Unlimited Detail

Lain · Oct 7, 2011

A company called Euclideon is developing a 3D graphics engine called Unlimited Detail that is based around extremely tiny point-like voxels that they've deemed "atoms". Their engine apparently uses a clever search algorithm that only searches for the specific atoms to be displayed on each pixel of the screen, thus making the only factors of render speed being the resolution it's being rendered at and the hardware that's rendering it. The amount of detail being rendered is no longer a factor, hence the name Unlimited Detail.

Of course, Unlimited Detail still isn't truly unlimited. There's a limiting factor in how much of these atoms you can load into memory, but even this may not be a huge concern since games have had techniques for streaming things into memory in real-time for a while.

Here's the company's latest video, released in August, showcasing the engine:
[youtubehd]00gAbgBu8R4[/youtubehd]

Now, they state in the video that in a few month's time, this engine of theirs will be completed and they'll begin marketing it.

There are a few things I'm curious about. They mentioned they've got a converter that will convert extremely high-poly models into a model made out of atoms which can then be rendered by their engine in real time, but I'd like to know how this will work with animation. Their tech demos of Unlimited Detail have been motionless except for the camera, except for some extremely early prototypes demonstrating very crude animation. Also, I'm curious on how lighting works in this engine, particularly in real-time.

This product has been called a hoax by the creator of Minecraft. But to me and the much more credible John Carmack of id Software, it clearly isn't. However, how well it'll be able to handle the animated, constantly in-motion worlds that are in videogames remains to be seen. If it can deliver in that type of environment, then we're in for some gorgeous games in the not-so-distant future.

Seismica · Oct 7, 2011

A couple of things;

What hardware are they running that island on, 2x 6990s in cf? I think it's still a bit optimistic to run these sorts of environments on current gen hardware.

Does the dirt they show deform and move around when objects/people move across it?

Does this mean 3D trees in GT?

Lain · Oct 7, 2011

Seismica
What hardware are they running that island on, 2x 6990s in cf? I think it's still a bit optimistic to run these sorts of environments on current gen hardware.

Negative, they're not even utilizing GPUs yet. The software's running on the CPU alone.

Skip to the 22 minute mark:
[youtubehd]JVB1ayT6Fdc[/youtubehd]

As for the other questions, I'd like to know the answers to those myself.

But physics and GT aren't really Euclideon's area. When other developers get ahold of this engine and start working with it is when we'll get those answers.

Grayfox · Oct 7, 2011

Well you can 3D scan a car so if this tech can make it into GT6(unlikely) and PD can improve physics and other parts it will then be truly called "The Real Driving Simulator".

skylinefx · Oct 7, 2011

I'm a visual person and this looks just brilliant...
Now someone leak the island demo!

PAPPACLART · Oct 7, 2011

Very interesting if not smoke

DG_Silva · Oct 7, 2011

Why does it sound like Bob Geldof is doing the voice over on the video?

But fair play to the Euclideon for producing a truly stunning bit of programming. If they license this technology (or should that be when?), it will completely revolutionise the industry, in particular racing games.

Submerged · Oct 8, 2011

This did pop up a few months back, but I cannot remember if it was on this forum or whether it was written by The Register (IT news site).

They stated that they felt the whole thing was sort of not really what it first seems. They pointed out that the camera only moves and everything else is static. They postulated that if the objects were to move and the system was to calculate all the polygons and so on, it would require supercomputer processing power, rather than a desktop.

I will see if I can find the link to the article.

skylinefx · Oct 8, 2011

Submerged
This did pop up a few months back, but I cannot remember if it was on this forum or whether it was written by The Register (IT news site).

They stated that they felt the whole thing was sort of not really what it first seems. They pointed out that the camera only moves and everything else is static. They postulated that if the objects were to move and the system was to calculate all the polygons and so on, it would require supercomputer processing power, rather than a desktop.

I will see if I can find the link to the article.

I've also heard that animation is very difficult or impossible to do with that engine. If that is the case, then it is pretty useless for games.

Lain · Oct 8, 2011

Submerged
This did pop up a few months back, but I cannot remember if it was on this forum or whether it was written by The Register (IT news site).

They stated that they felt the whole thing was sort of not really what it first seems. They pointed out that the camera only moves and everything else is static. They postulated that if the objects were to move and the system was to calculate all the polygons and so on, it would require supercomputer processing power, rather than a desktop.

I will see if I can find the link to the article.

There has been a lot of speculation in this regard, but there's been no definitive voice on the subject.

Euclideon insists that animation is entirely possible with their engine. But they certainly haven't demonstrated it yet, so... we'll see.

In that interview I posted, they show early prototypes of their technology featuring animation. But these prototypes also involve significantly less number of atoms than their Island demo. Whether it'll be able to scale up to worlds with as many atoms as the Island demo without a drastic performance hit remains to be seen.

I personally can't really speculate on the matter. To me, it really seems it could go either way.

But if it happens that animation with vast amounts of atoms turns out to be cripplingly slow, I'm sure that it won't necessarily be the end of the road for Unlimited Detail. Just as developers have found all sorts of tricks to make Polygon-based games run faster, I'm certain that developers will also find tricks to make dealing with lots of atoms faster. They may not be able to get detailed games up and running on current gen hardware, but processors are always getting better. Eventually I think we'll still get to experience games with Unlimited Detail, even if animation turns out to be a burden.

And who knows? Maybe Euclideon knows what they're talking about, and animation is totally feasible with Unlimited Detail on modern hardware today.

Akira GT · Oct 8, 2011

Its either going to be a resounding success or a huge failure... If it works then its bound for glory and If it doesn't well thats alot of time and effort by Euclideon for nothing..

Also with that long distance idea... Didn't PD do something like that for all the premium cars. It looks like they did to me!

GfxJG · Oct 8, 2011

Old news is quite old. But absolutely awesome nonetheless.

bergauk · Oct 8, 2011

One way to possibly make animation smoother/more possible would be to render only what you can see of an object. Why should you have to render the whole object if you're not going to SEE the whole thing?

By doing that you're cutting what you render in half. But still keeping all the detail that you can see.

Lain · Oct 9, 2011

bergauk
One way to possibly make animation smoother/more possible would be to render only what you can see of an object. Why should you have to render the whole object if you're not going to SEE the whole thing?

By doing that you're cutting what you render in half. But still keeping all the detail that you can see.

Well, that's already how it works. The potential problem isn't about rendering, it's about modifying millions of atoms in real time.

GfxJG
Old news is quite old. But absolutely awesome nonetheless.

Old news is indeed quite old. But I didn't see a thread on it, and if there is a thread on it, it hasn't been seen since Euclideon released their progress update in August.

G36E · Oct 10, 2011

That'd pretty crazy, but no lag involved?

Lain · Oct 12, 2011

G36E
That'd pretty crazy, but no lag involved?

That's the idea, yes.

Unlimited Detail

Lain

Seismica

Lain

Grayfox

skylinefx

PAPPACLART

DG_Silva

Submerged

skylinefx

Lain

Akira GT

GfxJG

bergauk

Lain

G36E

Lain

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