Jonathan Posted February 5, 2005 Fredrik said:This is in contrast with the third-party models, which get rid of the flatness problem but invariably look like crap (with the exception of a few ammo boxes). Uh-huh, and what are the only voxel models made so far? Ooh, ammo boxes. Let's be realistic, voxel support would be nice, but making decent voxel replacements for monsters would be far harder than making decent 3d models. 0 Share this post Link to post
Fredrik Posted February 5, 2005 Jonathan said:Uh-huh, and what are the only voxel models made so far? Ooh, ammo boxes.Not counting the medikit, stimpack, in-flight rocket, health bonus, soul sphere. Let's be realistic, voxel support would be nice, but making decent voxel replacements for monsters would be far harder than making decent 3d models. I disagree. You could make a 1 unit thick paper imp and it'd look better than current models. 0 Share this post Link to post
Ghostpilot Posted February 5, 2005 It really doesn't matter if you or anyone else thinks voxels are good or bad. I'm doing it because I CAN and because it's fun to "paint" voxels. If DooM never will have voxel support, I will at least have created some neat pictures of voxelized DooM items, right? Jason of Everygraph emailed me and told me some very bad and some slightly good news. Apparantly he has stopped working on Voxel3D. He didn't get into detail on why, but that hardly matters. However, he had some plans for voxel3d to eventually go open source. It wasn't 100% descided yet, but if that happens I really hope that someone optimizes it. Mainly so that I don't have to do it myself. It's by far the most userfriendly voxeleditor out there. If it indeed go open source, I should be able to make it output voxels in the VXL format. That way no porting will be required from Ken Silverman's voxel code in the build engine. Of course it will have to be adapted to DooMs engine but then at least I won't have to worry about the format of the voxels. Right now I'm in the middle of my graduation essay/project so I really don't have much time to actually sit and read Ken's build engine code for hours and hours. But I will have time for it sooner or later. I'm not the best person suited for this, but since none else is doing it I have to do it. Voxels may not be the future for the gaming industry. But since I was never fond of contemporary games, retro is just fine for me. To counter the statement that "obsolete technology" can not be part of the future, I have to say: So basicly, just because the wheel was invented a long time ago, it has no place in the future? It's a quite mocking and sarcastic interpretation, yes. But it also proves a point I think. Voxels weren't the future back then because it was too demanding in terms of computing power. Since none has worked on or developed things (software nor hardware) that uses voxels since then we don't know if it can be optimized to be useful once again. Ken Silverman is a guardian of voxels. Even though he is very good at it, he is just one man. It will take that a big company researches voxels to have them make a comeback. But medical sience have been using them for years and years. So they can't be all bad, can they? My personal oppinion is that voxels indeed HAVE a place in the future of 3D tehcnology. Defining objecs by surfaces is rapidly becoming old. The future is defining objects by volume. Be it voxels or some other technique that's not invented yet. 0 Share this post Link to post
Linguica Posted February 5, 2005 Jonathan said:Uh-huh, and what are the only voxel models made so far? Ooh, ammo boxes.Replacing all the pickups with voxels would be a subtle change that would look neat and wouldn't conflict with Doom's pixelly charm. You don't need to voxelize all the enemies for it to be worth it. 0 Share this post Link to post
DaniJ Posted February 5, 2005 I disagree. You could make a 1 unit thick paper imp and it'd look better than current models. /pats his WIP demon models Patience my prettys, your time is nigh. 0 Share this post Link to post
Graf Zahl Posted February 5, 2005 Fredrik said: Not counting the medikit, stimpack, in-flight rocket, health bonus, soul sphere. Other very simple stuff so it doesn't really count. I disagree. You could make a 1 unit thick paper imp and it'd look better than current models. But that's only because good models take time to do. But so do voxel models. But the biggest problem with both technologies is IMO that they take much more time to process than simple sprites and that they will kill the frame rate of any level that is a little more complex. 0 Share this post Link to post
iori Posted February 5, 2005 I dont know, if the engine could do them efficiently enough.. Other games (Tiberian Sun, RA2) could have hundreds of voxel models in a single session. 0 Share this post Link to post
wildweasel Posted February 5, 2005 TGB: I wouldn't be surprised, considering Westwood's previous usage of Voxel technology (Blade Runner). 0 Share this post Link to post
iori Posted February 5, 2005 All the units with the exception of infantry were voxel models. Oh, and the terrain, at least the sloped bits, iirc. 0 Share this post Link to post
Ghostpilot Posted February 5, 2005 Fredrik said:You could make a 1 unit thick paper imp and it'd look better than current models.Let me introduce to you... The paperthin Imp... 0 Share this post Link to post
