Originally posted by Adjuvant1 I don't entirely understand your argument, so it's difficult to refute. Are you arguing the definition of "voxel"? Are you arguing Outcast has a proprietary trademark over "voxels"? Are you saying "games that use voxels must look like Outcast? What are you saying here?
Voxels are 3 dimensional pixels.
EQnext uses small polygons.
Voxels are not rendered through the graphics card, when Sauer made the Outcast Voxel engine, he mentioned the downsides, the downside of a voxel engine is that everything is rendered through the CPU it is sent to the GPU frame buffer and rendered like that.
Uh, the developers of the game have literally said that EQN uses three-dimensional pixels to render its objects.
Since you can see the polygon's on the terrain in EQNext, it doesn't use voxels. A voxel terrain engine has an unlimited amount of detail, there is no limitation on the amount of detail in terrain that is rendered with voxels.
these things are polygons, you can see the blocky terrain and blocky tree.
Uh, yes, those are polygons because that's how graphics cards render objects: in polygons. But that in no way "proves" that EQN doesn't use voxels as part of its terrain creation. Especially since voxels themselves are not strictly defined beyond being simple three-dimensional pixel-sized "objects". It's very likely the game uses voxels to construct "points of reference" for the polygons used to create the terrain's textures. That would allow them the ability to make textures that are a lot more smooth than traditional rendering.
You're very strictly defining "voxel engine" as "absolutely has to use voxels to draw everything", which is clearly not the way they're using the term. Heck, your given example, Outcast, didn't use purely voxels in constructing its graphics, either, so your argument really has no leg to stand on.
Uh, yes, those are polygons because that's how graphics cards render objects: in polygons.
Graphics cards can do a lot of things that don't require the need to employ polygons, they can do oblique projections, perspective projections, depth cueing, depth clipping, visible line determination, visible surface determination, rendering bezier, b-spline, stereopsis, etc.
The argument really comes downs to how the core of the engine handles the rendering of objects. The EQNext engine doesn't seem to use voxels in any way, it just seems to use octree data blocks to store information, which has nothing to do with voxels as far as I can tell.
I guess uber-nerds have to have their own thread occasionally !
Who cares what the "true" definition of a voxel-based game is ? I'm sure 95% of gamers don't understand the concepts anyways, neither do they care to. It's not important.
When you see yourself nodding a lot you are quite sure that you are not understanding anything. This discussion is over my head I'm afraid. Interesting nevertheless but I was quite lost.
This is a Voxel engine. It employs Voxels for it's terrain.
From the game Outcast from 1999.
In 1999 none of the games could show a smooth hill or smooth objects, it took way too many polygons.
But when Outcast came out in 1999 it had no issues having massive amounts of smoothed terrain detail. The amount of detail Outcast could employ on it's terrain in 1999 far outstrips games from 2014.
If a game uses a Voxel engine, you can tell, it will look nothing like other games.
Outcast:
The reason you don't see Voxel Engines being made is:
-it is extremely hard to do, very few people are both smart enough scientists and smart enough programmers to do it
-it only works for static things like terrain, you still need to make a second engine to render your characters (characters in Outcast have far less detail, they're rendered with a different engine), which makes is extremely complex
That screenshot brought some memories back. I am going to install the game and play it. Absolutely fantastic and most underrated game of all time. I was so upset when the sequel got cancelled.
Uh, yes, those are polygons because that's how graphics cards render objects: in polygons.
Graphics cards can do a lot of things that don't require the need to employ polygons, they can do oblique projections, perspective projections, depth cueing, depth clipping, visible line determination, visible surface determination, rendering bezier, b-spline, stereopsis, etc.
The argument really comes downs to how the core of the engine handles the rendering of objects. The EQNext engine doesn't seem to use voxels in any way, it just seems to use octree data blocks to store information, which has nothing to do with voxels as far as I can tell.
