NERDGASM ALERT: Detailed Rendering of CG just got infinately better. The polygon is dead

Seems to me it would be good for static environments, but as for dynamical lightning, collision detection, rag-doll physics, and so on, I'm highly doubtful it would combine well. It appears to be some kind of pre-rendered environment that uses procedural methods - not sure how. The thing about pre-rendered things is that they're not meant to be goofed with. It's like snapping a picture of a 3d world and sending it to the monitor. Once it's a picture, it's mostly hands-off. In a broad sense, pre-rendered things are like that with only iffy amounts of dynamism.

Someone mentioned voxel-graphics and I'm thankful for that - added to my favorites. I remember Comanche the PC game used voxel-rendering back in the day. I can remember seeing it in the computer section! I also remember how one of the aircraft games I played somehow used cylinder or shape-rendering when it manifested the actual aircraft models - it resulted in a very smooth appearance so that individual polygons were not visible. (i just spent some time googling and found the name of the rendering technique for this: goraud shading)

I program as a hobby, but 3d is not my field. The most i've done is calculate the angle(s) of a triangle. That's simple trig that you can access in a million different places on the net. It can allow you to do everything from calculating a slope angle to rotating an image to doing brute force ray-tracing. I have, however, messed around with perlin noise and procedural ideas. I haven't really got to a finished implementation stage though. So in large part my knowledge is very weak.

Google earth is impressive to me. Even just briefly, I was able to see how enormous our planet is. Being able to have a pixel for each square half-a-foot of the planet is no small task. If you only include the surface, and then only its height, you come to a figure of 10's of thousands of terabytes. I think for what I was doing, it was 70% of the planet and nearly 30,000 terabytes estimated. (i might be remembering wrong, but either way, it had to be done procedurally)

When you're at that scale, you can forget roaming algorithms and a lot of dynamism as well. There's just too much scale going on. So you have to be a lot more forgiving and be willing to trade some quality for quantity. Nothing is free! And something else important to know is that we already have examples of realistic planets: mercury, venus, earth, etc. I wonder if we'll use them as models before we're able to make our own that're equally deep and realistic? I mean, could it be that storage space will outpace our ability to make realistic planets? Just an idea that I think ties into the scanning method mentioned by the creator of Unlimited Power (omg is that what it's called?). Sometimes it's easier to scan something than it's to create it from scratch.

1/Realism=Size. Unless we can tap into other dimensions for processing, we'll never be able to simulate our universe with anything less than the universe. We're fighting conservation laws. We may be able to cast estimates, or fuzzy approximations, but in the end, you cannot trick god. Models are models. They're not reality. Thus, I think Unlimited Power is the wrong name.

I wrote an article about that subject a while ago:

cowboyprogramming.com...

Shattering Reality

How it is impossible to model reality, and how we will always be faking it.

Programmers and game designers sometimes start out a project with the noble intention of making the most realistic game possible. But as they progress, they discover that their initial dreams of realism are somewhat difficult to implement in a practical manner. Firstly, in the area of player control, the most realistic physics is often not the most enjoyable physics. Secondly, in the area of non-interactive effects such as explosions, smoke, etc, the programmer quickly finds that trying to accurately simulate the underlying physics is computationally infeasible.
This article discusses the problems of simulating reality, with particular reference to shattering glass.

64 'atoms' per cubic millimeter: there's ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why this level of 'point cloud' rendering can't be applied to the physics collision model.



Also, imagine 'viral degeneration' of the point-cloud data for explosions in landscape and WOUNDS IN BODIES... and other 'uses of such a degenerative methodology'...

Oh, yes!

mikephilbin.blogspot.com...

There's no reason for all of this hype over infinite detail graphics. The better something looks, the more processing power it takes to run it. We use polygons right now so as many people as possible can play games without having to purchase a supercomputer. With atoms instead of polygons I don't even want to think what the minimum system requirements would be.

Originally posted by Mike Philbin
64 'atoms' per cubic millimeter: there's ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why this level of 'point cloud' rendering can't be applied to the physics collision model.

Other than doubling the size of your dataset to include surface normals, you mean?

Most types of game would probably use a polygon collision layer over the top.

If you want proof that it works, there's a real-time demo in this interview:



It also explains more how it works, as I understood it, the engine only renders what your monitor can see by using a search engine, so that's one "atom" for every pixel. So that's how they don't have to use a lot of processing power.

reply to post by bl4ke360


We're going over old ground now. No one is doubting that the videos are real, rather a static, unlit voxel engine is not groundbreaking.

