[Martin]

I found this quite impressive. The future of real-time computer graphics (and therefore, video game graphics)?

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Q-ATtrImCx4

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=THaam5mwIR8

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=l3Sw3dnu8q8

You only need to watch the first one to 'get' this. The other two go a bit more in-depth.

[SwissCm]

It's basically procedurally generated voxels. Nothing new, tech has been around for ages but it hasn't been practical to use due to performance and image quality problems, hardware today simply isn't powerful enough to run a pure voxel engine with the graphical quality of a polygonal engine. It would also be difficult to create content procedurally generated since everything needs to be made using math.

EDIT: Also, word is that the guys behind that are likely running an investment scam.

[Martin]

SwissCm, on Sep 8 2010, 12:51 PM, said:

It's basically procedurally generated voxels. Nothing new, tech has been around for ages but it hasn't been practical to use due to performance and image quality problems, hardware today simply isn't powerful enough to run a pure voxel engine with the graphical quality of a polygonal engine. It would also be difficult to create content procedurally generated since everything needs to be made using math.

The guy talking does in one of the videos say why it's different to voxels.

SwissCm, on Sep 8 2010, 12:51 PM, said:

EDIT: Also, word is that the guys behind that are likely running an investment scam.

Really? That's interesting. Source?

[ReaperMan]

SwissCm, on Sep 8 2010, 07:51 AM, said:

EDIT: Also, word is that the guys behind that are likely running an investment scam.

Let me underline the part you missed.

Edit: Also SwissCM is right this really isn't that impressive, they have been able to do stuff like this for a while.

[Martin]

I didn't miss it. If there's a rumour going around about something, there's usually some story about it on the 'net somewhere. By 'source' I didn't mean "Please direct me to irrefutable evidence that what you say is true", I just wanted to know where he got that information. Is that not reasonable enough?

[ReaperMan]

Martin, on Sep 8 2010, 11:27 AM, said:

I didn't miss it. If there's a rumour going around about something, there's usually some story about it on the 'net somewhere. By 'source' I didn't mean "Please direct me to irrefutable evidence that what you say is true", I just wanted to know where he got that information. Is that not reasonable enough?

Likely means that theres a high possibility, not that it is. So you don't need a source.

[Martin]

Lulz, so now you break out the old tired memes. Nice one.

[ReaperMan]

Martin, on Sep 8 2010, 02:32 PM, said:

Lulz, so now you break out the old tired memes. Nice one.

It helped didn't it? Now you know.

[SwissCm]

Martin, on Sep 9 2010, 01:06 AM, said:

Really? That's interesting. Source?

There was a discussion on a forum I visit a while back (the thread is probably archived now). You can tell by the way they are presenting their product; the braindead analogies, the silly comparisons and the ambitious claims of creating a revolution in some vague timeframe, the poorly designed and unmaintained website. They're trying to get investment from people who don't know any better.

Think the Phantom games console debacle for something similar.

[Hendricks266]

I read on Sonic Retro that the promises made by this were bullshit; they compared the "unlimited" graphics of this thing to Crysis on medium/low quality levels.

[SwissCm]

Hendricks266, on Sep 9 2010, 03:23 PM, said:

I read on Sonic Retro that the promises made by this were bullshit; they compared the "unlimited" graphics of this thing to Crysis on medium/low quality levels.

Yeah, the thread I read was on the SA Forums. I do remember a similar thread at Sonic Retro a while back too.
We seem to visit a lot of the same forums Hendricks266, what next, you'll become a goon?

[Stabs]

how on earth would you even animate voxels

[ReaperMan]

DanM, on Sep 9 2010, 02:06 AM, said:

how on earth would you even animate voxels

haven't you seen voxelstein 3d?

[Hendricks266]

DanM, on Sep 9 2010, 01:06 AM, said:

how on earth would you even animate voxels

Lots and lots of separate voxels.

[Stabs]

after watching that voxelstein stuff, i think all voxels are grouped into larger chunks and animated that way, the ammount of groups needed for a very high res model would be crazy, but limitless

[Jimmy]

Voxels rule.

[ReaperMan]

Captain Awesome, on Sep 10 2010, 07:37 PM, said:

Voxels rule.

QFT

[Martin]

Yeah, I like voxels in certain scenarios. They're awesome for bringing 2D content into 3D and retaining the overall 'style'. 3D Dot Game Heroes is a great example of this. Don't know whether that game is actually rendered with voxels or not, but it looks the same.

[EARTH DEFENCE FORCES]

It's baaaaaaccccckkkkkkkk........

