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Unlimited Detail Wants To Kill 3D Cards

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Re: Unlimited Detail Wants To Kill 3D Cards

#51

Post by ramchip »

justinsb wrote: post #27
jrockway wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ATI and Nvidia would still have to write code to make it work. That's the hard part, not coming up with the idea.

Are you serious? Figuring out the algorithm is absolutely the hard bit here. When was the last time you had trouble implementing an algorithm? I feel like I'm feeding a troll here - I had to check your profile to be sure I wasn't. I think you're letting your dislike of patents warp your normally intelligent viewpoints.

It's said sometimes on HN that "actually implementing it is the real problem, not coming up with the idea". This is referring to startups; in this domain an idea like "let's do a site just like myspace but with feature X!" is worth nothing, but an actual product can be worth a lot.

I think it's no trolling, he just translated this to a domain where it makes no sense, which is a good reminder that web startups are not representative of all programming/business/engineering problems. And that one must be careful not to use a phrase like a meme, without thinking about its implications.

Re: Unlimited Detail Wants To Kill 3D Cards

#52

Post by jcromartie »

Luc wrote: post #28
hristov wrote: post #6

I listened to their explanation and it sounds a bit shady. First they used that old salesman trick of using a British accent to appear smart, so that was already a red flag. And then their explanation of the secret to their technology sounded rather ridiculous. They said that their technology was like the google search engine or like searching for the word "money" in an MS word document (the latter was the lamest att…

Come on, there's a lot to be critical about in this video, but do you honestly think he faked a British accent to appear smart? There's a few million of them that talk like that, you know. And the word search for money being lame subliminal messaging? Really?

I read this in a British accent.

Re: Unlimited Detail Wants To Kill 3D Cards

#54

Post by windsurfer »

dirtbox wrote: post #49
henning wrote: post #21

A big part of what video cards do is not focused on models. It's focused on lighting and shading. That's what gives games realism, something completely lacking in these demo scenes. Make a tech demo that blows Crysis out of the water that runs in software on commodity hardware and we'll talk. Hire some fucking artists if you need to. Saying "this is just programmer art" is a copout. It's like a slacker student who sa…

I'm itching to find out what the modelling tools are like. At this point I doubt they would gel with many 3D artists. Programmer designed interfaces for creative tools are generally a pretty ropey affair. However, I'm certainly willing to attempt to do battle with the uncanny valley if they let me.

I bet they would work great. If you could tell a 3D artist that he can use as much detail as he wants for this game... well, you'll get what they show on Zbrush central. All those models have hundreds of times more polygons than what would ever be accepted in a real game.

Re: Unlimited Detail Wants To Kill 3D Cards

#56

Post by pbhjpbhj »

noonespecial wrote: post #4

It sounds a little to me like the old "once the polys get small enough, everythings a particle system" approach. Sure you save lots of GPU by essentially doing away with surfaces and textures (by making everything a floating colored dot) but you then have to contend with massive storage, manipulation, and filtering problems. They might be at the stage where they say "we'll just make everything a point! this'll be cak…

I think he mentions around the 5 minute mark that this is not quantised (point clouds like Voxel, which comes in again in the end minute comparison).

Why is the move from a polygonised surface to a smoother surface made with more polygons and not made by mathematically defining curves like polylines in 2D vector art. I know processing, but surely current GPUs can manage completely smooth curves for some games (not FPS in other words).

What also interests me is that using a perfectly smooth line rendering appears actual less real than using the voxel approach and how that will effect developmemt of game physics.

Re: Unlimited Detail Wants To Kill 3D Cards

#57

Post by dkersten »

henning wrote: post #21

A big part of what video cards do is not focused on models. It's focused on lighting and shading. That's what gives games realism, something completely lacking in these demo scenes. Make a tech demo that blows Crysis out of the water that runs in software on commodity hardware and we'll talk. Hire some fucking artists if you need to. Saying "this is just programmer art" is a copout. It's like a slacker student who sa…

I agree. When I want to make a game look pretty, the things I increase before model detail are (roughly in this order): texture quality, lighting/shading quality, shadow detail, THEN model detail and finally post processing and special effects.

I find using high resolution textures has a much greater impact on quality than high polygon models, especially when we're already making models seem like they have higher detail using such tricks as normal mapping.

I also agree with the programmer art comment. The visuals in the video are TERRIBLE. If they want to prove that this is superior, then they need to make something that actually looks better what they want to prove is inferior - in this case that means that the art must be on par with existing games.

Re: Unlimited Detail Wants To Kill 3D Cards

#60

Post by [deleted] »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #56
noonespecial wrote: post #4

It sounds a little to me like the old "once the polys get small enough, everythings a particle system" approach. Sure you save lots of GPU by essentially doing away with surfaces and textures (by making everything a floating colored dot) but you then have to contend with massive storage, manipulation, and filtering problems. They might be at the stage where they say "we'll just make everything a point! this'll be cak…

I think he mentions around the 5 minute mark that this is not quantised (point clouds like Voxel, which comes in again in the end minute comparison). Why is the move from a polygonised surface to a smoother surface made with more polygons and not made by mathematically defining curves like polylines in 2D vector art. I know processing, but surely current GPUs can manage completely smooth curves for some games (not FP…

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