[Dragon]

Indeed. Current GPUs are meant for operating on polygons, since it's the most popular method. Of course, if gaming industry would move to voxels, graphics card designers would too. But that's only speculation, right now it doesn't seem like anybody wanted to attempt such transition. We'll most likely see traditional GeoMod implemented into FS before this, and it neither is going to happen in the near future (cue Valathil posting screenshots of FS GeoMod in action  ).

[Nuke]

it would be far easier to use real time boolean operations that to convert the freespace engine into a voxel engine. regardless of the available hardware. that is unless of course you can get carmack to join the scp

[pecenipicek]

it would be far easier to use real time boolean operations that to convert the freespace engine into a voxel engine.

these things are nowhere near real time in proper 3D apps when complex meshes are involved.  its basically, per vertex, edge and polygon collision detection, coupled with mesh joins.





on the other hand... blobs. you know, those physics demos with the "soft-body dynamics" and ****? yeah. those blobs.

[Nuke]

it would be far easier to use real time boolean operations that to convert the freespace engine into a voxel engine.

these things are nowhere near real time in proper 3D apps when complex meshes are involved.  its basically, per vertex, edge and polygon collision detection, coupled with mesh joins.





on the other hand... blobs. you know, those physics demos with the "soft-body dynamics" and ****? yeah. those blobs.

i was refering to a system similar to the rf1 geomod method, which is essentially a real time boolean operation where a volume is subtracted from the mesh, and the model is restructured for use in the game. real time may be an exaggeration because you can schedule the operation to use up any spare time between frames to do the operation, and it might be a few frames late, but thats a tiny fraction of a second to the user. my point was that making a move to voxels is a fundamental change to the game engine, where as the boolean operation could be done as a bolt on addition which would not require the game to be fundamentally different than it is now. either way geomod is not gonna happen in this engine because it would be a very difficult thing to accomplish. id rather have shader effects, materials system, and optimizations, than have coders blow time on some gimmick feature like this.

[Dragon]

Not to mention there's a real possibility that being able to blow holes in capships would change gameplay a bit too much. GeoMod would be a nice feature, but it isn't likely to find use outside of mods and there are better things for coders to work on, like shadows or material system. I've just used it as an example of something that isn't going to be implemented anytime soon (material system and shadows were in the works and progressing last time I checked).