Graf Zahl Posted February 5, 2005 Ghostpilot said:Let me introduce to you... The paperthin Imp... ...which proves Fredrik wrong! :D 0 Share this post Link to post
Fredrik Posted February 5, 2005 That merely looks miserable. The last time I played Doom with models, I reflexively threw myself out through the window. 0 Share this post Link to post
Szymanski Posted February 5, 2005 iori said:I dont know, if the engine could do them efficiently enough.. Other games (Tiberian Sun, RA2) could have hundreds of voxel models in a single session. Werewolf v Comanche ran really well on my P133 with its voxel engine. 0 Share this post Link to post
Ghostpilot Posted February 5, 2005 Szymanski said:Werewolf v Comanche ran really well on my P133 with its voxel engine. I don't know about Werewolf, but comanche only used a heightmap for terrain. That is not the type of voxels we are talking about here. The word "voxel" means volume pixel. In a way a heightmap IS a voxel. Because the height equals volume. But you can only see the uppermost elements in a heightmap. A voxel model above groundlevel needs to be seen from many angels. That should require more processingpower in theory. But on the other hand, the voxels that DooM will use if I manage to implement it, will hardly be a processing power problem. Not even with two times the resolution. 0 Share this post Link to post
Ghostpilot Posted February 5, 2005 Fredrik said:That merely looks miserable.It was a joke, in case you didn't notice. Or in case I didn't notice irony or sarcasm here, I have just made a fool out of myself... :-) 0 Share this post Link to post
Linguica Posted February 7, 2005 Fredrik said:That merely looks miserable. The last time I played Doom with models, I reflexively threw myself out through the window. It was an act of self-defenestration eh 0 Share this post Link to post
Ultraviolet Posted February 8, 2005 The answer you've all been waiting for: No, voxels are not the future. 0 Share this post Link to post
leileilol Posted February 8, 2005 Ghostpilot said:I don't know about Werewolf, but comanche only used a heightmap for terrain. That is not the type of voxels we are talking about here. The first Comanche looked and ran great on my 486 40 and the choppers were sprites and the land was entirely voxel, whatcha talkin' about. 0 Share this post Link to post
exp(x) Posted February 8, 2005 Scuba Steve said:Yay Paper Doom. I would play it. 0 Share this post Link to post
Ghostpilot Posted February 8, 2005 gargoylol said:The first Comanche looked and ran great on my 486 40 and the choppers were sprites and the land was entirely voxel, whatcha talkin' about. What I'm talking about? Exactly what I'm saying. See here. (in the third post of you don't feel like reading it all) 0 Share this post Link to post
Metal_Sonic Posted February 8, 2005 can i get a copy of the paper thin imp? I would like to try make him more 3d 0 Share this post Link to post
Ghostpilot Posted February 8, 2005 Metal_Sonic said:can i get a copy of the paper thin imp? I would like to try make him more 3d Heh... Sure. It was more like a joke creation to counter the statement. It's not like it's my own creation or something like that. Send me a PM with your email and I'll send it to you. I have only 384 megs of ram, so my computer can't handle models as big as a fully "volumized" imp. Maybe it's just the program that's more unstabile than I thought. EDIT:-------------------------- Sh*t... This thread soon has more views than any other thread in the editing section. I never could have imagine that it would be so popular. Or maybe it's just me sitting and refreshing the page over and over just to increase the stats... 0 Share this post Link to post
Ghostpilot Posted February 8, 2005 Page updated with blue, red and yellow keycards. 0 Share this post Link to post
Lamancha Posted February 8, 2005 >>>> Delta Force II used voxel based terrain and used Direct3d <<<< A late reply. Delta Force used 3D acceleration for the polygonal objects scattered around the level - huts, towers, armoured cars and so forth - but the voxels themselves were untouched, and indeed the game didn't seem to run any faster with accelerated polygons, they just looked smoother. The game absolutely had to run in 32-bit colour, which was an unfortunate decision at a time when the Voodoo2 was still popular. Still, I fondly remember the seemingly-infinite view distance of the Delta Force games; the only thing they have over 'Operation Flashpoint'. I believe the developers ditched voxels for 'Delta Force 3' and that was that. Another attractive voxel-based game was 'Outcast', which was awful to play but looked fantastic, albeit a bit cartoonish and unreal. There always seemed to be a problem integrating polygonal objects with a voxel landscap, though; quite often the ground would seem to push through walls. I'm not sure if Looking Glass' 'TerraNova' also used voxels, an earlier example. I'd like to think that voxels will turn out to be the computer world's equivalent of 70mm VistaVision, i.e. spurned for ages until it become a cult again, in a specialised field. Did I read somewhere that voxels common in the world of medical imagery? 0 Share this post Link to post