5 ms·

Does anyone know of voxel media without distinguishable individual voxels? In 2D there is both pixel art and regular art. I'm curious if 3D works with that, or

Does anyone know of voxel media without distinguishable individual voxels? In 2D there is both pixel art and regular art. I'm curious if 3D works with that, or only with vector graphics.

_0ffh 10y ago
"In 2D there is both pixel art and regular art" I'm sorry, but this just cracks me up! LOL! (To explain, "regular art" was and still is pixel art, and "pixel art" is pixel art at an artificially low resolution, emulating the lower hardware capabilities of old machines.) And to answer your question: When computers get fast enough and have enough memory, you could have voxels at higher resolutions. When individual voxels do practically get too small to see, you have the analog of what happened with pixel art.
- grenoire 10y ago
  Your own definitions do not even add up. Regular images (not regular art) are technically infinite resolution images with the only limitation being the 32bpp colour scheme (which can go up infinitely too, but displays are a limitation) Pixel art is a style and movement replicating the low resolution and limited colour (and sometimes other limitations such as sprite limits per scanline of NES) sprites, especially of older games.
  - _0ffh 10y ago
    I was making a good natured comment, and not trying to put anyone down. And I cannot see any inconsistencies in my explanation. We were calling pixel artists "pixel artists" before "pixel art" came to be a distinctive low resolution style. That's just a fact. And, no, there is no such thing as infinite resolution.
    - grenoire 10y ago
      There is infinite resolution, just not infinite space.
      - khedoros 10y ago
        Even an image created in a physical medium (e.g. oil paints) has a limited resolution. Vector/polygon art is "infinite resolution" (but not infinite detail/complication), and so are some other forms of mathematically-defined images (example: fractals like the Mandelbrot set, which are infinitely detailed as well).
    - _0ffh 10y ago
      @grenoire "There is infinite resolution, just not infinite space." Now you're getting philosophical! :)
      - grenoire 10y ago
        It's true though; not enough space for display, and not enough space for storage!
- rhaps0dy 10y ago
  > When computers get fast enough and have enough memory, you could have voxels at higher resolutions I thought they were fast enough and with enough memory for this, at least with static scenes in the style of this portfolio. Do you know of any art created this way?
  - _0ffh 10y ago
    So that's what you were getting at. I've never seen anything like what you describe. I suppose it would be a very tall order to pay the same attention to every detail in a high resolution voxel-image as in a high resolution pixel-image. I think the most practical way out would be procedural generation, but then it's arguably not manual art anymore. I guess it could be practical with the right kind of environment. If you had all the tools of a good pixler like Deluxe Paint extended to a voxel-painting program.
  - _0ffh 10y ago
    While it's not manual art, but procedurally generated, this here should count as hight resolution voxel art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S530Vwa33G0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S530Vwa33G0
    - rhaps0dy 10y ago
      Oh neat. That's made by generating and then rendering voxels? As opposed to throwing rays and calculating the intersection with the fractal's equation. I'm thinking that maybe rendering voxels is both slower and produces worse results in this case.
      - _0ffh 10y ago
        I think the question of how you are rendering your voxels is a technicality. Redering voxels does not to my mind imply a specific rendering technique any more than rendering vector graphics does. When I render a low resolution voxel image using vector descriptions of the cubes containing those voxels and then passing them through a rasterizer, is it still a voxel image? Certainly, because the image is natively described as a mapping from coordinates to present/not-present flags (and optionally color). I can confidently say that the native description of the objects seen in that video is a direct mapping from 3d-coordinates to values. [Edit: So you can't just simply directly calculate an intersection point with a polygon. If you wanna cast a ray, you have to sample the mapping all along the way the ray is taking, in discrete steps, until you get a "hit". Optionally, you can then use e.g. bisection to get a more precise position of the intersection.] For you edification, here's another video of a high-res voxel world. The voxel models used where converted from vectorized surface models. But the description of the models used by the renderer is a proper voxel description, maybe some octree-like thing, or whatever they came up with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Ets6bWjEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Ets6bWjEQ
ino 10y ago
I think I understand what you meant, and it's called "low poly" examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/low_poly/ https://www.reddit.com/r/low_poly/ http://lopoco.tumblr.com http://lopoco.tumblr.com Just like pixel art is inspired by the aesthetics of low resolution graphics and/or limited color palettes, low poly is inspired by those of early 3d art and games, like N64, Playstation, etc.
- rhaps0dy 10y ago
