effectively allowing any transformation. The limitation is that you can't do this for each point individually, you have to do it for each group of points separately (so no bone animations with point weights between 0 and 1). In addition, each group you have requires another pass of the search algorithm, so if you have one moving object in a scene taking up most of the screen, the time taken to render the scene doubles. Yet another reason why the term "unlimited detail" is complete rubbish. What it actually is: "static detail limited only by available memory and graphics card speed in relation to screen resolution"

[b]
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Plystire
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2011 04:49
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Quote: "If you don't like CoD because it's same-ish and repetative, play something else."


I don't play CoD. I play games that I enjoy.

I don't enjoy how so many companies focus on making samey games all the time. If they focused on making unique games, we would be seeing tons MORE unique games.

Until that happens (unlikely), I stick to indie games that offer something fresh to the table. No sense in buying a game that I'm only going to complain about, right?

Quote: " graphics card speed "


I thought they said it was being rendered entirely in software mode?


~Plystire

A rose is only a rose until it is held and cherished -- then it becomes a treasure.
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Fallout
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2011 09:34
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Quote: "What it actually is: "static detail limited only by available memory and graphics card speed in relation to screen resolution""


Why don't they use that name? It's a much catchier title!!

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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2011 13:35
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Quote: "I stick to indie games that offer something fresh to the table"


of course, but their are a few AAA's that buck the trend


Not Spanish, Not Eight, Just Ocho

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Grog Grueslayer
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2011 18:40
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Quote: "I don't enjoy how so many companies focus on making samey games all the time. If they focused on making unique games, we would be seeing tons MORE unique games."


I agree. The coolest games I've played were Infocom text adventures that don't have any graphics whatsoever. Hopefully Unlimited Detail technology will be so widespread that game developers will focus more on storytelling instead of how many polygons they can cram into their game.

I envision future companies that their only job is to 3D scan objects from the real world. They would then sell the point cloud data to game companies so they don't even have to hire 100's of graphic artists for a single game. It'd be kinda like Turbosquid but for real life objects.

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Plystire
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2011 18:48
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Being that the model came from a real object, there'd be no way for them to put a copyright on it since it isn't their own work. With no copyright, there'd be sense in selling it. With no sense in selling it, I suspect sites will open up with free models that make revenue via online ads. That would be cool.


~Plystire

A rose is only a rose until it is held and cherished -- then it becomes a treasure.
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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2011 19:23
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People scan real objects atm. Presumably the model is owned by the creator, but the rock is copyright-free

Copyright free rocks... what happened to these forums


Not Spanish, Not Eight, Just Ocho

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Uncle Sam
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 08:44
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I love how everyone is bashing this because they just can't figure out how it works.

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Quik
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 12:04
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not bashing: being sceptic and breaking it out, figuring out how it works and bashing are... two complete different things really: Iam sceptic, just as i would be if my neighbour would say: "I FOUND A VIRUS THAT CAN RUIN HUMANITY FOREVER WIIIIE"

and for the record, I am a man.

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Fallout
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 12:14 Edited at: 24th Aug 2011 12:15
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You wouldn't be sceptical! You'd pray it was a zombie virus and command him to unleash it into the nearest shopping centre, before grabbing your shotgun and destroying your staircase. You know it makes sense!

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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 12:47
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But then your Android game sales would drop!

We're being skeptical, not bashing it.

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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 24th Aug 2011 13:19
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I think the point the other side is making is that the live video we got shown sort of put us past being sceptic.

Unless you can work out how a live demo runs on a laptop with no internet and interactive movements; I'm willing to believe this one


Not Spanish, Not Eight, Just Ocho

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Libervurto
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Posted: 27th Aug 2011 15:41
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I don't understand the people who are saying they don't WANT more detailed graphics in games. Are you insane? Don't confuse detail with realism, you could just as easily create a stunningly detailed fire-breathing dragon as you could any real world object. I understand that a lot of people are fed up with the graphics race, but this could be an end to all that. No longer will people waste time trying to squeeze a few more polygons out, they can go back to concentrating on making great games!

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Quik
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Posted: 27th Aug 2011 15:50
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Quote: "I understand that a lot of people are fed up with the graphics race, but this could be an end to all that. No longer will people waste time trying to squeeze a few more polygons out, they can go back to concentrating on making great games!"


are you kidding me?

this will just make it even heavier on the artists, since we now have to spend EQUAL time in say Zbrush as we would now making the low poly model.

say now you spend a week in zbrush and a week in 3ds max?
well with this the reqs would be two weeks in zbrush if not more: just to squuuueeeze out every little detail: just so they will look better than the rest.

it wont make the graphic race go away: iam fairly certain it will still be there: it will ALWAYS be there

and for the record, I am a man.

