Floating atoms graphics vs polygon graphics.
 

Hey.

Is this something to get all hyped about?

Euclideon Island Demo 2011

They are called Voxels. Novalogic use some hybrid intheir old military games like Delta Force.

I found it mildly interesting, but it's hard to seperate the facts from the bullshit.

The old classic outcast used voxels it was really ahead of its time….. but there are some things which are not good about them… it would take too long and be too technical to explain here… but you can read about it if you google a little.

Also you can do unlimited detail with the new feature of latest graphics software GPU-accelerated tessellation features.

When I see an actual game/demo using this - running on my own system, I'll start being interested :)

Sure, it looks intriguing - but we all know how much the bullshit factor can weigh.

Look more like point sprites than voxels.

Yes, solves surface geometry problems (as do many other methods), but creates many other problems instead.

Bring on ray tracing please.

Intel had something going but it fizzled out.

Hehe, no the presentation doesn't inspire confidence. That their domain is registred with a hotmail account doesn't help either.

Raytracing is really the golden grail

They are not Voxels. They are point cloud.
Found this at Reddit that says otherwise. ;)

I can't wait to have my games using this tech.

It's been some time since I followed 3d development so excuse me if I'm slightly deprecated. ;) In terms of storage and aquicition it's pretty much the same, though point-clouds are irregular while voxels are regular.

What is new to me is point-cloud rendering. For detail read this explanation.

they already confirmed on the about section in their website that they are using voxels…. so I don't think you need to discuss. Also look at the youtube tags.

The guy who created Minecraft calls it BS:
http://notch.tumblr.com/

Makes sense. The point-cloud rendering technique stem from this article in 2005. The technique is for old fashioned polygons. It's not releated to level of detail which is promoted in the video, but is an acceleration method for incident lighting.

Their "unlimited detail" still has to adhere to reality of disk storage limitations. You see in their video that it's the same models repeated everywhere. While you might have 10-15 models of high density, as Dragon Age II has shown us, gamers aren't particularly happy about copy & paste level design. ;)

Also, here is a discussion from 2008 about the same company.

The best solution is always a hybrid of existing ones imo. Just clutch Z-buffers, raytracing (etc. global illumination in general), voxels, … and you got your killer algorithm ;-)

As far as I know that's what they do now in renderman and consorts, combine the best of Z-buffer (fast) + raytracing (refraction, reflection, fuzzy shadows) to generate all the CGI in movies. Might be wrong though, too lazy to look it up.

The techdemo led to some wide publicity in mainstream media. Another developer who works for Naughty Dog suspects its vaporware, commenting on the lack of dynamic lighting and objects, rendering it completely useless for gaming.

I agree mostly because of the animation argument. In general I agree if they could pull this off then I would be ground breaking but animation is tough enough with the skeleton/keyframing techniques currently used but there are no good techniques for translating that to voxels yet that I've seen.

Anyway this demo didn't show anything really related to animating humanoids or animals though they tried to give the impression it was there. I'm sure they will promise that is coming and perhaps it is but looks like it will be years before they have an engine that can really compete with ones today. Anyway I wish them luck and hope they really are successful but I think its still way to early.

I didn't mean to stir up anything by this. I don't know zip about anything.
I thought that some new tech was going to revolutionnize our world.
That is all. :)

It is easy to get swayed by smooth talkers. Just listen to this guy for instance.