The Inner Space of Voxelmancy

Discussion in 'Update Notes and Developer Discussion' started by Smokejumper, Jul 2, 2014.

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  1. DanteYoda Trailblazer

    I guess its just me that see's this but i feel the Devs talk down to us like we are too stupid to understand some basic principles and such, the write up is a good explanation in some places but it feels very condescending at times to me..

    The "you don't need to know this to play the game" and "it's very advanced for casual players, so its long term" really comes of as egotistical to me sorry, we aren't all uneducated monkeys..

    Maybe its me reading into it, but i feel it reads like they are trying to tell a 6 year old how to do something.
  2. Taemien Trailblazer

    Pretty interesting write up and I can grasp everything that's going on.

    What I don't understand is how perfect curves come out of voxels. Or rather how to get them to come out without using the spherical tool (which probably uses equations to make it happen). If its even possible to do that (I'm leaning towards a no on this one).
  3. Finderskeepers Trailblazer

    lol, hairy, wouldn't that be roaming randomly, you can't explain its course, when your dealing with neurons streaming in an indeterminate path through silicon, unless the determinant is whether there is enough friction from the heat, caused by streaming neurons. They travel the path of least resistance, ya know.

    Hey, get over it, everybody is used to calling the vectors voxels, so be it- got the point?
    DanteYoda likes this.
  4. Zeuljii Trailblazer


    He didn't say that. He said.



    He uses "voxel" as an adjective to "points" in the phrase "voxel points", not as a singular possessing noun (which would have been "voxel's points").
  5. Simdor Trailblazer

    Probably going to thread this elsewhere but wanted to make the comment here while it is on my mind.
    When Landmark was in Alpha I loved it. My kids had played and introduced me to Minecraft and I had gotten hooked on the idea of creating things with blocks in a virtual world. I played EQ back at launch so the combination of the two into something like this was exciting.
    However, over time I am finding myself less and less interested as the game seems to be less builder friendly instead of more so. Creating things in game is harder and seeing what some people are able to do is discouraging rather than inspiring. Spending hours to develop tool hacks to create what should be base level shapes is not my idea of fun.
    Am I alone in this?

    Now to tie this to this thread and not be entirely off topic, I bring this up because seeing an explanation like the OP makes me feel like building was the point of the game but allowing players to actually enjoy building was an afterthought.
    The write up on voxels is great, and it explains a lot. Let me stress that, this was very insightful and a easily understandable explanation. Most of it was already understood for me but that doesn't take away from the quality of the text at all.

    However, understanding all of the info in this thread only discourages me even more from wanting to manipulate the clunky tools and methods we have in order to create what should be simple to make shapes. Why do I have to go through so much trouble to create these shapes, practically hacking the tools we have available to us, when something suggested here would make it SO easy to manipulate shapes. (I am referring to direct vertex manipulation)

    I am not suggesting we replace the existing tools, but instead that we add to them the ability to directly manipulate voxels and shapes at the vertices. If that seems too complicated for the typical user from the Dev point of view then I would point out 2 things: 1. Make it an advanced toggle that you have to deliberately turn on from options/settings and 2. You insult your player base by inferring that we are simple minded, shame on you.

    Sorry for the long post, there is my 2 gp.
  6. Nerune Founder

    You're ignoring:

    and

    to have a cube all you need is 4 points... and the center to have position... and that's probably what the ground has... But the 1x1x1 cube players make has this structure.

    [IMG]
  7. Reese Founder

    Don't assume that everyone is as knowledgeable as you. That's what he can't do. You make these explanations simple enough so that people with no background can have a clue. Depth comes with practice.

    In reality you only need two points in this game. The center and the southeast corner. The cube is defined by it's close neighbors. And there is too much hype given to the difference between a voxel and a game cube. From the players point of view there is no difference. If you use reactors understanding the difference in detail is important for planning. But I suspect most people won't. Roaming vectors are a cheat. The game has a fixed number of vertexes. That is established at run time. What roaming vectors allow you to do is reach places where the engine wouldn't normally be able to. It does that by stealing the vertexes its neighbors, and using them to create the geometry that you see. The true utility won't be available until the rotating selection boxes and the other things downstream get in. The basic, most important takeaway is that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". Roaming vectors use available resources. And what they use, you can't. There are some things that the line tool, for instance , can no longer do cleanly. It doesn't follow the rule, old moves to new, understandably. And the engine changed enough to make some templates unusable.
  8. Zeuljii Trailblazer


    You only need 7 values relative to a coordinate space to define a cube (noting a point is 3 values). In Landmark it's far simpler, but voxels can also be used to define things that aren't cubes... this is all a tangent to the point.