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Ocho Geek
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Posted: 27th Aug 2011 16:33
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Don't be a philistine

Better graphics ARE in demand, So if this is real, and it is made usable and accessible; It WILL be used in gaming. It would allow console makers to make cheaper consoles on much smaller form factors, allowing them to focus more CPU power on your beloved bloody "gameplay" obsessions


Not Spanish, Not Eight, Just Ocho

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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 27th Aug 2011 20:08
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Current gen graphics:

"Hey Joe, there's this tower in the distance. Player can't reach it, I'll just make a cube to save space and time, and texture it prety well instead."

"Sounds cool Geoff, need to save resources anyway, the twenty AI in the foreground are more important."

"Okay, I'll just finish it up and tweak it. Should only take half an hour."

UD Graphics:

"Hey Joe, there's this tower in the distance. Player can't reach it, I'll just make a cube to save space and time, and texture it prety well instead."

"No! We have unlimited graphics, make a fuilly-fleshed tower, I want details everywhere!"

"But the only people who'll appreciate it are no-clippers, and besides, it'd just be surrounded by nothingness anyway."

"Are you mad Geoff! It needs a courtyard then, with small houses surrounding it, and a fountain, with some nice flowerbeds. We have unlimited detail, use it."

"Okay boss, I'll have it all done in about a week."

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Airslide
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Posted: 27th Aug 2011 20:10 Edited at: 27th Aug 2011 20:11
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Quote: "Unless you can work out how a live demo runs on a laptop with no internet and interactive movements; I'm willing to believe this one"


I don't know about others, but for me, it has nothing to do with whether the demo exists or not. The thing I'm skeptical of, and I think many others are, is not whether or not the technology they are showing off exists, but whether it is capable of doing what they claim it can.

The demo is good and all but the world is extremely repetitive and blocky, and it lacks any animated characters. They claim they are working on it and if they show it off then all is well, but meanwhile parading it around as the divine-appointed successor to polygons is a little bit brazen.

Quote: "It would allow console makers to make cheaper consoles on much smaller form factors, allowing them to focus more CPU power on your beloved bloody "gameplay" obsessions"


How do you figure this? Running on current generation CPUs the demo was going around 20fps, if you value fluid movement the consoles are still probably going to need a GPU, especially once gameplay logic is added into the mix.

Also, is it so bad to value "gameplay" when you are presumably "playing" a "game", as opposed to "watching" one?
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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 27th Aug 2011 20:28
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If they came in saying, "Hey, we have this cool new idea that'll make games look much sweeter. We're still working out some kinks, but we've got a demo here to show you. look at that detail, it's pertty good, don't you think?"

Instead they went, "Hey, you know rthose games you love? They're made out of polygons right? Well, polygons suck, and so do your games! See how crap this game is? Crysis? Moar like Cry liek a Sissy at how bad it's lettuces are! Do you like staring at lettuces as opposed to playing the game? No? What's wrong with you, you degenerate?!"

"Btw please fund us."

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swissolo
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Posted: 27th Aug 2011 20:37
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Quote: "Do you like staring at lettuces as opposed to playing the game?"



I can't beleive people are still all over this. There's nothing more to see for the time being so... just go with it we'll see.

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Anomaly452
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Posted: 27th Aug 2011 20:40
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I knew it! I wondered why people didn't just use atoms like those that are found in real life. I just hope that every gaming company of the future has the finished version of this engine for there games, because this is just so amazing. And he was playing that extremely high quality on a pee-wee little laptop!

The wisest leader is the one that can avoid the conflict in the first place.
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Design Runner
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 01:10
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Quote: "Current gen graphics:

"Hey Joe, there's this tower in the distance. Player can't reach it, I'll just make a cube to save space and time, and texture it prety well instead."

"Sounds cool Geoff, need to save resources anyway, the twenty AI in the foreground are more important."

"Okay, I'll just finish it up and tweak it. Should only take half an hour."

UD Graphics:

"Hey Joe, there's this tower in the distance. Player can't reach it, I'll just make a cube to save space and time, and texture it prety well instead."

"No! We have unlimited graphics, make a fuilly-fleshed tower, I want details everywhere!"

"But the only people who'll appreciate it are no-clippers, and besides, it'd just be surrounded by nothingness anyway."

"Are you mad Geoff! It needs a courtyard then, with small houses surrounding it, and a fountain, with some nice flowerbeds. We have unlimited detail, use it."

"Okay boss, I'll have it all done in about a week."
"

Something like that wouldn't, or shouldn't happen. No person on the team wants to fall behind on getting the work done because something CAN be super detailed. The difference between now and before with this technology is that you can satisfy the no-clippers by making it slightly more than a cube with a good texture. You can add enough detail to make it look good, while still not falling behind on all of the work that has to be done. If your boss does this, the fact that you are two weeks behind schedule is his fault, not yours, and when he is reprimanded by HIS boss, he might think next time.

