Unlimited Detail: Improves visuals in games by 10,000%

[Guest]

Unlimited data is a revolutionary way to model games that can skip 20 generations of graphics cards and makes games look 10,000 times better than games today, and it exists NOW.

Yep, you heard me right, 20 generations! 10,000%! Here's how it works:

 

Almost every game to date is made up of flat objects called polygons. Textures or maps are added to these polygons to give them color and life. Every year, companies like AMD and Nvidia increase the polygon count of their graphics cards by about 22%. The more polygons a game has, the less angular and the more circular and realistic the game looks. Eventually, games will contain so many polygons that it will be indistinguishable to real life (similar to what happened to colors in games). But that will take a LONG time.

 

Unlimited detail does not use polygons. It uses real 3D atoms or dots to make up the objects in a render. It can convert polygons into all these atoms. The amount of atoms on a model is astonishing. The developers of UD created a map that was 1 square kilometer big and it contained OVER 21 TRILLION ATOMS. No longer is the ground made up of flat polygons with images pasted on them, but is made up of INDIVIDUAL GRAINS OF DIRT!. Rocks can be laser scanned and then added to them game and it LOOKS IDENTICAL TO THE REAL ROCK! A brick wall that is made is a brick wall, not polygons with textures on them. This is said to be THE BIGGEST LEAP FORWARD IN COMPUTER GRAPHICS SINCE IT BEGAN!

 

So you wondering: this is epic and all, but how will ANY computer now be able to process and run so many of these "atoms without taking 1000 years to play a single frame?" Well, I don't know how they do it specifically, you'll have to watch the videos that I'll link you to to find out. But I'll tell you that it is possible. The computer uses algorithms and trigonometry to be able to run them all just fine.

 

Don't believe me? Watch for yourself:

 

 

So, what are your thoughts?

 

Personally I'm amazed. But I am also sad because no graphics company will adopt UD. They make billions off of their graphics cards and the competition. FUCK BUSINESS!

[Ashal]

Voxels have been around for ages they're nothing new. They have a fundamental problem though that cause us to stick to polygons, notice how none of those videos showed animation? As soon as you start trying to move a group of voxels in real time you tun into major computing issues.

[Guest]

But this isn't voxels.

 

And as for animations, remember that devs of this tech aren't game designers or have millions of dollars to spend. I'm sure a proffesional studio with dozens or hundreds of workers could find a way to add animations to this. I'm realize that I'm being vague though,

[ChancellorKremlin]

Yeah, he does state in the video it's well beyond Voxels, and yeah, they are negotiating for funding so it all looks very amateurish.

 

Personally, I've always thought companies like AMD and ATI have been fighting each other to the detriment of the PC industry. Why spend £500 every odd month to get a bigger, better video card, that will be obsolete next month, when you could just spend half that amount, and get a PS/XBOX that will last you a good 6-7 years, without needing to constantly upgrade?

 

Seems like very promising technology.

[Symon]

While interesting, it isn't graphics that are needed these days, it's gameplay and many games have seriously lacked that for a long time now.

[sammythesquirrel]

your right this isnt voxels but it has the same fundimental problems wjen trying to animate things secondly that 1km map is FREAKING HUGE in terms of data usage the terrain alone dicounting the statues and whatnot is over a terabyte

[Guest]

While interesting' date=' it isn't graphics that are needed these days, it's gameplay and many games have seriously lacked that for a long time now.

[/quote']

 

While I agree that gameplay is much more important than graphics, one could argue that by reaching the limits with graphics for good would force developers to spend more time on the gameplay to make their game stand out. Obviously each game will have certain art styles, but gameplay would be the main focus similar to ye olde days of gaming where graphical limitations forced companies to be innovative.

[Monsto Brukes]

visuals will help with immersion, absolutely. but even with very pretty games, pretty environment isn't jack if you can't run thru it without getting hung-up on the roots of a giant but very pretty tree.

 

Pretty is great. But for gameplay, i know you'll agree that collision is way more important.

 

TL; DR: before the turn of 1900, there was a writer for the NYTimes were decrying the upcoming problem with horses. He did some math based on the times and concluded that eventually the streets would be rivers of horseshit because of the number of horses and their use. What happened was that all taht thinking went out the window as cars changed everything. I think Notch and Carmack have fallen prey to the same thing... it seems that they're so deep into todays tech that a unique way of "doing it" may be lost on them. Sometimes it's hard to say "huh... i never thought of that."

