An Analysis of Minecraft-like Engines (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: An Analysis of Minecraft-like Engines (2012)

#11

Post by grondilu » Mon, Jan 19, 2015, 11:17 AM UTC

grondilu wrote: post #3

Talking about voxel engines, I used to follow the progress of a minecraf-like game which, among its particularities, offered a spherical world, thanks to a clever deformation of a large cube. IIRC it also offered basic physics (falling trees). I'd like to check out where this game is at now, but I totally forgot the name. Does it ring a bell for anyone?

Replying to myself: I felt so bad about asking people that I felt I had to try again to find the name of this game.

And I found it : "Seed of Andromeda".

https://www.seedofandromeda.com/

Re: An Analysis of Minecraft-like Engines (2012)

#12

Post by Gurkenmaster » Mon, Jan 19, 2015, 12:13 PM UTC

castell wrote: post #6

grondilu wrote: post #3

Talking about voxel engines, I used to follow the progress of a minecraf-like game which, among its particularities, offered a spherical world, thanks to a clever deformation of a large cube. IIRC it also offered basic physics (falling trees). I'd like to check out where this game is at now, but I totally forgot the name. Does it ring a bell for anyone?

Not sure, maybe http://sea-of-memes.com ?

That game reminds me of Shores of Hazeron.

It was a neat little game where you essentially strand on a planet and start building your own city until you can build a rocket to leave the planet and explore the rest of the solar system. Then build a city on the moon so you can create custom spacecrafts to go even further into space.

Re: An Analysis of Minecraft-like Engines (2012)

#13

Post by upvote-hero » Mon, Jan 19, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #4

> So, if you believe these estimates are reasonable, then you should be convinced that iteration by far dominates the performance of a Minecraft style game. I'll believe it when I see the profiler results. A good article none-the-less.

I agree.

Re: An Analysis of Minecraft-like Engines (2012)

#14

Post by soup10 » Tue, Jan 20, 2015, 12:57 AM UTC

asgard1024 wrote: post #9

soup10 wrote: post #2

Optimizing voxel data read times is a small part of the puzzle. The primary challenge of voxel engines is adapting the rendering engine to accommodate for dynamic modifications. Light maps, shadow maps, bump maps, occlusion maps, texturing, LOD geometry... whatever. All kinds of things that are traditionally statically generated, need to be regenerated on the fly or done without. Which is why minecraft went for the r…

> Which is why minecraft went for the retro-aesthetic I though main reason why MC is retro is that Notch is not really an artist - he just wanted to create graphics quickly. And he brilliantly turned this into an advantage - I can't imagine MC without iconic square pigs and pixelated pickaxes.

Well he's not Michelangelo obviously, but low res pixel art is still art. Compare it to some of the clones or infinimer and it's clear that care went into the aesthetic.