Originally posted by john_bmth
reply to post by bl4ke360

 

We're going over old ground now. No one is doubting that the videos are real, rather a static, unlit voxel engine is not groundbreaking.

A static unlit voxel with that amount of geometry running on a craptop IS ground breaking. Ground breaking enough for the Australian government to give him 2mil. Both you and Notch can deny it all you two want but the fact remains that this will be the new technology to sweep the market.

Originally posted by BIGPoJo

Originally posted by john_bmth
reply to post by bl4ke360

 

We're going over old ground now. No one is doubting that the videos are real, rather a static, unlit voxel engine is not groundbreaking.

A static unlit voxel with that amount of geometry running on a craptop IS ground breaking. Ground breaking enough for the Australian government to give him 2mil. Both you and Notch can deny it all you two want but the fact remains that this will be the new technology to sweep the market.

Really? And what exactly are you basing this on? Some videos and some marketing blurb? 2mil is nothing for a government to invest. Such an investment means absolutely nothing whatsoever as it does not in any way validate their claims. Why do you persist to cheerlead technology you do not understand in a field you have absolutely no background in? It's really getting quite silly now.

Originally posted by john_bmth

Originally posted by BIGPoJo

Originally posted by john_bmth
reply to post by bl4ke360

 

We're going over old ground now. No one is doubting that the videos are real, rather a static, unlit voxel engine is not groundbreaking.

A static unlit voxel with that amount of geometry running on a craptop IS ground breaking. Ground breaking enough for the Australian government to give him 2mil. Both you and Notch can deny it all you two want but the fact remains that this will be the new technology to sweep the market.

Really? And what exactly are you basing this on? Some videos and some marketing blurb? 2mil is nothing for a government to invest. Such an investment means absolutely nothing whatsoever as it does not in any way validate their claims. Why do you persist to cheerlead technology you do not understand in a field you have absolutely no background in? It's really getting quite silly now.

Why are you trying to downgrade one of the largest sums of money ever given to a gaming company? Are you really Notch?

reply to post by BIGPoJo


You're so quick to dismiss and belittle industry opinion (carmack, notch) so I can only assume you're an expert with some inside info, thus I have some questions for you:

1) what exactly makes their voxel engine so unique and revolutionary? Contrast this with the limitations of existing voxel rendering techniques and implementations.

2) what are the limitations of their voxel engine and how do they propose on circumventing them? Dynamic scenes, physics, dynamic lighting and so on.

3) given the current power and ubiquity of existing GPU hardware, what specifically are the shortcomings of hardware accelerated, triangle-based rendering pipelines that "unlimited detail" technology will address and improve on?

4) how will "unlimited detail" excede existing advanced texture mapping and lighting techniques in terms of performance and detail on contemporary GPU hardware? What are the limitations of such techniques that "unlimited detail" will improve on?

5) How will "unlimited detail" keep pace with GPU hardware as vertex and fragment throughput continues to increase? More importantly, how exactly will "unlimited detail" steal GPU acceleration's head start?

6) how have you derived your answers to my questions from the video demonstrations of their "unlimited detail" alone?

I look forward to your response.

reply to post by john_bmth


I will simply answer your questions like this. When this tech hits the market you should not be allowed to use it. You can continue to play Minecraft with Notch while everyone else is playing QuakeLiveUD. Have a good day sir.

reply to post by BIGPoJo


Why are you side stepping my questions? You've made many bold statements but have not backed up a single one with substance. Answer my questions otherwise stop making unfounded statements born of ignorance. You persist in belittling notch so put your money where you mouth is and start talking shop.

Originally posted by john_bmth
reply to post by BIGPoJo

 

Why are you side stepping my questions? You've made many bold statements but have not backed up a single one with substance. Answer my questions otherwise stop making unfounded statements born of ignorance. You persist in belittling notch so put your money where you mouth is and start talking shop.

I am not sidestepping your questions I just can't answer all of them because I do not work for Bruce Dell. Read this snippet from the guy that interviewed Bruce Dell. Keep in mind that he signed NDAs so he could not answer your questions either but we can assume he has the answers based on this.

After spending a whole day with Bruce and coming to understand how the technology actually works, the thing that amazes me is that nobody has come up with this method in the past. But isn’t that the way with all technologies?

