Jun 6 2012, 3:05 am
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Deathguard
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I tend to start things with 'I think' when I'm fairly certain of something that can be objectively right or wrong, but not 100% certain.
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Kaiochao wrote:
In the interview he does his best to refute Notch's accusations, saying how wrong everyone is who disliked the first demo. It does sound pretty awesome to me, but people can only say so much about a "small, secretive bunch" who are keeping all the awesomeness a secret until a public demo. I don't know if I'd call this a hoax. I think they're really rendering the graphics in that video the way they describe, it's just a more limited approach than they're letting on. I didn't see any animation in the video. If they're generating millions or billions of atoms to represent the geometry*, animating an object would require moving millions or billions of atoms. They're probably using a fancy data structure to store the atoms that gives them very fast lookups with an increased insertion/move cost. This lets them render frames quickly but moving objects around would be very slow. * I'm also skeptical about how they're generating sets of atoms with unlimited detail when the atoms are based on 3D models that have limited detail. Chances are their engine just isn't practical. Lots of rendering techniques have existed for a long time, long before they could be used in realtime. If this approach could work, someone would have thought of it 20 years ago. | |
The main points people made against the first video is that there's no animation, everything is repeated probably to save memory, and that it uses a method (sparse voxel octree, as Notch said) that people know about and know the limitations of. He addresses every issue in the interview, but he doesn't go into detail because he doesn't want to show people an unfinished product.
I suppose people just aren't believing what he's saying simply because they're wild claims. I definitely see where you're coming from, and it does seem too good to be true, or at least practical. I'd love to say "There must be drawbacks!" but in the interview he pretty much tells the journalist that everything, when it's finished (this year, so I'm hoping soon) will prove the skeptics wrong. He specifically refutes every big argument made against his system. The moment of truth is near! I have no clue what I'd do if the ground was made of tiny grains of dirt. It does seem to be a waste of space to me, but if this guy claims to have "compaction" at such a magical level and it turns out to be true, I guess it wouldn't matter much anymore. I've seen a lot of arguments on the internet, and it seems like no one either no one paid any attention to the interview, or people just don't believe a word this guy is saying. It does seem to be too good to be true, but if it is true, then what? What will the future hold? The way he talks about how fast his technology runs (he lets the interviewer test drive the island demo on his laptop) it definitely sounds like I'd be able to play in a world of unlimited detail even on my crappy laptop. | |
As unbelievable as the guy seems it's still impressive what he has accomplished. It's interesting to see how far some people will push themselves when left to their own devices. The BYOND community (staff included) could learn a lot from that.
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