Unlimited Detail Real-Time Rendering Technology revisit

[ARTgames]

We had a topic on here before about this and I have been think of it lately about it but comply forgot what it was called. Anyway Notch made a blog post about it with his thoughts on its updated video.

Here is the updated video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4

Here is notches blog posts he made so far:
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8386977075/its-a-scam
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8423008802/but-notch-its-not-a-scam

What do you all think about this? Something interesting to see.

[Freeforall]

Yeah, I saw this a few days ago. Looks pretty amazing.

[Jake]

When something seems to good to be true, it usually is. I've been reading responses to infinite detail, and people with a background in voxel rendering have pointed out some serious flaws. In the videos released by these guys, we can see that there are actually very few unique models, because when you have an extremely complex model in a scene, it takes up a LOT of RAM. There is no way around that.

Notch (creator of Minecraft) even pointed out he thinks this is a hoax.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/02/notch-vs-unlimited-detail/

So far this engine hasn't shown advanced lighting, animation, scaling, or physics, and they can only get their engine running at 20 fps without any of that.

[EpicPhailure]

I hope I'll live long enough to be around for this :o Notch says at the rate technology is growing, standard use of this type of rendering is a possibility in the near future.

[Freeforall]

Sounds hard to believe. So detailed, each grain of dirt is visible? My laptop would die.

[Lingus]

Isn't this basically the difference between pixel based graphics and vector based graphics? Why is that hard to comprehend for everyone? Maybe calling it "unlimited detail" was a bad call... but still.

[krele]

Isn't this basically the difference between pixel based graphics and vector based graphics? Why is that hard to comprehend for everyone? Maybe calling it "unlimited detail" was a bad call... but still.

No, that's not quite it. All they have are really detailed models repeated in the world. It's a paged geometry that uses memory only for one object (and only a few bytes for every copy of it) and it still uses polygons no matter what they say. Vector graphics are truly not limited to depth and resolution, while this "unlimited detail" masks it's flaws very well.

Voxels exist since 2005. Paged geometry since 1999. This is nothing new. It's a hoax, nonetheless.

EDIT: Whoa, my bad, yes that's what they WANT you to think it is. But the concept is impossible to implement with the way data and memory works. Notch explained it very clearly...

[ARTgames]

Isn't this basically the difference between pixel based graphics and vector based graphics? Why is that hard to comprehend for everyone? Maybe calling it "unlimited detail" was a bad call... but still.

Thats the right way to think about it, its just how much they are milking it with little to show off and no demo etc.

[DarkTrinity]

wow.....

what an annoying voice he has....

[venuse]

thats years old. i prefer this since it looks sexy plus its voxel based
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CCZIBDt1uM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gshc8GMTa1Y&feature=related

[KaptainKohl]

To me what it looks like is just polygons that zoomed way out. Take the rock for example, a normal polygon one would be 30 or what not, but they have theirs to be like 300, in order to do that they made it very big, like 100x the size of the original and then zoomed the camera  out so it looks like what they call "unlimited detail". Its just polygons and not that crap "atoms" This is a fake.

[Mr Pwnage]

This is old news, I remember unlimited detail being addressed 4 years ago. No idea why notch is deciding to dig upon dead graves now...

[ARTgames]

This is old news, I remember unlimited detail being addressed 4 years ago. No idea why notch is deciding to dig upon dead graves now...

Well he really did not have a voice back then. And since this is a new video they released recently this mouth, he can get his chance to say something.

[Forum]

Pretty snazzy and will probably keep getting closer to the real thing, the outside

[Jake]

To me what it looks like is just polygons that zoomed way out. Take the rock for example, a normal polygon one would be 30 or what not, but they have theirs to be like 300, in order to do that they made it very big, like 100x the size of the original and then zoomed the camera  out so it looks like what they call "unlimited detail". Its just polygons and not that crap "atoms" This is a fake.

Umm, no, it's voxels. Very complex, repeated, static, pixel based geometry. To an extent, what they've done is impressive, but it's not mind blowing by any means and they have a LONG way to go to actually make this engine useful, let alone replace polygons like they've claimed so many times.