Voxel Engine will be redone.

Banshee

Today, I've started coding a bit the new voxel engine, to replace the one I lost a month ago. I decided to recode the one from 1.7, forcing the use of classes for anything relevant, including actors, terrain bits and skies, so it will be easier to avoid memory leak, add support for more than one voxel and... if I decide to support any other file type (w3d or w3x), it will be easier to add to the program.

I have a test tomorrow and another one on thrusday, but after that, I plan to continue working on it.

This will probably delay any future release of OS:VV and OS: HVA Builder for a while, but it will give me much less headaches in the future. I have to do something like that with OS SHP Builder as well, since it's being a pain in the ass to deal with I don't know how much functions that copy frames and other things that could be much easier to deal with, if they were inside classes.

daTS · Posted: Wed Dec 20, 2006 2:26 am Post subject:

YES!

Something all new.

You rock banshee

You rock harder than a Godsmack concert!

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Banshee · Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 9:24 pm Post subject:

Thanks, although I think you are certainly exagerating.

Anyway, I had some progress... the new HVA class is done and the voxel class looks finished. Now, I have to move into some new classes before adapting the voxel one to the new features.

Rendering stuff will be inside the new actor class, as well as the voxel class.

ChielScape · Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 9:42 pm Post subject:

i dont know what the hell you're talking about, but it sounds great, banshee.

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Banshee · Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:38 pm Post subject:

The voxel actor part is nearly done. Once I do the classes: world, ground, sky and camera; I'll start adapting OS: Voxel Viewer for it. Then, I'll post a beta from it.

Anderwin · General **Joined**: 16 May 2005

Nice Banshee =).
You are a kickass coder

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Banshee · Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:01 am Post subject:

We'll see that once the program is ready. I'm working in the new sky class now and I'll keep posting my progress here, so you guys will see when a new OS: Voxel Viewer will born.

Jåker · Guest

Is this new voxel thing going to make voxels looks better?

Banshee · Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 3:10 am Post subject:

Probably.

Jåker · Guest

Ingame to?

Banshee · Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2007 4:42 am Post subject:

No.

Dupl3xxx · Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 8:30 pm Post subject:

A newer engin, better and faster that this on!?!? o.O

LONG LIVE Banshee!!!

LONG LIVE Banshee!!!

LONG LIVE Banshee!!!

LONG LIVE Banshee!!!

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Tony · Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 10:57 pm Post subject:

Awesome Banshee! I can't wait to try it out Smile

Harv · Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:32 am Post subject:

YAY, i cant wait for this man

Banshee · Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:09 am Post subject:

Thanks to a meeting about another project with some friends, I've noticed that the concept of actors was wrong in this engine. So, I'll have to recode some stuff regarding model files (like Voxel and W3D) inside actors.

THE Protagonist · Commander **Joined**: 19 Apr 2006 **Location**: The Etto

umm this sounds cool. but are their gonna be any like screen shots of the new vxling stuff?

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Banshee · Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:41 am Post subject:

When I have a functional alpha version, yes. Otherwise no. I still have to code the basic things to start adapting the program to make it work.

Banshee · Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 5:17 am Post subject:

Just to continue to report my progress on it, I've coded the sky, the basic terrain and now I'm working on the camera. I'm coding a sort of a mini-AI system to manage the position and rotation of the camera while we move, rotate it or order it to move or rotate automatically, etc...

OmegaBolt · Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 4:32 pm Post subject:

Hmm, sounds cool. Do you think it will be possible to position vxls, so you could make scenes and things. Maybe one day even moving scenes...?

Banshee · Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 6:05 pm Post subject:

That's the purpose... or one of them.

Banshee · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 1:22 am Post subject:

And more progress report: I've just finished the camera code. Now, I'll work on multiple terrain support and then, I'll work in the actors (the heavy part).

ChielScape · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 11:33 am Post subject:

seems you make lotsa progress. keep up the good work.

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OmegaBolt · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 9:55 pm Post subject:

Banshee wrote:

That's the purpose... or one of them.

Could you do all this in normal VV? #Tongue

Banshee · Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:58 pm Post subject:

Yea, I could, after some extra hacking and more dirty job that would slow me down later. Honestly, that program demands a recode for my objectives with it and that's what I'm doing.

paulszcz · Civilian **Joined**: 12 Feb 2007

Hello,

I'm a humble 3D artist, who happens to be studying CS and as my bachelor's paper I'm writing about volume rendering. I'm interested in the mechanics and reasons behind westwood choice of voxels. There's a lot of papers about volume rendering per se, with a bent on scientific usage but I'd very much like to include some info about commercial use in entertainment. I know about all the games that used voxels and I'm particulary interested in Tiberiun Sun and Alpha Centauri (possibly Blade Runner as well).

Does anyone have any papers/links to throw at me for reading? Please, pretty please and thank you.

Banshee · Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 3:23 am Post subject:

Hello,

Unfortunatelly, I personally don't know any article, with any scientific value, that explains the voxels from Tiberian Sun.

So, what I can do is to quickly explain how TS voxels work, based on the file format.

TS voxels are a 3D matrix that uses a limited palette of 256 colours and a limited palette of 35 normals (lighting directions). Therefore, each element of the voxel is a face that reflects the light for one direction.

TS voxels uses axis aligned bounding boxes for colision detection. So, you have the minimum vertice and the maximum vertice that determines the space that the voxel ocupies in the environment.

Voxels are animated with the HVA files, which is majorly a set of one transformation matrix (using homogeneous coordinates) per animation frame. So given the position of a certain element in a certain frame, you use the transformation matrix to determine its position in the environment.

Westwood has choosen voxels because, with it, their customers wouldn't need a graphic card with 3d accelerator. Westwood uses DirectDraw 6 or 7 as graphic pipeline.

And that's it. It covers shape, textures(colours), colision and animations.

For more information, I recommend you to download VXLSE III 1.31 and OS: Voxel Viewer 1.7 and check their source code. Good luck and have fun. If your paper is released in a public area, please, inform us, because I'm also interested on it Wink

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paulszcz · Civilian **Joined**: 12 Feb 2007

Thank you for your reply, I will check out these programs. If I manage to persuade my promotor to allow me to write in in English I'll probably distribute it freely.

Kiith-Sa · Rocket Cyborg **Joined**: 26 Oct 2004

Go here:
http://xhp.xwis.net/
Find documents, VXL file format. There is a description of TS/RA2 voxel format, though incomplete (Could you fill holes in it Banshee? I'm interested in it too... if not I'll look into the source, but it would save a lot of time)

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