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ZardoZ

Voxels discussion

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Ghostpilot said:
Hello.

I have been investigating if it's possible to add voxel support in DooM or ZDooM.

Why bother I hear you ask.
Well, by adding md2 models you can make DooM look VERY good.
But that is the problem itself according to me. The models are just too good looking for DooM.
Voxel models would be as "ugly" as DooM is and the final overall result would be better.

My question is this.
Is there any good voxel model editor out there?
I know there was one with the Buildenginge games like Blood and Shadow Warrior.
But I don't own any of them. I'm looking for a free good voxel editor so that I can make some test models.

This is important to me because I can not start working on my per-pixel-collision-detection" until I have
investigated the option of voxel models.

EDIT--------------------------------------------
Super ugly basic page with WIP shots


I saw these voxels from : http://www.teamhellspawn.com/voxels.htm

I think .... THIS A LOSE OF TIME !!!
Why ?
1) Not are any SP that can use it.
2) Even if you not like the actual MD2/3 models, you can create a polygon model which these look&feel, and you can USE in a lot of actual SP .... (and i will do it)
3) In my personal view, the actual 3d (poly) models are too low quality .. I like more nice models, more real, not pixelate /low res aspect. For play which pixel / lo res look, i simple play Zdoom or other soft render SP...
4) The voxels are more quick, use less memory/cpu or gpu that polys or sprites which the same quality ? For i can read, looks that not !
5) I think that its much more interesting improving the sprite engine, using more frames, giving more angles to the sprites, using a 16-32 bits color engine, and using a high-res sprites !

PD-Question : Any remember a bit, a old project called "Unreal Doom" that was a try of make a TC/mod of the Doom game in the Unreal Tournament 1( aka 1999 ), that was canceled thanks EULAS & Copyrights of Id Software.... snif... :(

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A LOSE OF TIME!!!!

Please don't tell people what to like. Voxels are a perfectly legitimate alternative to sprites, and if someone feels like making a set in the hopes that they'll be used one day, good for them. Perhaps pre-made voxel models will urge developers to figure out an implementation. The demand is there, for sure.

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iori said:

Perhaps pre-made voxel models will urge developers to figure out an implementation. The demand is there, for sure.


I seriously doubt it. The developers who are into improved graphics basically all use hardware acceleration and the software only port developers are not interested as it seems.

(And considering that this thread is 2 years old and got pointlessly bumped only confirms the non-existing interest.)

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Eternity should definitely incorporate them, as it's going to have a 3D-like portals environment under 2.5D physics. They wouldn't hurt ZDoom either, given how sprites look like ass in it when using mouselook at sharper angles.

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myk said:

They wouldn't hurt ZDoom either, given how sprites look like ass in it when using mouselook at sharper angles.

And who's gonna convert all the monsters to voxel format? It cannot be done automatically ya know. Would be a very big job, made harder by the lack of any good voxel editor.

(And if someone did manage it, you would be on their back about the copyright violation).

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Ajapted said:
Would be a very big job, made harder by the lack of any good voxel editor.

Sure it's a big job. Though these guys at Team Hellspawn made a start, clearly. Regardless, DOOM and sprites with 3D-like behavior is rather lame, so there should be an incentive.

Perhaps ZDoomers might see less of an incentive because they're used to modifying or making sprites to add more monsters and such, but for software engines with a less defined history, they seem a sensible addition.

(And if someone did manage it, you would be on their back about the copyright violation).

Definitely not if they were to be released as a DOOM add-on as specified by the EULA (non-commercially, and exclusively for the games they come from). Any add-on resources (models, textures, or whatever) closely imitating the games' artwork should be released in that way, in any case.

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Not that I'm wanting to piss on anyone's chips but the fact is (as Graf stated) that none of the current crop of port developers are interested in voxels. Which means that other than for reasons of self-gratification, the production of DOOM voxel models is rather a wasted exercise.

