Atomontage Engine - The Future Is Volumetric, Atom-Based - Unofficial video-blog #1 (part 1 of 3)

[lelela2211]

Do you think you will release some playable demo stuff in 2012 ?

[AtomontageEngine]

@lelela2211 I hope so. Soon the generators will run in parallel on at least 6 cores (it was 2 till now), later maybe on 10. That's the performance boost I need to prepare the necessary huge amounts of data and tune the most relevant features so that they perform well on that data.

[mamaloney1]

This would be amazing paired with minecraft.

[TheBlenderblob]

So whats the diffrence between this and the hyped up UNLIMITED DETAIL engine .

[faultybrain387]

@TheBlenderblob This is realistic. Unlimited detail boasts a complete voxel engine with 1 cubic mm atoms. This is more like 1 cubic inch atoms. That's why he uses DOF to blur the blocky effect caused by the large atoms. Plus he uses the atoms in tandem with mesh (a much better idea performance wise).

[Richdadful]

@faultybrain387 Wow then you have to give credit to this engine. The graphics are better than unlimited detail demo. Infact this looks on par with best games of this generation.

[matustrgina]

ouuu yeahhh :) nothing so awesome i never seen... epic

[Aluenvey]

So are you eventually going to add shovels, and pickaxes? I always thought it would be cool to dig around a world that isnt blocky, and everything was subject to gravity.

[AtomontageEngine]

@Aluenvey yes!

[kive7701]

@Aluenvey

For this you can try a game called From Dust, it's all about digging and gravity :)

[DavidPatMathis81]

@Aluenvey I wouldn't hold you're breath on that one. I promise you that all those rocks are hollow.

[LolindirElros]

@Aluenvey play cortex command. Not blocky and diggable xD

[YummiestGiraffe]

@Aluenvey Go outside and dig a hole in your yard lol.

[psmccallion]

computer says no

[PedroGoulart31]

Fuck man, thaaat's awesome!

[ghost59able]

can this engine be put into  udk

also how long did it take you to build this

[AtomontageEngine]

@ghost59able I guess the authors of UDK and other top engines are developing their own atom-based solutions

[ghost59able]

@AtomontageEngine ok hey can i make a little something with it

to show off some ideas

[AtomontageEngine]

@ghost59able not yet :)

[ghost59able]

@AtomontageEngine ok

i  hope soon

[f14tomcatfreak]

Didnt the delta force games use a voxel engine?im pretty sure at least DF1 and 2 used such a engine...

[helgih580]

@f14tomcatfreak yup, both Delta Force 1 and 2 used it. It looked good back in they day because of all the grass you could crawl around in. Today, not so much. Last time I played it was like 5 years ago and I almost died of eye cancer. I also remember a game called Outcast that used a voxel engine that really fit the game's alien world.

[AtomontageEngine]

@f14tomcatfreak there's a great difference between the old voxel engines and the modern ones - the old engines used raycasting on a heightmap; there's no heightmap in engines like AE

[f14tomcatfreak]

@AtomontageEngine How much does this demand of the hardware?

[gilzineto]

UNLIMITED points! ;O

ahahaha

[BudzMcgr33n]

This tech sucks for videogames.

[Quuob]

>making a badass engine

>not using screencapture software

so not cool, bro. not cool.

(i still like it though)

[supervesp]

does this engine use OpenGL or Direct3D, or it's indipendent and communicate directly with the GPU?

anyway, really nice technology :D

[AtomontageEngine]

@supervesp at the moment just OpenGL

[supervesp]

@AtomontageEngine I see... thanks for the info and good luck!

[ArchitekOGP]

I do 3D landscape renders with software like Terragen and Vue and this could have potiential as a landscape render engine. Perhaps you could contact Terragen and Vue and get some support as im sure they would also be interested in this kind of tech.

[wriddler]

it looks better than that other atom based shit those silly brits posted i forgets there names but this one has more shadowing and some animation demonstrated unlike their shitty video

[MilestonePictures]

with procedural generation.... i can imagine this would be a hit.

but HOW would you be able to store all that data... let alone DESIGN it

[MilestonePictures]

imagine this in 3d

[omma911]

Do you have a budgie on your shoulder? Somthing is clearly singing in the background.

[gpaluk]

Just some post process smoothing shader for those voxels would probably be enough to get rid of alot of blockiness when getting close.??

[AtomontageEngine]

@gpaluk rendering is the simpler part, I will fix it when the time is right

[Hosful]

This looks amazing, but i wanna see it in a game.

[Anton1987RU]

Your engine looks more better the RAGE engine!!

[HurgaGonzales]

It's amazing but I wonder if this will run with additional informations to calculate in a standard 4 ord 8 core computer when there are physix, different materials, KI and so on. But the demo is very nice...respect.

[MrStanley85]

Your shaders would improve any other egine right? Have a look at unlimited detail engine or have a search for "euclideon"

[ZenZombie90]

Unlimited detail is a scam, FYI

Atomontage is real.

