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Some of you might remember about a year ago there was a tech demo involving not polygons as the basis of graphics but atoms. This is the one-year report.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKUuUvDSXk4 they're trying to make money by being bought.
They're totally full of shit regarding poly counts etc (that's not what the focus of engine programming is anymore, is it? My GPU can render dozens of millions of polys without a problem), provide no technical detail, claim that they run in software... :o this looks a bit more down to earth but still interesting:
http://www.atomontage.com/?id=dev_blog Unlimited detail engine seems like a nice viewer for high detail/point cloud data but it feels really awkward to mention games (and bashing game engines) that much while only showing static geometry and no signs of interactivity apart from camera control. maybe down to earth isn't the right thing to say about anyone claiming their tech to be the future but the guy at least seems a tad more realstic in his future projections...maybe in a a few years there will be some interesting "atomic" stuff out there anyway.
While impressive technology, there was an amount of complete bullshit in that video also.
In all the footage I never saw one piece of moving environment either, everything was static, if that is a limitation of the technology then it just killed itself. Also, everything looked very tile based, I didn't see any realistic looking landscape or natural angles to things. Now maybe (as the guy guys) they just don't have artists to do that stuff, if it is another limitation then again no thanks :) I also find it quite funny, and pretty arrogant, that this guy thinks his company has found the holy grail of graphics technology that has eluded the likes of Carmack, Sweeney and the dudes at Crytek for decades. Come on now. I also find it quite funny, and pretty arrogant, that this guy thinks his company has found the holy grail of graphics technology that has eluded the likes of Carmack, Sweeney and the dudes at Crytek for decades. Come on now.
part of the sales pitch, i guess. :P anyway, isn't voxel tech similar to this? he's talking 10minutes about physics, yet the demo doesn't even feature falling blocks ;-)
A badly-lit entirely static Voxel Minecraft narrated by a smug whinier version of Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation. Yup that's me sold.
If there's any game that encourages me to crouch down and admire having 3465035960569450 polygons on a patch of dirt, I don't want to play it. This isn't the future, or shouldn't be. The future should be in the BALANCE of graphics and gameplay and story and physics and feel and atmosphere and simplicity and depth and exploration - blending solid FPS gameplay with modern technological options. ... will never be fulfilled :P
Come on.. it is impossible to please everybody, and having such balance in all the "parameters" you listed is impossible... so either you have a genius idea about what should be a FPS and you should start your own game company... or you are already complaining for the disillusionment you will face sooner or later... doh ! Animation with point cloud data is possible. At least it is with voxels according to some video I saw, so I imagine it's possible with atoms. I also assume it would be even easier to get less grid-like environments, I think they just added a bunch of assets purely for the sake of performance load.
Everyone at work is really skeptical. I couldn't care if it works either way, I find it incredibly interesting even just as a theory. But it's useful to consider where to aim for as an ideal. Unlimited Particle shit or whatever that is, they are aiming for the ultimate in detailed graphics (well in theory apart from the glaring deficits in what they've made so far). That's one sole direction, and not really one that needs to be aimed in on it's own. 100,000 times more detailed?? Who is going to notice that shit...
Modern games, the graphics have improved so much in recent years, games in general are so pretty and cool looking, who is looking at these trees thinking "OMG Polygons!!". That's not the shit people are noticing. There's so many areas to aim high for in gaming. I posit to aim for the highest overall gaming experience... I have to admit you are not completly wrong: too much efforts have been spent on graphics and visuals only... Maybe less visuals and more fun/gameplay/puzzles/whatever would be better ;)
the guy did miss the boat a bit on graphics, the really interesting things to solve these days are things like ai, player interactions etc.
Honestly, if graphics just stopped getting better right now for 10 years or so, I really wouldn't care that much, added another layer of post processing isn't going to make gameplay better, but some groundbraking ai just might. I have two websites, both through the same host, both using the same DNS servers etc.
They all load fine for me. A friend however, can load one but not the other, returning a timed out/failed message from both machines he tried it on. He can't even ping it. Anything obvious I'm missing? It was working fine for him until today :/ Possibly weird routing? Use tracert on Windows or traceroute (or better mtr) on Linux to check if he gets routed differently.
It could work I suppose.
They do need some major funding though. The negativity of the uninformed is probably one of their biggest problems in getting a new tech off the ground. The demo video doesn't show anything I didn't see in the last one really. Polys do have limitations and it's good that there exist alternate rendering systems like voxels, blitting and this infinite thing. Complaining about a sales pitch sounding like sales speak? And Notch weighing in seems a bit pointless. He's an indie dev.
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