The cruel truth is that basic concept of voxel renderering was made redundant by the graphics industry quite a few years ago. Current video hardware is 100% tailored to pumping tris, not drawing volumetric blocks of pixels (however, I do acknowledge that fragment shaders offer a potential for accelerating voxels but even then, there are other limitations).

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DaniJ said:
Not that I'm wanting to piss on anyone's chips but the fact is (as Graf stated) that none of the current crop of port developers are interested in voxels.

Engines like JDoom and GZDoom are kind of irrelevant in this matter, because they use hardware acceleration and have already implemented models. Something which, by the way, is not for everyone in this community (and arguably, voxel support might actually make it less popular, which perhaps sheds light on why you guys openly speak against voxels). By seeing people's posts here it's clearly he wouldn't mind voxel support, which isn't surprising since the voxel work done by the guys would fit very well as replacements for the sprites. Besides, even if what you're saying were true (I'm not certain what Quasar's position is, for example), that wouldn't stop anyone with coding potential from stepping up and adding voxel support to any engine base they wish.

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You are correct - but have you seen anyone doing anything in the last 2 years? I haven't - and I think that says a lot.

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While I'm always pleased to see another discussion about the possibility of voxel support in Doom, I have to confess I have lost quite a bit of interest in making the things. The Voxel3D editor I've been using has quite severe limitations on the size of voxel model it can handle and I can't even begin to fathom how Slab6 works.

Aside from technical issues, I'm not particularly good at making irregular shapes. Even small ones like the skull key are far too time consuming, so monsters and other larger items would be well beyond my abilities. Boxes and other simple shapes are quite easy, but even the chaingun pickup sprite has me quite perplexed, as there's no real way to place 6 barrels in a cylindrical group on such a small scale without make it oval instead of circular, so I cheated a bit and used 4 barrels instead, heh.

Then finally, having no source port developers being even remotely interested in supporting them doesn't exactly give me much motivation to make progress on the items.

Still, I'm not the only one contributing to the project and I'm sure others will continue making progress. I get fairly regular emails from a few people showing their latest work. Unfortunately I haven't found time to update the site with it, but I'll post it here just to show there is some life left in the project.


Doom voxel items imported into Ken Silverman's VOXlap engine

A closer view

Soul Sphere in a dark room

A Voxel Barrel (although on a much larger scale than the items that have been produced so far)

1st explosion frame


I'm pretty sure there's nothing stopping someone from importing the current items into one of the Duke3D ports that support the .vox or .kv6 format, or of course Blood and Shadow Warrior, but I have no experience whatsoever in editing those engines and haven't really had time to look into it. If someone wants to have a go, feel free to do so.

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Um.. these barrel looks enough good to keep the idea a bit interesting. But i think that a are to her ways of doing the same thing, more quick, more easy, and much more easy to implement on any sourceport (high-res and more frames sprites or poly models that imitate these look.)

PD Sorry for resurrecting the old post.

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ZardoZ said:

Um.. these barrel looks enough good to keep the idea a bit interesting. But i think that a are to her ways of doing the same thing, more quick, more easy, and much more easy to implement on any sourceport (high-res and more frames sprites or poly models that imitate these look.)


One thing is to add an angle between horizontal angles, but creating new vertical angles should demand whole new sprite sets, that'd be a very hard and boring work (much more than required for voxels) and would never look as good.

These voxels looks very good.

How do they work in the fps department?

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Not wishing to state the obvious but when I look at voxels; I see quantized models :P

ANY given voxel model can be recreated as a polygon model exactly, without any loss of detail (as is evidenced by the very editors used to create them in the first place ;)). The converse is not true.

There is nothing special about voxels. There is no inherent reason why a voxel model representation would look any more or less "DOOM", than polygonal models.

It is my opinion that the desire for voxels is a knee-jerk reaction to the (relatively) low quality of the currently available DOOM models. Which to me, is not a valid reason to implement voxel support.

