'Unlimited Detail' - The end of polygon graphics?

[XMark]

Let's say that this is real... even if it is, how the heck are they going to calculate shadows with this? Doesn't seem like that would be possible without introducing ray tracing and negating the speed benefit.

 

[Danny Ocean]

textures are handled.

I thought that the idea was that you coloured each dot?

 

[ravensshade]

Hmmm, my bullshit detector is tingling... I'm surprised the video didn't include the word quantum at least once.

well i think that if they included the word quantum even if it was just once it'd look more like bullshit though the idea is intriguing

 

[iamnotincompliance]

What I gathered from that was rather than rendering an entire object, this only renders the side you're looking at. Maybe I'll edit that when the videos finish downloading, but in theory, sounds great. But then theory always sounds great. A tech demo, a nice, living, breathing, downloadable proof of concept that we could run ourselves and be blown away by would go a long way towards convincing me I have seen the future. Until then, my skepticism meter is redlined.

 

[Altorin]

This is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.

The only current game they showed as being a facilitator of the HORRIBLE POLYGON MENACE was WoW, and could you imagine implementing this sort of thing for any multiplayer game? Honestly? A perspective based graphics system would buckle horribly when 25 different perspectives all have to coincide generally well for the game to be playable.

Look at the recent PS3 games, Heavy Rain, God of War 3, Uncharted 2, Final Fantasy XIII.

Do we really need a graphics system who's claim to fame is that they can stack a billion stationary lizards ontop of eachother.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I would be more interested if I saw a demo game with things like animation, collision detection and AI running on a mid range desktop PC. Saying that 3d technology in current games is only "polygons" is an underestimation of the types of technology and coding problems that 3d games have.

Instead of crying conspiracy it might be better to try and understand some of the problems that 3d programmers might have with this system.

 

[TOGSolid]

Show me something animated with this "super cool, amazing tech", then we'll talk.

 

[kingmob]

The near impossibility of interaction has been mentioned, but cannot be understated
Also, dynamic lighting, deforming, animation, etc. etc.

It could be useful for specific applications, but it is unusable for a generic approach to gaming engines imo.

 

[Sneaklemming]

textures are handled.

I thought that the idea was that you coloured each dot?

well thats my point. You implemet this tech, and what happens to texture artists? what replaces them?

Textures are a big deal.

 

[azncutthroat]

It's so beautiful...

*wipes away tear*

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

textures are handled.

I thought that the idea was that you coloured each dot?

well thats my point. You implemet this tech, and what happens to texture artists? what replaces them?

Textures are a big deal.

In stead of coloring flat textures they'd color dots. Texture artists would have to adapt, but they'd certainly not become useless. I don't think texture would be any problem, since with 'unlimited' detail you could theoretically end up with something that looks as good (or better) than the best textures today.

As people have mentioned before I think the biggest problem would be animation. Polygons are easy to animate by nature, but if you have what is essentially a huge stack of connected dots it becomes an entirely different matter. It's no coincidence that nothing in the demo was animated.

 

[kingmob]

However, polygons will probably be better suited for that (only a low LOD needed) and backgrounds don't actually pose any problems already.

Imo the next big step will be procedural generation of textures and objects. Already done in the past of course, but the possibilities are great. After that maybe some day ray tracing...

 

[atol]

Hmmm, my bullshit detector is tingling... I'm surprised the video didn't include the word quantum at least once.

You'd be right. The website is run out of a trailer home, and the 'company' is led by a kid who claims he's owned the company since he was 12. This technology has been around for 30 years, and the video hand-waves all the problems that has kept it from being used with magical search algorithms.
This reeks of a bullshit investing scam.

 

[Sneaklemming]

textures are handled.

I thought that the idea was that you coloured each dot?

well thats my point. You implemet this tech, and what happens to texture artists? what replaces them?

Textures are a big deal.

In stead of coloring flat textures they'd color dots. Texture artists would have to adapt, but they'd certainly not become useless. I don't think texture would be any problem, since with 'unlimited' detail you could theoretically end up with something that looks as good (or better) than the best textures today.

As people have mentioned before I think the biggest problem would be animation. Polygons are easy to animate by nature, but if you have what is essentially a huge stack of connected dots it becomes an entirely different matter. It's no coincidence that nothing in the demo was animated.

Yeah it seems fine to say, look theres a billion dots here, and we use a search algorithm to find only what we need, but what happens when your computer needs to keep track of physics, or AI moving the billion dots.

Theres more to graphics then just computing what you see infront of you.

EDIT: heh I got the spelling of algorithm on the first go... =D

 

[Wolfram23]

This is the best technology I've ever heard of (well, for graphics breakthroughs). Love it can't wait to see more. It's brilliant that it only shows the amount of points your display needs to show. Whether or not it poses problems with animation and movement is yet to be seen. Easy to imagine there's issues but they may find a way around that.