  That looks pretty good, but it's not what I was asking for. I meant voxel art in the way of 2D art that is not inspired in the limitations of resolution or color palettes. Think of scanned drawings, "HD" video games or most DeviantArt stuff. These works are made of 2D pixels, but the 2D pixels are small enough to not be individually visible.
  - Sophistifunk 10y ago
    Yes, look into point-clouds used by various 3d scene recreation technologies that take stereoscopic images and recreate 3d scenes with them.
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      Do you mean things like the music video for House of Cards by Radiohead? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8nTFjVm9sTQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8nTFjVm9sTQ
      - Sophistifunk 10y ago
        Not sure, that looks to me like it might be a primitive version of same, although as it's mono, it's probably generated from some sort of laser/ultrasound rangefinder. This is what I was talking about specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AvCxa9Y9NU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AvCxa9Y9NU
  - zodiac 10y ago
    So 3d models (like https://nizuvault.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/gavr-ship-render2.jpg https://nizuvault.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/gavr-ship-rend...)?
Avshalom 10y ago
It's not technically voxels but look-into/follow-wikipedias-see-also-links-for Zbrush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZBrush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZBrush
pjc50 10y ago
I think some CT systems produce this kind of image. There are also laser point cloud scanner systems that have been used for archaeology, and various attempts at reconstructing 3D from two or more cameras. And the Microsoft Hololens demo of free sculpting in AR. Raytracing also lets you produce a 2D raster image of a 3D scene with arbitary-resolution surfaces in it, although that still relies on geometric scene descriptions. Otherwise, it's a bit of a problem to produce; too many voxels to hand-place.
fitzwatermellow 10y ago
See "volume graphics" and "volume rendering". More common in radiography than in games ;)
Retr0spectrum 10y ago
I think Voxel Quest is close to what you're thinking about: http://www.voxelquest.com/gallery.html http://www.voxelquest.com/gallery.html
dahart 10y ago
Yes, there's quite a lot of it in fact. It's usually called "volumetric", as "voxel" tends to imply volumetric data that is represented by a regularly spaced 3D grid. Volume rendering is an entire sub-field of computer graphics that deals with many representations of 3D data. CG clouds are often volume rendered using continuous noise fields. CG haze and smoke are sometimes volume rendered using shape descriptions of the boundary, and 3D modulation functions. Google "Volumetric siggraph" to find a ton of papers about other ways to do 3D volume rendering. Check the images tab for lots of examples of volume rendering. *edit: btw I can tell you stories about volume rendering non-voxel data from CG production if you want. I used several non-voxel volumetric rendering techniques for fire, smoke and water on the Shrek and Madagascar movies. A fun presentation I remember from siggraph was when Digital Domain presented their volume rendered they called "Voxel Bitch" and talked about rendering the avalanche sequence in the Vin Diesel "XXX" movie. IIRC, voxel bitch was a volume renderer, not limited to regular 3D voxel grids. https://www.siggraph.org/conferences/reports/s2002/tech/filmprodtech.html https://www.siggraph.org/conferences/reports/s2002/tech/film...
- o_____________o 10y ago
  > *edit: btw I can tell you stories about volume rendering non-voxel data from CG production if you want. Yes!
  - dahart 10y ago
    Long day, sorry it took a while... So, volume rendering in production. I was in the effects department at PDI/DreamWorks, and I used several different volume rendering techniques over the years. We all did, part of why it was such a cool place to work was how free we were to use or invent whatever techniques we wanted to get our shots done - most CG production is a lot more fixed pipeline and regimented than that. Particle rendering (aka splatting) is probably the main staple for volumetrics in the FX toolbox. Particles are best thought of as soft transparent spheres, but usually implemented as camera facing polygons. I used large volumetric particle sets for impact dust from feet & fight sequences in Shrek, and for smoke and fog and fire in later Shrek productions and in Madagascar. The visible texture actually comes from changes in particle density, and particle simulations were often in the millions of particles. We used a ray-marching volume renderer implemented inside of a shader for some of the foggy sets in the Shrek productions. Pretty much the same tricks going around ShaderToy today. Dragon fire was another ray-marching shader that would ray-trace spinning spheres, and then ray-march through a noise field inside each sphere. In one shot on Madagascar, I used a combination of particles and volume rendering and geometry when the boat blows it's horn and flattens the island. I happened to be working on the island's foliage as well. We didn't have low res standins for the plans for a shot this wide, and it was taking more than 12 hours to render IIRC. We wrote a script that culled any geometric or volumetric detail that projected down to smaller than a pixel, and it brought renders down to an hour or two, and turned out to cut something like 90% of the scene geometry. Doh.