Here, I did your homework for you, because you're so persistent and nice about it. He uses octrees as a hierachical system and if I'm understanding this correctly, the result is a "sparse voxel octree". First read this...
The game is made up of voxels and props. So its not a pure voxel world but the aim is to make props destructible, so I dont know what the big deal is. I have dug through miles of ground, its a real voxel game. I have watched them mesh before my eyes when it changes mats. You maybe confused by the mesh tech they use that hides the blocks. When you remove an area of dirt, rock or any other matter made up of voxels, a mesh is pulled over the connecting voxels to make them look flat. As you remove voxels you can watch this mesh stretch and change.
Originally posted by cheyane When you see yourself nodding a lot you are quite sure that you are not understanding anything. This discussion is over my head I'm afraid. Interesting nevertheless but I was quite lost.
I'm lost and don't feel ashamed at all. Of all the bickering and what not that goes on around these forums, this is pretty up there.
This OP clearly wins this month's "Tilting at Windmills" award, congratulations.
Clearly the term has changed from what it was to it's present use. Don't worry, they do it all the time, look at sandbox, MMO, and the like to see similar results.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
This OP clearly wins this month's "Tilting at Windmills" award, congratulations.
Clearly the term has changed from what it was to it's present use. Don't worry, they do it all the time, look at sandbox, MMO, and the like to see similar results.
You mean my personal opinion, view, subjective definition isn't what everyone else thinks? I gotta rethink everything I've ever said on the internet!
Seriously though, I tried reading some of the comments and I still have no idea what a Voxel is, but I know SOE is using them...
I used to get mad when people started interchanging the word hacking and cracking to be the same thing. Then the movie "Hackers" came out and the word "cracking" was forever replaced with the overarching work hacking. People say all the time that people hacked this or that but in the days of dial in BBS systems it would not have been called that. Then there was phreaking which is also no just hacking.
You can argue the science behind something but as someone who has studied language the only advice I can give the OP is to say. . let it go. In time you will have lost. I used to see kids writing on forums "should of" instead of should've or should have. . . then last week I saw it on an article on CNN.
It's over. Sick means cool. . cool used ot mean cold. Science might stay fact but language constantly evolves. I used to get so offended by people using words the wrong way, or using nouns as verbs. . now I google crap. . don't capitalize Google and use multiple periods instead of comas and semi-colons and I am much happier.
EQNext stores it's terrain as Voxel data in an Octree. It then employs a marching cube algorithm to "march" (iterate) through all the cubes and their adjacent cubes (through the octree data) to generate a mesh (polygonal) which accurately represents the voxel data for a specific chunk.
It seems what the OP is arguing is that EQNext does not "render" Voxels. This is true. It uses the voxel data to create a polygon mesh (as I stated).
There does not currently exist any sophisticated rendering pipeline to render "voxels" as the OP describes them. Using the CPU and creating your own system to simply draw colour at positions would, however, be unnecessarily expensive and probably produce a less than desirable visual result. You would have to map pixel to voxel rather than voxel to pixel, i.e. for each pixel, which voxel should be displayed, have some way to deproject the view into your voxel data set and re-project that imaginary ray through your data set/grid until you find the first voxel which must be displayed (Massive overhead, massive ballache)
The original statement that EQN does not use voxels is fundamentally false. Voxels are used for data storage they are just not passed in to some rendering pipeline to have them drawn to screen. The OP just seems to have difficulty understanding what a Voxel is. A Voxel is -NOT- simply a pixel with depth (that's just a layman's definition). It is a 3 dimensional position in space with some data associated with it, the combined result of which we use to create visual representations of objects.
Ironically, the OP is praising Outcast for being "The true voxel game", but Outcast terrain is also made of polygons which then have textures mapped onto them.
The difference between EQNext landscape generation and Outcast's landscape generation is thus:
While both store their landscape data in a voxel octree, EQNext uses much more sophisticated algorithms (Marching Cubes) to generate a polygon mesh, this mesh must only be regenerated whenever the voxel data changes. Outcast however uses a similar method I described previously, ray-tracing a voxel array to create a polygon mesh - this must be updated EVERY frame.