    He didn't say anywhere in those statements that there were 27 vertices (i.e. voxels) per 1x1x1 cube. All he said was that there are more than one voxel in that picture, and that the vertices associated with those voxels were in a healed state. Nowhere in there does it say it represents a 1x1x1 cube. He actually said "shapes" and "cubes" when describing that picture.
  9. Finderskeepers Trailblazer

    They don't realize, its only us nerds who are playing this game, and the game developers are our fine feathered friends, that haven't looked into the mirror lately, because they are too busy staring at the desktop.
    DanteYoda likes this.
  10. DanteYoda Trailblazer

    Completely understand that, just the way they say it, seems off..especially when it comes to asking things like more tools, and things to help us build.
    Exactly how i feel.

    Hours to create a basic shape is just wrong.
  11. Rholeen Founder

    Wow. This is perfect. With just making that translucent instead of transparent, and allowing a key to move more than the corners, you have something I /SO/ want. Smokejumper says a tool like this would be too complicated. I'd say this: How long would it take you to do that move otherwise with the current system. I mean...my head really hurts thinking of the hoops you'd have to jump through (especially with underwater micro-tweaking and peering-through blocks in first person tweaking now killed) just to get the results of that one simple tweak.
  12. Blac Trailblazer

    Ok... after reading pretty much 5 pages of comments and OP... I have come to a few different conclusions...

    1. Being able to have a reply right under the post you're replying to would be GREATLY helpful instead of having it shoved to the bottom and having to "quote" what you are replying to.

    2. The Tutorial/Description that Smokejumper put in isn't really that complicated in and of itself. For those arguing about the number of voxels (by definition in OP) or points within one voxel (the 1x1x1 cube space that we've been calling a voxel)... Yes, ONE old term voxel is made of 27 vertices and it LOOKS like a 2x2x2 set of cubes initially. (Think of it this way, how else can you make a pyramid type shape of old term microvoxel if you only have 4 points in the side of the cube?).

    3. That tool that SniperMonkey shows in the pics in the above post as well as others would be a great help. They do not need to go nearly to the point of putting in the list of "advanced" tools for spirals and blowouts or anything like what was posted by someone else. This is for the SINGLE cube space level (again old term 1 voxel). Not a volume selection. If you are aiming for large volume selection control, that I do believe is going beyond "game" and into other realms. I'd be calling it a "Repair Tool".

    4. On the discussion about the material vs texture.... It does matter. One prime example comes to mind. Shiny Gold. No other "Shiny" metal bleeds into raw (even some worked) stone textures. So then, is Shiny gold a raw material as a texture or is it a worked material as a texture? It is one of a kind in that regards.... I do wish all the "shiny" versions of metal reacted the same way as "Shiny" Gold.... That's a bit off topic, but that particular texture bleeds into surrounding textures. Maybe I'm supposed to be saying resources in there instead of material and material instead of texture, but that wouldn't sound right. (I also think it is pretty annoying that you can't build with refined resources, if anything that should be the way brick/riveted/banded/tiled/etc are made.)

    5. This really isn't complicated. Seeing what's making up the world is the easy part. Trying to make things work with the tools we have is hard. The original postings pretty much tell me what I already figured out... and it doesn't make using the tools we have any easier or accurate. For reference, I've worked as a factory worker (general labor) most of my life. You definitely underestimate gamers Smokejumper... They will want the tool from #3. Considering the need for a 64bit OS to play this game, you've already seriously cut out a LOT of gamers and average persons. The only ones left are going to be the serious ones who will figure this out easily.
    Sapphic Serpent and DanteYoda like this.
  13. Betula Lumosa Trailblazer

    Definitely.

    There are 8 vertices associated with every shape. Really. Not 27! Not four. Eight. In the corners. That's how you can make a pyramid, basically by pinching the four corners on one side of the shape together. That diagram shows a 2x2x2 shape space, which is 3x3x3 vertices. Smokejumper, could we please get a diagram that shows a single cube with its vertices to clear up this confusion? (Or else a way to actually manipulate those mysterious inner vertices...)