Does anyone know of voxel media without distinguishable individual voxels? In 2D there is both pixel art and regular art. I'm curious if 3D works with that, or only with vector graphics.

_0ffh 10y ago

"In 2D there is both pixel art and regular art" I'm sorry, but this just cracks me up! LOL! (To explain, "regular art" was and still is pixel art, and "pixel art" is pixel art at an artificially low resolution, emulating the lower hardware capabilities of old machines.) And to answer your question: When computers get fast enough and have enough memory, you could have voxels at higher resolutions. When individual voxels do practically get too small to see, you have the analog of what happened with pixel art.

grenoire 10y ago
Your own definitions do not even add up. Regular images (not regular art) are technically infinite resolution images with the only limitation being the 32bpp colour scheme (which can go up infinitely too, but displays are a limitation) Pixel art is a style and movement replicating the low resolution and limited colour (and sometimes other limitations such as sprite limits per scanline of NES) sprites, especially of older games.
- _0ffh 10y ago
  I was making a good natured comment, and not trying to put anyone down. And I cannot see any inconsistencies in my explanation. We were calling pixel artists "pixel artists" before "pixel art" came to be a distinctive low resolution style. That's just a fact. And, no, there is no such thing as infinite resolution.
  - grenoire 10y ago
    There is infinite resolution, just not infinite space.
    - khedoros 10y ago
      Even an image created in a physical medium (e.g. oil paints) has a limited resolution. Vector/polygon art is "infinite resolution" (but not infinite detail/complication), and so are some other forms of mathematically-defined images (example: fractals like the Mandelbrot set, which are infinitely detailed as well).
  - _0ffh 10y ago
    @grenoire "There is infinite resolution, just not infinite space." Now you're getting philosophical! :)
    - grenoire 10y ago
      It's true though; not enough space for display, and not enough space for storage!
rhaps0dy 10y ago
> When computers get fast enough and have enough memory, you could have voxels at higher resolutions I thought they were fast enough and with enough memory for this, at least with static scenes in the style of this portfolio. Do you know of any art created this way?
- _0ffh 10y ago
  So that's what you were getting at. I've never seen anything like what you describe. I suppose it would be a very tall order to pay the same attention to every detail in a high resolution voxel-image as in a high resolution pixel-image. I think the most practical way out would be procedural generation, but then it's arguably not manual art anymore. I guess it could be practical with the right kind of environment. If you had all the tools of a good pixler like Deluxe Paint extended to a voxel-painting program.
- _0ffh 10y ago
  While it's not manual art, but procedurally generated, this here should count as hight resolution voxel art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S530Vwa33G0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S530Vwa33G0
  - rhaps0dy 10y ago
    Oh neat. That's made by generating and then rendering voxels? As opposed to throwing rays and calculating the intersection with the fractal's equation. I'm thinking that maybe rendering voxels is both slower and produces worse results in this case.
    - _0ffh 10y ago
      I think the question of how you are rendering your voxels is a technicality. Redering voxels does not to my mind imply a specific rendering technique any more than rendering vector graphics does. When I render a low resolution voxel image using vector descriptions of the cubes containing those voxels and then passing them through a rasterizer, is it still a voxel image? Certainly, because the image is natively described as a mapping from coordinates to present/not-present flags (and optionally color). I can confidently say that the native description of the objects seen in that video is a direct mapping from 3d-coordinates to values. [Edit: So you can't just simply directly calculate an intersection point with a polygon. If you wanna cast a ray, you have to sample the mapping all along the way the ray is taking, in discrete steps, until you get a "hit". Optionally, you can then use e.g. bisection to get a more precise position of the intersection.] For you edification, here's another video of a high-res voxel world. The voxel models used where converted from vectorized surface models. But the description of the models used by the renderer is a proper voxel description, maybe some octree-like thing, or whatever they came up with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Ets6bWjEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Ets6bWjEQ

ino 10y ago

I think I understand what you meant, and it's called "low poly" examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/low_poly/ https://www.reddit.com/r/low_poly/ http://lopoco.tumblr.com http://lopoco.tumblr.com Just like pixel art is inspired by the aesthetics of low resolution graphics and/or limited color palettes, low poly is inspired by those of early 3d art and games, like N64, Playstation, etc.

