Unlimited Detail: Interview | Update

[Brytryne]

*This tech is OLD
*It does not move
*It's tiled
*You do not need 50 bajillion "atoms" per cubic micrometer in a real time enviromnent, unless you work at a hospital.

I wouldn't call it a scam but this guy certainly tries to come off as some revolutionary graphics Jesus who comes to bless gamers (who generally know nothing about how things work) with moar polygonz.

Voxels have been used in games before and there is no denying that the tree in his video looks nice but if this guy was even trying to be serious he would be honest about the fact that there is no chance in hell he is able to make an engine that visually and functionally using exclusively voxels outperforms pure polygon based engines or hybrids (which IIRC is his intent, haven't watched the video in a while).


“If you take uninspired content and go look at it at the molecular level, it’s still uninspired content.” -John Carmack

[Vespian]

*This tech is OLD
*It does not move
*It's tiled
*You do not need 50 bajillion "atoms" per cubic micrometer in a real time enviromnent, unless you work at a hospital.

I wouldn't call it a scam but this guy certainly tries to come off as some revolutionary graphics Jesus who comes to bless gamers (who generally know nothing about how things work) with moar polygonz.

Voxels have been used in games before and there is no denying that the tree in his video looks nice but if this guy was even trying to be serious he would be honest about the fact that there is no chance in hell he is able to make an engine that visually and functionally using exclusively voxels outperforms pure polygon based engines or hybrids (which IIRC is his intent, haven't watched the video in a while).


“If you take uninspired content and go look at it at the molecular level, it’s still uninspired content.” -John Carmack

He also concludes that what they are doing is not using Voxels, per definition. Everyone has given a different meaning to Voxels (apparently), so he calls it attoms. It's beyond me, but at least get your facts straight.

[Herecius]

*This tech is OLD
*It does not move
*It's tiled
*You do not need 50 bajillion "atoms" per cubic micrometer in a real time enviromnent, unless you work at a hospital.

I wouldn't call it a scam but this guy certainly tries to come off as some revolutionary graphics Jesus who comes to bless gamers (who generally know nothing about how things work) with moar polygonz.

Voxels have been used in games before and there is no denying that the tree in his video looks nice but if this guy was even trying to be serious he would be honest about the fact that there is no chance in hell he is able to make an engine that visually and functionally using exclusively voxels outperforms pure polygon based engines or hybrids (which IIRC is his intent, haven't watched the video in a while).


“If you take uninspired content and go look at it at the molecular level, it’s still uninspired content.” -John Carmack

I'd recommend at least watching the response video, instead of only going off of info that we have based on the initial vid, and Notch's response. The interview mentions another response from another, arguably MUCH more influential developer than Notch ever is, or ever will be, that being John Carmack. John Carmack says that at a practical development level, what Euclidian is doing is impossible in gaming... at least for the next couple of years. That's almost the total opposite of what Notch had to say, and to be honest, I'd take John Carmack, the Lord of All Gaming Development, over Notch any day.

[Brytryne]

He also concludes that what they are doing is not using Voxels, per definition. Everyone has given a different meaning to Voxels (apparently), so he calls it attoms. It's beyond me, but at least get your facts straight.

He calls it "attoms" because everyone know what an atom is and he is not selling his idea to developers but to gamers, which is a generally dumb idea unless you want a lot of "sympathy" among the majority of people with interest in computer graphics (who generally don't posses an ATOM of knowledge regarding it's functionality).

[Edge-]

Remeber when scientists long ago said the world wasnt flat? They were called crazie and frauds. Remember when it was suggested that the universe didnt revolve around the earth? That was a fraudulent idea back then. People will always resist change.

That has very little to do with whether or not a graphics engine is capable of doing what the company creating it says it can do. From everything I've read, it's sketchy as to whether it can work, and even more sketchy if it can work on current hardware. That's not saying it's impossible (it would be cool as hell), but I'm going to base my opinion (since I don't know a ton about this subject) off of the opinions of those more experienced/informed than I.

[Vespian]

He calls it "attoms" because everyone know what an atom is and he is not selling his idea to developers but to gamers, which is a generally dumb idea unless you want a lot of "sympathy" among the majority of people with interest in computer graphics (who generally don't posses an ATOM of knowledge regarding it's functionality).