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DaniJ, from what I've seen in games, models need hardware acceleration (with all the baggage that comes with) to be any more detailed that in Quake or Quake 2. You might be able to replicate these pixelated voxels with models, but the way they are rendered (and the environment that implies) is another story.

Vegeta said:
How do they work in the fps department?

That's what I'm wondering. Voxlap doesn't seem to have too high system requirements, though obviously more than a software Doom engine, but it also doesn't require any sort of special video card. If they can be used rather efficiently as shown in the screen shots above in a software environment they'd be great. Otherwise, they wouldn't help much, if at all.

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You might be able to replicate these pixelated voxels with models, but the way they are rendered (and the environment that implies) is another story.

You've lost me. Are you suggesting that voxels should be considered for the sake of those not willing to spend a couple of hours wage on a videocard? Please explain.

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DaniJ said:
Are you suggesting that voxels should be considered for the sake of those not willing to spend a couple of hours wage on a videocard?

That's something to consider, but it would also avoid all the visual effects that make their way in with video acceleration, altering things in a way where you end up having to emulate Doom's (particularly visual) behavior through these features instead of doing it directly.

Do you think that the people who avoid hardware engines do so merely because they are too poor to buy more powerful video cards?

That's the good thing about voxels, they are simply pixels (what Doom's sprites are made of in a very unsubtle manner) but with volume.

Another alternative that came to mind is to add additional sprite angles for freelook viewing. I mean, if you were to look down diagonally at a sprite, for example, the engine would draw a picture that's suitable for that perspective (drawn beforehand by an artist). You wouldn't need too many new angles, but it would still demand some good sprite drawing work. Even if Voxels were to be used for some things, this method would be better for others. The key cards seem too "heavy" as voxels, for one, because a single pixel in DOOM is the equivalent of over an inch. In any case, such a method would not demand any complex code or additional system requirements for standard Doom engines.

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myk said:

Another alternative that came to mind is to add additional sprite angles for freelook viewing. I mean, if you were to look down diagonally at a sprite, for example, the engine would draw a picture that's suitable for that perspective (drawn beforehand by an artist).

Yes I had the same idea a long time ago, and I think the ROTT engine actually implements it (at least for those stupid floating stair things).

It is another Chicken-and-Egg problem, no-one is going to make those sprites until an engine supports it (and it'd probably have to be ZDoom, other engines are not popular enough), and no coder wants to add it without some guarantee that such a feature is going to be used.

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The freelook angles should demand whole new sprite sets just for that angle (all animations in angles 1 2 3 4 5, and the other three if needed). That's a lot of new sprites to draw.

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myk said:
Do you think that the people who avoid hardware engines do so merely because they are too poor to buy more powerful video cards?

Of course not.

I don't know whether you are deliberately trailing behind the pace of the conversation, reading my words out of context or whether you just think I don't know what I'm talking about. I am a developer of the Doomsday engine and someone who has worked with both models and voxels and thus, I'd like to think I have a fair understanding of the topic up for discussion. Please don't explain to me what voxels are.

I'm finding this conversation very painfull, so I'll jump off here.

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As I see it, voxels don't even need to be in a hardware accelerated renderer. So that removes that topic of conversation. If voxel support in a software renderer becomes popular enough, then worry about the hardware mode implications.

Point is, voxels are supposed to look all pixelly, like DooMAD's weapons for example. That is in fact the entire point. It's made out nice low-detail voxels. Worrying about voxel monsters and rotations etc. is redundant also, because no 2.5-D game that used voxels needed them for enemies, they worked well enough for decorations and pickups. The point is to give the option and let the modeler decide. The more options the better as far as I see it.

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iori said:

If voxel support in a software renderer becomes popular enough



The point everyone seems to conveniently ignore is that this is most likely not going to happen! I haven't heard a single word from any person who would be in a position to do so.

