Following one man's task of building a virtual world from the comfort of his pajamas. Discusses Procedural Terrain, Vegetation and Architecture generation. Also OpenCL, Voxels and Computer Graphics in general.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Video Update for July 2014
Here is a video covering some of the work we did in the past few weeks.
This time you get to see the water voxels up close. There is more physics and a look at the new rendering engine.
People are trying to add detail to 1 cubic meter blocks in Minecraft, one of the most popular games ever, by writing mods adding slopes, they add nice lighting effects that don't work well with the engine, they don't even attempt to add physics or stretch the render distance beyond ~200 meters...
Yet here it is, the Voxel Farm, with all these problems solved.
I love these updates for all the awesomeness, but it's so frustarting too. Please tell me that "the Mystery Games" from the site are really getting made.
As far as I know Everquest Next / Landmark is based of this engine. You should apply for landmark beta key to se what the engine could do in an actual engine.
Landmark is so restrictive, it's sad. I heard your building area is 175x175x250. The first thing I would do in a voxel engine would be checking the world limits, so, assuming it's not in creative mode, gather enough food to last for the building period, gather all the materials I could carry, and build a tower to the world limit. Next thing would be to do the same downwards.
Next I would ask why the changes I make to a modifiable world "heal" after 20 minutes and why do I have to pay in resources daily to have a small area that's not disappearing.
Next thing I'd do would be to try and break the chains; to make it work in creative mode. Can the world generator be tweaked to make a torus-shaped world from Halo? Or at least can I write a script that will take an already generated terrain and bend the world like that?
Landmark is cringeworthy as a Voxel Farm based game.
I have to agree I'm quite disappointed that the first game for voxel farm is everquest next. I love voxel farm and everything that Miguel does, but I hate SOE and what they do. Everquest will be ruined by SOE's greedy and restrictive monetization models if nothing else. Also I think what most people are looking for is something more like Minecraft where the content is on my own computer/server and not in some mega corporation's cloud service.
Landmark is going to be a free game? Hell its already almost at open beta, they just have to make sure their in game market is set up properly so they don't run out of development funds. Once that is set up you have the ability to make money playing a game you don't even have to buy... Yet soe is evil and money grubbing.
It is difficult to have a rational discussion on the basis of love and hate. Probably we should not go there, since we want to be as scientific and objective. Landmark is very unique compared to anything else SOE has done before. Not sure how someone could extrapolate from previous experiences, positive or negative ones.
Now here is the conundrum: If you love Voxel Farm then you must love SOE. They took a huge gamble on us, they made us. Most of what you may have liked in this video exists thanks to the collaboration with SOE.
Well yea I guess we shall be thankful for SOE to invest in you. I dislike their product, but I can still appreciate their financial involvement.
I can see why you'd rather not have this discussion though so let's not. You're just interested in the technology and not its applications, which is fine and probably serves you well.
It seems like the water system would break when a player tries to build a reservoir or a dam- anywhere where two bodies of water would have to be at different heights. Is there a system to let water flow downhill, such as by modeling a lot of small balls and adding water where they roll?
Speaking of lod, I found the line of detail in front of the player quite distracting. I wonder if it becomes less obvious on more powerful computers that can push the line farther away.
Really good!I love these updates for all the awesomeness, but it's so frustarting too. Please tell me that "the Mystery Games" from the site are really getting made.Thanks.
I really love the updates and I really enjoy SOE's Landmark game which i have been part of since day # 1. Keep up the good work. I hope youre enjoying beautiful Montreal. I live close by and it was on of my favourite cities..... well in the summer anyway.
Really great work, I do enjoy the physics a lot. But at what point do physics appeal? At 4:11 the copied column is actually floating and not falling down. Keep the good work up
looking very cool! it seems you can show hard and soft edges in your isosurface extraction, would you mind explaining in a few sentences which kind of algorithms you use for getting hard and soft edges from your voxel volumes?
People are trying to add detail to 1 cubic meter blocks in Minecraft, one of the most popular games ever, by writing mods adding slopes, they add nice lighting effects that don't work well with the engine, they don't even attempt to add physics or stretch the render distance beyond ~200 meters...
ReplyDeleteYet here it is, the Voxel Farm, with all these problems solved.