I totally agree with Bruce’s decision not to release unfinished products. The technology at this stage, although progressing nicely, would still be considered "Alpha." Unlike other technologies, Euclideon is not just expanding on someone else’s work, it is creating a brand new system from scratch. It’s going to take time for the developers and manufacturers to get a grasp on working with this new approach to 3D graphics, if it in fact one day does get traction.

SOURCE

Bruce Dell does have a new way to render things that no one else has thought of. This technique is so alien to the industry that professionals in the industry have trouble grasping it. You do not grasp it. Notch does not grasp it.

When the full scale demo comes out next year I expect a "Well I was wrong" from you. If it turns out to be vapor ware I will personally necro this thread and admit I was wrong.

Also, I get the feeling like you did not watch the interview. At the very least read about the interview.

Double post

Originally posted by BIGPoJo
A static unlit voxel with that amount of geometry running on a craptop IS ground breaking. Ground breaking enough for the Australian government to give him 2mil. Both you and Notch can deny it all you two want but the fact remains that this will be the new technology to sweep the market.

No engine programmers actually in the games industry consider it groundbreaking. He's got a laptop with 8GB of memory rendering a tiled world with a huge amount of duplication (there's about five different trees, repeated a million times).

Do you know what it takes to scale up a sparse voxel octree from rendering a small world to rendering a huge world of duplicated objects? Almost nothing, especially as, like here, the world is mostly flat.

Originally posted by john_bmth
reply to post by BIGPoJo

 

I've seen every video and read every interview over a year ago. I don't care for Bruce's sales blurb and I don't care for fawning journalists, I care about cold, hard facts. Sadly, there are few of those yet you still persist cheerleading a technology you do not understand in a field you have no background in. Ignorance is one thing, but persistent ignorance is foolish. The fact you cannot substantiate ANY of your assertions nor answer a single uestion I have asked whilst making personal attacks against Notch when you haven't a clue what your talking about is foolish. Dismissing the opinion of someone like John Carmack when you haven't got a clue what you're talking about is just plain dumb.

Originally posted by BIGPoJo
I am not sidestepping your questions I just can't answer all of them because I do not work for Bruce Dell. Read this snippet from the guy that interviewed Bruce Dell. Keep in mind that he signed NDAs so he could not answer your questions either but we can assume he has the answers based on this.

After spending a whole day with Bruce and coming to understand how the technology actually works, the thing that amazes me is that nobody has come up with this method in the past. But isn’t that the way with all technologies?

I totally agree with Bruce’s decision not to release unfinished products. The technology at this stage, although progressing nicely, would still be considered "Alpha." Unlike other technologies, Euclideon is not just expanding on someone else’s work, it is creating a brand new system from scratch. It’s going to take time for the developers and manufacturers to get a grasp on working with this new approach to 3D graphics, if it in fact one day does get traction.

SOURCE

Bruce Dell does have a new way to render things that no one else has thought of. This technique is so alien to the industry that professionals in the industry have trouble grasping it. You do not grasp it. Notch does not grasp it.

When the full scale demo comes out next year I expect a "Well I was wrong" from you. If it turns out to be vapor ware I will personally necro this thread and admit I was wrong.

Also, I get the feeling like you did not watch the interview. At the very least read about the interview.

I've watched the interview. It's bull#. The "interviewer" (John P. Gatt) is not a journalist, he's a marketer, see his LinkedIn profile.

au.linkedin.com...

I would not be at all surprised if Gatt was actually being paid by Euclideon. The interview was fawning, contrived, and staged. The way they twisted the words of Notch and Carmack to seem to be against one another was pathetic. His dismissal of Atomontage suggesting it only handled small scenes was incredibly misleading. The whole thing is a sad farce.

Care to explain why the LOD in the Atomontage engine is painfully obvious and LOD in the Unlimited Detail engine is not? Because they are rendered using complete different tech.

Originally posted by BIGPoJo
Also, I get the feeling like you did not watch the interview. At the very least read about the interview.

Thanks, was VERY skeptical before, that HardOCP interview was great. Before, i doubted that their tech demo would even run on a normal PC. Obviously, i was proven wrong.

YES - it's still static..but nevertheless already impressive.

I still have some doubts in regards to "this new technique is so alien to the industry"...but i am now more tending towards believing them...good interview.

Also..i cannot take notch seriously since his game looks like ***t - i'd rather "believe" the Euclideon people than want to believe that in 2011 games like Notch's game still need to look like they have been written in 1984.