Graphics outlook for PS and crystal space.

[svuun]

I was wondering how long before the use of unlimited graphics, as seen in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ATtrImCx4 would be employed in PlaneShift.  I know it has just come to pass that the use of shaders has moved the game forward a bit visually, but polygon complexity is limited to the power of graphics cards and the model itself. 

And if this technology/method is proprietary will we ever see a variation of it employed in opensource graphics projects, like CS.

From what I listened to in the video, the sdk won't come out till 16 months from now, but how long after that before possible use in games like PS? years, a decade, or never? Would it ever be a consideration given that all the graphics would have to be reworked?

Mods can move this to appropriate subforums, as I wasn't sure if development deliberation would have been better since this is quite vague and one of those hypotheticals that probably cannot  be answered with specifics.

[bloodedIrishman]

It's good that you brought this to light, but you should discuss it with the development team leaders and show them the video, if they don't see it here.

[bilbous]

What I want to know is if it was so great how come the videos were so fuzzy? they only became clear when the camera stopped moving.

[svuun]

It's good that you brought this to light, but you should discuss it with the development team leaders and show them the video, if they don't see it here.

yeah then I hope a mod moves it to the appropriate subforum.  its really not that important, but the feedback from devs would be interesting.

[Akkaido Kivikar]

My thoughts:

1) It is a tremendous leap in graphical quality, but it really is "young" in development terms.

2) It would be hard to bring into PS, as it would require not just replacing ALL art, but also recoding the entire engine to fit. CS doesn't support it. Of course, if in future CS did code support for it, things would be easier, but there's still the issue of having no art.

3) How can we make new art for such a system? There is no available 3d suite for this technology aside from what these guys use themselves, and when they release that it will likely be extremely over-priced.... and OSS's community will take some time to get their own editor together.

I wouldn't say never, a decade or two.

[derula]

it would require not just replacing ALL art

Not really ALL art. Just all 3D art. Which is a lot, sure. But as they say, polygon 3D models can be converted to voxel models, so conversion would be immediate, it would just take a time to actually make it look good.

How can we make new art for such a system?

There are already free voxel editors out there... not sure about polygon->voxel conversion tools.

Looks very interesting though. Although I'd love the haha effect when I get the first Wii game featuring remarkably better visuals than any polygon PS3 game ever had.

I wonder what they'll do about real time shadows though.

Edit: There already appears to be a free (?) alternative (sourcecode is released): look here! The demos are just awesome, you can bomb away the complete world once you found that red blaster. Also, vast improvements appear to have been made in this modification (couldn't run those demos though). Sure, the voxels are a bit large if you get close, but I'm sure it will be improved.

Edit2: What I also like about those voxels is that collision detection is perfect. No bounding boxes, no more sitting on air

[bkdc]

There are already free voxel editors out there... not sure about polygon->voxel conversion tools.

Towards the end of the video, they say that they're not really using voxels. Polygon->voxel conversion shouldn't be any harder than scattered point -> polygon conversion. I'd say it's easier.

From some of their renders I'd assume that:

a) they found a way to quickly reconstruct geometry from scattered 3D point data (non uniform) - more info on a similar (but slower? approach) at http://hyperfun.org/OBS_AdaptCSRBF_SMI04.pdf

b) they have a sorting (search )  algorithm that pretty much allows them to easily load only small subsets of the of the 3D points depending on 'camera' view and position/object orientation/perspective/occlusion so that they only have to reconstruct/render the visible geometry

Shading won't work properly (and it doesn't in their videos) since hidden geometry can also contribute to the overall shading of a scene. As a workaround, they may be able to generate/use 'lower quality' models (smaller sample sets) for hidden geometry - but that will still slow it down a lot and invalidate their statement regarding the fact that they only need to process a number of points that's only up to the number of pixels on the screen.

While I don't see this technology make its way into games very soon (maybe just partially and for some VERY static objects like terrain), thank you svuun for bringing up this topic - I find it very interesting.

http://hyperfun.org/wiki/doku.php?id=hyperfun:main - a good place to start looking into 'non polygon' things 

[svuun]

b) they have a sorting (search )  algorithm that pretty much allows them to easily load only small subsets of the of the 3D points depending on 'camera' view and position/object orientation/perspective/occlusion so that they only have to reconstruct/render the visible geometry

Shading won't work properly (and it doesn't in their videos) since hidden geometry can also contribute to the overall shading of a scene. As a workaround, they may be able to generate/use 'lower quality' models (smaller sample sets) for hidden geometry - but that will still slow it down a lot and invalidate their statement regarding the fact that they only need to process a number of points that's only up to the number of pixels on the screen.

I did wonder about the shading problem, and you're right its quite evident in their videos.  The narrator dismisses this though but I wasn't clear about his reasoning.

http://hyperfun.org/wiki/doku.php?id=hyperfun:main - a good place to start looking into 'non polygon' things 

nice site.  on their main page they talk about modeling the internal structure of their models, which struck me as interesting.  they're solid (as much as they want to be) in contrast to the hollow models we have now.  imagine breaking a stone in game to reveal a unique jagged rough surface as opposed to some preformed polygon surface. the visual realism would almost supplant the creative description made by the role players (not that it ever could... or could it?).

[Khaki]

b) they have a sorting (search )  algorithm that pretty much allows them to easily load only small subsets of the of the 3D points depending on 'camera' view and position/object orientation/perspective/occlusion so that they only have to reconstruct/render the visible geometry

Shading won't work properly (and it doesn't in their videos) since hidden geometry can also contribute to the overall shading of a scene. As a workaround, they may be able to generate/use 'lower quality' models (smaller sample sets) for hidden geometry - but that will still slow it down a lot and invalidate their statement regarding the fact that they only need to process a number of points that's only up to the number of pixels on the screen.

I did wonder about the shading problem, and you're right its quite evident in their videos.  The narrator dismisses this though but I wasn't clear about his reasoning.

http://hyperfun.org/wiki/doku.php?id=hyperfun:main - a good place to start looking into 'non polygon' things  

nice site.  on their main page they talk about modeling the internal structure of their models, which struck me as interesting.  they're solid (as much as they want to be) in contrast to the hollow models we have now.  imagine breaking a stone in game to reveal a unique jagged rough surface as opposed to some preformed polygon surface. the visual realism would almost supplant the creative description made by the role players (not that it ever could... or could it?).

Their approach completely fails with animation. You would break the rock, wait a while and see the rock broken. There's no way to interpolate between the two. That's why companies will use polygons for the forseeable future.