Biggest Computer Graphics Advance Since 3D?

[maddogx 13]

There are no voxels in Minecraft, only textured cubes. ;)

[dmarkwick 261]

There are no voxels in Minecraft, only textured cubes. ;)

Right, but what IS a voxel? :)

[maddogx 13]

Right, but what IS a voxel? :)

If you're asking for my personal definition, I would say a voxel is a "volumetric pixel", which is not the same as "small cube". Voxels do not have a texture (unlike the cubes in Minecraft), but they may have a color and other surface information, such as specularity.

Of course the question is: "how is a voxel rendered when you get up close?" - and I'd say the answer is "it depends on the renderer". The simplest way would be to render each voxel as a simple circle or sphere. Cubes are possible too, of course, but there are also more interesting ways like "marching squares". (Which really just transforms voxel data into polygons.)

[dmarkwick 261]

If you're asking for my personal definition, I would say a voxel is a "volumetric pixel", which is not the same as "small cube". Voxels do not have a texture (unlike the cubes in Minecraft), but they may have a color and other surface information, such as specularity.

I think, if I were to define it, that a voxel by necessity must be a cube. Any other shape allows for either overlap or holes. My understanding of UD is that once a voxel becomes larger than one pixel, that it is then split down into it's lower resolution, until eventually you reach the lowest resolution where the cube nature of the finest grained voxel becomes apparent. Even then, I would expect that the rendering process could smooth them to appear, er, smooth :)

Of course the question is: "how is a voxel rendered when you get up close?" - and I'd say the answer is "it depends on the renderer". The simplest way would be to render each voxel as a simple circle or sphere. Cubes are possible too, of course, but there are also more interesting ways like "marching squares". (Which really just transforms voxel data into polygons.)

I'm pretty sure I've seen (early) voxel engines that render simple 2D squares/sprites etc, so you're right in that the engine decides. But I maintain that a voxel itself must represent a cube, even if the engine draws another shape.

[Hellhound 10]

They should have called this Infinite Repetition (some form of instancing ?) instead of Detail, I see very little unique elements and a whole lot of repetition going on. I'm not impressed by it.

[PuFu 4591]

i have used both point cloud data and voxels in 3d software before (3d scans, 3d coat voxel sculpt and the similar zbrush proprietary pixol).

No matter, this is by no means new technology in itself. I have not enough experience to say whether this can be used to draw large scale and complex INDIVIDUAL shapes. Animations, in my mind are the last thing to worry about, as one would work with some sort of cages/containers rather than individual voxels (or vertex painting tools used to skin a mesh to a skeleton/rig of some sort.)

Case of point, there is a long way from this technology to change the Real Time Renders and video game industry to the extent this is being advertised.

Polygons, while not exceptionals for rendering pruposes (unless some sort of mesh smooth/tesselation algorithm is used) have a very big advantage for the artist: are way easier to control when using the existing sub-d tools (as well as the the pixar ones) than a ton of geometry (where in the end sculpting is the only decent way to manipulate those).

[max power 21]

A voxel looks like whatever the renderer wants it to look like, Dmarkwick. The difference is giant fuck-off big polygon cubes are made of 8 vertices and a texture map, whereas if they were made up of voxels, they would be represented by a single point of a single colour, shaded to appear as cubes or shiny spheres or whatever.

I think this semantic argument about 'voxel means a lot of things' is a flawed one. Voxel means exactly one thing. Euclideon's CEO was denying that their technology was a voxel technology on the basis that they did not use ray tracing. That is retarded. The point that Notch was making was not how the renderer handled light or camera. It was specifically highlighting the similarity in voxel atom technology.

Similarly, he was contrasting what John Cormack and Notch were saying, suggesting that their views were mutually exclusive. I don't think that's accurate either. Notch was saying that we shouldn't believe Euclideon because they seems to require gigantic data sets. Cormack was saying that he doesn't feel like this is a viable technological solution today, maybe in a few years. Obviously, the 'maybe in a few years' is referring to the technological progress of computational power and storage media. They were both saying the same thing. They were both saying that they doubt the possibility of this being a viable solution for gaming right now. The only actual answer he gave to this criticism was that they are currently working on 'data compaction'. This implies that they are attempting to find a way to use less data to represent their point cloud shapes, which implies that even if their technology is not voxels, it shares similar drawbacks.

Edited August 24, 2011 by Max Power

[dmarkwick 261]

A voxel looks like whatever the renderer wants it to look like, Dmarkwick. The difference is giant fuck-off big polygon cubes are made of 8 vertices and a texture map, whereas if they were made up of voxels, they would be represented by a single point of a single colour, shaded to appear as cubes or shiny spheres or whatever.

I don't believe anyone here has a definitive view of what a voxel is. Including me BTW. At its most basic, a voxel seems to be a point in 3D space. The renderer might draw that point as anything (including a cube) but I don't think that any object that has an X,Y & Z point coordinate can be anything other than a cuboid area of space.