[NyAllstar0621k]

amazing. as a 3d artist this allows for an amazing amount of flexibility in how a world is designed, as you no longer are restricted in the same manner as a polygonal engine is. I am anxiously waiting for the full implementation of a commercial engine that competes or out right rival polygonal game engines. if this engine is an indication, I am one happy camper. :) thank you for sharing, and I wish you the best of luck and Hope to one day perhaps develop with your engine. keep up the good work.

[PhilipWitte]

Amazing stuff!

[Einheitskreis]

I can't wait! UnlimitedDetail also working on something like this. If I understand correctly, RayTracing won't even be needed with Atom based Geometry, so it's the ultimate answer? At least thats how the Holodec works...kinda :D I really hope for a soon brakethrough. As a wise man once said: "DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOP,..."

[RiverDaComedian]

@Einheitskreis To be more specific, they aren't working with voxels at all, but more of a, as they said, "search engine for 3D models" while this is nice, I think that Unlimited Detail might have.. er.. more detail, while voxels do look nice far away, they don't have to be very close to realize the lack of detail.

[bachterman]

i'd love to see this in outcast 2.

[ShayTheMon]

now imagine games in a few years... wow

[jawamachines]

Holy crap. This is incredible.

[pixartist]

How would you make voxels behave dynamicly ? like a house collapsing?

[AtomontageEngine]

@pixartist rigid bodies can be voxel based, no matter whether they're moving or not, deformable bodies can be either voxels based or point based (or polygon based, if you wish); a collapsing house will use both points and voxels (and also particles)

[MarshmallowRadiation]

Cortex Command 3D, anyone?

[Daldrez]

It scares me a bit that 9 monthes ago he said a tech video/demo might be coming soon. Will we ever actually see this work?

[youmakeitwhatitis]

Well I can't use DOF on an FPS... are the voxels planned to stay that big, or do you plan to increase possible voxel count somehow? I don't think blurring anything close up is the best course of action. Great work, though, siles.

[fudgegland]

My voxels, let me show you them.

[TheShadowstreak]

Just take all my money now!

[MasterHand243]

So would it be possible to take models and convert them to this type of volumetric "rendering"? With all the bump mapping and other eye candy too?

[V01t45]

Zda se mi to, nebo je prizvuk cesky, nebo slovensky?

[lordofgangstas]

oh my god

[d3tach3d]

"atomic" as in "point cloud data"?

[metabog]

This would work well for an RTS where you don't have to zoom in too close.

[Esthin]

@metabog Yes it would!

Awesome idea, randomly generated RTS game? Yes please.

[YTDekus]

@metabog If you dont zoom in close - why then model/sculpt all that hyper detail... wasting time.. :(

i'd like to see this in some adventure/exploration game.

[Ichvyenichalster]

@metabog As he's already said, that is a matter of rendering capabilities, which are not only very possible (since each voxel occupies less than one bit) but is inevitable in the future. For now, in terms of development, he's only using openGL and is obviously focusing on software engineering.

[Capeau]

Using bloom and Dof isnt a good solution to remove the cube-look

As it would only help with objects that are out of focus and have a bright background. You should look into some sort of interpolation

[WinterXL]

@Capeau If "some sort of interpolation" was easy and sufficient, it would already be commonplace. :P

[Capeau]

@WinterXL

i didnt say its easy, but its possible, i've seen another voxelengine do it

[tokyobenny]

This is really impressive, is your engine allready avalable? is there any SDK? how to buy? what are the features?

[whattheima]

Is there any reason for you to be using a joypad to navigate around this demo?

Is this technology going to be available on the consoles?

[cpp8]

Very exciting stuff. Any plans for a tech demo any time soon?

[AtomontageEngine]

@cpp8 Thanks. A tech video will come out soon, and a demo might follow, I will see..

[MrDoremifa]

@AtomontageEngine theres a graphic motor called unnlimited detail have you hear of that?

[pete9320]

@MrDoremifa this aint a polygon engine. doubt he would be intrested. since he is making his own. thats what it seems like :D

[Mocib]

@AtomontageEngine

You might want to fix the link in the description...

[AtomontageEngine]

@Mocib Done. Thanks!

[mzoltan14]

I think the graphics kinda seems good enough, maybe need some optimization on how to get compressed resources (i think it was the reason of occasional lags). You should focuse more on physics and real-time alterations also(if you aren't already) [i mean propper destruction of buildings terrain, also fluids condensation, evaporation, dust creation, sedimentation (i don't have better words).

Just my thoughts.

[AtomontageEngine]

@mzoltan14 You're right, physics is actually the reason number one to switch to a voxel based tech.. Currently it works well but I had to fix the optimized renderer first as it really disliked the real-time content alteration.. so physics will be demonstrated soon, I hope :)

[Spinal83]

There is plenty of free screen capture software available, so PLEASE use something like that next time so we can watch in 720p (or 1080p)!

[AtomontageEngine]

@Spinal83 Sure, later videos (not part 2 and 3 of this blog) will be captured from screen.

[Spinal83]

@AtomontageEngine Great :) can't wait to see this being used in games