Small demo of mesh deforming using voxels

[SylvainTV]

Being inspired by some Crysis video, and being a little bored tonight, I created a small "voxel" demo where you can add and remove matter to a flat mesh. It's a 50x50x50 3D grid. The mesh is created by finding the Iso surface =0 in this 3D grid. You're then just manipulating values in the 3D grid.

The algorithm used is some Marching Cubes class that I found on Internet, that I adapted a little for TV. Then it uses SetGeometry/ComputeNormals to fill the mesh data.

http://7HQ.org/sylvain/voxeltest.rar
(thanks Eric for hosting for me)

To run it directly, run the .exe in the Release dir, you must create a "betakey" file in this folder with "BetaUser BetKey" text to run it. You need also the TV C++ dll.

Keys :
Ctrl -> mouse look
Arrows -> camera rotation and movement
S -> save to tvm
1, 2 -> switch to wireframe/solid
Right click -> dig holes
left click -> add matter

Have fun.

[Eric]

very cool of course wouldn't expect anything less from teh sylv  

edit: you don't need to create the betakey file, use the one thats already there but of course put your username/key in it

[pizzayoyo]

Wow, great work sylvain. That is really amazing!

[Zaknafein]

Very cool stuff!!
Now how about the "realtime ambient maps" and the volumetric clouds from Crysis?

[Black-Rainbow]

This is beyond  cool. I was researching Marching Cubes after seeing the Sandbox Demo.

Is it possible to use this as an alternative to Heightmap based Terrains or would it be too slow?

Would all the Other Features like Splatting still work?

[WEst]

Really cool demo sylvain.

[Hypnotron]

http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=47885

definetly a cool engine.

[Raine]

http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=47885

definetly a cool engine.

I went "oh wow" a lot of times watching this video. A rather impressive technology.

And Sylv, awesome demo.

[AriusMyst]

Good stuff Sylv. I wanted to get into voxels a little while back when I saw the OGRE demo, but I got caught up in PABteam(tm, patented, [c] yada yada) work. Its cool that you've laid some groundwork for those of us that wish to investigate voxels further .

[Mietze]

Being inspired by some Crysis video

Nice to hear about. I knew you will try to re-engineer something from crysis after our last conversation

Now how about the "realtime ambient maps" and the volumetric clouds from Crysis?

Nice idea, but I dont think TV3D can handle this as the cryENGINE 2 does. I was watching some of my ex-collegues concepting this stuff and yes, it's highly complex. You could realize some of the basics, but the whole effect - especially the ambient maps.
As you may know; I've worked for CryTek and even I do not know all about these issues. It would be nice to have, anyway

[Gamecode]

yes yes, how to create clouds ?

[Eric]

I think the easiest way to create volumetric clouds is placing minimesh billboards into a cluster.  Maybe write some kind of VS to make them change shape over time a little.

[AriusMyst]

I agree with Eric. Though, you will have to wait till the next build before you can apply shaders to the mini mesh. I think BarryR did some really nice clouds this way about a year ago.

[Eric]

Well I think I'll adapt my tree class to make volumetric clouds and release that - shouldnt be more than a few days but don't hold me to that :p  It will support 3 levels of LOD

[Gamecode]

great, i wait

[Aion]

i don't suppose theres any chance of someone porting this to VB.net?

[JohnB]

Hi all,

I've ported Sylvain's Marching Cube / Voxel example to VB.Net 2005.  I expected the VB code to be a lot slower than C++ so I plugged it into one of my fastest main loop designs and after a little tweaking, it runs surprisingly well.

Anybody want to host it for me so we can post a link here?

John B.

[Aion]

JohnB, zomg, thank you.    
i would host it, but my server is often up and down...  however, if no one else offers, i'd be glad to.

[frumbert]

Hi all,

I've ported Sylvain's Marching Cube / Voxel example to VB.Net 2005.  I expected the VB code to be a lot slower than C++ so I plugged it into one of my fastest main loop designs and after a little tweaking, it runs surprisingly well.

Anybody want to host it for me so we can post a link here?

John B.

Hi JohnB
I can host it for you. Send an email to tim.stclair [at] gmail.com if you're interested.

The voxel engine is really quite nice - I haven't encountered one for quite a while, but now that people are expecting to see more detail in terrain than you can provide with a simple heightmap it really is becoming useful again. The quick "dig/add" method makes it a snap to dig caves and dungeons. A bit of smart logic to add textures, clutter or quasi-randomised features to a landscape would be a good addition (like in that crysis video).

[sgrippa]

I can host it too if needed. Pm me if you want room in my webspace.