Anyone who actually had the chance to play Outcast 15 years a go will be well aware it was very demanding, and most PCs would struggle to get above 10 fps playing on minimum quality settings.
So while Outcast was a very early adopter of Voxel technology, it was in no way using it to it's full potential.
EQNext stores it's terrain as Voxel data in an Octree. It then employs a marching cube algorithm to "march" (iterate) through all the cubes and their adjacent cubes (through the octree data) to generate a mesh (polygonal) which accurately represents the voxel data for a specific chunk.
It seems what the OP is arguing is that EQNext does not "render" Voxels. This is true. It uses the voxel data to create a polygon mesh (as I stated).
There does not currently exist any sophisticated rendering pipeline to render "voxels" as the OP describes them. Using the CPU and creating your own system to simply draw colour at positions would, however, be unnecessarily expensive and probably produce a less than desirable visual result. You would have to map pixel to voxel rather than voxel to pixel, i.e. for each pixel, which voxel should be displayed, have some way to deproject the view into your voxel data set and re-project that imaginary ray through your data set/grid until you find the first voxel which must be displayed (Massive overhead, massive ballache)
The original statement that EQN does not use voxels is fundamentally false. Voxels are used for data storage they are just not passed in to some rendering pipeline to have them drawn to screen. The OP just seems to have difficulty understanding what a Voxel is. A Voxel is -NOT- simply a pixel with depth (that's just a layman's definition). It is a 3 dimensional position in space with some data associated with it, the combined result of which we use to create visual representations of objects.
Ironically, the OP is praising Outcast for being "The true voxel game", but Outcast terrain is also made of polygons which then have textures mapped onto them.
The difference between EQNext landscape generation and Outcast's landscape generation is thus:
While both store their landscape data in a voxel octree, EQNext uses much more sophisticated algorithms (Marching Cubes) to generate a polygon mesh, this mesh must only be regenerated whenever the voxel data changes. Outcast however uses a similar method I described previously, ray-tracing a voxel array to create a polygon mesh - this must be updated EVERY frame.
Anyone who actually had the chance to play Outcast 15 years a go will be well aware it was very demanding, and most PCs would struggle to get above 10 fps playing on minimum quality settings.
So while Outcast was a very early adopter of Voxel technology, it was in no way using it to it's full potential.
I have no idea what half of what you said actually means, therefore it must be true and accurate. It sounds very technical and well above my head. Which for some reason actually makes it make more sense. Thank you for educating both us and the OP, hopefully he has learned something from this and can move on.
The original statement that EQN does not use voxels is fundamentally false. Voxels are used for data storage they are just not passed in to some rendering pipeline to have them drawn to screen. The OP just seems to have difficulty understanding what a Voxel is. A Voxel is -NOT- simply a pixel with depth (that's just a layman's definition). It is a 3 dimensional position in space with some data associated with it, the combined result of which we use to create visual representations of objects.
This is a good post, but I'd argue some on this paragraph.
Sparse voxel octrees are used for value storage. It's called "sparse" because some nodes are valueless.
A voxel is a hermite value which, when interpreted, expresses a series of points in virtual space, relative to the next voxel.
Just as, when you look at a person, you say "that's a person", not "that's a complex formation of atoms", when you look at a "voxel rendered by forgelight" you say "that's a voxel", not "that's a complex expression of differential equations".
This is what I'm gathering, having read and studied the last two days, with some college math as my background. Anyone disagree with it?
Why do I get the feeling that this argument from the OP is based on the perception that Voxel tech has never advanced.
It's not a perception, GPU never supported voxel based rendering, which is why it has to be done on the CPU. If the industry had chosen to support voxel based rendering, we would all be playing voxel based games.
But because polygon based engine are easier to build, and because there isn't a good solution to animating voxels, the GPU makers decided to support polygon based rendering over voxel based rendering.
