back
13 comments
Optimizing voxel data read times is a small part of the puzzle.

The primary challenge of voxel engines is adapting the rendering engine to accommodate for dynamic modifications. Light maps, shadow maps, bump maps, occlusion maps, texturing, LOD geometry... whatever. All kinds of things that are traditionally statically generated, need to be regenerated on the fly or done without. Which is why minecraft went for the retro-aesthetic, there wasn't really a choice in the matter back then. We're only now starting to see full-fledged voxel engines that can support a non-retro look, but they are still a long way behind the aesthetics that can be achieved with a normal engine.

> Which is why minecraft went for the retro-aesthetic

I though main reason why MC is retro is that Notch is not really an artist - he just wanted to create graphics quickly. And he brilliantly turned this into an advantage - I can't imagine MC without iconic square pigs and pixelated pickaxes.

Well he's not Michelangelo obviously, but low res pixel art is still art. Compare it to some of the clones or infinimer and it's clear that care went into the aesthetic.
As someone who has work extensively with both mesh and voxel engines I can say each has its good points. If you want to go for maximum visual acuity. Go the mesh route, there are great tools for generating mesh content, the shaders are well understood. Now if you want to go for maximum interactivity, emergent behavior, and simplicity, the voxel route is by far the hands down winner. The author of the original article only had a superficial understanding of voxel engines and optimization techniques.
Talking about voxel engines, I used to follow the progress of a minecraf-like game which, among its particularities, offered a spherical world, thanks to a clever deformation of a large cube. IIRC it also offered basic physics (falling trees). I'd like to check out where this game is at now, but I totally forgot the name. Does it ring a bell for anyone?
Replying to myself: I felt so bad about asking people that I felt I had to try again to find the name of this game.

And I found it : "Seed of Andromeda".

https://www.seedofandromeda.com/

Not sure, maybe http://sea-of-memes.com ?
That game reminds me of Shores of Hazeron.

It was a neat little game where you essentially strand on a planet and start building your own city until you can build a rocket to leave the planet and explore the rest of the solar system. Then build a city on the moon so you can create custom spacecrafts to go even further into space.

Nope. Not this one.
More like bloxels. Chunky blocks are not same as high-resolution voxels from the point of view of gameplay. You can organize them way neater.
Issues of the linked implementation link to great site about voxels in your browser (Free Software): http://voxeljs.com/#what
> So, if you believe these estimates are reasonable, then you should be convinced that iteration by far dominates the performance of a Minecraft style game.

I'll believe it when I see the profiler results. A good article none-the-less.

I agree.