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Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

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Re: Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

#121

Post by on_and_off »

aeturnum wrote: post #54

I love the Voxel Quest posts because they're demonstrating some seriously cool tech. However, they feel a lot like the Wolfire development blogs [0] - great tech demos without a cohesive vision for a game. From an engineering point of view, the end goal doesn't matter, but I would also love a 'bigger picture' roadmap of where it is and where it's going. Why would I use this engine? What do I 'get' over the competitio…

Overgrowth has been painful to follow.

Years ago, I loved to read their blog. Lots of interesting technical articles. But development has pretty much stalled for years.

IIRC, these guys are also behind Humble Indie Bundle, so money should not be a problem for them but it would be nice to finally see them ship the damn game.

Re: Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

#122

Post by gavanwoolery »

on_and_off wrote: post #121
aeturnum wrote: post #54

I love the Voxel Quest posts because they're demonstrating some seriously cool tech. However, they feel a lot like the Wolfire development blogs [0] - great tech demos without a cohesive vision for a game. From an engineering point of view, the end goal doesn't matter, but I would also love a 'bigger picture' roadmap of where it is and where it's going. Why would I use this engine? What do I 'get' over the competitio…

Overgrowth has been painful to follow. Years ago, I loved to read their blog. Lots of interesting technical articles. But development has pretty much stalled for years. IIRC, these guys are also behind Humble Indie Bundle, so money should not be a problem for them but it would be nice to finally see them ship the damn game.

I tried out the alpha or beta and I thought it was quite good for the type of game they are trying to make. I assure you they don't even need the Humble Bundle money - David has been selling copies for a long time and sold over 100k copies on Steam alone (that is around $3m USD), and I'm pretty sure they sold the majority of their copies off of Steam. His other mini game, Receiver, sold +600k copies on Steam @$5 each, which is another $3m (of course, you have to factor in Steam's ~30 percent cut and taxes, but still....)

Re: Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

#123

Post by gavanwoolery »

anon4 wrote: post #112
kazinator wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hear ye! I lost interest in games right around time time 3D graphics cards started coming out. I figured, that scene is pats its prime now; it's going to just be generations of the same thing over again, but rendered slightly better. Programmers no longer in control over the details, just pushing some triangle meshes into some hardware blackbox. All software Doom, Quake, Wolf 3D, Rise of The Triad and such: that was…

That used to be true, but right now you not only can, but have to control every pixel. The fixed pipeline is dead, now you have to write your own shaders and those can do literally anything. Or use CUDA/OpenCL for even more power.

Shaders still have plenty of limitations relative to a CPU (you can do virtually anything with them, but some tasks are too expensive to do efficiently). In particular, taking advantage of temporal and spacial coherence is much more tricky on a GPU - on a CPU the early 3D renderers could effectively use this stuff with scanline and fill tricks.

Re: Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

#124

Post by appleflaxen »

chipsy wrote: post #91
gavanwoolery wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks Bob! Totally agree with you - it really is a battle of fighting against my "engineering instinct" which just wants to build stuff all day, no matter how useless it is. I have deliberated over this internally with myself and others for a long time. In fact, half way into the character animation I was kicking myself for even beginning working on it. I tend to justify things (whether rational or not) as a content…

As someone who has commented on your engine threads in the past(and pointed out this challenge) it's good to see that you're getting towards the content stage of dev. Here is my tip this time: try to find a lot of anchors outside of the game engine. You can do design incrementally by defining what the "rules", "logic", and "lore" of the world are, in order to clarify it. For example, use a mind map tool like a writer…

I think this is great advice. Is it accurate to summarize it as "artificial constraints can create unpredictable strengths"? (In this case, the strength might be a strong sense of identity)

There is probably a name for this concept, but I don't know what it is.

Re: Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

#125

Post by thedaemon »

Thank you for making a "real" voxel engine/game. I get so tired of getting my hopes up when I see "a new voxel game", and it turns out to be polygonal based Minecraft rip off. That is not what I grew up with calling voxels. Ken Silverman's Voxel Engine and Delta Force are what I remember. It's a shame that the technology suffered for so long. Please keep up the good work and continue to innovate.

Re: Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

#126

Post by on_and_off »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #122
on_and_off wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overgrowth has been painful to follow. Years ago, I loved to read their blog. Lots of interesting technical articles. But development has pretty much stalled for years. IIRC, these guys are also behind Humble Indie Bundle, so money should not be a problem for them but it would be nice to finally see them ship the damn game.