[Master Fibbles]

I'm not sure how they do this stuff. Is this like the procedural rendering demos or some other graphic trick?

[Micky C]

I will say that it makes me look forward to when games really are made of voxels and have that level of detail, but it probably won't happen for another 10 years

[Stabs]

lol they can try, and then the carmack clicks his fingers fabricates the worlds most awesome voxel engine out of thin air and polygons become to new sprites

notch from minecraft said its all shit still anyway, just still repeating but on a larger scale

[Master Fibbles]

After reading through their site, I see that it is basically an engine that determines what polygons are shown at one time and only renders those polygons, This results in fewer polygons per frame and thus less CPU cycles. Interesting concept in optimization...

[Hendricks266]

Mr.Flibble, on 16 September 2011 - 06:50 PM, said:

After reading through their site, I see that it is basically an engine that determines what polygons are shown at one time and only renders those polygons, This results in fewer polygons per frame and thus less CPU cycles. Interesting concept in optimization...

Then they're still full of shit about OMG better graphics. Yes, you could have more detail because non-shown polygons are not rendered, but it's not the point-cloud lunacy they're making it out to be.

[Person of Color]

Totally a scam. This will be cool, though. I feel like computer graphics hardware as a whole has only three "Holy shit!" moments. The original Voodoo Graphics, the Voodoo2, and the Radeon 9700 Pro. I've been thinking Voxels will be the next big WHOAFUCK moment for a while now.

[Danukem]

Hendricks266, on 16 September 2011 - 09:15 PM, said:

Then they're still full of shit about OMG better graphics. Yes, you could have more detail because non-shown polygons are not rendered, but it's not the point-cloud lunacy they're making it out to be.

From their web site:

Quote

Unlimited Detail is basically a point cloud search algorithm. We can build enormous worlds with huge numbers of points, then compress them down to be very small. The Unlimited Detail engine works out which direction the camera is facing and then searches the data to find only the points it needs to put on the screen it doesn’t touch any unneeded points, all it wants is 1024*768 (if that is our resolution) points, one for each pixel of the screen. It has a few tricky things to work out, like: what objects are closest to the camera, what objects cover each other, how big should an object be as it gets further back. But all of this is done by a new sort of method that we call "mass connected processing". Mass connected processing is where we have a way of processing masses of data at the same time and then applying the small changes to each part at the end.

No, they have been very consistent about the "point-cloud lunacy". And according to their new web site, they convinced the Australian government to give them a $2 million grant.

[Hendricks266]

DeeperThought, on 18 September 2011 - 10:48 PM, said:

No, they have been very consistent about the "point-cloud lunacy". And according to their new web site, they convinced the Australian government to give them a $2 million grant.

Don't get trolled too hard. The videos they posted on YouTube that were met with such fanfare contained mostly technobabble. They did not explain what exactly the technology was. As such, this is the first I read of a meaningful technical description. Though, they would still do well to attention-whore less.

Perhaps we should have someone like Plagman elaborate on just how radical their system really is.

[Danukem]

Hendricks266, on 18 September 2011 - 11:09 PM, said:

Don't get trolled too hard. The videos they posted on YouTube that were met with such fanfare contained mostly technobabble. They did not explain what exactly the technology was. As such, this is the first I read of a meaningful technical description. Though, they would still do well to attention-whore less.

Perhaps we should have someone like Plagman elaborate on just how radical their system really is.

I haven't been trolled at all. I was merely pointing out that they have been spouting the same babble all along. And it doesn't speak well of a company that they manage to get a government grant, but can't convince industry insiders. If their technology really looked promising, video game companies would be all over it. I don't accept their insinuated conspiracy theory that card makers are afraid of the tech because it would destroy their business model, either. And I don't know why you would describe what I quoted as a "meaningful technical description."

[Hendricks266]

Ah. I'm tired.

Testimony from an expert would be the best thing for this thread.

[Hank]

Hendricks266, on 18 September 2011 - 11:24 PM, said:

Testimony from an expert would be the best thing for this thread.

here is a serious game engine developer, methinks
http://www.youtube.c...re=sub_widget_1
note the shadows and fog and so on, the stuff the gurus in Australia are still working on.

As for experts, lol, what are those? You wrote you are a programmer now, never mind experience
http://www.terathon....ne/download.php

then read books
http://www.mathfor3d...rogramming.com/
now you are the expert!

To render trillions of data bits is not possible in Real Time right now, it's that simple, well so I think, but I am no expert, just know a bit of maths