» Sun Sep 04, 2011 11:32 pm It's not a scam, it's real.
The catch however is that this technology is great at rendering STATIC environments, but in games we want environments to be as dynamic as possible.
With polygons, every object you render on the screen is also treated as an object in the game code.
The total amount of objects that are rendered on the screen at the same time is called the granularity of the environment.
In a simple 3D engine, a tree has a granularity of 1. In games like Crysis, the tree has a granularity of more than one, so it can break down into smaller pieces.
With "infinite detail" every pixel on the screen can represent 10.000 objects or more... in other words, the granularity is infinite.
If you have a tree make out of 1.000 polygons and you want to make it fall down, you have to do a maximum of 1.000 calculations for every frame.
A smart 3D engine only calculates the part of the tree that's visible for the player, so it can easily be cut in half.
With "infinite detail", the granularity is orders of magnitudes larger and you would have to do at least one calculation for every pixel on the screen.
So if it's 300 pixels wide and 800 pixels tall the engine has to do 240.000 calculation for every frame.
The catch however is that this technology is great at rendering STATIC environments, but in games we want environments to be as dynamic as possible.
With polygons, every object you render on the screen is also treated as an object in the game code.
The total amount of objects that are rendered on the screen at the same time is called the granularity of the environment.
In a simple 3D engine, a tree has a granularity of 1. In games like Crysis, the tree has a granularity of more than one, so it can break down into smaller pieces.
With "infinite detail" every pixel on the screen can represent 10.000 objects or more... in other words, the granularity is infinite.
If you have a tree make out of 1.000 polygons and you want to make it fall down, you have to do a maximum of 1.000 calculations for every frame.
A smart 3D engine only calculates the part of the tree that's visible for the player, so it can easily be cut in half.
With "infinite detail", the granularity is orders of magnitudes larger and you would have to do at least one calculation for every pixel on the screen.
So if it's 300 pixels wide and 800 pixels tall the engine has to do 240.000 calculation for every frame.
That is just the deal though these Are Not The Same As Polygons, they were converted from them but not the same at all.
But what you have said is 100% correct if they were indeed that, but they are not.
And this technology is still in it's infancy.
It is the same as if you were standing at Kitty Hawk and watching the first Wright Brothers plane to attempt to fly and it crashes into the ground in and flies in to a hundred different pieces.
And then turning to the guy next to you and saying, "See I told you man could never fly, If man was meant to fly he would have been born with wings".
Well this I Think is Us being Given Wings, we just have to work at figuring out how to fly with them.
