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There was this crazy game ‘Vangers’ that, apart from the most-otherworldly feel I've ever encountered, had terrain in voxel graphics and permanently destructibl

by aasasd 7y ago

There was this crazy game ‘Vangers’ that, apart from the most-otherworldly feel I've ever encountered, had terrain in voxel graphics and permanently destructible — and I don't mean shitty Minecraft voxels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9R7QJ5Sh1o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9R7QJ5Sh1o That was '98. Still wondering why I haven't seen anything like that anymore. I vaguely recall one dude working on a super-detailed engine, down to individual blades of grass and such, but not sure how's the damage model there (that's possibly related to this, but probably not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4). There's also the ‘Teardown’ game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc_QC25RM44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc_QC25RM44, and a search for ‘voxel graphics’ on YouTube suggests a few others in this vein. Still not quite the same. As for mobile Lemmings, the Play store tried to sell them to me just yesterday.

MereInterest 7y ago
Interesting. Judging from the video, I can't tell, but does it use a height map, or true voxels? I don't see any instances of hollow spaces or overhangs, which could be done with voxels but not with a height map. A height map would give good performance and destructibility, without using a huge amount of memory. The top-down view would let you hide that from the players, such as for bridges.
- aasasd 7y ago
  There are under-surface nooks and overpasses, also destructible (in fact, most of the nooks are accessed in just that way). Notably, the terrain is optionally permanently destructible, but you could switch it to temporary if the machine didn't have too much ram (by the standards of '98). In practice, having a sizeable fraction of the world(s) destroyed, as a side effect of normal business, did hamper the vibe, so having the damage be temporary was just saner.
outworlder 7y ago
> had terrain in voxel graphics and permanently destructible Isn't that a feature of several 'modern' games, like Space Engineers, Stationeers, Astroneer and maybe more?

by aasasd 7y ago

MereInterest 7y ago

Interesting. Judging from the video, I can't tell, but does it use a height map, or true voxels? I don't see any instances of hollow spaces or overhangs, which could be done with voxels but not with a height map. A height map would give good performance and destructibility, without using a huge amount of memory. The top-down view would let you hide that from the players, such as for bridges.

aasasd 7y ago
There are under-surface nooks and overpasses, also destructible (in fact, most of the nooks are accessed in just that way). Notably, the terrain is optionally permanently destructible, but you could switch it to temporary if the machine didn't have too much ram (by the standards of '98). In practice, having a sizeable fraction of the world(s) destroyed, as a side effect of normal business, did hamper the vibe, so having the damage be temporary was just saner.

outworlder 7y ago

> had terrain in voxel graphics and permanently destructible Isn't that a feature of several 'modern' games, like Space Engineers, Stationeers, Astroneer and maybe more?