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Stop saying EQNext uses Voxels.
Kiyoris
Member RarePosts: 2,130
It's like people saying Minecraft is a Voxel engine. It's not.
Just because something is made out of primitives doesn't mean it's the same as a voxel enginel.
The only game that had a Voxel engine was Outcast. Outcast looked very different from regular games at the time, it looks immensely more detailed, if a game uses a Voxel engine...you can actually tell.
EQNext does not use voxels.
Comments
This is a Voxel engine. It employs Voxels for it's terrain.
From the game Outcast from 1999.
In 1999 none of the games could show a smooth hill or smooth objects, it took way too many polygons.
But when Outcast came out in 1999 it had no issues having massive amounts of smoothed terrain detail. The amount of detail Outcast could employ on it's terrain in 1999 far outstrips games from 2014.
If a game uses a Voxel engine, you can tell, it will look nothing like other games.
Outcast:
The reason you don't see Voxel Engines being made is:
-it is extremely hard to do, very few people are both smart enough scientists and smart enough programmers to do it
-it only works for static things like terrain, you still need to make a second engine to render your characters (characters in Outcast have far less detail, they're rendered with a different engine), which makes is extremely complex
yes
Steve Klug, the technical director for Everquest Next disagrees.
http://eqnexus.com/2013/10/voxels-everquest-next-interview-steve-klug/
Hmm, who to believe?
Well, I can argue the definition of "sand box" vs "player-driven economy" and "role play", so I can see the type of argument. I don't see how you can argue a technical term, though. What's next? Will we argue USB and RAM?
Voxels are 3 dimensional pixels.
EQnext uses small polygons.
Voxels are not rendered through the graphics card, when Sauer made the Outcast Voxel engine, he mentioned the downsides, the downside of a voxel engine is that everything is rendered through the CPU it is sent to the GPU frame buffer and rendered like that.
Well, we can start with wikipedia. I mean, I know it's not the end-all, be-all because it's user submitted and content can be submitted with prejudice, but from the references and citations, I'm inclined to argue on many fronts to this.
We can start with Voxel Space , a proprietary engine years older than Outcast. I think that pretty much ends the discussion.
who cares if its called a duck or a tiger as long as it is destructable and looks good
E Q NEEEEXT GOOOOOOOOOOOO
That is a pretty... remedial... definition of "voxel".
Why do I get the feeling that this argument from the OP is based on the perception that Voxel tech has never advanced.
It's not a perception, GPU never supported voxel based rendering, which is why it has to be done on the CPU. If the industry had chosen to support voxel based rendering, we would all be playing voxel based games.
But because polygon based engine are easier to build, and because there isn't a good solution to animating voxels, the GPU makers decided to support polygon based rendering over voxel based rendering.
But... we do all play games with voxels. Click this Voxel and look at the list of games. I mean, you have alot of work to do if you're going to argue this.
EQN does use voxels. It doesn't render them but it still uses them to handle deformation. Voxel is just a fancy word for cube.
We don't, I don't know who makes those stupid lists, but Minecraft isn't a voxel engine, it's a polygon engine.
Uh, the developers of the game have literally said that EQN uses three-dimensional pixels to create its objects.
http://eqnexus.com/2013/10/voxels-everquest-next-interview-steve-klug/
So by your own definition, EQN uses voxels.
I'm not sure how this is even an argument. You know absolutely squat about the game or how it renders objects, so you're really in no position to talk. Plus, your entire argument is based around the notion that voxel rendering technology (both hardware and software) has not advanced sufficiently since its introduction into the industry well over a decade ago. So suffice it to say it's not exactly standing on firm terrain.
It's basically your word against the devs, and I'm inclined to believe the devs over some random guy on the internet. Nothing personal, just saying, you don't exactly have the background to make this argument from any sort of authoritative position.
Minecraft uses a voxel editor. It's the math in relaying coordinates, static or dynamic against other voxel coordinates...
Since you can see the polygon's on the terrain in EQNext, it doesn't use voxels. A voxel terrain engine has an unlimited amount of detail, there is no limitation on the amount of detail in terrain that is rendered with voxels.
these things are polygons, you can see the blocky terrain and blocky tree.
Yes. (Nearly) Just replace "pixel" with "value" and you are there.
Does EQ next represent/store it's world data using Voxels?
Yes.
Voxel's are a concept. You can use the same concept in many ways on different levels of abstraction. A Voxel gfx engine is not the same as a voxel world engine, but both ARE voxel based.
using some voxel technology doesn´t make the whole engine a voxel engine...
Star Citizen will use Voxel technology for mining and asteroids, you can drill a tunnel into asteroids or cut out whole parts or cut an asteroid into half, that is voxel usage but Cryengine still isn´t a voxel engine because of this
EQNext uses Voxel Farm Engine and the ForgeLight Engine.
So it is pretty much doing the same thing as the OP is saying Outcast did.
What is the OP's point again?
A creative person is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.
Yeh, I mean, I don't see anything in Klug's interview that says Voxel Farm renders voxels. EQN uses voxel farm engine, but Forgelight renders the mesh. Saying "EQN does not use a voxel engine" is false, but saying "EQN does not use a voxel engine to render" is true, but nothing does. Nothing can.
edit: at least not on the scale of a persistent world.