id Tech 6, voxels strike back.

[DeadlyNinja]

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpEpAFGplnI

German article (I can't read it): http://www.gamestar.de/hardware/specials/1956284/neue_id_software_engine_mit_voxel_grafik.html

I think that bacon man is made entirely of voxels. I know what voxels are -- at least the basics -- but could it really change the future of graphical rendering. I know voxels aren't exactly new either.

Oh, and whatever the hell happened to Tech 5?

 

[Davros]

I liked voxels the only problem I had with them was the size if they were sub pixel they would look much better

 

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

There are much better articles in German...
JC speaks to the world: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=532&type=expert&pid=1
http://raytracey.blogspot.com/
http://s08.idav.ucdavis.edu/olick-current-and-next-generation-parallelism-in-games.pdf
http://ompf.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=904

...

Oh, and whatever the hell happened to Tech 5?

id tech5 is one step forward ("Mega-Texture"), id tech6 is the next step ("Mega-Geometry").

I don't think, it's the Holy Grail, but John Carmacks knows, what he is doing. Today: A tree in front of your face looks like a tree, but far away it's just an ugly something. With Voxels the same tree always looks like a tree.

 

[Zaphod]

My German sucks, but there isn't any new information in that article is there? "Tech 6" seems like just their conjecture.

The demo is from here, I believe (his annotated presentation is neat), and there are also some discussion about the virtues of volumetric pixels in other threads around here.

 

[bowman]

sparse voxel octree, same as the brilliant looking lightstage demos.

 

[V3]

A tree in front of your face looks like a tree, but far away it's just an ugly something. With Voxels the same tree always looks like a tree.

But will that tree behaves like one ?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Oooooh, awesome news. If he pulls this off I'll completely forgive them for the botched job that was Doom 3.

I absolutely LOVE Voxels. Unfortunately Novalogic was the only company that made much use of hem in the PC gaming space. But man they did some amazing things. I was sad when they finally gave up on voxels and went with regular triangle based rendering, although I can understand why at the time.

Still the original Delta Force was absolutely incredible for the incredible view distances it had compared to anything else out at the time. But like Davros said the size of the voxels were just too large. It still looked really good at the time, however...

Man, now I'm exited. Most exciting gaming news I've heard in YEARS.

Although I do have one concern though. How are they going to deal with pixel/voxel crawl? It was quite noticeable in that youtube video even with the blur from the video.

That gigavoxel demo was really impressive also, but 32 Gigabytes of graphics data for the realtime CT scan flythrough, dang. And the pixel crawl/aliasing was particularly bad in one part of it. BTW - the gigavoxel wasn't idtech, but was in one of the blogs linked above.

I wonder if Larrabee will be more suited for this type of thing?

Last Edit D): On that same blog that new voxel rendering of the top part of Ruby's head is freaking amazing. The eyes and the hair are quite realistic.

Bah, now I'm all thinking of voxels and everything. I'm going to be disappointed in everything until someone delivers.

Regards,
SB

 

[brain_stew]

Oooooh, awesome news. If he pulls this off I'll completely forgive them for the botched job that was Doom 3.

What botched job? Carmack's job was the technology side, and Doom 3 delivered in droves in that area. id tech 4 still impresses me an awful lot more that most modern game engines.

 

[Kurt]

What botched job? Carmack's job was the technology side, and Doom 3 delivered in droves in that area. id tech 4 still impresses me an awful lot more that most modern game engines.

Indeed. Been replaying D³ and expansion recently and can't believe it's been five years since its release.

 

[Love_In_Rio]

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpEpAFGplnI

German article (I can't read it): http://www.gamestar.de/hardware/specials/1956284/neue_id_software_engine_mit_voxel_grafik.html

I think that bacon man is made entirely of voxels. I know what voxels are -- at least the basics -- but could it really change the future of graphical rendering. I know voxels aren't exactly new either.

Oh, and whatever the hell happened to Tech 5?

That demo is from John Olick, ex Naughty Dog, ex ID and actually working for Sony.

 

[Arwin]

And it's from 7-8 months ago, right?

 

[Love_In_Rio]

And it's from 7-8 months ago, right?

I think yes. It was posted in beyond3d somewhere.

 

[Arnold Beckenbauer]

But will that tree behaves like one ?

Yes.

(No wind, no rain, vacuum...)

 

[spacemonkey]

This is from last August's SIGGRAPH talk by Jon Olick. Has any interesting work been published since on SVOs? Any new papers, vids?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yes.

(No wind, no rain, vacuum...)

Heh, you should take a look at the trees in Vanguard sometime. I wish more games would have trees that sway in the wind. And when there's a storm they can sway particularly violently. A bit exaggerated at times, but does more to immerse me in a game than say shadows.

Regards,
SB

 

[Raqia]

I wonder how lighting and animation will be handled in this new rendering model.

 

[Sxotty]

Every time voxels comes up it reminds me that I think personally voxels will really help physics move forward as well since the world will be made up of defined small units that could have mass and adhesion/friction between them. It could make for some really interesting stuff.

 

[digitalwanderer]

I'm all for voxels, voxels mean a more destructible environment.

 

[V3]

Yes.

Can you use something like morph on voxels, without screwing up the accelerated data structure?

What about control points on voxels with some sort of interpolation to fixed any crack on the surface?

 

[jlippo]

I wonder how lighting and animation will be handled in this new rendering model.

You can store normal information to voxels just like you would in anything else, I would guess that deferred approach would work nicely.
There is no reason why normal lighting/shadow tricks wouldn't work.

Can you use something like morph on voxels, without screwing up the accelerated data structure?

What about control points on voxels with some sort of interpolation to fixed any crack on the surface?

Is there a reason to actually touch the voxels?
Wouldn't it be easier to skew the object-space into a different shapes.