I think you're confusing the role voxels play in modern engines, versus their role in Outcast (which also didn't directly render the voxels, but a representation of them - at least as I recall.
Modern voxel-based engines (EQN, etc) are rendering standard polygonal meshes derived from voxel data. The voxels themselves aren't being rendered, but act more like an underlying "skeleton", so to speak. The terrain we see is built around that "skeleton". As the voxel data changes, the polygonal mesh is updated accordingly... hence you can dig holes, create mounds, etc.
Here's a page that explains the 'transvoxel algorithm', by Eric Lengyel - creator of the C4 engine, which also uses Voxel-based terrain. Through the algorithm he's implemented, you can get an idea of how voxel tech is actually working, in a modern engine context (ie. EQNext, C4 engine, etc).
Edit: To further clarify a point I'd not made as well as I'd have liked after re-reading it.
If you want to get stupid technical about it, which it appears some people are trying to do:
A voxel is a three-dimensional pixel. Ok, I can accept that as a definition.
Now, if we want to go refuting that basically every game that claims to be voxel-based isn't, because they use 2D polygons instead of "voxels"...
Well...
I'd challenge anyone to create a 3D object, pixel or otherwise, without using any 2D surfaces. Go ahead, we'll wait and watch.
And secondly, even if you do manage to do that, We all want to see you now project your newly-created 3D object back onto a 2D monitor, without using 2D polygons or pixels.
If EQN wants to call their graphics engine a voxel engine, sure, whatever. Their "crime' is definitely not a technical one of abusing the word "voxel", in my eyes - it's in trying to cash in on whatever the current buzzword is with whatever their next product is, and then releasing it years after whatever that buzzword shotgun was is definitely out of style (Sandbox Voxel Zombie Open World Action Combat Console MMO - pick a handful of those buzzwords and you have everything SOE has or will publish in the near term)
I'd challenge anyone to create a 3D object, pixel or otherwise, without using any 2D surfaces. Go ahead, we'll wait and watch.
You don't need polygons or 2D surfaces to create a 3D shape.
Make an array, store your height map values in them, calculate where your pixels are, send it to the frame buffer and and you have your pretty 3D mountain.
MRI machines use voxels, they can show a 3D image, and yet they didn't use a 2D surface or polygons, they use height maps and displacement maps.
I think the main reason games have never embraced voxels is because they're hard to animate, yout want to rig characters, you can't rig voxels very well, they don't lend themselves to animation. When you just need the data, voxels are far superior, which is why MRI use them.
MRI images don't use polygons, they use voxels, yet they have an amazing amount of 3D detail.
And secondly, even if you do manage to do that, We all want to see you now project your newly-created 3D object back onto a 2D monitor, without using 2D polygons or pixels.
Yes, if you can't use pixels, you can't create anything, since the frame buffer from the GPU sends pixels to the Monitor.
Not quite sure what you're trying to say with that though, pixels are needed to dsiplay both voxels and polygon based surfaces, each render parse, the frame buffer sends a picture in pixels to the monitor. It doesn't help either argument.
however, you don't need 2D polygons or even voxels to display a 3D surface., you can use mathematical formulas like cubic B-spline and interpolation that use neither one.
Voxele or no voxels the game still looks naff has shown us anything to really back up these claims. I'm an EQ vet and would rather stop with the buzz words show us something solid.
Another instrument that uses voxels are electron microscope, electron tomography displays 3D images, yet they don't use polygons or 2D surfaces, they use voxels.
Originally posted by SavageHorizon Voxele or no voxels the game still looks naff has shown us anything to really back up these claims. I'm an EQ vet and would rather stop with the buzz words show us something solid.
Voxels are not a buzz word, they are a real thing. Go check it out in Landmark, couple hr of playing and digging in the dirt you will get that. Build something and you will start to get the impact voxels will have on MMOing. For me, PvP is where voxels will shine.
