Do you think... Created 17 years ago2007-01-17 10:03:04 UTC by Jahzel

It will ever be possible in the future to have a FPS game engine based on a 'partical system' rather than polygons?

Say for example, surfaces and models etc are made of tiny particals instead of the normal polygon - kind of like real life atoms...?

Imagine how great this would be, the environment could be made to be fully destructable.

Another thing that could happen is a "3D photograph" could be generated from existing environments - kind of holographic.

The only dilema I thought about is; how would it be textured? Would each partical be coloured like a pixel? :

Do you think this will ever be possible, or would it require enormous CPU power?

I wish it happens one day...

One day, maybe. To me this doesn't sound like something worth getting excited about. With the possibilities something like this could produce, each and every game would pretty much be an enourmous sandbox game, and actually going outside and living is more exciting (and healthier) then living out your darkest, most perverted fantasies in a computer generated world. ;P

I would image it would be textured the same way, it would just be broken up into the particles upon compile.. This would be an overall bad thing for games, because im sure developers dont want to continue a map out forever.. Or you could break out to the void (considering there is one) =/

and actually going outside and living is more exciting (and healthier) then living out your darkest, most perverted fantasies in a computer generated world. ;P

Lol! Agreed.

I would image it would be textured the same way, it would just be broken up into the particles upon compile.. This would be an overall bad thing for games, because im sure developers dont want to continue a map out forever.. Or you could break out to the void (considering there is one) =/

I guess it could work a bit like unreal...oh shit, I dont know now -

/me confused

You mean a voxel engine? It's been done already. Polygon-based engines are far more efficient: why keep a serie of voxels in memory if the surface they form is essentially flat? A few polygons are more effective. Polygons are also easier to handle things like reflection with, and in case you need the extra relief, you can use normal mapping techniques.

And just in case you want true-to-life graphics, think of all the art that has to be made, or the expensive technologies required to generate it. I think CPU power would be the least of your concerns.

Some of the newer engines render only light. Its lightweight, but the calculation process is tedious and long, nothing a little compression won't handle i hope. Either way, polygons are nice, but we're beginning to think outside the box as what is being seen and what isn't.

Rendering only light creates billions of photon points, which are kinda like voxels.

Thats what makes this image i did so special. It was done using the Mental Ray engine, which renders only light and its physical properties.

Maybe not a particle system, but games really need new material systems that go further than tiled-images. Take for example the materials in 3D rendering software like Bryce:
There are different texture components, and the result depends on terrain altitude and angles.Result

If this was possible, i'd vote to waste it on dynamic sand.

Delta Force used voxel-based rendering.
The game was made in the 1996 and believe me - the terrain was sexier, than ever (you could see the ugly pixels, when close to the surfaces, though)
The game requires 64mb of ram, somewhere 600 Mhz of CPU and 8 or 16 Mb of GFX.

I imagine an updated version (that looks good both at close and long range) using up ~1gb of RAM, 2,5 - 3 Ghz of CPU and ~256 mb of GFX.
Quite acceptable nowadays.

Hey, I have thought of that same idea many times Jahzel.
Dont worry, you arent the first.

I don't see what's wrong with the idea, I like it.
Sure - it would probably require a monster-computer, but it would be hot!
A totally realistic envoriment + it's a game so you can do whatever you want.

Glad I'm not the only one

I basically got the idea from this book I read this morning...

I thought there was already an engine that only uses particles?

Forgot what the name was, but the video i saw was just amazing. Dont think it was Voxel, either.

I doubt it would happen. It would require too much processing power.. or perhaps i am living in the dark days of my crap pentium 2 processor

Sounds plausible. I'd like to see something like this n the near future(though I can only hope it will be that soon). But it would need a lot of power, like everyone else is saying.
Luke describe the game you're talking about, maybe one of us will kow what it is.

It wasnt a game, but just like a preview / example of the engine.

I just remember it showing some character type thing and in another scene (iirc) there was some like light shining through some Greek style collumns.

Was it Project Offset? (the columns weren't Greek style, but there was a lot of light and some particle/motion blur effects)

I saw a video not too long ago of a future Star Wars game that showed off the physics and interaction with different materials...The way the crystals broke was just amazing.

I read that anything you can think of will someday be made...Maybe not in our lifetime but someday...

Valve says Half-Life 2 is meeting Toy Story in terms of image quality lol.

Years ago, Microsoft said the first Xbox was going to have Toy Story image quality... And the PS2 was going to have an "Emotion Engine" and who knows what else. Everyone lies from time to time. We'll just have to wait for a Buzz Lightyear model to compare ingame with Alyx.

Thats the one, Kasperg.

Is that particle? I cant find if it is or isnt. But if its not, thats just what i remembered.

All Pixar movies are very impressive visually, you have to admit.
Habboi, I think the Star Wars thing was acheived through dynamically destructable polygons.