Indigo Renderer Forum

Well, you certainly know about voxels already, otherwise see Minecraft and other games of the genre.

There's a future for voxel technology, like, a prominent one, where they will at the foundations of fantastic new worlds (you may know about this too).

What you may not know is that the first commecial game with this next-gen voxels technology will be shipped this winter.

http://procworld.blogspot.ca/2013/08/ev ... -next.html

The author of the blog is also the author of the astounding voxel engine beneath the game (Voxel Farm).

I recommend hitting the link to the keynote for more details about the "Landmark" version shipping then.

The main competitor for the Voxel Farm seems to be http://www.atomontage.com/

Enjoy the show.

PS: Simplex voxels pretty pleaaase ^^

Voxels are interesting. Maybe they could be supported in Indigo as a geometric primitive. How would artists use them though? Are there tools that can produce voxel output?

This is above all a moving field nowadays.

Voxels (3d arrays) are not all too common yet in 3d applications; I know that Maya can do clouds, fire and smoke notably, using enhanced Navier-Strokes algorithms. But they are found to be used almost exclusively for high-end/big budget productions.

All in all more people are susceptible to use voxels than ISL

edit: most probably, popularized voxel tools are too come.

I'm keen to provide ASCII data, or better yet, try this at home

To clarify, Cinema4D and 3dsMax do have voxels tools and/or plugins too, and other applications certainly do. But they're not used much yet by the average artist. Game changers may be coming shortly.

3d-coat is one standalone voxel sculpting application http://3d-coat.com/download/

Regarding Voxels I have simply no idea how they could fit in my workflow pipeline, what I could do with them to enhance or speedup my work
... but this maybe simply my lack off knowledge in this field!

Do you have a link regarding the C4D voxel stuff?

Zom-B wrote:Do you have a link regarding the C4D voxel stuff?

Oh sorry I'm affraid not, I assumed that the Voxel Effect was it but it's not, my bad.

Clearly, before minecraft became popular, voxels were essentially for VFX, beside 3d-coat wich is around for some times already. Voxel support is relevant only if the host applications have it too, obviously.

My bet however is that the scene will have changed by one year, with Everquest Next Landmark dedicated to creation it seems, we'll see to what extent. At least they seemed to mean it in the video. The technology is rather efficient already and allows for fundamental features for game engines.

I totally want that, wait and see

3d scanning works with massive point cloud data sets, which could benefit from volumetric support, I think?

Zom-B wrote: Do you have a link regarding the C4D voxel stuff?

Remotion SuperVoxels and small stuff in his another plug-in - geotools(volumes)
New Navie(ex-dpit) Effex 2
French Vonc's Procedurale, closer to voxels - http://code.vonc.fr/?a=30

also i have 2 tools, but NDA

Tom: with the difference that point clouds from 3d scanners are surfacic, while particle-based effects are truely volumic, with in general more points in their inner side (clouds, fire and smoke instances). I agree that point cloud support would be more used because particle simulations are much more common than voxels.

Ilay, beyond any NDA, are you in position to sense a trend for voxels ? Is this all a fashion trend or a robust 3d infrastructure for the future ? Heard of simplex/higher connectivity systems ?

I'm shocked. I just realised that Maya 2013 added several mandelstuff presets for Fluids.

Attached a shipped example.

CTZn: Agreed, it's not necessarily a 'volume' application, but using it to render point data sets would be extremely handy!

Ilay wrote:

Zom-B wrote: Do you have a link regarding the C4D voxel stuff?

Remotion SuperVoxels and small stuff in his another plug-in - geotools(volumes)
New Navie(ex-dpit) Effex 2
French Vonc's Procedurale, closer to voxels - http://code.vonc.fr/?a=30

also i have 2 tools, but NDA

I'll check out this stuff at some point, thanks!
The link looked like kklores would like that Plugin, and what do I see... his work is in the gallery ^^

StompinTom wrote:CTZn: Agreed, it's not necessarily a 'volume' application, but using it to render point data sets would be extremely handy!

I second you, and it should work the same with both sources: a scan or a particles simulation.

The main difference in the end is between hard surfacing (meshing clouds) versus shading parameters. I'd expect the second solution first, though one could imagine that parametric surfaces might be upgraded to meet the former requirement(?).

Yay at point clouds for Indigo ! What's with this, Ono, using particles/pc beyond instancing ? The voxel matter is rather marginal in comparison.

edit: something the reader should know:
http://www.indigorenderer.com/forum/vie ... 883#p23883
http://www.indigorenderer.com/forum/vie ... 26#p114126

Zom-B: one handy use of voxels could be 3d clouds without the ISL overhead, that is, with the performance of casual sss. The issue is to generate the data in the first place, but then 3D clouds libraries could be maintained for example, with linkable objects in the host application (dummies).

From voxels to the mandelcube again: get your own ! http://sourceforge.net/projects/boxplorer/

Currently i see if it will be renderer stuff, to support field-format(voxel data storage) or openVDB(its using by houdini for volumetric voxelling and managing of it... it's complex tools)

I touch c4d part in pipeline: it will be support in any fluids engines(tfd, effex)

If indigo/cindigo will support for realistic stills(for matte-painting) or animation shots ... will great!
or geometry voxelisation at "burning" stage for further visualization....great too!


about tests, i point too http://www.indigorenderer.com/forum/vie ... 16#p116016