And I'm not sure how a single point of colour can be shaded to look like a sphere or a cube, unless by point you mean area, which I guess you do.

I think this semantic argument about 'voxel means a lot of things' is a flawed one. Voxel means exactly one thing. Euclideon's CEO was denying that their technology was a voxel technology on the basis that they did not use ray tracing. That is retarded. The point that Notch was making was not how the renderer handled light or camera. It was specifically highlighting the similarity in voxel atom technology.

Did the Euclideon CEO deny it was a voxel engine? I think he challenged the assertions that his engine was like any of the 3 example engines for various reasons, each of which seemed to be a variant of a voxel engine, but not the same as each other. So I think he was saying his engine is not like this or that particular voxel engine.

I think any engine that works on an "atomic" paradigm is by necessity a voxel engine, in that each element has a X, Y and Z component and a search algorithm looks up the current view. By the sounds of it the major leap he has made is this search algorithm, and also maybe the granularity of the models.

[Minoza 11]

Euclideon's CEO was denying that their technology was a voxel technology on the basis that they did not use ray tracing. That is retarded.

No he didn't... He just said they didn't do any raytracing.

[max power 21]

I don't believe anyone here has a definitive view of what a voxel is. Including me BTW. At its most basic, a voxel seems to be a point in 3D space. The renderer might draw that point as anything (including a cube) but I don't think that any object that has an X,Y & Z point coordinate can be anything other than a cuboid area of space.

And I'm not sure how a single point of colour can be shaded to look like a sphere or a cube, unless by point you mean area, which I guess you do.

No, I mean a point.

Here is an example of voxels as two different kinds of circular particles.

Here is an example of voxels as shaded cubes with lines drawn on the corners.

Are they true 3d boxes? I doubt it. I think these are just visualizations of individual volumetric picture elements.

Here are some voxels representing complex shapes. Notice there is only one colour per voxel. Are they cubes? Some of them seem on the road to be foreshortened. The ones on the car don't really seem to have the same effect. If they were little 3d cubes, they the edge of the car would not be so jaggy.

No he didn't... He just said they didn't do any raytracing.

I know what he said is difficult to understand, because it was a load of bullshit. He was saying that critics were saying his technology is like other voxel technologies. He was replying that it's not like other technologies because other technologies do things differently, like raytracing. He was entirely sidestepping the voxel argument by distracting you with raytracing like it's somehow related. Replying with that argument is like saying his technology is unlike voxel technology because they can't use that technology in 3d displays (and furthermore 3d displays lack visual quality and are only in one colour, and you can see the lasers flying around while their technology looks awesome on LCD displays- much better than lasers). It's just irrelevant what the visualization is when the supposition is that the core information is based on voxel technology. The main criticisms are based on a storage limitation argument. No one is proposing that it uses raytracing. The only reason to bring it up in support of his rebuttal is to use a red herring to display irrelevant differences in other technologies.

Edited August 24, 2011 by Max Power

[dmarkwick 261]

To be honest, I think people are saying "but it's voxels!" like its some sort of curse or revelation, whereas when people see another traditional game engine they don't shout "but it's polygons!"

Think of the differences between all the traditional game engines that use polygons, all of them really. Real Virtuality. CryEngine. UnrealEngine. Dirt etc, all have different abilities & features, yet no-one shouts "polygons".

Unlike, apparently, a voxel engine, where people can shout it like it means something :D

[max power 21]

To be honest, I think people are saying "but it's voxels!" like its some sort of curse or revelation, whereas when people see another traditional game engine they don't shout "but it's polygons!"

Think of the differences between all the traditional game engines that use polygons, all of them really. Real Virtuality. CryEngine. UnrealEngine. Dirt etc, all have different abilities & features, yet no-one shouts "polygons".

Unlike, apparently, a voxel engine, where people can shout it like it means something :D

Actually, on MobyGames, Crysis and Crysis: Warhead are listed as games that use voxels in some way. I don't know to what extent, or if it's even true, but someone is suggesting that they use voxels in some fashion.

I think the issue is that people are saying, "It looks like voxels, and voxels have very large data sets, so your supposition that this will revolutionize the gaming industry is somewhat overstated considering a game using these environments would take up hundreds or thousands of gigabytes regardless of the actual rendering speed", to which they initially replied, "It's not voxels, it's point cloud data". This trips peoples' bullshit alarms. Now they are saying that it is voxels in that it is based on atomic points in space. This does not differentiate them from voxels enough to make the concern invalid.

Edited August 24, 2011 by Max Power

[dmarkwick 261]

Actually, on MobyGames, Crysis and Crysis: Warhead are listed as games that use voxels in some way. I don't know to what extent, or if it's even true, but someone is suggesting that they use voxels in some fashion.

Having seen videos of the terrain editor apparently painting caves into hills I would guess that the editor is volumetric, possibly converting to mesh upon export? Guess.