I love these updates for all the awesomeness, but it's so frustarting too. Please tell me that "the Mystery Games" from the site are really getting made.
As far as I know Everquest Next / Landmark is based of this engine. You should apply for landmark beta key to se what the engine could do in an actual engine.
DeleteLandmark is so restrictive, it's sad.
DeleteI heard your building area is 175x175x250. The first thing I would do in a voxel engine would be checking the world limits, so, assuming it's not in creative mode, gather enough food to last for the building period, gather all the materials I could carry, and build a tower to the world limit.
Next thing would be to do the same downwards.
Next I would ask why the changes I make to a modifiable world "heal" after 20 minutes and why do I have to pay in resources daily to have a small area that's not disappearing.
Next thing I'd do would be to try and break the chains; to make it work in creative mode. Can the world generator be tweaked to make a torus-shaped world from Halo? Or at least can I write a script that will take an already generated terrain and bend the world like that?
Landmark is cringeworthy as a Voxel Farm based game.
I have to agree I'm quite disappointed that the first game for voxel farm is everquest next. I love voxel farm and everything that Miguel does, but I hate SOE and what they do. Everquest will be ruined by SOE's greedy and restrictive monetization models if nothing else. Also I think what most people are looking for is something more like Minecraft where the content is on my own computer/server and not in some mega corporation's cloud service.
DeleteLandmark is going to be a free game? Hell its already almost at open beta, they just have to make sure their in game market is set up properly so they don't run out of development funds. Once that is set up you have the ability to make money playing a game you don't even have to buy...
DeleteYet soe is evil and money grubbing.
It is difficult to have a rational discussion on the basis of love and hate. Probably we should not go there, since we want to be as scientific and objective. Landmark is very unique compared to anything else SOE has done before. Not sure how someone could extrapolate from previous experiences, positive or negative ones.
DeleteNow here is the conundrum: If you love Voxel Farm then you must love SOE. They took a huge gamble on us, they made us. Most of what you may have liked in this video exists thanks to the collaboration with SOE.
I just wanted to say that these updates are awesome and frustrating at the same time.
DeleteIf the collaboration with them is beneficial, that's great. I just hope there will be many more games using Voxel Farm in the future.
Can't wait for the next update already! :)
Well yea I guess we shall be thankful for SOE to invest in you. I dislike their product, but I can still appreciate their financial involvement.
DeleteI can see why you'd rather not have this discussion though so let's not. You're just interested in the technology and not its applications, which is fine and probably serves you well.
It seems like the water system would break when a player tries to build a reservoir or a dam- anywhere where two bodies of water would have to be at different heights. Is there a system to let water flow downhill, such as by modeling a lot of small balls and adding water where they roll?
ReplyDeleteYes we are looking at dynamic water.
DeleteThe first might lead to the second, but also the second is required before you can *literally* do the first. So...
DeleteAh. Gotcha. If we're in the literal stage already, sounds good. :)
DeleteAt 00:12 or 00:52 there LOD switches are very obvious. Are there any plans to improve this? How?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of lod, I found the line of detail in front of the player quite distracting. I wonder if it becomes less obvious on more powerful computers that can push the line farther away.
DeleteYes, do not worry about that. We have really great plans for LOD transitions.
DeleteReally good!I love these updates for all the awesomeness, but it's so frustarting too. Please tell me that "the Mystery Games" from the site are really getting made.Thanks.
ReplyDeleteVery nice, I'm enjoying the updates!
ReplyDeleteI really love the updates and I really enjoy SOE's Landmark game which i have been part of since day # 1. Keep up the good work. I hope youre enjoying beautiful Montreal. I live close by and it was on of my favourite cities..... well in the summer anyway.
ReplyDeleteReally great work, I do enjoy the physics a lot. But at what point do physics appeal? At 4:11 the copied column is actually floating and not falling down.
ReplyDeleteKeep the good work up
Excellent work, I'm looking forward to the future of voxel farm and SOE! *Two Thumbs Up!*
ReplyDeletelooking very cool! it seems you can show hard and soft edges in your isosurface extraction, would you mind explaining in a few sentences which kind of algorithms you use for getting hard and soft edges from your voxel volumes?
ReplyDelete