About Store Forum Documentation Contact



Post Reply 
Voxlap + Esenthel
Author Message
runewake2 Offline
Member

Post: #1
Voxlap + Esenthel
I am wanting to do a game that is drawn using voxel's and think that Voxlap seems like a good choice. It is written in C++ as Esenthel is and thus I am wondering if I could somehow combine the two engines to employ Esenthel's Particle's, Effects and Shading while using the Voxel Terrain of Voxlap.

I'm not sure this is possible but it would be really cool if it was. I know Esenthel is planning on adding support for Voxel terrain sometime but the whole graphic style of Voxel cubes looks really cool in my opinion.

Anyway, what kind of hurdles will I have to jump to combine two engines. Is it even possible? All I want to do is use Voxlap's terrain and Esenthel's mechanics and FX. Hopefully to neat effect.

More on Voxlap here: http://www.advsys.net/ken/voxlap.htm.

Also, the Voxlap editor is clunky and hard to use. Would their be a way to work this into the World Editor somehow without a custom World Editor? Assuming that making this work is possible.

If not I'll just wait for Esenthel to get the Voxel terrain out.
(This post was last modified: 02-21-2011 05:23 AM by runewake2.)
02-21-2011 04:16 AM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Dandruff Offline
Member

Post: #2
RE: Voxlap + Esenthel
really cool
02-21-2011 08:29 AM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Chris Offline
Member

Post: #3
RE: Voxlap + Esenthel
I've got experience with working with voxels in EE, and have even done some terrain tests. I recommend you ignore Voxlap and look at PolyVox (just a lib), it's far more up-to-date & active, and has both cubic surface extractor (gives you blocky terrain) and marching cubes (smooth voxel terrain) implementations. It's very fast, and based on templates thus is renderer independent, and the latest SVN has decent compression schemes (block-based RLE hybrid with cache). Also here's HLSL code for texturing voxels from 3-axis projections http://www.thermite3d.org/dokuwiki/doku...._texturing
Heh, now I sound like a salesman, but it's just a decent library with a decent license.
02-21-2011 09:37 AM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
runewake2 Offline
Member

Post: #4
RE: Voxlap + Esenthel
Thanks for the suggestions. How easy is it to implement this into the editor?
02-21-2011 10:46 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Dynad Offline
Member

Post: #5
RE: Voxlap + Esenthel
First of all you need the programmable editor... Second it wont be that easy at all, cause if ive read it right, u want to replace the entire heighmap with voxel terrain. After that you need to save the voxel terrain in the World files, and placing objects in the World must be rewritten aswell e.g the align to heighmap functions..

And many more...

There is always evil somewhere, you just have to look for it properly.
02-21-2011 10:56 PM
Visit this user's website Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Chris Offline
Member

Post: #6
RE: Voxlap + Esenthel
Seconds what Dynad said for you replacing the existing terrain system - it's difficult, perhaps only Grzegorz should try it. But, e.g. if you wanted to make your own Voxel-based modelling tool, like 3dCoat, it's actually quite easy if you use PolyVox with EE.
02-21-2011 11:43 PM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
runewake2 Offline
Member

Post: #7
RE: Voxlap + Esenthel
A pity. I am, by no means, a skilled programmer. My skills are, at best, mediocre and I was just looking for a fun way to spice up my game. I was more interested in making my buildings and walls out of Voxel's however. I was hoping to make my Parkour game a little more interesting by allowing you to run through some walls.

While I know I can do that with destructible objects the effect is not the same. With voxel's I was hoping I would be able to get a cooler hole than just the destructible objects (maybe even achieving a cartoonish type hole). Thanks for the help Dynad and Chris I'll continue to play with this but I'm not sure how far I will get.
02-22-2011 12:29 AM
Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply
Post Reply