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unlimited detail update

polycounter lvl 17
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Octo polycounter lvl 17
Hey

Didn't find the old thread on this, except for a closed one.
Unlimited detail/euclideon has updated their site.
I don't know if it's worthy it's own thread but here goes..

http://www.euclideon.com/home.html

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  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    something about the shading looks kinda weird on the car doesnt it?

    that mega mesh thing looks more realistic and promising. Maybe these guys need to attract some game developer to actually make something cool with the tech instead of the crappy programmer art vids they have
  • RexM
    rooster wrote: »
    something about the shading looks kinda weird on the car doesnt it?

    that mega mesh thing looks more realistic and promising. Maybe these guys need to attract some game developer to actually make something cool with the tech instead of the crappy programmer art vids they have

    Well, they're not making their own shaders or anything like that... their main focus is the geometry using point clouds at the moment.

    Once it is perfected it'll make that mega mesh technology look obsolete.
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    if anyone wants to use it
  • vcortis
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    vcortis polycounter lvl 9
    I've yet to see one good piece of art come out of Unlimited Detail. Sure they might not be making materials, or textures, but how about a high res ambient occlusion on a nice model? Is that too much to ask?

    Probably, I think myself and 99.9% of all other industry artists will continue using polygons for the forseeable future. Afterall we are approaching real time tesselation, and polygons have never been that big of a system hogger... it's always shaders.
  • Ghostscape
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    Ghostscape polycounter lvl 13
    the last time we saw the technology, it was all static objects, wasn't it? Stills without dynamic lighting?

    Animating and Colliding with point cloud data seem like major issues that they will need to solve for games and that they haven't addressed yet.
  • Octo
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    Octo polycounter lvl 17
    How do you know they haven't taken care of that?
    Collision could most likely be solved fairly easily. Animating point clouds is possible, but even if its too expensive or whatever, most of the game environments are static, or rigid bodies...so a hybrid engine would be a good start.
    Personally I can't wait for this stuff to mature...
    Throwing in a zbrush model straight into the game engine, skipping low poly meshes, lods, baking normalmaps etc is pretty much the best thing that could happen to prop development heh. Better results in a shorter amount of time.
  • rooster
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    rooster mod
    collision is likely fairly easy? why do you say that?

    a lot of times low poly meshes are used for collision, because the denser the collision mesh the slower the collision check. They'll have to figure out a fast way to do it using millions of points. I'm sure they'll crack it, but until they show it I don't assume its in the bag.

    that thing you just described about the zbrush model straight into game though.. that's what the mega mesh thing is.. and it works now
  • RexM
    Yeah, that's another thing.

    Unlimited Detail is taking too long, and mega mesh works now.... which is also a reason why I don't see unlimited detail taking off anytime soon
  • RexM
    whoops, double post. too late now though xD
    vcortis wrote: »
    I've yet to see one good piece of art come out of Unlimited Detail. Sure they might not be making materials, or textures, but how about a high res ambient occlusion on a nice model? Is that too much to ask?

    Probably, I think myself and 99.9% of all other industry artists will continue using polygons for the forseeable future. Afterall we are approaching real time tesselation, and polygons have never been that big of a system hogger... it's always shaders.

    Have you even read up on unlimited detail technology? You can make high poly meshes that are instantly converted to point clouds, you don't model directly with the point clouds in the first place.

    Additionally, their entire team is compromised of programmers. They have no artists at this point.
  • Octo
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    Octo polycounter lvl 17
    Obviously i don't know the details on how their engine works but couldn't it just use simple polygon shapes for collision just like current games..just generate a hull based on the outermost points of the point cloud or something...or hand made..whatever.
    I've actually missed the mega mesh thing...gotta look into that now, cheers!
    Still hoping for a point/voxel based system but it'll take a while before we can fully use the advantages of it so something like mega mesh looks like a nice alternative for now.
  • EarthQuake
    I keep clicking on the link expecting to see something interesting. But there is just some lame picture of a Jeep.

    Am I missing something?
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    EarthQuake wrote: »
    I keep clicking on the link expecting to see something interesting. But there is just some lame picture of a Jeep.

    Am I missing something?

    me too?
  • EarthQuake
    Also
    RexM wrote: »
    Once it is perfected it'll make that mega mesh technology look obsolete.

    Do you work for these guys or something? What basis do you have to make such claims?
  • ZacD
  • vcortis
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    vcortis polycounter lvl 9
    RexM wrote: »
    whoops, double post. too late now though xD



    Have you even read up on unlimited detail technology? You can make high poly meshes that are instantly converted to point clouds, you don't model directly with the point clouds in the first place.

    Additionally, their entire team is compromised of programmers. They have no artists at this point.

    I have read up on it. I know exactly what it is. My original statement still stands, you only misunderstood me. The point of my statement was to assert the opinion that I think the game industry will continue to develop engines around the use of polygons NOT point-cloud systems.

    If they want to be taken seriously by any facet of the game-dev community they will have to show that the tech they are developing works with current systems, and provides better and more efficient results.

    If they don't have animation, lighting, materials, and the pletora of other issues in game development figured out their entire system is a moot point.

    I honestly don't give two shits that their entire team is made up of programmers either... contract a 3-D artist to make a decent piece of art using their system. If it's really as simple as porting over a polygon model from z-brush and converting it I see no reason why you can't have someone create a nice model for $1,000 or less to use as your show piece.