 

Then again, i'm a web guy, not a game engine programmer.

[thesapien]

I have questions:

 

1) How exactly is this different than creating a scene with particles? Maya, 3dsMax, XSI, etc allow you to populate scenes as shown in this video using particle systems. The particles can be just about anything your shader heart desires including complex 3d objects or 2d camera facing shaders or whatever.

 

2) Infinite and unlimited detail is also nothing new, so how is this different? Using fractal generated geometry or other algorithms in scripting do this already.

 

3) Building objects out of smaller objects doesn't solve the problem of object detail; it simply forces the problem on smaller objects, increasing the number while decreasing the size. "Progressing" along this route has always been a brute force hardware and driver optimization problem. So what's new? And, again, merely replacing the building blocks with non-3d "atoms" or particles is nothing new.

 

4) What exactly do they mean by "atoms"? In the video, it sometimes seemed obvious they were actually using 3d objects or models made of polygons as their atoms. And, btw, even simple polygons can have perfect detail just using curves and a little calculus with the amount of detail being left up to the renderer.

 

It just seems to me like the video was made for gamers who are used to viewing CG that is rendered in real time and not for those who have worked or dabbled in the pre-rendering world of CG. The latter already knows all about many really cool things that are possible but limited by current tech unless you're willing to wait an hour or more for rendering a single frame. And even this latter group uses all kinds of shortcuts and cheats to get the job done, all the while being fully aware that if they just had more processing power so much more could be done.

 

So, I'm just left scratching my head, what was revolutionary or new about this video?

[Guest]

I have questions:

 

1) How exactly is this different than creating a scene with particles? Maya' date=' 3dsMax, XSI, etc allow you to populate scenes as shown in this video using particle systems. The particles can be just about anything your shader heart desires including complex 3d objects or 2d camera facing shaders or whatever.

 

2) Infinite and unlimited detail is also nothing new, so how is this different? Using fractal generated geometry or other algorithms in scripting do this already.

 

3) Building objects out of smaller objects doesn't solve the problem of object detail; it simply forces the problem on smaller objects, increasing the number while decreasing the size. "Progressing" along this route has always been a brute force hardware and driver optimization problem. So what's new? And, again, merely replacing the building blocks with non-3d "atoms" or particles is nothing new.

 

4) What exactly do they mean by "atoms"? In the video, it sometimes seemed obvious they were actually using 3d objects or models made of polygons as their atoms. And, btw, even simple polygons can have perfect detail just using curves and a little calculus with the amount of detail being left up to the renderer.

 

It just seems to me like the video was made for gamers who are used to viewing CG that is rendered in real time and not for those who have worked or dabbled in the pre-rendering world of CG. The latter already knows all about many really cool things that are possible but limited by current tech unless you're willing to wait an hour or more for rendering a single frame. And even this latter group uses all kinds of shortcuts and cheats to get the job done, all the while being fully aware that if they just had more processing power so much more could be done.

 

So, I'm just left scratching my head, what was revolutionary or new about this video? If anything, it just highlights how far behind

[/quote']

 

Lol dude I have no clue. I didn't make this stuff, I'd ask the developers if I were you since they'd have better knowledge on this than me. I just made this thread because I thought it was kewl.

[thesapien]

I'd be curious what sort of response you'd get from a dev forum. I snicker as I say that.

 

Also, are you sure this wasn't a bad joke or some kind of fool's game? Some of it is just strange, like saying a brick wall is actually a brick wall in their application, or that dirt is made with real dirt. And their demo reel looks like crap compared to today's games. Compared to the movie Avatar, it looks even more ridiculous. To top it off, they proclaim it to be the greatest thing to ever hit the CG world! To me, it looks like something to be avoided.

 

I kind of think maybe you were being a bit hard on card manufacturers or game studios or whoever you were referring to exactly at the end of your post. It's hard for any one company to suddenly introduce something very novel in an industry made possible by adopting many universal standards across the board in software and hardware.

[Guest]

I'd be curious what sort of response you'd get from a dev forum. I snicker as I say that.