Originally posted by CalmOceans Another instrument that uses voxels are electron microscope, electron tomography displays 3D images, yet they don't use polygons or 2D surfaces, they use voxels.
We don't "Render" voxels. Voxels represent the data that is gathered. Electron microscopes, MRI, etc... use various methods (light/magnetic fields/radio waves) to construct a set of voxel data, that data can then be used to render an image in 3 dimensions from any perspective.
In the example of MRI each voxel could contain information of density at a position, that value can be represented as a grayscale colour i.e. 0% density = black (instant response/no density), 100% density = white (complete blockage/high density).
For example, in an MRI neuro scan a doctor can look at the output data using software to create slices from the voxel grid to view at certain depths within a brain the density of various sections. This can then be used to determine if there are anomolies within the brain (high density regions, i.e. tumour/excessive fluid, or low density regions - potential lack of brain development).
Neither EQN nor MRI nor electron microscopes "Render" voxels any more than any other does. They all use voxel data to represent spacial data. That data is then sent in to some rendering pipeline to be displayed. Be that through a vertex buffer in a GPU or a texture created directly from the data on a CPU.
Comments
Uh, yes, those are polygons because that's how graphics cards render objects: in polygons. But that in no way "proves" that EQN doesn't use voxels as part of its terrain creation. Especially since voxels themselves are not strictly defined beyond being simple three-dimensional pixel-sized "objects". It's very likely the game uses voxels to construct "points of reference" for the polygons used to create the terrain's textures. That would allow them the ability to make textures that are a lot more smooth than traditional rendering.
You're very strictly defining "voxel engine" as "absolutely has to use voxels to draw everything", which is clearly not the way they're using the term. Heck, your given example, Outcast, didn't use purely voxels in constructing its graphics, either, so your argument really has no leg to stand on.
Graphics cards can do a lot of things that don't require the need to employ polygons, they can do oblique projections, perspective projections, depth cueing, depth clipping, visible line determination, visible surface determination, rendering bezier, b-spline, stereopsis, etc.
The argument really comes downs to how the core of the engine handles the rendering of objects. The EQNext engine doesn't seem to use voxels in any way, it just seems to use octree data blocks to store information, which has nothing to do with voxels as far as I can tell.
I guess uber-nerds have to have their own thread occasionally !
Who cares what the "true" definition of a voxel-based game is ? I'm sure 95% of gamers don't understand the concepts anyways, neither do they care to. It's not important.
That screenshot brought some memories back. I am going to install the game and play it. Absolutely fantastic and most underrated game of all time. I was so upset when the sequel got cancelled.
Here, I did your homework for you, because you're so persistent and nice about it. He uses octrees as a hierachical system and if I'm understanding this correctly, the result is a "sparse voxel octree". First read this...
https://anteru.net/2008/07/25/242/
then some of Cepero's own blogs.
http://procworld.blogspot.com/2012/01/trip-to-voxel-farm.html
and this, but I would supplant term "hermite data" as "voxel data" for its application ( Is that the liberal usage you're contesting?)
http://www.frankpetterson.com/publications/dualcontour/dualcontour.pdf
So, he does use octrees, but the values (hermite data) are voxels? Sound right?
My brain now feels like I just rediscovered atomic energy.
"Yo, I heard you like math so we put differential equations in your differential equations so you can sine while you sine"
EqNext uses voxels. After reading the wiki on voxels and what I know about EqNext, I see no valid argument against it.
EqNext terrain and maybe more IS voxel based, and how the display engine works is unrelated to the definition of voxel.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
I'm lost and don't feel ashamed at all. Of all the bickering and what not that goes on around these forums, this is pretty up there.
This OP clearly wins this month's "Tilting at Windmills" award, congratulations.
Clearly the term has changed from what it was to it's present use. Don't worry, they do it all the time, look at sandbox, MMO, and the like to see similar results.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
You mean my personal opinion, view, subjective definition isn't what everyone else thinks? I gotta rethink everything I've ever said on the internet!
