Unlimited detail graphics

[Anayo]

If this comes to fruition, I don't think we'll need a next generation of gaming consoles.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

If this comes to fruition, I don't think we'll need a next generation of gaming consoles.

We will because A) Console makers want money and B) If resolution increases, the more power that would be needed too (specifically more ram and faster memory speed).

Anyway, this looks really cool, to have balls be round and such, but honestly they need to work more on atmosphere and animation. I couldn't care less if graphics got much better than they are, but it's all about the atmosphere the games provide, and I just hope they use this unlimited graphics technique to make games more immersive and awesome.

[Pulsar_t]

How can you get unlimited if your resources are limited? Even the sun is limited..

Anyway this technique is still a long way off. And do they even mention animation?

Maybe there's a new Still Life title in the works

[RyaNtheSlayA]

How can you get unlimited if your resources are limited? Even the sun is limited..

Anyway this technique is still a long way off. And do they even mention animation?

Maybe there's a new Still Life title in the works

It shows more potential over waiting for polygons to become point matrix's. I'd imagine animation isn't that difficult, just like working with millions and billions of polygons a model.

They get the unlimited from the fact that it works like (at least to my limited knowledge of 3D rendering) like a Z buffer (rather Z-Culling) in a way. The engine doesn't place points that the user can't see, and uses a search style method to find the exact dots the user can see. The only hardware limitation is if your graphics card has trouble rendering high resolutions. So, you will only see 1 dot per pixel, the amount of dots maximum in a frame is the resolution. Considering that in the scheme of things 1,000 pixels is much easier to render than 1,000 polygons.

At least that's my understanding. I may be completely off on this.

[Anayo]

Later in the video he says any polygon model can be converted into voxels. So I imagine you could sculpt something super detailed in a program like Z-brush, then convert it to display in this engine.

I suppose animation would work similarly... animations today are "baked" from interpolated keyframes, so I guess this would "bake" a series of voxel models that replace each other one frame at a time. (Of course that raises the question of how physics would work in this engine, since that's simulated and has a different result every time, unlike, say, a walk cycle that's the same every single time a character moves forward.)

And I'm really wondering how they intend to store super hi-res models. Right now our games are stored on DVD's and Blu ray discs, and movie-quality-resolution models are really dense. I doubt you could fit an entire game of that detail on the media we're using now.

But I still think it's a cool idea.

[vlame]

this explanation makes more sense than polygons per second. i can totally understand that if my screen is 1440x900 i only need 1,296,000 clouds on my screen. that calculation took google 0.44 seconds...think about a behemoth ass video card doing that math.

[Niode]

If this comes to fruition, I don't think we'll need a next generation of gaming consoles.

We will because A) Console makers want money and B) If resolution increases, the more power that would be needed too (specifically more ram and faster memory speed).

Anyway, this looks really cool, to have balls be round and such, but honestly they need to work more on atmosphere and animation. I couldn't care less if graphics got much better than they are, but it's all about the atmosphere the games provide, and I just hope they use this unlimited graphics technique to make games more immersive and awesome.

The guy in the video said (in the second part) that the graphics look poor because they aren't animators/artists. If professional artists were to work with the system the result would be (in his words) 1000x better.

Look at the game Outcast. That used a similar technology (voxel/raycasting) for the engine. When that game launch in the mid 90s it looked phenomenal (it still does in my opinion) the technology is vastly superior to polygon tech. I think the key thing to keep in mind is that to get very attractive results out of this technology will require vast amounts of time from the artists/level builders.

Polygons = quick to build but low level of detail
Voxels/point cloud data = very slow to build but very high level of detail

It will take a while before adoption of such techniques is industry wide (if it does penetrate) since game production time will increase. It's inevitable, especially when your building models at such fine LOD. Currently engines are built with ease of production in mind, a lot of levels are simply tiled constructs that are connected together. The unlimited detail engine discourages that for a more seamless look. Optimisations will need to be developed, and just like they did for polygon based engines, will take time to come to fruition.

I think they need to concentrate on their tools and SDK to make them as productive as existing polygon based toolkits/SDK otherwise studios simply will not devote the time/money to invest in retraining their existing employees and more importantly updating their current workflows.

It would be an ideal project for a new and upcoming studio though since it's less of an issue to retrain/update workflow if you're using it from the get-go. I predict that small indy studios will adopt first and then it will trickle to larger and larger studios as the SDKs and toolkits mature.

[t0yrobo]

Interesting idea, they'll have a hell of a fight to get far with it though. Even if it is as amazing wonderful as they make it seems, changing the entire production workflow of a large company is no simple task. Not to mention they showed mostly repeated shapes, and limited lighting effects in the video. Impressive geometry I suppose, but not much else.

[tylerbgood]

And I'm really wondering how they intend to store super hi-res models. Right now our games are stored on DVD's and Blu ray discs, and movie-quality-resolution models are really dense. I doubt you could fit an entire game of that detail on the media we're using now.

I'm not sure how big the models end up being, but at the end of the second video he talks about Unlimited Detail running on a DS or Wii. He says that a Wii using UD could pump out better graphics than the PS3. That seems to be a bit far fetched, but the point is he imagines this running on our current media.

...changing the entire production workflow of a large company is no simple task.

The workflow wouldn't have to change drastically. In the second video he discusses plans to create a converter to allow designers to use "unlimited" polygons to create the game with movie-like graphics, and then move it to the Unlimited Detail system.

[Hobie-wan]

*ahem*

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... il#p231956

</luke>