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Ghostpilot

Voxels (are they the future?)

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Make a polygon model, texture it, export it to 3ds format (however you end up doing that), and then use Poly2kvx to convert it to a voxel.

Here is a fine example of one that I made to test it, including the 3ds file, the skin and the exported voxel.

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Ahh so ken actually made that? In his slabspri Docs he said that he wanted to know if someone made something like that so he could have a copy. Looks like he got tired of waiting hehe.

That tool is cool, but the only problem now is finding DECENT monster models, ones that dont rely on alpha-channel textures, such as the lost soul. Hmm hehe the DOOM2 RE-VOXELING PROJECT. If I have time later I might give it a try.

Edit: I bought Blood: One Whole Unit from a pawn shop for 10$, it has every blood thing imaginable. Unfortunately, its version 1.2, and I need blood v. 1.0 to use the 3dfx patch. *sigh*

The blood tools are lacking though. It has a replacement to EDITART, which is more modern, but you cant extract graphics with it, and its buggier than EDITART. The version I bought of Blood didnt come with slabspri, and the editing tools were lacking so horribly, without any documentation or anything. Maybe the original version of blood came with better? I dunno.

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Nah the original version had NOTHING in the way of editor help. I guess they assumed everyone would have Duke so they didn't bother including any.

There's not much different between the Duke/Blood editor/engine the main ones are 3D sectors(portals) and voxel objects.

God damn I wanna play Blood now... /me dives into my game cupboard.

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Well the linetags are all different im assuming. Shadowarrior used different ones. But at least they were all documented.

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If anyone succeeds in converting sprite rotations into a voxel model, please let me know and tell me how you did that.

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I cant see that method being practical, since there is no way to accurately measure the depth of a 2d sprite. Presumably it would have to trace the outline and use some kind of color/pattern matching between the rotations, which can change depending on the lighting and how much of the sprite has been touched up by hand.

There has been a similair kind of program that can create a 3d model from a large number of photographs, but this required a special grid to be laid out under the object, and apparently is only reliable when it is fed a very large amount of pictures from every angle.

Im pretty sure that its only going to get the kind of result that Iori found. The way I see it is this: sometimes its difficult for even the human eye to make out the details in some sprites, now imagine trying to get a machine to do the same thing.

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Oh, and some stuff about Carmack on voxels:

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18869&highlight=carmack+voxel

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17853&highlight=carmack+voxel

It basically amounts to two issues: there is no hardware acceleration for voxels and polygon engines have already gone a long way. So you don't get anyone to invest in either.

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Oh, and as you pointed out: Ken Silverman also created the utility SLAB6D (which can be found via Google) which, in conjunction with SLABSPRI, can be used to convert stuff into voxel models. The 3DRealms forum linked above also contained a screenshot of a voxel model in-game.

When (if...) I find the time, i'll try and experiment with this.

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I'm having thoughts to actually start

iori said:

the DOOM2 RE-VOXELING PROJECT.

As a first step in the right direction I proudly (well... Not proudly. It's damn ugly still) pressent this:
Box of Shells (Have in mind that it's not done yet.)

I didn't increase the resolution at all.
I wanted to keep the feeling of a sprite, but this time in 3D.

That voxelmodel was created from scratch with the original sprite of the shellbox as reference.
I used the sharewareversion of Voxel3D by EveryGraph

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Whoa, I havnt checked this thread in a while. Looks cool Ghost. I will definatly make some voxel deals if someone can get it into one or more of the doom ports, but that doesnt seem to be on the horizon, so Ill wait. Gotta finish Dark Nexus first...

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Voxelling the item sprites is certainly a good start and not unreasonably complex. Of course you need to get Randy to add voxel support to ZDoom or else wtf is the point :P

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Linguica said:

Of course you need to get Randy to add voxel support to ZDoom or else wtf is the point :P

I hear you.
If Randy don't want to add voxel support I'm thinking of adding it myself.

When I'm done with my studies at university I will hopefully have more free time and can work on a project like that.

I'm going to write my graduation essay about voxels, so I hope I will learn enough about voxels form that so I can code voxel support while wearing a blindfold.

Implementing voxel support seems easy enough.
But geting the voxels to display propperly in the map geometry can be tricky, but defenitly "doable".

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I already asked Randy whether he would want to add voxels to Zdoom, and he said (not exact words) if all you are going to do is convert polygon models to voxels, whats the point?

