The use of the word "scam" is really inaccurate based on the rest of the post. He agrees that the demo is real, and calls it a scam since others are working on similar things and they are trying to get funding. Neither others working on the same thing nor trying to get funding make something a scam. It would be a scam if they weren't really rendering what they say they are in real time, but Notch doesn't claim that.
I am blown away by the number of people on HN and elsewhere who are posting about "how they must be doing it" and then calling it unimpressive or a technical dead end.<p>Reading the blog post, I now know how Notch would approach building such a thing, and that he thinks his approach wouldn't really work. I still have no idea how Euclidean's implementation actually works and neither does anyone else who I've seen comment on their demo video.
The reddit thread <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/j6sr1/a_simple_and_efficient_explanation_of_the/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/j6sr1/a_simple_and_e...</a> has a bunch of good comments that outline why Notch isn't really in a position to post stuff like this.
I think the unlimited detail refers to rendering speed, not memory requirements. The data has to be redundant to fit in memory. He also claims it runs on a laptop without GPU. So it can't be just octree or any other regular acceleration structure. So if it isn't scam, it's something new.<p>From the author (old post on Beyond3D): "firstly the system isn’t ray tracing at all or anything like ray tracing. Ray tracing uses up lots of nasty multiplication and divide operators and so isn’t very fast or friendly.
Unlimited Detail is a sorting algorithm that retrieves only the 3d atoms (I wont say voxels any more it seems that word doesn’t have the prestige in the games industry that it enjoys in medicine and the sciences) that are needed, exactly one for each pixel on the screen, it displays them using a very different procedure from individual 3d to 2d conversion, instead we use a mass 3d to 2d conversion that shares the common elements of the 2d positions of all the dots combined. And so we get lots of geometry and lots of speed, speed isn’t fantastic yet compared to hardware, but its very good for a software application that’s not written for dual core. We get about 24-30 fps 1024*768 for that demo of the pyramids of monsters. The media is hyping up the death of polygons but really that’s just not practical, this will probably be released as “backgrounds only” for the next few years, until we have made a lot more tools to work with."
The guy behind Atomontage has stated that he's got his engine averaging less than one <i>bit</i> per voxel (he estimates 753 bits or less per 1000 voxels)[1] by applying a variety of compression mechanisms[2], so at least that part of Notch's assessment can be disregarded out of hand.<p>EDIT:
Taking a step back, remember that with an octree, contiguous areas require less tree depth to fully describe them, so open empty space (sky) and consistently filled space (uniform material underground) require much less data. This of course creates practical limitations in addition to the claimed maximums of what the engine can achieve (so art budgets aren't going anywhere anytime soon) but I think calling it a "scam" is a bit much.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sfWYUgxGBE" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sfWYUgxGBE</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.atomontage.com/?id=tech_overv" rel="nofollow">http://www.atomontage.com/?id=tech_overv</a>
Why is the product considered worthless if it can't do animation yet? The demo clearly walked through examples of inanimate artifacts that are currently rendered as bitmaps on big polygons that could be greatly improved, today, by the technology in the demo. Backgrounds, cityscapes in the distance, the trunk of a tree, etc.<p>The argument that it's a scam if it can't render grass blowing in the wind is ridiculous.
The big unanswered question here is can they dynamically sort their data in real time?<p>If they cannot they can never have movement through the environment - something that they have failed to demonstrate so far.<p>Dynamic animation is a similar problem but can be solved using key-frame point data (although this could severely limit the fluidity of animation and greatly increase memory usage). You cannot do this smoothly for movement (without using tiles or a combination of tiles and key-frames).<p>There are many cool games that could be made despite these limitations but Euclideon is promising more than this: their comparisons are with modern FPS's.<p>I really hope that they have solved all these issues. But if they have, why aren't they demonstrating them?<p>If they haven't I hope they are being more honest with their investors than they are with the general public.
Am I the only one that agrees with Notch and does think that this "unlimited detail" technology is a scam?<p>Euclideon is asking for money to develop "new" technology that in reality has been done before and does not have any advantages over a polygon based engine. Everything in their demos can be done (if not better) using a polygon based engine and modern GPUs.<p>Seriously, just watching one of the videos by Euclideon makes me feel like I'm watching late night tv advertisments. If their tech is as "ground breaking" as they claim, surely they wouldn't need to do as much convincing as they currently do in their videos.
If Notch wants to be picky about ethics, let's talk about spending money hiring for the development of a new game (Scrolls) before finishing a game players have essentially advanced him money to complete (Minecraft). Or about sitting on critical security holes for months. Euclideon may not deliver on its promises (it probably won't), but for all Notch knows they do have a novel technique and labeling it a "scam" is just irresponsible.