    I really, really want something with the capability to create or tweak or adjust individual shapes. I don't care if it's a tool or a workstation or advanced equipment. We need it! That is the tool that will kill the discipline of voxelmancy, as it will negate the need for every single technique oriented toward tweaking individual shapes. Then everyone who's been busy with trying to figure out how to create "offset quarter voxels" with the latest iteration of the tools (as an example) can get to work figuring out better ways of shaping large areas at a time or interesting new applications of unusual shapes instead. Anything less than this will just create new and unexpected forms of voxelmancy! SniperMonkey's proposal has the additional benefit of making it easier for the average player to see how shapes affect each other.

    There's essentially three levels of color as I understand it. First level is resources; that's iron ore and wood planks and so on, and defines the categories you see in the materials picker. Second is material; this defines what you see on a voxel in the game world. So it includes color, texture, blending patterns, and probably some other information we can't observe in any way yet. Finally, there's the texture, which is basically just the pattern of stripes or dimples or whatever, and is something we can ignore or treat interchangeably with material, as players. I also wish all metals worked more like the golds do, or at least had one material they blended with; and the gold materials are not unique, they share their behavior patterns with other materials such as marble or obsidian bricks.
    Zeuljii likes this.
  14. Rholeen Founder

    What I really like about the tool that's suggested is that it's using the same movement gizmo that everyone already knows how to use. Once again, good job SniperMonkey!
  15. Blac Trailblazer

    Perhaps I am wrong, after reading 5 pages of comments and then commenting, I thought I had recalled it being said that the diagram was showing a single cube space... Went back and relooked. Apparently not. (shrug) Mute point in either event though because at the moment we're not really able to put them where we want them in any sort of easy fashion.

    (chuckle) Pretty sure the confusion came in that he was talking about multiple voxels/vectors in a single cube space, then the picture diagram leads one to believe that would also be a single cube space.

    I stand corrected.
  16. Tattle Trailblazer

    Thumps her head on the desk and tells it "folks if you want actual voxel full manipulation of tools, you have to realize even the research/developer programs of that in Source Forge for modelers are still in beta/alpha stages of development.
    There's a very few out on the market, not kiddie baby simple programs but the full manipulation of models along with mapping, texture/material integrated etc.etc. but even those! are still being tested as beta and constantly added to.

    Doing algorithms/math for voxel creation by players isn't as simple as you think, because they are dealing with a full "net" of player/world environment.

    Analogy is throw a stone into still pond water, how large are the ripples to be, figure out the math of how far the ripples effect the whole pond (our landscape/world).That's one shape created to the *net* of shapes in world.

    Now that's the simple one, now throw that stone in the raging lake water during a storm, figure out all the rippling height/angles/depths/sides of the water, air, changing surface etc? That's a changing/adjusted shape created to the *net* of shapes in world.
  17. Masterdroid Trailblazer

    So basically a voxel is a vertex or vertices in a normal 3d animation program like Maya?
  18. Simdor Trailblazer


    Couple of comments about this...
    First, just because there are very few does not make it any less valuable in this context.

    Second, I disagree that it is not as simple as we think. The vertices are already moving based on the engine, all we are asking for is to give us direct manipulation of those vertices. Is that an overly simple description? Maybe but not so many years ago the idea of hundreds of thousands of players all joining together in a virtual world was considered science fiction. I don't buy the excuse that it is just too complex. I tell my clients this all of the time, "I can do whatever you want with this software, it all comes down to how much time and money you are willing to dedicate to any given feature." Same applies here. We are shouting out that our wish is for the time and money to be spent on these types of tools. This is the priority for many of us, the players who have and will continue to fund this endeavor.

    And lastly, your analogy is flawed. The voxels only interact with those directly adjacent to them. While that may stretch out for a few iterations past the initial voxel, it cannot move past claim boundaries so it is finite.

    You may feel that the current tools are the best we can do with the technology we have. I disagree, and will continue to push this dev team in a direction that I believe will make this a better and more successful game. At the top of the list is better voxel manipulation tools.
  19. Zeuljii Trailblazer


    The voxel is an abstract container for such a vertex. Thinking of the vertex and the voxel as being the same thing and attributes like material being attached to the vertex works almost all the time. The only exception I can think of is putty where there seems to be no vertex in the voxel.
  20. Masterdroid Trailblazer

    I think the putty is where they got the idea for the roaming vertices (voxels).
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