:/

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chilvence said:
I already asked Randy whether he would want to add voxels to Zdoom, and he said (not exact words) if all you are going to do is convert polygon models to voxels, whats the point?


Goal is to make voxels from the existing 8-angled sprites. Although you probably still need to make a top-down and bottom-up view.

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Well, ok, but some sprites have only 5 angles with 3 mirrors so that would make it even harder. I still cant imagine how making voxels from the sprites would be easier than making a model that looks like the sprite and then voxel-ising it.

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chilvence said:

Well, ok, but some sprites have only 5 angles with 3 mirrors so that would make it even harder. I still cant imagine how making voxels from the sprites would be easier than making a model that looks like the sprite and then voxel-ising it.

If this is "easier" then why has no one made models that actually look just like the sprites?

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DaJuice made a pretty damned accurate Baron :P

You're right, neither things have happened. But that doesnt sway my opinion much...

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could you just make lumpy models? ok so the number of tris might be massive for monsters but the shell box wouldnt have that many, heh.

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Voxels are awesome, and would definitely fit Doom a lot better than MD2 models. Good luck getting any ports to support them though :P

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*makes angry sound* Arrgh... My voxel editor can't handle the DooMguy.
Frame set A (first waking set) need 41x56x42 (that's 96432 voxels if it was a "box").
That means I can't start to make the DooMguy in the "right" resolution yet.
I'll do a "google-dive" and see if I can find any better voxel editor.

Buy the way, has someone understood and used slab6d that Ken Silverman wrote?
It's a bit too old interface-wise for me. I want multiple edit-views and buttons...

That brings me to the leading question of this poost.
I bought Shadow warrior (as I said earlier in this thread) but it won't run on my PC with winXP.
I have an older win98 machine here, but it still lacks a GFXcard. Can someone that owns both SW and a PC with
win98, take some screen of ingame weapon voxels for me? I need to see and compare the resulution.

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BlackFish said:

I don't recall SW using voxels. Blood did, though.

In SW you have to toggle the use of voxels in a menu if I remember correctly.

I want screens of one monstersprite and a few screens of weapon voxels, so I can compare the resolutions and sizes. I don't want to make bigger voxels that a basic voxelsupport can display.

Since I own a copy of SW and the person taking the screen aslo owns a copy, it shouldn't be any copyright problems, since I don't plan to edit the screenshots in any way. Just look at them.

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This isn't going to be as easy as I thought.
That voxeleditor I'm using is very good and easy to use...
BUT it can't handle the size of the playervoxels I'm trying to make.

Does anyone know what format those C&C voxel-editors output?

I probably must port Ken Silverman's old voxeleditor to windows.
I tried it in DOS and it works... But that's all it does.
It's so utterly irritating to use that I could tare my hair from my head for less.
All I wanted to do was create a cubic shape and it took me forever.
So the re-voxeling project will be put on hold until I (or someone else *hint hint*)
can port it to windows with a decent interface.

I have finished the big powercell, but the screenshot was so dark so you can't really see it's there. I'll put up a screen as soon as I get a good one.

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First off, thanks for pursuing this! I haven't yet tried slab6d, but pplan to. Problem is, I have zero experience with editing for build games... Even if I manage to make a voxel from sprites, it's going to be a bitch to insert it into the game.

Ghostpilot said:
That brings me to the leading question of this poost.
I bought Shadow warrior (as I said earlier in this thread) but it won't run on my PC with winXP.


Same here. But, google for VDMS and install it. Googling will also net you an excellent instruction page for using VDMS on old DOS games, including all the Build ones. I've managed to get things working for Duke3D, Blood and SW, except for some music issues.

[edit] Ok, some links. VDMS homepage. Can't seem to find that nice instruction page, but this or this might be usefull. Also, installation instruction should be inside the VDMS archive.

(...) take some screen of ingame weapon woxels for me? I need to see and compare the resulution.


Will do. I'll post them... well, after I get my pw back :)

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Mordeth said:

First off, thanks for pursuing this!

Ehh... Thanks I guess.
I do this because I get tired of waiting for somebody else to do it.
But like you I have no prior experience with buildgames.
But I hope that my experience with programming should help me with understanding how to do it,
if I snoop around in the sourcecode for build and slabspri.

Mordeth also said:
Will do. I'll post them... well, after I get my pw back :) [/B]

I appreciate your help.

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Well, I have a good amount of experience with the BUILD engine, I've made levels for Duke, Blood, and Shadow Warrior, so if you need my help I'll gladly help you.

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