Voxel based games

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Note that voxels can be infinitely small so that they no longer look like cubes (but they still are cubes). Using voxels doesn't mean you have to have a minecraft like game.
If i'm not mistaken, CoD Black Ops uses a voxel engine for it's graphics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km0DpZUgvbg


thanks for the video, that was actually very interesting, ive never actually thought if people using voxels like that.

@BHX
Minecraft isn't voxel.


why do you say that?
Minecraft is a polygon game using a polygon engine to render cubes and rectangular prisms. There is nothing stopping them from having diagonal anything, and in fact mods often take full advantage of the poorly designed render engine. (The mod developers generally just complain about how horrible Minecraft's render engine is though).
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so the gameplay revolves around voxels, but the implementation itself is not? okay i think i got it

thank you
There are no voxels in Minecraft.
you wouldnt say that visually speaking and play interaction there is voxels?
No, I wouldn't say that. I would say it is polygons with limited particle effects.
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@bhx

indeed haha

EDIT: thats definitely an interesting point of view

so is it because each cube in minecraft isnt a pure color (thus mimicking a pixel in that aspect making it more of a "true" voxel ) that makes it not a voxel game?

so if each cube in it was made of many smaller cubes to make its look like it does now, then you would consier it voxel?
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No, it's not a voxel game because it doesn't use voxels for rendering. You can imitate voxels all you want with polygons, but that won't make them voxels.

For a good example of a voxel game, check out Cube World.
closed account (N36fSL3A)
People think once someone makes a game with cubes it's automatically a minecraft clone. >.>
i know about cube world
there are some games like cube world which is influenced by mcs aesthetics.
closed account (o1vk4iN6)
No, it's not a voxel game because it doesn't use voxels for rendering. You can imitate voxels all you want with polygons, but that won't make them voxels.

For a good example of a voxel game, check out Cube World.


By your definition Cube World also isn't a voxel game, it probably uses OpenGL or DX so it is going to be using vertices and triangles. There is no hardware support for voxel drawing and probably never will be.

@xerzi
From Cube world's FAQ:

Q: How do you create this game?
A: I've programmed everything with C++ and DirectX (OpenGL for the first version). For the voxel sprites, I created my own voxel editor.


EDIT: If you didn't find it in the FAQ on the main page, there is an extended FAQ. Here is the link: http://wollay.blogspot.com/2011/11/extended-cube-world-faq.html
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Right, so as xerzi said, if you go by the definition that using polygons means you aren't using voxels, then cube world doesn't use voxels. I guess this means CryEngine's terrain isn't edited using voxels either.
closed account (N36fSL3A)
So there's technically no such things as voxel games.
Well from my understanding it isn't voxel because it is using a single cube rendered with polygons. My understanding of it is that voxel is a series of cubes of same color making up the shape. For example, Minecraft's dirt example, minecraft's dirt block is a single block with a texture. My understanding of voxels, means a voxel game, the block would be made of thousands of brown colored blocks.

Some quotes I've found while googling:
Minecraft is not a voxel environment. A voxel environment defines the location of an object spatially based off adjacent objects. Minecraft uses a XYZ grid. All objects are defined in space from the on common 0,0,0 point. That is all Voxel means... Objects are located in the model based on their relationship to each other. Stop talking about Minecraft.
Poster1: I thought a voxel was basically a 3D pixel.
Poster 2:Well, you are actually not wrong there! From it's far basics a 'voxel' is described as:
'The smallest box-shaped part of a three-dimensional image or scan. Derived from volume pixel.'
Poster 1: I thought Voxels were just single-colored cubes, just like a pixel is a single-colored square.
Poster 2: And you are correct!
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I've got the same understanding as you BHXSpecter.
A voxel is a 3d pixel. For the same reason pixels are only one color (it's the smallest changeable unit on the screen), voxels are only one color. So if minecrafts blocks were made up of thousands of smaller voxels, then it would be a voxel game. If you logically change the size of voxels, to say, one voxel = 20x20 voxels resulting in larger fundamental voxel units, I would still call it a voxel game even if it used polygons to render those voxels.
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Thumper wrote:
I've got the same understanding as you BHXSpecter.
A voxel is a 3d pixel. For the same reason pixels are only one color (it's the smallest changeable unit on the screen), voxels are only one color. So if minecrafts blocks were made up of thousands of smaller voxels, then it would be a voxel game. If you logically change the size of voxels, to say, one voxel = 20x20 voxels resulting in larger fundamental voxel units, I would still call it a voxel game even if it used polygons to render those voxels.


after this conversation thats what my understanding of it is as well
closed account (N36fSL3A)
I see what y'all mean now. But wouldn't the voxels be ultimately modeled with polygons?
Well all 3D games, even voxels are polygons. The difference is that voxel games won't have textures like you would for say Zelda or Final Fantasy. Games usually have the object (tree, human, monster, etc made as a single model with tons of polygons and then a bitmap texture put over it. Voxels, while they are made of polygons, will be a solid color and each time a color changes in say a character it will be made up of thousands of cubes instead of a single texture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voxel
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closed account (N36fSL3A)
I know this, I just wanted to get all technical :3
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