 

Also' date=' are you sure this wasn't a bad joke or some kind of fool's game? Some of it is just strange, like saying a brick wall is actually a brick wall in their application, or that dirt is made with real dirt. And their demo reel looks like crap compared to today's games. Compared to the movie [i']Avatar[/i], it looks even more ridiculous. To top it off, they proclaim it to be the greatest thing to ever hit the CG world! To me, it looks like something to be avoided.

 

I kind of think maybe you were being a bit hard on card manufacturers or game studios or whoever you were referring to exactly at the end of your post. It's hard for any one company to suddenly introduce something very novel in an industry made possible by adopting many universal standards across the board in software and hardware.

 

I got no clue. Maybe this is a joke, maybe it's the real deal.

The demo looks like crap compared to today's games because it wasn't made by a gaming company that has the kind of money (millions) to spend on artists and graphical design. Imagine what could happen if an entire team of proffesional artists and game designers used this tech.

While it's debateable whether or not this is really "one of the greatest things to happen in CG", you have to admit that it's pretty impressive. Sure the demo looks crappy, but again, the potential is very big. Plus, it is different from the "normal" (polygons) and does something completely different. That is pretty innovative.

I am no graphics junkie, I realize that graphics is only a very small part of a game in terms of its playability and fun factor.

 

I have a very pessimistic view on business in the world. Capitalism is great and all, the competition between businesses will require that each business produce better products in order to compete (is that Adam Smith? can't remember) I feel that companies exploit this. If suddenly graphics could not be upgraded any further, then the money they get from the competition will be gone. Either that, or they aren't willing to change. I believe that that is holding back on the gaming industry (graphically wise, anyways).

 

It's plausible that they just don't want to risk experimenting with UD, but honestly, if a bunch of dudes from Australia can come up with this, I don't see how multi billion dollar companies haven't found out about this sooner.

[Narsdarknest]

You mean there are already ways to scan a person and create an animation that could be confused with reality, but can not sell?

 

That is, someone has the technology, and can someone make a video of yourself where you looks like something I've never really done.

 

Interesting for friends of the conspiracy xD

[thesapien]

I heard their excuse during the demo about their lack of artists. It doesn't cost millions of dollars to have a few artists work on a scene. One really good artist can do a lot, given the right tools. Really, artists aren't paid that much.

 

They really need to demonstrate how their tech will help artists. In this industry, there is already a longstanding issue about how to make the tech more into something artists can more naturally work with. This is no small feat and is why there are often separate apps for artists within the dev production pipeline. Speaking of production pipelines, they'd also need to demo their new tech as being compatible with a dev's pipeline of other apps. How well does it play with other stuff they are using? Can they even import or export anything? Will all assets need to be made from scratch?

 

(See ZBrush as an example of something designed with artists in mind and Maya as something for pure artists to avoid. Will ZBrush meshes export to this UD app?)

 

It's also nice to see new tech that doesn't require artists to build everything on a blank slate, instead using new clever tech to generate many scene assets without any artists. The level of detail in Avatar, for instance, would not had been possible had it been solely up to artists to create everything.

 

(See Vue as an example of an app that generates amazing outdoor scenes without any artists, which, btw, doesn't use typical polygons either when rendering scenes.)

 

And, lastly, same as the gist of my first post, I saw nothing innovative about UD. What's new? Everything it showed can already be done with many 3D apps, without plugins. Seriously. It's like watching a video where someone claims to have invented the electric car just yesterday and now wants everyone to accept his version, though there's really nothing novel about it. It actually looks quite dated as compared to the robust and powerful particle systems that are already commonplace.

 

(See XSI's ICE for an example of a particle system. It can do so many cool things, users are always coming up with more. I used to play with it for hours just pretending to run experiments and such, barely knowing what I was doing half the time.)

[thesapien]

I have a very pessimistic view on business in the world. Capitalism is great and all' date=' the competition between businesses will require that each business produce better products in order to compete (is that Adam Smith? can't remember) I feel that companies exploit this. If suddenly graphics could not be upgraded any further, then the money they get from the competition will be gone. Either that, or they aren't willing to change. I believe that that is holding back on the gaming industry (graphically wise, anyways).

 

It's plausible that they just don't want to risk experimenting with UD, but honestly, if a bunch of dudes from Australia can come up with this, I don't see how multi billion dollar companies haven't found out about this sooner.

