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.
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).
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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
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.