New interview "console Crysis"

[ultragpu]

http://www.gamepro.com/computer/pc/games/features/89988.shtml
"but adding support for elements like voxel technology is no simple feat, certainly nothing a console system can handle...at least, not in the near future. And that's why it's doubtful we'll see Crysis on the Xbox 360 or PS3 anytime soon."
what is that voxel technology he spoke of? is it really that taxing for consoles? crytek keeps confusing the shiEt out of me in every interviews they had.

*fixed. sorry about the missing link.

 

[Rangers]

So cut out the voxels

That is my useless tech comment for the day.

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

eh....which interview was that

 

[pc999]

Voxels are like "3D pixels" (imagine a world made of litle cubes, each of those cubes would be a voxel) and they are really taxing on memory, where are they using them, in the clouds?

 

[ultragpu]

the voxels are used for the ground says in the interview.

 

[groper]

Voxels are like "3D pixels" (imagine a world made of litle cubes, each of those cubes would be a voxel) and they are really taxing on memory, where are they using them, in the clouds?

from the interview: " dynamic terrain has support for voxel technology to offer real 3d carving"

 

[Polygon Crusher]

Sounds good I might say. Nice to see that the PC is the hardware able to present new methods of rendering and also be able to do it in real-time (yes I know voxels existed back a long time ago in games like Comanche 1-3 and Outcast).

 

[groper]

copy from wikipedia:

• Many NovaLogic games have used voxel-based rendering technology, including the Delta Force series
• Westwood Studios' Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 use voxels to render certain vehicles
• Outcast, a game made by Belgian developer Appeal (now bankrupt), sports outdoor landscapes that are rendered by a voxel engine
• The turn-based strategy game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri renders all units and terrain in 3D using voxels
• The computer games Vangers and Perimeter both use a voxel renderer.
• Master of Orion 3 uses voxel graphics to render space battles and solar systems. Battles displaying 1000 ships at a time were rendered on computers without hardware graphic acceleration.

Also "The videogame A+M+O+K for the Sega Saturn makes use of voxels in its scenarios."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLRFenvBimE

 

[TheChefO]

from the interview: " dynamic terrain has support for voxel technology to offer real 3d carving"

What did they use in Magic carpet to achieve realtime deformable terrain? It wasn't voxels.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The problems with voxels is memory consumption. If the voxels are only for terrain, I dare say the consoles could manage similar with procedurally generated voxel maps for the visable area, depending on the complexity of the terrain. If the voxels are used for vegetation too, I'd have my doubts.

Do they mention what level of PC performance you need to enable the voxel terrain? Presumably on most machines it'll be a textured polymesh like usual.

 

[DieH@rd]

what is that voxel technology he spoke of?.

-

Outcast is an action-adventure computer game by Belgian developer Appeal, released in 1999 by publisher Infogrames.

The game uses a voxel engine to render its objects and textures. This unique method is purely software-based; it does not rely on any hardware-acceleration via a graphics card. A voxel engine was chosen because there is no performance hit when rendering round or curved surfaces, thus allowing for a much more detailed Landscape. Had the same level of detail seen in Outcast been attempted on a hardware-accelerated polygon engine, there would have been a significant drop in performance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_(game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voxel


Aaahhh... Good old times...

 

[Nesh]

Makes me wonder why havent they been using this technique to decrease performance hit with more detailed backrounds

 

[BoardBonobo]

Wasn't there a really old helicopter game, Apache I think, that used voxels to render the terrain. That was done in software. I remember watching it running on a 386DX and thinking it looked pretty cool!

 

[Rodéric]

-

Outcast is an action-adventure computer game by Belgian developer Appeal, released in 1999 by publisher Infogrames.

The game uses a voxel engine to render its objects and textures. This unique method is purely software-based; it does not rely on any hardware-acceleration via a graphics card. A voxel engine was chosen because there is no performance hit when rendering round or curved surfaces, thus allowing for a much more detailed Landscape. Had the same level of detail seen in Outcast been attempted on a hardware-accelerated polygon engine, there would have been a significant drop in performance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_(game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voxel


Aaahhh... Good old times...

Best PC game of all times.
But the game only render the Terrain using Voxel technology, characters, building, vegetation, water and everything else are polygon based.

 

[Nesh]

Wasn't there a really old helicopter game, Apache I think, that used voxels to render the terrain. That was done in software. I remember watching it running on a 386DX and thinking it looked pretty cool!

Soviet Strike possibly??

Best PC game of all times.
But the game only render the Terrain using Voxel technology, characters, building, vegetation, water and everything else are polygon based.

Indeed. And underrated. I am amazed on how good it looks even today. I wish I could find it somewhere to download it.

 

[swaaye]

Voxels have been in use in games for a long time. The first one I remember is Comanche Maximum Overkill. 1992. They made a big splash back then.

 

[DieH@rd]

Indeed. And underrated. I am amazed on how good it looks even today. I wish I could find it somewhere to download it.

If you really want to try it i i suggest http://www.old-games.ru [without CGI intro animation, and their server is slow™]

And the second site I recommend is eBay.

 

[Nesh]

If you really want to try it i i suggest http://www.old-games.ru [without CGI intro animation, and their server is slowâ„¢]

And the second site I recommend is eBay.

Thanks

 

[ultragpu]

so, by my understanding is it the more complex the game engine becomes, the more taxing voxels become exponentially? if it couldnt be done on 512mb console systems, does it mean we're gonna need 1G memory pc gpus to run crysis?

 

[Skrying]

so, by my understanding is it the more complex the game engine becomes, the more taxing voxels become exponentially? if it couldnt be done on 512mb console systems, does it mean we're gonna need 1G memory pc gpus to run crysis?

No.