Radiolab episode on games .. not not games Recommended segment starts at 00:23:00 and ends at 00:42:34.

http://www.radiolab.org/2011/aug/23/

The challenge is that we have been investing heavily in the polygon pipeline for over two decades. Hardware is optimized for it, engines build around it, tools made on top of it, formats specified for it .. and artists made careers out of it.

Hunter ( 1991 )


Skyrim ( 2011 )


So, it's not simply a matter of questioning whether polygons have surpassed their expiration date. It takes significant effort to veer from the standard model.

Nice to see someone who has worked on the "Total War" and "Need for Speed" series balance out his repertoire with a product like this

The main reason why competitive and puzzle games dominate in videogames is probably simply because programmers dominate their development.

In my experience, the Creative / Game Director and ( Lead / Senior ) Designers do most of the decision-making concerning interactivity.

Google has an interesting looking tool for developing for Android: http://www.appinventorbeta.com

Yikes .. looks like they went with the Scratch interface for visual programming 

[any]

The power of environments such as ZGameEditor is not just that you can change logic instantly, it's that you can create & modify & delete any resource ( scripts, meshes, textures, sounds, shaders etc. ) while your game is running. So in theory you could start a empty project, hit the play button, and then create a entire game without ever having to stop playback.

ZGameEditor is a good example of a IDE that combines traditional coding with real-time feedback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE59pMACiFQ

The code shown in the video should look very familiar to anybody who has worked with the OpenGL API.

I wholeheartedly agree with Michaël's sentiments. Compiler-free / real-time programming is the most important feature for any development environment ( for me at least ). Imagine having to wait for feedback on your input in Photoshop / Maya / Cubase

Agreed!

It makes no sense seeing my avatar running stuck on a wall, or falling off a ledge by accident or miscalculate a jump.

Obviously it depends on the product .. there won't be much left in Super Mario if you can't make a wrong jump

Even creepier then this one?



Or this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV3Gt-QnLMA

64 atoms per cubic millimeter = 4x4x4. So if the ground is merely one atom thick, that's still 54/4 = 13.5 TB.

You mean 15.3 MB

Regardless, this way of calculating the "filesize" is irrelevant.

The "unlimited" aspect they refer to is that their engine can render geometry at whatever level-of-detail without significant performance differences. Whereas with polygon based renderers the polycount has a direct influence on performance regardless of the area it occupies on the screen.

So let's assume it's just 1 mm of ground and no other objects exist. That's still 64.000.000.000.000 atoms.

I doubt they store their data at a constant resolution ( at least in compressed form ). Regions of molecules that have the same content ( air, soil etc. ) don't have to be stored individually. A 2D representation ..

Can I trust that it's now running on software only and not GPU considering I know they're dishonest about other stuff?

Current GPUs aren't of much use for what they are doing actually.

It's not unlimited and it never will be.

You're right, they should be saying "virtually unlimited". Even when you use 64-bit indices in your look-up code, there's still a range .. even though it's huge.

You should probably actually take and read Notch's analysis: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8386977075/its-a-scam

Notch calculates the data under the assumption it's stored as a constant volume, while all you really need is the hull of geometry ( skipping anything inside & outside ). Something that isn't rectified in his http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8423008802/but-notch-its-not-a-scam post either.

I do agree their "marketing" is awkward at best.

Real-time 3D reconstruction using Kinect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quGhaggn3cQ