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When I say something about of using more frames & angles (and high-res) sprites, I was thinking of making these sprites rendering 3d objects .... It's can be very nice, because you can give a higher quality and more modern look using a legacy computer. (and it's more easy to implement that voxels... to make these sprites, only you need it's make render of a good quality models, instead of made it by hand-work)

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ZardoZ, yeah, but that's a luxury not everyone needs or wants, while the mouselook angle idea addresses a (perspective) issue.

iori said:
Worrying about voxel monsters and rotations etc. is redundant also, because no 2.5-D game that used voxels needed them for enemies, they worked well enough for decorations and pickups.

As I see it, the pickups are the ones that need them the least. Monsters and decorations, on the other hand, generally have dimensions that look odd with mouselook. Maybe those games didn't add monster voxels for the same reason they seem hard to do here; they would have demanded a big amount of work.

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Voxels suit engines such as Doom ports very nicely, more than models do. For example: ShadowWarrior had voxels, used for pickup items. Best example of voxels were in (registered) Blood, which used it for decorative objects such as chairs.

You really should take a look at those voxel chairs:

http://mordeth.doomworld.com/misc/SS020000.PCX
http://mordeth.doomworld.com/misc/SS020001.PCX
http://mordeth.doomworld.com/misc/SS020002.PCX

They look like actual level geometry; they beat down models, sprites or any attempt to build it with sectors; and they do wonders for realism.

Just having support for voxel decorations would be extremely nice to have.

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Mordeth said:

They look like actual level geometry; they beat down models



Like DaniJ said, *any* voxel model can be recreated with polygons so that point is not valid.

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iori said:

Polygons look like polygons. How do you make polygons look like voxels?


Any voxel is a cube. A cube consists of 6 square faces. Each face can be represented by a - polygon! Of course nobody would build a voxel-like model like that and instead combine as many faces in a polygon as possible. But the end result still is that any voxel model can be recreated as a polygon model - down to the last visible pixel.

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Graf Zahl said:
Like DaniJ said, *any* voxel model can be recreated with polygons so that point is not valid.

At the cost of adding hardware acceleration, which is why you'd add voxels in the first place... to avoid it and yet get perspective viewing in a way that fits with the pixelated environment of a software engine. There's nothing wrong with hardware engines and their features, but software alternatives that keep the original look as much as possible are also desirable.

In any case, I'll have to agree voxel support for things would be a long way off because of the voxel artwork required plus the need for a coder to implement it to effect. The sprite perspectives idea seems more reasonable as far as mouselook issues are concerned, as it retains the original artwork and just needs dedicated sprite artists (we've seen some arguably good ones in the community), and requires less innovative code.

Maybe voxels could be added, but for some decorations and more detailed constructions (furniture and stuff like that) in levels, rather than replacing the default sprites.

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I don't get the point that anything made out of voxels can be replicated exactly using polygons. That'd require a huge amount of polygons and would be highly impractical, so no one would actually go and do it. Thus, polygons will always look out of place in Doom, as opposed to voxels. =p

Making sprite angles for looking at things from above or something would be a huge task. And it would be pointless to do it by using a model, since you know, you could just use that model instead.

I don't really see it necessary to replace monster sprites with voxels, but objects that currently have just one sprite that's always facing you would benefit from it. They're relatively easy to make as well; you only have to do that one frame, and they're mostly simple objects.

But since there's apparently no interest to code voxel support into any existing engine, well, I dunno what I'm getting at really.

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Voxels look better than most of the given models we already have.
Voxels solve most of the problems with sprite perspectives.
Voxels don't require hardware acceleration.

These are the points to consider. Now while you can go out and make a shitload of models that "look" like voxels, you're still cutting off the population that choose the software-rendering route. Voxels add dimension to a game without sacrificing the look and feel of that game. The only two problems that exist, is 1) someone needs to be willing to implement such a feature in Doom, and 2) there needs to be some way of being able to easily recreate the monsters and player in doom (maybe a program can be written to convert angles of a sprite into a rough voxel model that could be manually touched up).

Someone please consider this possibility. Maybe the impact isn't exactly known at this point, but you have my personal promise. I will definitely take advantage of voxel support!

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