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Unlimited Detail

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#1

I read about this product today on the New Scientist website.

It is a new approach to a normally cumbersome technology. I am probably posting this in the wrong forum but I think it would be amazing if it could work with ZBrush.

http://unlimiteddetailtechnology.com/pictures.html

Unlimited detail in realtime graphics - it is what game manufacturers have been dreaming of…

The images are not mine - they are pinched from the Unlimited Detail website listed above.

Let me know what you think! u2008qwalk6.jpg

Attachments

u2008giraffe.jpg

#2

interesting technology, shame their website and video presentations are utterly horrible :smiley:

edit: isn’t it just voxels? people were doing this years ago

#3

If you read ‘just what is it?’ it is not voxels.
It works like google’s search engine, algorithmically, but in a point cloud system. And it only shows you the screen resolution (what you see on the screen in front of you) and ignores everything else.

Maybe it’s only a gimic with no substance. I guess we’ll see.

#4

That’s exactly what it is. Some guy trying to sell his product.

I don’t see it catching on soon because there are limited practical uses with that technology.
Imagine trying to add procedural animation like gravity, wind, collisions, explosions…or…heaven forbid…realtime NVidia PhysX.

p.s. The technology is still only as pretty as the artist behind it. What’s the point of unlimited detail if it still looks like garbage at any distance? lol

#5

The potential is there. Just because it’s programmer art doesn’t mean it should be dismissed.

Questions like physics etc. are valid questions but in the demo at least they had animations on grass (and it was all individual strands of grass), they had self-casting shadows etc.

We’ll see, but I remember when any new technology came around, especially GI and sooo many people thought it would never be feasible and here we are, everyone is using it. Heck, the amount of people who thought Z-brush was crap in the beginning failed to see the potential.

Carmack has said this is the future of graphics technology and he tends to know a couple of things.

Could turn out to be unusable in a practical situation or it could be awesome. Time will tell. No need to jump to conclusions.

Tobbe

#6

This seems to have a lot in common with Pixols if I understand it correctly… namely, it exists in screenspace. Most calculations are only needed per pixel instead of per polygon or per texel. I could see it having a pretty profound effect on the industry but I’m not a programmer anymore, so what do I know?
In any case, it’s good food for thought. Thanks Cassandra!

#7

It is a clever approach to rendering video in realtime. It does not clog up memory. The graphics will improve. I am very interested to see if this can be adapted to be the new equivalent of Open GL. I don’t know how current technology will incorporate it. Polygon based modeling is still fast and efficient - but even with displacement maps live video rendering, especially in games, is far from realistic. Even on modest computers you would be able to get live realtime video with no loss of detail.

Can you imagine the fantastic creations being made with ZBrush moving in realtime though extraordinarily detailed environments? Imagine how far we could take this.

I think it is interesting and I hope they get funding to develop their SDK.

#8

Agreed.

You indirectly agree with me and create a defensive argument…at the same time? lol
Man, you are weird.
It was just an opinion based in the present and immediate future that started with:

#9

:confused:

#10

bradvanreenen, you quote too much,
you can quote me on that.