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[Soulwynd]

They claimed they can make it run on a single core laptop without any kind of video acceleration. If this alone is true, its already a massive step. If they can do animations, then its a revolution. Which is why I'm very skeptic about this.

I wouldn't doubt it. The comanche series render the terrain almost the same way and it should run on dosbox on a single core laptop fine.

As for the animations, depends how well they can modify the data source for the voxels. Not really sure how I'd do it, but I think that it would be similar to what we have now. Build a voxel model and give it a skeleton then transform the position of each subset of voxels based on whatever you move on the skeleton.

The link I posted, for the other engine, has animations and voxels being changed on the fly.

[Sowelu]

I'm really worried about lighting (and reflections etc).  I can't imagine that this will make them easier, and it may well make them harder.

[optimumtact]

Just a few links pointing to this being a legitimate project, they have recieved about a million AUS dollars in funding from the Australian Government Intiative Commercialisation Australia, With such a big grant from a legitimate Australian .gov.au site you would expect their claims to have some basis in fact. Unless they are just handing out money to all and sundry.
http://www.commercialisationaustralia.gov.au/OurParticipants/Pages/Euclideon%20Pty%20Ltd.aspx

[Tharwen]

This is actually just a really efficient version of Minecraft's rendering engine...

[Aklyon]

This is actually just a really efficient version of Minecraft's rendering engine...

Except it does not use blocks.

[Criptfeind]

They claimed they can make it run on a single core laptop without any kind of video acceleration. If this alone is true, its already a massive step. If they can do animations, then its a revolution. Which is why I'm very skeptic about this.

I wouldn't doubt it. The comanche series render the terrain almost the same way and it should run on dosbox on a single core laptop fine.

Other then the fact that it has about a billion times the number of things to keep track of in each area.

[Dakk]

And the australian government has demonstrated its sillyness regarding anything internet and game related in the past years. Even with official funding I'm very skeptical. Its not that I don't want it to be true, I really do, but its one of those things that seem a bit too good to be true. Like cript pointed out, they're basically saying they can make gaphics more then 100 times better then crysis two run fine on any commercial computer, without graphic acelleration.

The lack of a animation demonstration and a tech demo only furthers my skepticism, altough they said they're getting an animation done soon, and the latter is understandable since they probably don't want anyone to reverse engineer their stuff.

[Tilla]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/02/notch-vs-unlimited-detail/

Notch rips this thing a new one, explaining how exactly it's impossible.

Others point out this same guy has been hawking the same vaporware for ages


John Carmack on Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/ID_AA_Carmack) says:

Re Euclideon, no chance of a game on current gen systems, but maybe several years from now. Production issues will be challenging.

Another thing: the narrator willfully ignores the existence of Tesselation on current video cards, which adds a LOT of the detail he's talking about without switching to a voxel engine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkKtY2G3FbU

[Soulwynd]

They claimed they can make it run on a single core laptop without any kind of video acceleration. If this alone is true, its already a massive step. If they can do animations, then its a revolution. Which is why I'm very skeptic about this.

I wouldn't doubt it. The comanche series render the terrain almost the same way and it should run on dosbox on a single core laptop fine.

Other then the fact that it has about a billion times the number of things to keep track of in each area.

That actually doesn't matter as much. That only matters for memory consumption but if you use modern search algorithms you can render it fast.

The major flaw of voxels would be memory consumption. The more you increase the detail level, the more memory it will consume. On the other hand, polygon models are extremely tiny memory-wise, even the most complex ones, but the more polygons you have, the more processing power you need to compute them.

So voxels and polygons are fairly opposite processing-wise.

Notch rips this thing a new one, explaining how exactly it's impossible.

Except Notch is not a competent programmer. So whatever Notch rips, doesn't really gives it any less merit. Everything he has claimed in the past to be impossible to be done with minecraft is being done by modders. The only credit I give Notch is for sticking to his project.




Honestly, it's alright to be skeptical, but saying something is impossible because -you- (including me) cannot do it, is a sign of excess of skepticism. Specially if you don't believe it because Notch cannot it. If the world was determined by what Notch cannot do, maaaan, we'd be screwed. :B

But in all seriousness, there are a shitton of voxel/volumetric renders being used right now. Every day. They're used mostly in physics simulations, specially for fluids, and in MRI data.

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_rendering

[FunctionZero]

The only credit I give Notch is for sticking to his project.

That's more credit I've would have given him, seeing how he changed his altitude once he got rich.

[Soulwynd]

True, there's that.

[Sordid]

No idea about the technical feasibility of this, but the sales pitch combined with utter lack of any actual evidence or demonstration (such as, say, a downloadable demo) is very reminiscent of various crooks 'developing' perpetual motion machines. They're juuuust on the verge of a breakthrough, seriously, if only they could get a little funding from somebody. Rule of thumb: When it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is. And when someone promises you unlimited amounts of something, be it graphical detail or energy, for free, you can be sure there's at least half a dozen catches somewhere.

[Soulwynd]

Yeah, I'm only talking about the technical point of view... The australian guy sounds like a douche trying to sell his product by any means necessary.

[FunctionZero]

Or they can't tell what they're doing because other, better companies could then beat them to it.

[alway]

Notch rips this thing a new one, explaining how exactly it's impossible.

Except Notch is not a competent programmer. So whatever Notch rips, doesn't really gives it any less merit. Everything he has claimed in the past to be impossible to be done with minecraft is being done by modders. The only credit I give Notch is for sticking to his project.

Did you actually read what Notch wrote? It's generally a pretty accurate assessment in this case. The main gist of it is it isn't nearly as impressive as they make it out to be.