Hacker News Reader

Comment by cousin_it | Hacker News Reader

Two years ago, after seeing the incredible art style of Fez, I became a big fan of voxel-based sculpting. I implemented my own WebGL voxel editor and started a Tumblr with some example creations: http://eachothersbreath.tumblr.com.

Unfortunately it didn't take me long to feel the limitations of that art style. The lack of sloped surfaces is a huge problem, which can't be mitigated even with custom shaped voxels. Past a certain point, tasteful low-poly modeling (like http://www.chelseasaunders.com) is both easier and looks better, especially when animated.

View on HN

I've not tried voxel art yet, but I've been playing with pixel art for the past 18 months or so and the limitations are actually fun for me. It means that you have to come up with some creative solutions.

Just like pixel art, voxel art looks great in a parallel projection where all voxels have the same visual size. But in a perspective projection, when some voxels are much closer to the camera than others, the limitations become insurmountable. It's similar to early FPS games like Doom, where enemy sprites would become very pixelated up close. The wakeup call for me was unlocking first person mode in Fez and slowly realizing that it doesn't look too good, even though the same scene would look amazing in side view.

I think the closest 3D analog to pixel art is not voxel art, but low poly art with low resolution textures. Something like this: http://orig03.deviantart.net/c602/f/2012/065/8/f/lowpoly_nak... is a restricted aesthetic in its own right, and looks great in a variety of views, but would be very hard or impossible to do with voxels. It's a shame that few people are pursuing that direction nowadays, everyone is jumping on the voxel bandwagon.

I agree re: low poly models (to achieve an aesthetic instead of for performance) being the next generation of pixel art. The Witness had a very distinct visual style where the models are almost entirely low poly but the textures are high res and lighting, post processing, etc. are all modern. There's a lot that can be done there.

Btw, does anyone have any examples of this they like? Games, old or new, that used low poly exceptionally well? Several PSX games come to mind for me...

The Witness has an amazing art style, but unfortunately it's completely out of reach for individual developers, so it's not quite analogous to pixel art. Check out Sky Rogue or Drift Stage for something that's more realistically achievable.

> But in a perspective projection, when some voxels are much closer to the camera than others

I think that's why in most of the examples in Sir_carma's portfolio are presented from a distance, where the perspective projection will have less effect.

> I think the closest 3D analog to pixel art is not voxel art, but low poly art with low resolution textures.

I disagree. Low-poly art is a vector format, so it makes more sense to me to compare it to 2D vector drawings with a small number of control points.

Voxel art has similar resolution and color limitations to pixel art, and they share a certain aesthetic that I don't see in low-poly designs.

I think that right about now is when we'll see a renaissance in low-poly artwork. I say this because I think the people who grew up playing PS1 era games are now going to do something similar to what the people who grew up playing 8-bit and 16-bit games did. See Bob Mackey's piece on this: http://www.usgamer.net/articles/back-in-1995-and-the-changin...

Orthographic projection can be used (you could bake a voxel model into a sprite sheet like Doom used). Still, even with perspective it looks "ok" IMO - but then again I am hugely biased! :)

Those animations for Babi Glo look fantastic! I love the whimsical style of the artwork. Are you still making progress on this? Any idea of a projected release date?

Sadly, I'm not Chelsea :-) As far as I know, she lost all her progress due to a hard drive failure and I'm not sure if Babi Glo will ever happen. But it's definitely a huge inspiration.

Aww, so sad, it looks just like the kind of non-violent adventure game that I like to play with the kids.

You mentioned having difficulty getting the shading right in one example (your chair) and not wanting to implement stencil shadows. Is there no lighting whatsoever being done in the renderer?

There's a tiny bit of darkening based on viewing angle, but otherwise no lighting.

Lack of curved surfaces is not a fundamental flaw of a voxel representation, blocky is just the most common way of rendering them.

Check out these roofs: http://www.victoriaheritagefoundation.ca/images/Glossary/Roo... These are all trivial with polygons, but AFAIK impossible with voxels, no matter which rendering algorithm you use.

Check out the roofs I made with voxels: http://www.voxelquest.com/uploads/9/5/4/0/9540564/3786947_or... its possible, just depends on your resolution and style. I use voxels with normals (direction of light reflection) which is unusual in most voxel art.

Cool project! I've been following it.

Out of curiosity, do you still feel that voxels are worthwhile? Compared to the amazing stuff that you can achieve with polygons, e.g. http://www.orsispanyol.com/art/.

In your typical commercial project it would be pretty foolish to use anything other than polygons, just because that is where the tools, engines, and APIs are at.

Still, from the perspective of making something unique looking, many people seem to like voxels. It is almost comparable to the preference of pixel art over vector art. As a warning, if you do anything with voxels, even just something Minecraft-ish, you will be opening the floodgate for many technical battles. :) From a conservative perspective, it is hard to justify the use of them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com