[/quote']

 

At its most basic, capitalism means you can say, "This is mine. That is yours. Hey, would you like to trade..." Without capitalism, everything is just up for grabs from anyone else. You could build a house only to have others move in and push you out without any public recourse. Nothing would be owned, so at least there would no such thing as theft, LOL. No one ever admits it, but capitalism is one of the foundations of every civilization, no matter its formally stated form of government.

 

That aside, introducing a new tech or radical change is very difficult in the gaming industry. Just look at the latest introduction of tessellation in gaming graphics. It requires specific software and hardware on the dev side and for gamers to also update their software and hardware. This means the change needs hardware manufacturers to produce a new product, game devs to update their software and hardware, and requires gamers to update their hardware (updating gamers' software not as big a deal). The rub is that all three need to happen together. So it's extremely risky for any one company to leap ahead of the crowd, maybe resulting in a cool demo but unplayable on most PC's and consoles, thus leaping off a cliff more like it.

 

Tessellation is another example, actually, of an old technique used in CG for movies and other pre-rendered stuff, but seems totally new to the gaming industry. It's NOT new. It just took a lot of time for the gaming industry (via hardware and software advances) to make it work for real-time rendering in a game engine.

 

A third point about tessellation, it also allows for unlimited detail. The amount of detail is limited by the number of sub-iterations one applies to the scene. Roughly speaking, tessellation is like slapping a texture on a polygon, then using that texture to shape the polygon, subdividing the polygon on each iteration. If the texture is a picture, it's not unlimited detail because the detail would be limited by the original picture. However, if the texture is generated using an algorithm, like noise or some fractal shader, then the source detail is mathematically unlimited in its truest sense. So the level of detail can be determined by the renderer or game engine.

[Kashked]

At its most basic' date=' capitalism means you can say, "This is mine. That is yours. Hey, would you like to trade..." Without capitalism, everything is just up for grabs from anyone else. You could build a house only to have others move in and push you out without any public recourse. Nothing would be owned, so at least there would no such thing as theft, LOL. No one ever admits it, but capitalism is one of the foundations of every civilization, no matter its formally stated form of government.

[/quote']

 

Well, not to nitpick, but what you is describing is simply property laws. Even a non-capitalistic society can have property laws.

 

The classic defenition of capitalism is a society in which a section of society lives of it's capital (hence "capital"-ism), that is, derives it's living of owning, rather than working, while another section of society lives by selling it's labour to the capitalist.

 

While capitalism requires property laws to function, not all societies which has property laws would automatically be capitalist. Feudal societies had property laws, even some tribal/non-state societies has property laws. However I do agree that property laws are a neccesary part of any functioning higher society.

 

Totally frickin' off topic. Sorry 'bout that.

[thesapien]

Off topic, but this thread was probably done anyway, otherwise, so yeah.

 

Funny, I decided to check and see what might be the most commonly accepted usage and found this on wiki: "Capitalism is variously defined by sources and there is no general consensus among scholars on the definition nor which economies can historically be properly considered capitalist." That's something I can agree with.

 

Thus, I've decided to just avoid the term for now on, myself. It has no clear definition, no clear meaning, and will only confound discussions, not clarify. Plus, I would never play along with your idiosyncratic definition, so we'd just argue over definitions endlessly.

[Symon]

(Can't resist this)

Your starter for 10:

 

Name a successful society that lasted for many hundreds of years, was technologically advanced, had no currency, was not capitalist and regarded silver as more valuable then gold.

[thesapien]

I'm guessing you're referring to an ancient time of Egypt. I'm also assuming that by "currency" you mean either fiat currency or paper notes. Ancient Egypt did use coins.

 

As someone who's net worth is mostly in silver coin, I have issues with your association of "currency" to "capitalism". Both are ill-defined here, too. Ancient Egypt used coins for trade. Call that "no currency" and "no capitalism"?

 

Also, pure silver was more rare during that time in Egypt. Interestingly, there are some today who argue from their data that above ground supplies of silver, globally, is less than that of gold. Thus, silver may actually be more rare right now.

[thesapien]

Here's a test question:

 

Coins are never quite perfectly pure. They're an alloy with purity depending on the extraction methods and also just how pure we want them to be. What happened to purity of coins during the fall of Rome?

[Symon]

I'm guessing you're referring to an ancient time of Egypt.

 

Well done, and mostly correct. However, Ancient Egypt did not mint coins.

