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Okay I played Veloren for a bit a few years ago and I'm really impressed with the improvement, will need to give it another go. One serious question I have, is

Okay I played Veloren for a bit a few years ago and I'm really impressed with the improvement, will need to give it another go. One serious question I have, is there a reason with voxels we still need to have block based stuff? Like back when voxel tech first started taking off I kind of thought we'd get to the place where like you have so many voxels and we get so good at calcing the physics interactions it would just look like a normal game. What are the bottlenecks there? Or is this intentionally stylistic still these days? From looking at some of the bosses I can tell that's getting closer but we're still further than I'd think

JKCalhoun 2y ago
It appears to be stylistic? When I see a voxel rotating in space ... that's not really a "voxel" in my mind, it's a cube. I suppose we over-apply the word though these days.
- ianbutler 2y ago
  Fair, I guess something like the finals is what Im thinking of? Im not sure though I think they may pre bake their destructible terrain
  - dannersy 2y ago
    The Finals destruction is not prebaked. The reason it works and is consistent is because everything is done server side and communicated to all clients. The game is very CPU heavy for this reason.
    - ianbutler 2y ago
      That's very good to know, I thought it seemed a bit too complex to be, but I wasn't sure.
ChickeNES 2y ago
Have you seen the game Teardown?
prox 2y ago
Check Space Engineers 2 and Enshrouded. They push voxels in that direction. Similarly, SE2’s watersim on planets will be incredible as well.
vintermann 2y ago
It's a bit odd, because the main appeal of blocky voxels is that it makes building easier, and these aren't building games.
tbillington 2y ago
There are a lot of voxel games that aren't visually cubey. Marching cubes algorithm is just example. Here's a voxel game (fully deformable/mineable world) that isn't block based https://store.steampowered.com/app/1203620/Enshrouded/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1203620/Enshrouded/.
- ianbutler 2y ago
  Oh man how could I forget about Enshrouded, that's a really good example, thank you for bringing that up. Okay so it does just seem stylistic at this point then.
belthesar 2y ago
I'm kinda there with you. The first game I ever played that used Voxels extensively was Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun. All the 2nd gen Westwood games of that era used voxels for their units and projectiles, and nothing about the art style was intended to be heavily cubist like Minecraft popularized. Ultimately I think we built around technology that modeled physics differently, both in hardware and software.

JKCalhoun 2y ago

It appears to be stylistic? When I see a voxel rotating in space ... that's not really a "voxel" in my mind, it's a cube. I suppose we over-apply the word though these days.

ianbutler 2y ago
Fair, I guess something like the finals is what Im thinking of? Im not sure though I think they may pre bake their destructible terrain
- dannersy 2y ago
  The Finals destruction is not prebaked. The reason it works and is consistent is because everything is done server side and communicated to all clients. The game is very CPU heavy for this reason.
  - ianbutler 2y ago
    That's very good to know, I thought it seemed a bit too complex to be, but I wasn't sure.

ChickeNES 2y ago

Have you seen the game Teardown?

prox 2y ago

Check Space Engineers 2 and Enshrouded. They push voxels in that direction. Similarly, SE2’s watersim on planets will be incredible as well.

vintermann 2y ago

It's a bit odd, because the main appeal of blocky voxels is that it makes building easier, and these aren't building games.

tbillington 2y ago

There are a lot of voxel games that aren't visually cubey. Marching cubes algorithm is just example. Here's a voxel game (fully deformable/mineable world) that isn't block based https://store.steampowered.com/app/1203620/Enshrouded/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1203620/Enshrouded/.

ianbutler 2y ago
Oh man how could I forget about Enshrouded, that's a really good example, thank you for bringing that up. Okay so it does just seem stylistic at this point then.

belthesar 2y ago

I'm kinda there with you. The first game I ever played that used Voxels extensively was Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun. All the 2nd gen Westwood games of that era used voxels for their units and projectiles, and nothing about the art style was intended to be heavily cubist like Minecraft popularized. Ultimately I think we built around technology that modeled physics differently, both in hardware and software.