Do you know what an Atom exactly is in the way he describes it? Could you give me the definition of what they're calling Atoms and not google/wiki it ? Now? I mean really? And I do not mean the definition in chemistry.

Things that are hard to define often get named to match the closest with the technique or composition that it matches, but it's just as subjective as calling something "Art". For all we know, they could simply have given it a name, considering they'd be working on the invention of the next decade if this turns out to be real.

[Serissa]

show me 20+ animated models in same place (no, I was not impressed by your static "island")
with complex lightning (20+ sources with reflections and refractions)
in real-time

oh wait... you can't?

[Edge-]

show me 20+ animated models in same place (no, I was not impressed by your static "island")
with complex lightning (20+ sources with reflections and refractions)
in real-time

oh wait... you can't?

Oh wait, it's not finished? Or did you forget about that part.

[Serissa]

Oh wait, it's not finished? Or did you forget about that part.

ok, let's say I'm potential investor (I'm not but let's say so )

show me at least something what your engine can do better than any existing 3d-engine?

be honest - there's nothing

[Wilian]

ok, let's say I'm potential investor (I'm not but let's say so )

show me at least something what your engine can do better than any existing 3d-engine?

be honest - there's nothing

But you aren't investor. They stated in the interview video that they have got by now all the money they needed and won't even accept new ones. There are no "potential investors" at this point they would show anything at all.

[Herecius]

ok, let's say I'm potential investor (I'm not but let's say so )
show me at least something what your engine can do better than any existing 3d-engine?
be honest - there's nothing

As Willian said, they don't need or want investors. Peeps should really actually watch the second interview (it's long, I know! Make a meal or something and have a seat) before making more snap judgements about the whole thing. If there is one thing we can never have too much of, it is information.

[Edge-]

As Willian said, they don't need or want investors. Peeps should really actually watch the second interview (it's long, I know! Make a meal or something and have a seat) before making more snap judgements about the whole thing. If there is one thing we can never have too much of, it is information.

We can definitely have too much information...

[Herecius]

We can definitely have too much information...

Absurd! There is no such thing. Bring on the forbidden infodatas. (PS: do not post forbidden infodatas in this thread.)

[Brytryne]

I'd recommend at least watching the response video, instead of only going off of info that we have based on the initial vid, and Notch's response. The interview mentions another response from another, arguably MUCH more influential developer than Notch ever is, or ever will be, that being John Carmack. John Carmack says that at a practical development level, what Euclidian is doing is impossible in gaming... at least for the next couple of years. That's almost the total opposite of what Notch had to say, and to be honest, I'd take John Carmack, the Lord of All Gaming Development, over Notch any day.

Just watched the video, Carmack's quote is twisted to fit their bias.
This should give you a much more realistic take on "infinite detail": http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Editori...oxels-and-more

[Herecius]

Just watched the video, Carmack's quote is twisted to fit their bias.
This should give you a much more realistic take on "infinite detail": http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Editori...oxels-and-more

Watched the Carmack interview as well, and yes, he definitely gave a nice and level take on it. His conclusion seems to be that what Euclidian appears to be doing is possible, but not definitive, and far from perfect. I think his words were that this direction of graphics would not be the cornerstone of a AAA title, but would be likely to be 'in the mix.'

Really though, the ultimate feeling I get from Euclidian isn't that they're a scam, but rather that they're trying something that simply isn't practical or doable. What I would hope is that something does come out of it in the end, that we hear back from them in a year or two after they're done 'going dark' and what not. I still love the idea of an artist using lasers to scan in an object into the rendering software, rather than trying to create an object from scratch in a 3D modelling program.

[Howard Moon]

I'd recommend at least watching the response video, instead of only going off of info that we have based on the initial vid, and Notch's response. The interview mentions another response from another, arguably MUCH more influential developer than Notch ever is, or ever will be, that being John Carmack. John Carmack says that at a practical development level, what Euclidian is doing is impossible in gaming... at least for the next couple of years. That's almost the total opposite of what Notch had to say, and to be honest, I'd take John Carmack, the Lord of All Gaming Development, over Notch any day.