Seriously though, I tried reading some of the comments and I still have no idea what a Voxel is, but I know SOE is using them...
I used to get mad when people started interchanging the word hacking and cracking to be the same thing. Then the movie "Hackers" came out and the word "cracking" was forever replaced with the overarching work hacking. People say all the time that people hacked this or that but in the days of dial in BBS systems it would not have been called that. Then there was phreaking which is also no just hacking.
You can argue the science behind something but as someone who has studied language the only advice I can give the OP is to say. . let it go. In time you will have lost. I used to see kids writing on forums "should of" instead of should've or should have. . . then last week I saw it on an article on CNN.
It's over. Sick means cool. . cool used ot mean cold. Science might stay fact but language constantly evolves. I used to get so offended by people using words the wrong way, or using nouns as verbs. . now I google crap. . don't capitalize Google and use multiple periods instead of comas and semi-colons and I am much happier.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
EQNext stores it's terrain as Voxel data in an Octree. It then employs a marching cube algorithm to "march" (iterate) through all the cubes and their adjacent cubes (through the octree data) to generate a mesh (polygonal) which accurately represents the voxel data for a specific chunk.
It seems what the OP is arguing is that EQNext does not "render" Voxels. This is true. It uses the voxel data to create a polygon mesh (as I stated).
There does not currently exist any sophisticated rendering pipeline to render "voxels" as the OP describes them. Using the CPU and creating your own system to simply draw colour at positions would, however, be unnecessarily expensive and probably produce a less than desirable visual result. You would have to map pixel to voxel rather than voxel to pixel, i.e. for each pixel, which voxel should be displayed, have some way to deproject the view into your voxel data set and re-project that imaginary ray through your data set/grid until you find the first voxel which must be displayed (Massive overhead, massive ballache)
The original statement that EQN does not use voxels is fundamentally false. Voxels are used for data storage they are just not passed in to some rendering pipeline to have them drawn to screen. The OP just seems to have difficulty understanding what a Voxel is. A Voxel is -NOT- simply a pixel with depth (that's just a layman's definition). It is a 3 dimensional position in space with some data associated with it, the combined result of which we use to create visual representations of objects.
Ironically, the OP is praising Outcast for being "The true voxel game", but Outcast terrain is also made of polygons which then have textures mapped onto them.
The difference between EQNext landscape generation and Outcast's landscape generation is thus:
While both store their landscape data in a voxel octree, EQNext uses much more sophisticated algorithms (Marching Cubes) to generate a polygon mesh, this mesh must only be regenerated whenever the voxel data changes. Outcast however uses a similar method I described previously, ray-tracing a voxel array to create a polygon mesh - this must be updated EVERY frame.
Anyone who actually had the chance to play Outcast 15 years a go will be well aware it was very demanding, and most PCs would struggle to get above 10 fps playing on minimum quality settings.
So while Outcast was a very early adopter of Voxel technology, it was in no way using it to it's full potential.
I have no idea what half of what you said actually means, therefore it must be true and accurate. It sounds very technical and well above my head. Which for some reason actually makes it make more sense. Thank you for educating both us and the OP, hopefully he has learned something from this and can move on.
This is a good post, but I'd argue some on this paragraph.
Sparse voxel octrees are used for value storage. It's called "sparse" because some nodes are valueless.
A voxel is a hermite value which, when interpreted, expresses a series of points in virtual space, relative to the next voxel.
Just as, when you look at a person, you say "that's a person", not "that's a complex formation of atoms", when you look at a "voxel rendered by forgelight" you say "that's a voxel", not "that's a complex expression of differential equations".
This is what I'm gathering, having read and studied the last two days, with some college math as my background. Anyone disagree with it?
I think you're confusing the role voxels play in modern engines, versus their role in Outcast (which also didn't directly render the voxels, but a representation of them - at least as I recall.