I tried out the alpha or beta and I thought it was quite good for the type of game they are trying to make. I assure you they don't even need the Humble Bundle money - David has been selling copies for a long time and sold over 100k copies on Steam alone (that is around $3m USD), and I'm pretty sure they sold the majority of their copies off of Steam. His other mini game, Receiver, sold +600k copies on Steam @$5 each…

They definitely do some interesting things but last time I tried it, it played a lot more like a prototype than a game in development for nearly a decade.

Re: Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

#127

Post by gpderetta »

WhiteNoiz3 wrote: post #89
gavanwoolery wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks Bob! Totally agree with you - it really is a battle of fighting against my "engineering instinct" which just wants to build stuff all day, no matter how useless it is. I have deliberated over this internally with myself and others for a long time. In fact, half way into the character animation I was kicking myself for even beginning working on it. I tend to justify things (whether rational or not) as a content…

I also struggle with adding extra features to a game I'm working on. I've added "You're not going to need it" to the top of my to-do list as a way to force myself to think everytime I add something on there. ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_aren%27t_gonna_need_it Have you ever heard of the game Magic Carpet? See http://www.gog.com/game/magic_carpet . It had insanely good destructible terrain, base building and ex…

Magic carpet, what great memories! A modern take on the theme would be great in VR.

Re: Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

#128

Post by aeturnum »

gavanwoolery wrote: post #57
aeturnum wrote: post #54

I love the Voxel Quest posts because they're demonstrating some seriously cool tech. However, they feel a lot like the Wolfire development blogs [0] - great tech demos without a cohesive vision for a game. From an engineering point of view, the end goal doesn't matter, but I would also love a 'bigger picture' roadmap of where it is and where it's going. Why would I use this engine? What do I 'get' over the competitio…

This is a really good question actually. This engine isn't really meant to compete with major engines, but moreso satisfy a little niche (and maybe that could be a big niche depending on how it gets used). I think the best way to explain it is "Shadertoy for large environments" - being able to quickly dynamically create stuff with pure code. To be honest a lot of this is still unmapped territory and I'm not even one…

> My main goal is to empower individuals by creating a relatively inflexible engine

I'm a big fan of fostering creativity though restrictions, so this makes sense to me. I would be interested in any notes on how you try to realize that goal in the engine. It would be interesting to see the difference between limitations imposed by performance v.s. limitations imposed in the name of a focused creation experience.

In general, any time you're not "simply" (not that the problems are simple) creating a system that exists elsewhere (physics, liquid, etc), it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on where you choose to deviate from the 'norm' and why.

Re: Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

#129

Post by gavanwoolery »

aeturnum wrote: post #128
gavanwoolery wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good question actually. This engine isn't really meant to compete with major engines, but moreso satisfy a little niche (and maybe that could be a big niche depending on how it gets used). I think the best way to explain it is "Shadertoy for large environments" - being able to quickly dynamically create stuff with pure code. To be honest a lot of this is still unmapped territory and I'm not even one…

> My main goal is to empower individuals by creating a relatively inflexible engine I'm a big fan of fostering creativity though restrictions, so this makes sense to me. I would be interested in any notes on how you try to realize that goal in the engine. It would be interesting to see the difference between limitations imposed by performance v.s. limitations imposed in the name of a focused creation experience. In g…

The primary idea is that it should be easy to create, modify, and revert something in a pretty standard process. In a 3D modeling program, a user usually has to go in and create some outlines and select vertices and edges and extrude them and further push and pull things from there and deal with polygon issues and so forth. They have to do all this while navigating an interface filled with one million buttons and menu options. I am aiming for something a bit more like Fallout 4's face editor - its still quite limited, but any user can understand it and produce a diverse variety of content (of course, I am extending that to all shapes, not just faces).

For other things, if I introduce some system I'd like it to be unique and have purpose. Many games do GPU-based particle physics for water, and the ability to have this produce any significant interactions isn't that great. My system is CPU-driven, and contains things that are rarely done in games like simulating pressure and a constant fluid mass, which makes for more interesting interactions (you could pour water down the end of one pipe to raise it at the other end, as just one example). Usually people find ways to modify the system that I would not think of (someone made a roller coaster in Minecraft using water canals IIRC).

Re: Voxel Quest January 2016 Update

#130

Post by gavanwoolery »

thedaemon wrote: post #125

Thank you for making a "real" voxel engine/game. I get so tired of getting my hopes up when I see "a new voxel game", and it turns out to be polygonal based Minecraft rip off. That is not what I grew up with calling voxels. Ken Silverman's Voxel Engine and Delta Force are what I remember. It's a shame that the technology suffered for so long. Please keep up the good work and continue to innovate.

Thanks, will do :)
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