 

(Not talking about the Ptolemaic Greek imports here).

 

The reason I say they weren't capitalist is their society doesn't have much of an analog in todays world. Certainly, pursuit of profit seemed rather rare, as the state owned almost everything, most people were allocated to a job and even the ability to travel within Egypt was strictly controlled. (They had internal passports).

[Kashked]

I'm guessing you're referring to an ancient time of Egypt.

 

Well done' date=' and mostly correct. However, Ancient Egypt did not mint coins.

 

(Not talking about the Ptolemaic Greek imports here).

 

The reason I say they weren't capitalist is their society doesn't have much of an analog in todays world. Certainly, pursuit of profit seemed rather rare, as the state owned almost everything, most people were allocated to a job and even the ability to travel within Egypt was strictly controlled. (They had internal passports).

[/quote']

 

Still had property laws though... While it was hard to hoard wealth (seeing as they had no currency) one could still hoard wealth in other forms of possesions, jewelery, clothing, etc.

 

Thus, I've decided to just avoid the term for now on, myself. It has no clear definition, no clear meaning, and will only confound discussions, not clarify. Plus, I would never play along with your idiosyncratic definition, so we'd just argue over definitions endlessly.

 

Hehe, probably the wisest course of action, all things considered. In general use, atleast in swedish "capitalism" has basically come to simply denote greed, i.e. "He is so greedy" can be replaced with "He is such a capitalist". I have a feeling this is fairly true in english as well.

The definition I proposed would probably be the marxist definition.

[Symon]

Technically, personal possessions in Ancient Egypt were rather limited, as almost everything was technically owned either by the Temples or the King and you were assigned use of it.

 

(Peraya=King used exclusively prior to about 1500BC and still common afterwards) (Pero=Great House, usually rendered in English as 'Pharaoh' ('The Pharaoh' is technically incorrect usage btw) but this term only came into use after 1500BC and 'King' remained common).

 

One of the few things someone could own outright was their own tomb! Go figure.

[thesapien]

I'm guessing you're referring to an ancient time of Egypt.

 

Well done' date=' and mostly correct. However, Ancient Egypt did not mint coins.

 

(Not talking about the Ptolemaic Greek imports here).

 

The reason I say they weren't capitalist is their society doesn't have much of an analog in todays world. Certainly, pursuit of profit seemed rather rare, as the state owned almost everything, most people were allocated to a job and even the ability to travel within Egypt was strictly controlled. (They had internal passports).

[/quote']

 

Well, I didn't make that specific of a claim. Saying I have coins doesn't imply I mint them myself. Same with Egypt. I also use "coins" and "bars" interchangeably when speaking broadly. The actual minting of coins is a side topic, to me, because it has a lot to do with creating standards but also a lot to do with creating, controlling and debasing an official coin currency. For example, a centrally controlled state can start by introducing taxation and require taxes be paid only with a specific minted coin. The mint can then start debasing the coins (inflating the currency) and thus begin transferring real wealth (in the form of pure metal) to the mint. Eventually, the coins in circulation will be nothing but base metals while all the precious metals will end up with the central planners. As that nears its end, the central planners can then go further with notes that merely represent metal holdings so that they can start creating more notes than actual metal, further transferring wealth. As that nears its end, they can completely drop the metal standard, completely replacing real wealth (real stuff like metal) with paper claims to wealth. As long as everyone agrees that the paper claims are legit or simply fear those who would enforce those claims, the show goes on. All the while, the population becomes disassociated to production, instead thinking in terms of an abstract fiat currency/poker chips. Without all that mess, metals are simply real assets, only to be acquired via labor and production (mining), and to be bartered during trade like any other real asset, such as when seeds were used for common bartering.

 

As to your last part, I can think of many similar examples in today's world.

[thesapien]

Still had property laws though... While it was hard to hoard wealth (seeing as they had no currency) one could still hoard wealth in other forms of possesions' date=' jewelery, clothing, etc.

[/quote']

 

I would say that hoarding a currency isn't hoarding wealth, at least, not directly unless that currency is made of something very useful. Today's digital currencies aren't wealth. They are claims to wealth.

 

Yes, hoarding is bad. The wealth just sits there doing nothing. But saving wealth can be good as it directs us to consider the future and not just everything now. Saving takes discipline. Hoarding, not so much.