    I'd have to imagine it would be helpful in finding funding.

    Right now, they haven't come close to proving that this technology will be useful in creating games and I for one will remain skeptical until they do.

    Other industries? Sure I can see some application, but not here... not yet.
  • EarthQuake
    vcortis wrote: »
    If they don't have animation, lighting, materials, and the pletora of other issues in game development figured out their entire system is a moot point.

    Absolutely correct.
  • Mark Dygert
    I still want to punch their front man in the neck for being a cocksmith. Nothing has changed.
  • jipe
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    jipe polycounter lvl 17
    Slightly broader topic here, but I cannot think of anything more useless than the goal of "unlimited detail". In a general sense the industry is moving in that direction anyway; the technology on display here is just an absurd extreme. I'm so sick of the assumption that more detail is better -- it's the same concept that underpinned the work of ImageMovers Digital, which produced some of the most hideous and creepy CG animation I've ever seen. It seems so much more productive, both from a financial and artistic perspective, to focus on the right details. More detail is not necessarily better, nor does it automatically make games more fun.
  • THE 5
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    THE 5 polycounter lvl 13
    Slightly offtopic, but http://www.atomontage.com/?id=home seems a interesting (still not practically usefull) thing too. As unlimited detail it is based on pointclouds and also got "unlimited detail" afaik. If the developer would get the physics done we could have some nice 3D worms :D

    EDIT:
    That cars in the videos are polygonal models, maybe the fusion of pointclouds and polygons is the future... :p
  • TNO
    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF8A4bsfKH8[/ame]

    seems that nobody was noticing this animation test that was uploaded nearly a year ago..?

    so animations are possible with this technology but without a beta or something else it will still stuck in the "well ok this could be a great thing but hey there ar other things I am able to look at it right now" section.
  • Ged
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    Ged interpolator
    why does that animation test look so very very limited in detail?
  • eld
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    eld polycounter lvl 18
    TNO wrote: »
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF8A4bsfKH8

    seems that nobody was noticing this animation test that was uploaded nearly a year ago..?

    so animations are possible with this technology but without a beta or something else it will still stuck in the "well ok this could be a great thing but hey there ar other things I am able to look at it right now" section.

    Yeah, saw that one before, it didn't sell itself in any way.

    It makes it highly suspicious of this being a technology with several disadvantages, but the creator wants to sell it as a highly competitive one.

    Megamesh is a proper implementation, does it without breaking any of the good game-art conventions set down, and integrates normally with every other way of doing it.

    This is how I visualize the unlimited detail guy:

    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOOw2yWMSfk&feature=related[/ame]
  • r_fletch_r
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    r_fletch_r polycounter lvl 9
    I wonder how that animation works. id be suspicious thats its object space. there is no signs of deformations only translations/rotations.

    Isn't point cloud data a royal pain in the hole to shade?
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    my god eld, thats that's the worst game ever. is that man just deluded or what
  • ZacD
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    ZacD ngon master
    TNO wrote: »
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF8A4bsfKH8

    seems that nobody was noticing this animation test that was uploaded nearly a year ago..?

    so animations are possible with this technology but without a beta or something else it will still stuck in the "well ok this could be a great thing but hey there ar other things I am able to look at it right now" section.

    if it didn't look like an render/animation from the 90's I'm sure we wouldn't be doubting it this much, but so far we haven't seen anything amazing.
  • vcortis
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    vcortis polycounter lvl 9
    What they really need is a theme song...

    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R5yT2YRSng[/ame]
  • TNO
    the video was meant for vcortis who thought that animation wouldn´t be possible :-P


    Eld I can´t argue with you about the "Unlimited detail" thing I agree.
    I might change my mind about that unlimited detail technology if there would be a public version to test.
    thats all. if there is nothing to test or a gasp cool graphics (with some ai etc) movie I will and have to agree that it is useless.
  • CheeseOnToast
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    CheeseOnToast greentooth
    I emailed them ages ago, suggesting that they release some kind of exporter for zbrush/mudbox and a model viewer ASAP. If they take the route that guys like Jogshy (Xnormal) and Ryan (Crazybump) have, they'll potentially get a load of high quality models to show off on their site for free and loads of feedback from production artists. They do seem to be trying to get this off the ground and have apparently dropped the annoying attitude. I'm still skeptical, but no harm in trying a new approach right?
  • PixelGoat
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    PixelGoat polycounter lvl 12
    eld wrote: »
    Yeah, saw that one before, it didn't sell itself in any way.

    It makes it highly suspicious of this being a technology with several disadvantages, but the creator wants to sell it as a highly competitive one.

    Megamesh is a proper implementation, does it without breaking any of the good game-art conventions set down, and integrates normally with every other way of doing it.

    This is how I visualize the unlimited detail guy:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOOw2yWMSfk&feature=related

    That video made me a bit sad inside :P
  • JacqueChoi
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    JacqueChoi polycounter
    Unlimited detail reminds me of this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7HmAPsCj-g


    We have polygons that work perfectly fine... but unlimited detail can potentially be ANYTHING! It can even potentially work perfectly fine!


    and haha eld... that's hilarious. He invented a game we played one time.

    When my friends schufflepuck table broke down, (and he lost one paddle). So we played with our forarms, and used a tennis ball.

    We would've much preferred to have played Schufflepuck.
  • vcortis
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    vcortis polycounter lvl 9
    But but it has...

    unlimited-power_opt.jpg
  • rolfness
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