hello =)

[xaero]

Heello everyone. My first question for these forums is that I hear voxels could lead the future in the gaming industry surpasing polys. Is thier any truth to this and why. I ask this because I would like to get into 3D modeling but not sure what direction to get into to, voxels or polys. Thanks for ur time.

 

[TimmyZDesign]

Most people only use voxels in 3D-Coat as a temporary step. The voxels make the work process faster and easier, but the voxels are not intended for use as a final product. The final finished model is still output from 3D-Coat as polys, not voxels.

Voxels are cubes and polygons are flat planes. Therefore, it is more difficult for a computer to process voxels than polygons.

Most current video games use polygons, and polygon models will still be the most popular for many years to come. On the other hand, computers will become more powerful in the future, so using voxels will be become more and more popular as time goes on.

[xaero]

Most people only use voxels in 3D-Coat as a temporary step. The voxels make the work process faster and easier, but the voxels are not intended for use as a final product. The final finished model is still output from 3D-Coat as polys, not voxels.

Voxels are cubes and polygons are flat planes. Therefore, it is more difficult for a computer to process voxels than polygons.

Most current video games use polygons, and polygon models will still be the most popular for many years to come. On the other hand, computers will become more powerful in the future, so using voxels will be become more and more popular as time goes on.

So what about the company called Ueclidian. They claim that voxels will be the future, 2 games that are in developement that will be shown in 2015.

[TimmyZDesign]

Right now polygons are still the most popular.

There aren't many digital content creation apps that can be used to make voxel models. Maya, 3DS Max, Lightwave, Modo, Blender, Zbrush, 3D-Coat, Rhino, Solidworks, Sketchup, Fusion 360, etc. are all used for making models, either as a polygons, subdivision surfaces, NURBs, T-Splines, etc. but those apps are not generally used for making voxel models.

Voxels are used in fluid and gas simulations, as point cloud data, some scan data, etc. but they are not generally used right now to create models for video games. Video game models (like playable characters, props, environments, etc.) are all polygonal models right now.

If Euclidian releases some video games next year with voxel models in them, it is going to take quite a while for the industry to adapt. People will need new software which can create voxel models, and it will take time for software developers to create those new apps. This transition will take years, so it is pretty safe to say that you can just keep making polygon game models for a long time until voxel models become more popular. Most likely, in the future, you will still be able to keep making polygonal models, and then just convert those to voxel when you are done, or maybe just add some layers inside of your polygonal models which would then be converted to voxels. But these kinds of model conversion tools don't even exist yet, so you don't need to worry about it for a long time. You will do fine with just making polygon models for now. The change to voxels won't happen overnight. If you spend time learning how to make polygon models, you won't be wasting your time. You can probably use most of those same (or very similar) polygonal modeling skills to make voxel models in the future.