Quote: " I don't know about others, but for me, it has nothing to do with whether the demo exists or not. The thing I'm skeptical of, and I think many others are, is not whether or not the technology they are showing off exists, but whether it is capable of doing what they claim it can."


Quote: "What it actually is: "static detail limited only by available memory and graphics card speed in relation to screen" resolution"
Hasn't this been settled already? The demo clearly proves it can do what they claim. Its just a MAJOR communication issue.

Add in the fact that animation is possible, and that everything could just look better, I'm going to say this is well worth the effort. people have been saying this will not end the graphics race, others say it will. Lets put it this way: as technology improves, the smaller the points, or atoms, will get. We will, in short time, get to the point where you can't see any more detail in the difference of atom size, despite screen res. At this point, artists will utilize this detail as best they can while staying on schedule, and the graphics race will indeed end. Then, people can focus back on two things: Gameplay and Art Style. I can't see how people are still bashing this thing as useless, or are skeptical of it. Its the future, its a big change, its almost here. Accept it, or judge it like a fad or useless as many people did the internet and fall behind everyone else. Your choice, but its here.

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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 01:37
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Quote: "Accept it, or judge it like a fad or useless as many people did the internet and fall behind everyone else. Your choice, but its here."


I like the general attitude that being skeptical makes us morons. Thanks.

When I see it working, I'll believe it. When I see a game released using this tech, that plays on all platforms flawlessly, animating, and with AI and physics to boot.

It's very much like me producing an engine in DBP, where I'd imported a terrain, got collision worknig, and started asking other people for money to help the project. Then I start insulting other DBP projects to claim mine is better. Then I palm off questions about animation and physics, etc as "I'll get round to it."

For all I can tell, this could easily be recreated in Blender in two minutes. Using polygons.

Also, wake up. Who actually cares about environmental detail? If you're honestly going to complain that a tree stump isn't perfectly smooth, or a lettuce is a littel blocky, then come on TF2 with me. I could happily farm you for extra kills while you derp about complaining the inconsequential aspects of the scenery noone cares about aren't up to snuff.

It puts me in mind of people I meet at work, who complain about how LCDs have a pretty-much unnoticeable motion problem compared to plasma. And that it completely kills their viewing experience while I personally can't see bugger-all difference. I just sell them the more expensive, top-end plasmas, and let them go on their way.

I imagine this company feels very similar.

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Design Runner
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 01:43
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I wasn't saying being skeptical makes you a moron, not in the slightest. I'm saying that you shouldn't BE skeptical anymore. They have showed us animation is possible, and that they are working on it, not will get around to it. There really just isn't anything left to be skeptical about in my opinion. I also would like to add that I personally really don't care about graphics, from a player's perspective. But when in game development, for a larger company, from a Developer's perspective, is where I was trying to make that post from. And if you could re-create that in blender in two minutes... you are a god.

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Airslide
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 01:47 Edited at: 28th Aug 2011 01:48
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Quote: "Hasn't this been settled already? The demo clearly proves it can do what they claim. Its just a MAJOR communication issue.
"


I think if you listen to the interview you'll find that they claim it can do a lot they didn't demonstrate. I'm not saying that means it can't. But the demo certainly doesn't prove that it is the destined replacement for current technology.

Quote: "Its the future, its a big change, its almost here. Accept it, or judge it like a fad or useless as many people did the internet and fall behind everyone else. Your choice, but its here.
"


Right, like smart watches, Sony Betamax, HD-DVD (funny considering the previous example there)...it very well could be the next big thing, but I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket by saying there's no way the current tech will survive.

EDIT: GAH ninja posters! Maybe I need to refresh the page more often
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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 02:07
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I don't doubt voxels. I don't doubt this will work.

I doubt that this is some sort of massive, revolutionary method that will wash away all existing methods and begin a new age of better graphics that can be run on a low-grade laptop without effort. Isn't it essentially ray tracing? Find a voxel for each pixel on the screen, versus cast a ray and calculate the colour for each pixel on the screen.

I want to see diverse, varied environments. Not copy-pasted models. I want to see flocks of birds animated, not one stuttery pigeon. I want to see AI, I want to see physics, I want to see a game engine, not an art demo.

When they show it can handle this tech in the numbers current tech can, while keeping the same AI and animation quality we have, I will happily meet you in a pub for a pint and an "I told you so."

Although considering this, by the time they get this out there, I sincerely doubt many people will care, polygons being even more advanced then. I mean, look at Black Ops, it's got terrible texture quality, and art like general. Sold like, well, like a CoD game, really.

