Voxels are back (http://www.advsys.net/ken/voxlap/voxlap03.htm)
Ooooh, how nifty.
Ken Silverman? I could be wrong but wasn't he the guy who made Ken's Labyrinth?
Yup, Yak; and he creted the Build engine, too - browse around his site and you find loadsa info.
Wow. I hadn't seen this in a while, but it looks much, MUCH better then when I last looked.
Ooooh, then someone can finally make Outcast 2. :)
Looking good!
It's Ken Silverman! :o, w00t, no wonder why that engine looks so damn pretty cool.
Heh, fun.
I completely leveled the place.
(http://www.eviltrailmix.com/img/leveled1.png)
Then I got creative with the scorch marks:
(http://www.eviltrailmix.com/img/leveled2.png)
(That's an S, not a 5.)
Holy crap, blowing up the environment is fun. I'd give my left armpit to see rocket launchers have that effect in Unreal Tournament.
And all that from a 500 measly kilobytes download, too.
If that thing had realistic physics it'd be the coolest thing ever.
AG5?2?!!
hehe
Sweet stuff, thanks Rode, downloading now...
--Snake
wow Scid and i went on a "what the fuck are voxels?" crusade a few years ago and i found his page, i would love to know what games would be like if voxels were chosen over polygons...
i emailed him and asked him how it was going and if we'd ever get to peek at the new engine and he said soon.
2 years soon
downloading now
eric
something like this perhaps...
(http://www.arstechnica.com/etc/games/3q99/outcast/water.jpg)
it's a screenie from Outcast btw...
Ehm. Dude. Impressive.
Heh, that looks cool. Gonna download now.
Hmm, i don't really know what voxels are, but i think i got an idea...
they're cars...
Argh!
Seeing that screenshot makes me want to install Outcast on my machine again... that game was just *too* good to be true.
And is also available on The Underdogs, if I'm not mistaken.... ;)
So, yeah, voxels are great. The only problem is that they're not accelerated with today's 3D hardware. This was one of the reasons why Outcast never really became a hype. Lots of computers back then couldn't play it properly. That, and the absurdly low resolution, of course.
Yeah, Outcast was amazing. But why oh why did they stick in that ridiculous LESN FLAER?
? I've never seen anything like this before!!! a 500k file inflates into over 120mb, and the worlds look awesome!!! How is this done without solids (polys I mean)???
Voxel stands for volume-pixel. In typical 3D, we have points connected to make lines and 3 lines together forming a triangle (Of course, some 3d apps don't use only triangles but 3D games do). The problem with this is that for a realistic scene we need 3 sets of coordinates (in x,y,z) for every triangle and then attributes for the triangle (Texture, alpha, masking, shadowing, bumpmap, environment map, etc.) It adds up to a lot of data for even the description of a simple box.
With volume-pixels, each "pixel" is not one "dot" on your monitor but rather a 3-dimensional cube. Imagine a landscape made out of building blocks and you get the general idea. Since each voxel is a small part of the whole, it can be assigned simply 1 color based on the color scheme of the whole. It requires only 1 set of coordinates - placing this "block" in 3d-space. The amount of data is reduced greatly and any shadowing or other lighting effects are generated to the map as a whole. The downside to voxels is that you can only be as detailed as the number of voxels generated, depending of the size of them. So, if you've got decent hardware CPU-wise and memory-wise then a modern voxel app can generate a nicely detailed scene.
Quote from: Nellie on Sun 21/09/2003 11:22:21
Yeah, Outcast was amazing. But why oh why did they stick in that ridiculous LESN FLAER?
True. :) But in that game, it didn't really bother me that much.
Did you hear Outcast 2 got cancelled? Very, very big loss for the gaming community there. Appeal is bankrupt, and the project is lost. For more info: http://www.outcastii.net/eng/index_eng.php
That's not an engine... THIS is an engine http://rainbow.cs.unipi.gr/~harkal/sylphis/
TheDude: I downloaded that. It just crashes. :P
Quote from: Trapezoid on Sun 21/09/2003 21:46:32
TheDude: I downloaded that. It just crashes. :P
Just download the physics demo video instead, it's pretty amazing for a one man effort.
Wow...I haven't even heard voxels mentioned in years. I remember when they were heralded as the Next Big Thing. Maybe they'll come back.
The only company I know to have used voxels is Westwood; Red Alert 2 was their last voxel game, before they started on polygons for C&C Generals
um, whatsitcalled used Voxels... some war game that was really stupid
dammit the name escapes me
imagine voxels as water that flows and splashes and all that awesome shit... man polygons are for suckers
i bet Mr. T pities them!
Didn't the Blade Runner game use voxels for character models?
I remember ancient Comanche using voxel landscapes.
(The helicopter simulation, not the indian tribe :P)
i wish blade runner had used voxels, or even polygons, the characters were 3D sprites, they get real blocky when they're close to the camera, but it's a stunning looking game, but then, i'm blade runner mad...
Quote from: MrColossal on Sun 21/09/2003 22:53:06
um, whatsitcalled used Voxels... some war game that was really stupid
Delta Force?
yea delta force
it was dumb, at least the AI was
and about the link The Dude posted, esseb explained it to me but it's still weird...
ah well
eric
I still think we'll witness an industry shift towards voxel technology in the near future. The way polygon engines work right now is inherently limited in terms on interaction.
YOU WILL SEE :(