[b101_uk 10]

well if you scale down triangle so they are very small so are almost always sub pixel on even on a high resolution screen there becomes a point where storing the data for a triangle disproportionally bigger than that of just describing it as a single point

Take a triangle:

3 vertices which each require there position in x, y, z so that 9 high precision numbers.

1 normal which is another high precision number for x, y, z space and another number for direction.

4 numbers between 0 and 255 to describe RGBA

Vs.

An atom/voxel/whatever:

3 high precision numbers for x, y, z position.

1 number for normal direction

4 numbers between 0 and 255 to describe RGBA

An a small value to describe the blob that will be shown there.

The net saving of the latter is a at least 7 high precision numbers being stored when triangles get extremely small.

[max power 21]

Well, maybe. It's true there is 3 vertices per triangle, but there is 4 per 2 triangles, 5 for 3, 6 for 4, and so on on a contiguous surface.

[sabre4809 0]

Thank god the world isn't completely full of you people, we(humans) would get/would have got no where.

[max power 21]

Thank god the world isn't completely full of you people, we(humans) would get/would have got no where.

When you have a rational thought, feel free to come back!

[b101_uk 10]

Well, maybe. It's true there is 3 vertices per triangle, but there is 4 per 2 triangles, 5 for 3, 6 for 4, and so on on a contiguous surface.

true, but that is assuming the renderer/engine/file format/etc is not splitting the 2 or more triangles that make up a 4 or more edged polygon so every triangle has its own unique vertices given that if 2 triangles share 2 common vertices you are only going to get the best efficacy if they are planar thus the 2 common vertices use the same data besides their common x, y, z position i.e. smoothing group/angle, vertex shader etc etc can all require split unshared vertices.

[stakex 0]

When you have a rational thought, feel free to come back!

Heh, not like this thread is filled with them or anything.

I'm not going to totally defend the guys at Euclideon, and who knows if they will ever come close to doing what they promise. However, I do know one thing for sure: No one who has posted in this thread, knows exactly what Euclideon is doing or is capable of. People do in fact come up with new ideas from time to time, and its more then possible they have actually made an advancement that makes what they claim possible.

Admittedly, the reason no one knows if its BS or not is because they have been suspiciously quiet, and often dodgy with the specifics on their work. Its possible thats because its all smoke and mirrors (or an outright scam)... but its also possible thats just how they want to handle the media. One other thing is for sure: They did in fact receive $2 million in funding from the Australian Federal Government last year. Australia sure as hell would not have given out such a grant for a company to toy around with 20 year old technology. They obviously liked what they saw.

Another thing that I keep thinking of is when OnLive first revealed itself. A whole lot of people said they were full of shit, and could never come close to what they promised. Turned out, they actually did come pretty damn close... and shut a lot of people up in the process. So who knows, perhaps Euclideon will end up shutting most of you guys up.

Only time will tell.

[Archamedes 10]

what a bunch of grumpy never impressed man children this forum has. Can nobody ever think positive about anything related to new games and technology anymore.

[celery 8]

what a bunch of grumpy never impressed man children this forum has. Can nobody ever think positive about anything related to new games and technology anymore.

That's rich. A company that purposefully beats around the bush whenever it comes to the obvious suspicions about the engine's limitations deserves only skepticism. The engine's adoptability would be laughably easy to prove with a demo but instead we get boring and repetitive videos where annoying people are trying to convince you to believe what they're telling you, because the footage itself doesn't do it for anyone with two connecting brain cells.

[max power 21]

No one who has posted in this thread, knows exactly what Euclideon is doing or is capable of.

So who knows, perhaps Euclideon will end up shutting most of you guys up.

We of course don't know, and that's part of the issue. What they say sounds like a lot of hype, though. It really sounds like they are distorting the facts. It isn't difficult to silence people who are asking questions. Giving them answers usually does that. Instead they blow more smoke. I would be delighted if Euclideon's work meant I didn't need to buy another 500 dollar graphics card.

what a bunch of grumpy never impressed man children this forum has. Can nobody ever think positive about anything related to new games and technology anymore.

This is exactly Euclideon's response to skeptics, which is the problem.

[dmarkwick 261]

Well, all I saw was a demo that was a lot more impressive than any other demo of similar nature before. That's a good enough start for me :)

And make no mistake: once the video card's abilities are utilised then the push for maximum features will still drive the need for a good card :) fingers crossed though that the reason will be far, far superior features.

[[aps]gnat 28]

LOL .... funny how the 8 or so pages of NAY sayers has died off since that last video ..... :D

Looked pretty impressive to me.

The only odd bit to me: It does seem an odd way to run such a business ..... of that size.

But hey, what would I know about the right way to run a small software technology company ....

[dm 9]

Gnat;2012126']LOL .... funny how the 8 or so pages of NAY sayers has died off since that last video .....

Maybe because we cant be bothered repeating the same factoids about how its not really ground breaking?