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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 02:26 Edited at: 28th Aug 2011 02:33
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There's plenty of reasons to be skeptical, there's so many unanswered questions. Yes, they touched the surface as far as answering them goes, but that doesn't suddenly buy all the credibility. Animations work in an old lower resolution version of the engine and they're basic animations. Their demonstrations don't actually show a lot, there's a lot of information that has been left out and with these big gaps, a lot of questions are going to be asked and as long as those questions are unanswered people will be skeptical.

Why not? A person who's suspected of murder may have a feasible alibi, but that doesn't answer why his finger prints were on the murder weapon...probably a poor expression to use, but what I'm trying to imply is you can't come up with answers without enough evidence present. Once I see a practical demonstration of how their technology would work in games on a low end system, with full physics and everything, then I will accept that this will work as promised. If the project is genuine, then there's so many things out there that could make it impractical, for example, what if atom by atom physics dramatically increased processing costs? Physics with polygons takes its own shortcuts too, a lot of physic body will not be per-polygon - to do it per-polygon would dramatically increase processing costs. Would they resort to the use of polygons for physics and attach atoms to rigid bodys? How would that affect processing, would it really live up to their claims and how effective would it be? Not just in terms of resources but appearance.

So I don't think it's so insane to be skeptical. I'd love for this to work and a part of me is putting some faith that these guys will deliver because it's a leap forward. But wishful thinking isn't going to stop me stepping back for a second to realise that they're not at a stage where we can be certain they're gonna deliver their promises, just that they make strong convictions and have some good looking graphical demonstrations. For me convictions don't weight anything, even the deluded can make strong convictions.

The classic line of the skeptic is: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And with the financial support they've received and time will show.

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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 02:46 Edited at: 28th Aug 2011 02:48
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This looks real to me, I think they have created a package that just fills pixels on the screen. They most likely do a 1D Raytrace, I can see it working. If the rays are already there, and you just place objects in front of the rays you get distance, colour, and that's about all you need, Seems close enough to what he said. Like those pins you press your hand against to get a hand print.

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ionstream
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 03:03
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Quote: "I can't see how people are still bashing this thing as useless, or are skeptical of it."


Because it makes no sense and their none of their videos have proven anything beside the fact that they have made a standard voxel engine. Notice that everything in their demo was made up of objects repeated over and over and over, such that nothing, not even the height of the trees, varied. If their claim is that they can have detail limited by your RAM, then surprise, we've had unlimited detail since the first polygon was rendered.

Quote: "Its the future, its a big change, its almost here. Accept it, or judge it like a fad or useless as many people did the internet and fall behind everyone else. Your choice, but its here."


Boy you sure are jumping the gun just because a couple of sketchy videos were released.

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Poloflece
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 08:24
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I don't nescesarliy believe that this is all legitimate. But it wouldn't just make graphics better, the actual layouts and sizes of games would be dramatically changed. You'd have the potential to create fully explorable full scale worlds, teaming with detail.

In order to have shown live gameplay (which they have) they must have achieved something.


Poloflece

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Airslide
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 08:59
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Quote: "You'd have the potential to create fully explorable full scale worlds, teaming with detail."


Wait...Skyrim is a hoax?





I get what you mean but I couldn't resist...
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Poloflece
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 09:24 Edited at: 28th Aug 2011 09:26
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haha I mean as in as big a earth. Without having to load every 500 yards or so.

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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 12:23
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Hardly, judging by the technology, the file sizes would be massive. Ergo, more laoding than before.

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lazerus
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 13:22
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Okay girls shush, I'll sum up this entire thread now.

Currently this technology is not viable, therefor speculation as to it's use and performance is null. Saying you can have unlimited detail is incorrect, you have as much detail as the artist can produce in the time-frame set per asset. There is no current pipeline suited to this program. The only conceivable program would be zbrush or mudbox and neither of them support animation. Even if this program works, Games will not change due to time and budget constraints.

So basically people have got the argument wrong, it's not is it a hoax. It's is it any better than what were using now?


http://lazerus-reborn.deviantart.com/
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Quik
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 15:03
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Quote: "But it wouldn't just make graphics better, the actual layouts and sizes of games would be dramatically changed. You'd have the potential to create fully explorable full scale worlds, teaming with detail."


discluding the time it would take to make that offcourse....

and for the record, I am a man.

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Fallout
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 19:40 Edited at: 28th Aug 2011 19:41
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People are misunderstanding this engine in so many ways, it's painful to read.

The only thing it can do is render more detail to the screen. So objects can look better and perhaps draw distance can be further, but that is it. Period. It cannot outdo poly engines on world size, detail or variety, nor can it bring people back to life or cure AIDS. It just makes things look more detailed and avoids the need for LOD. Commendable qualities, but it can't do anything else magical.

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Agent Dink
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Posted: 28th Aug 2011 20:18
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Quote: "People are misunderstanding this engine in so many ways, it's painful to read. "


I'm so glad someone else sees this.

http://lossofanonymity.wordpress.com
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