Don't know what you have against Notch, but IMO he does have a couple of very food points. Quoting from his blog (source):

In the video, you can make up loads of repeated structured, all roughly the same size. Sparse voxel octrees work great for this, as you don’t need to have unique data in each leaf node, but can reference the same data repeatedly (at fixed intervals) with great speed and memory efficiency. This explains how they can have that much data, but it also shows one of the biggest weaknesses of their engine.

If you look at the demo "island", you will see that it is the same palmtree copy-pasted a billion times. The same 10 or so rocks on the floor, and the same elephant sculpture. I am no graphics expert, but I can see how repeating the same model at fixed intervals can be very efficient and make it look like you have a super powerful engine.

Another weakness is that voxels are horrible for doing animation, because there is no current fast algorithms for deforming a voxel cloud based on a skeletal mesh, and if you do keyframe animation, you end up with a LOT of data. It’s possible to rotate, scale and translate individual chunks of voxel data to do simple animation (imagine one chunk for the upper arm, one for the lower, one for the torso, and so on), but it’s not going to look as nice as polygon based animated characters do.

This also makes sense to me. And the fact that Euclidian don't show any animations whatsoever on their island kind of supports it. Notch also says there are currently no fast algorithms for morphing a voxel cloud. Maybe that's what Carmack meant when he said that using this for gaming would be impossible for the next few years?


Anyway, I know some people give Notch no credit simply because his game has "boxy" graphics, but he certainly knows a hell of a lot more about game development than anyone on this forum. And I trust him much more than the Euclidian people, their demo video filled with dubious claims, and their hardly professional-looking interviwewer.

[conqq]

Absurd! There is no such thing. Bring on the forbidden infodatas. (PS: do not post forbidden infodatas in this thread.)

I was so tempted too..

Don't know what you have against Notch, but IMO he does have a couple of very food points. Quoting from his blog (source):



If you look at the demo "island", you will see that it is the same palmtree copy-pasted a billion times. The same 10 or so rocks on the floor, and the same elephant sculpture. I am no graphics expert, but I can see how repeating the same model at fixed intervals can be very efficient and make it look like you have a super powerful engine.




This also makes sense to me. And the fact that Euclidian don't show any animations whatsoever on their island kind of supports it. Notch also says there are currently no fast algorithms for morphing a voxel cloud. Maybe that's what Carmack meant when he said that using this for gaming would be impossible for the next few years?


Anyway, I know some people give Notch no credit simply because his game has "boxy" graphics, but he certainly knows a hell of a lot more about game development than anyone on this forum. And I trust him much more than the Euclidian people, their demo video filled with dubious claims, and their hardly professional-looking interviwewer.

And what does Notch know? He's made ONE game and hardly keeps up at that.

[Deleted]

For those of you with little technical know-how.

This could work. But not until the technology increases.

It works by using cloud point technology to map out an object using "atoms" and then a cloud-polygon converter turns them into highly detailed polygons. the only problem with this is that you never see any animated or scripted pieces in the videos because they take a substantial amount more memory to create and move compared to standard still polygon shapes.

However, I wouldn't take anything notch says seriously, the bugger just steals coding from infiminer, throws it into a shitty java based engine and promises to update it while taking vacations for half the year

Edit: If John Carmack says something will work, it will work, that bastard is the Game Engine Wizard for a reason.

[conqq]

For those of you with little technical know-how.

This could work. But not until the technology increases.

It works by using cloud point technology to map out an object using "atoms" and then a cloud-polygon converter turns them into highly detailed polygons. the only problem with this is that you never see any animated or scripted pieces in the videos because they take a substantial amount more memory to create and move compared to standard still polygon shapes.

However, I wouldn't take anything notch says seriously, the bugger just steals coding from infiminer, throws it into a shitty java based engine and promises to update it while taking vacations for half the year.

Finally someone with a similar view. I have no idea why people herald to him like he's a famous programmer.

[Deleted]

Finally someone with a similar view. I have no idea why people herald to him like he's a famous programmer.

Because he is one of the first people to use voxel graphics in a semi decent way.

The funny thing is, Notch is one of the worst programmers in history, his choice of script (Java) is proof of that.