Modern voxel-based engines (EQN, etc) are rendering standard polygonal meshes derived from voxel data. The voxels themselves aren't being rendered, but act more like an underlying "skeleton", so to speak. The terrain we see is built around that "skeleton". As the voxel data changes, the polygonal mesh is updated accordingly... hence you can dig holes, create mounds, etc.
Here's a page that explains the 'transvoxel algorithm', by Eric Lengyel - creator of the C4 engine, which also uses Voxel-based terrain. Through the algorithm he's implemented, you can get an idea of how voxel tech is actually working, in a modern engine context (ie. EQNext, C4 engine, etc).
Edit: To further clarify a point I'd not made as well as I'd have liked after re-reading it.
If you want to get stupid technical about it, which it appears some people are trying to do:
A voxel is a three-dimensional pixel. Ok, I can accept that as a definition.
Now, if we want to go refuting that basically every game that claims to be voxel-based isn't, because they use 2D polygons instead of "voxels"...
Well...
I'd challenge anyone to create a 3D object, pixel or otherwise, without using any 2D surfaces. Go ahead, we'll wait and watch.
And secondly, even if you do manage to do that, We all want to see you now project your newly-created 3D object back onto a 2D monitor, without using 2D polygons or pixels.
If EQN wants to call their graphics engine a voxel engine, sure, whatever. Their "crime' is definitely not a technical one of abusing the word "voxel", in my eyes - it's in trying to cash in on whatever the current buzzword is with whatever their next product is, and then releasing it years after whatever that buzzword shotgun was is definitely out of style (Sandbox Voxel Zombie Open World Action Combat Console MMO - pick a handful of those buzzwords and you have everything SOE has or will publish in the near term)
You don't need polygons or 2D surfaces to create a 3D shape.
Make an array, store your height map values in them, calculate where your pixels are, send it to the frame buffer and and you have your pretty 3D mountain.
MRI machines use voxels, they can show a 3D image, and yet they didn't use a 2D surface or polygons, they use height maps and displacement maps.
I think the main reason games have never embraced voxels is because they're hard to animate, yout want to rig characters, you can't rig voxels very well, they don't lend themselves to animation. When you just need the data, voxels are far superior, which is why MRI use them.
MRI images don't use polygons, they use voxels, yet they have an amazing amount of 3D detail.
Yes, if you can't use pixels, you can't create anything, since the frame buffer from the GPU sends pixels to the Monitor.
Not quite sure what you're trying to say with that though, pixels are needed to dsiplay both voxels and polygon based surfaces, each render parse, the frame buffer sends a picture in pixels to the monitor. It doesn't help either argument.
however, you don't need 2D polygons or even voxels to display a 3D surface., you can use mathematical formulas like cubic B-spline and interpolation that use neither one.
Voxels are not a buzz word, they are a real thing. Go check it out in Landmark, couple hr of playing and digging in the dirt you will get that. Build something and you will start to get the impact voxels will have on MMOing. For me, PvP is where voxels will shine.
We don't "Render" voxels. Voxels represent the data that is gathered. Electron microscopes, MRI, etc... use various methods (light/magnetic fields/radio waves) to construct a set of voxel data, that data can then be used to render an image in 3 dimensions from any perspective.
In the example of MRI each voxel could contain information of density at a position, that value can be represented as a grayscale colour i.e. 0% density = black (instant response/no density), 100% density = white (complete blockage/high density).
For example, in an MRI neuro scan a doctor can look at the output data using software to create slices from the voxel grid to view at certain depths within a brain the density of various sections. This can then be used to determine if there are anomolies within the brain (high density regions, i.e. tumour/excessive fluid, or low density regions - potential lack of brain development).
Neither EQN nor MRI nor electron microscopes "Render" voxels any more than any other does. They all use voxel data to represent spacial data. That data is then sent in to some rendering pipeline to be displayed. Be that through a vertex buffer in a GPU or a texture created directly from the data on a CPU.