Voxels (are they the future?)

[Jonathan]

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.

[Fredrik]

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.

[Ghostpilot]

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.

[Linguica]

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.

[DaniJ]

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.

[Graf Zahl]

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.

[iori]

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.

[TGB]

Tiberian Sun and RA2 used voxels?

[wildweasel]

TGB: I wouldn't be surprised, considering Westwood's previous usage of Voxel technology (Blade Runner).

[iori]

All the units with the exception of infantry were voxel models. Oh, and the terrain, at least the sloped bits, iirc.

[Ghostpilot]

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...

[Graf Zahl]

Ghostpilot said:

Let me introduce to you... The paperthin Imp...

...which proves Fredrik wrong! :D

[Scuba Steve]

Yay Paper Doom.

[Fredrik]

That merely looks miserable.

The last time I played Doom with models, I reflexively threw myself out through the window.

[Szymanski]

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.

[Ghostpilot]

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.

[Ghostpilot]

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... :-)

[impClaw]

I really wanna see voxels in doom...

[Linguica]

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

[Ultraviolet]

The answer you've all been waiting for: No, voxels are not the future.

[leileilol]

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.

[exp(x)]

Scuba Steve said:

Yay Paper Doom.

I would play it.

[Ghostpilot]

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)

[Metal_Sonic]

can i get a copy of the paper thin imp?
I would like to try make him more 3d

[iori]

or just do it yourself.

[kristus]

THickest paper I've ever seen.

[Fredrik]

And made out of furry meat!

[Ghostpilot]

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...

[Ghostpilot]

Page updated with blue, red and yellow keycards.

[Lamancha]

>>>>
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?