rhaps0dy 10y ago
That looks pretty good, but it's not what I was asking for. I meant voxel art in the way of 2D art that is not inspired in the limitations of resolution or color palettes. Think of scanned drawings, "HD" video games or most DeviantArt stuff. These works are made of 2D pixels, but the 2D pixels are small enough to not be individually visible.
- Sophistifunk 10y ago
  Yes, look into point-clouds used by various 3d scene recreation technologies that take stereoscopic images and recreate 3d scenes with them.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    Do you mean things like the music video for House of Cards by Radiohead? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8nTFjVm9sTQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8nTFjVm9sTQ
    - Sophistifunk 10y ago
      Not sure, that looks to me like it might be a primitive version of same, although as it's mono, it's probably generated from some sort of laser/ultrasound rangefinder. This is what I was talking about specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AvCxa9Y9NU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AvCxa9Y9NU
- zodiac 10y ago
  So 3d models (like https://nizuvault.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/gavr-ship-render2.jpg https://nizuvault.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/gavr-ship-rend...)?

Avshalom 10y ago

It's not technically voxels but look-into/follow-wikipedias-see-also-links-for Zbrush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZBrush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZBrush

pjc50 10y ago

I think some CT systems produce this kind of image. There are also laser point cloud scanner systems that have been used for archaeology, and various attempts at reconstructing 3D from two or more cameras. And the Microsoft Hololens demo of free sculpting in AR. Raytracing also lets you produce a 2D raster image of a 3D scene with arbitary-resolution surfaces in it, although that still relies on geometric scene descriptions. Otherwise, it's a bit of a problem to produce; too many voxels to hand-place.

fitzwatermellow 10y ago

See "volume graphics" and "volume rendering". More common in radiography than in games ;)

Retr0spectrum 10y ago

I think Voxel Quest is close to what you're thinking about: http://www.voxelquest.com/gallery.html http://www.voxelquest.com/gallery.html

dahart 10y ago

Yes, there's quite a lot of it in fact. It's usually called "volumetric", as "voxel" tends to imply volumetric data that is represented by a regularly spaced 3D grid. Volume rendering is an entire sub-field of computer graphics that deals with many representations of 3D data. CG clouds are often volume rendered using continuous noise fields. CG haze and smoke are sometimes volume rendered using shape descriptions of the boundary, and 3D modulation functions. Google "Volumetric siggraph" to find a ton of papers about other ways to do 3D volume rendering. Check the images tab for lots of examples of volume rendering. *edit: btw I can tell you stories about volume rendering non-voxel data from CG production if you want. I used several non-voxel volumetric rendering techniques for fire, smoke and water on the Shrek and Madagascar movies. A fun presentation I remember from siggraph was when Digital Domain presented their volume rendered they called "Voxel Bitch" and talked about rendering the avalanche sequence in the Vin Diesel "XXX" movie. IIRC, voxel bitch was a volume renderer, not limited to regular 3D voxel grids. https://www.siggraph.org/conferences/reports/s2002/tech/filmprodtech.html https://www.siggraph.org/conferences/reports/s2002/tech/film...

o_____________o 10y ago
> *edit: btw I can tell you stories about volume rendering non-voxel data from CG production if you want. Yes!
- dahart 10y ago
  Long day, sorry it took a while... So, volume rendering in production. I was in the effects department at PDI/DreamWorks, and I used several different volume rendering techniques over the years. We all did, part of why it was such a cool place to work was how free we were to use or invent whatever techniques we wanted to get our shots done - most CG production is a lot more fixed pipeline and regimented than that. Particle rendering (aka splatting) is probably the main staple for volumetrics in the FX toolbox. Particles are best thought of as soft transparent spheres, but usually implemented as camera facing polygons. I used large volumetric particle sets for impact dust from feet & fight sequences in Shrek, and for smoke and fog and fire in later Shrek productions and in Madagascar. The visible texture actually comes from changes in particle density, and particle simulations were often in the millions of particles. We used a ray-marching volume renderer implemented inside of a shader for some of the foggy sets in the Shrek productions. Pretty much the same tricks going around ShaderToy today. Dragon fire was another ray-marching shader that would ray-trace spinning spheres, and then ray-march through a noise field inside each sphere. In one shot on Madagascar, I used a combination of particles and volume rendering and geometry when the boat blows it's horn and flattens the island. I happened to be working on the island's foliage as well. We didn't have low res standins for the plans for a shot this wide, and it was taking more than 12 hours to render IIRC. We wrote a script that culled any geometric or volumetric detail that projected down to smaller than a pixel, and it brought renders down to an hour or two, and turned out to cut something like 90% of the scene geometry. Doh.