synopsis post: recently i've been working on a rendering prototype. it's a Wolfenstein style fan raycaster (so CPU, no polygons). it has: displacement mapped walls terrain raycaster floors (entirely different tech, but texturally matched with the walls). (angle constrained) real time shadows
this is the second wolfenstein style renderer i've seen this week. Is this a sign for me to get back into coding?
were they both me or is someone else doing a raycaster? if the latter, i'd love to see it.
someone else.
(also yes! if it's calling out to you, by all means do.)
This looks so freaking cool!!!!
thank you so much! it's been really fun to work on and i'm glad people are enjoying it.
Been thinking about visuals like this, after seeing Daniel Schroeder's pseudo-voxelly mesh rendering technique (blog.danielschroeder.me). Love how your raycaster looks, especially the corners! Very cool.
oh yes! someone showed me this once. i can't quite tell how it works from the posts- is it creating new geometry which is essentially the surface shell of the heightmap (with crisp edges instead of slopes?). or is it doing something like a raycaster in a shader?
It's hard to say without seeing the source, but from the blog post, I got the sense it was taking a low-fi triangle mesh and displacement map, and dynamically generating and baking the higher-fidelity geometry/normals. If it's purely displacement/shell-based, I can't see how it's hiding the edges!
yeah i'd expect some non-right angles if it were purely displacing along a heightmap, and concave + convex corners would have to do some warping.... and if it were purely a displacement mapping-esque shader space solution i'd expect different artifacts. i would love a more technical breakdown.
Same. Wonder if Schroeder would be open to an email?
I'm really curious as to how well this would have run on a 486SX (the PC I used to play the original doom). Also can it handle the more complicated floor layouts from Doom, like the different floor and ceiling heights and such, or is it limited to the Wolf3D type maps?
😭 it's putting my dungeons to shame noo (very nice 🙂👍 )
impossible, as all dungeons are equally true representations of the true spiritual dungeon. ooh i don't think i've seen your dungeon project! have you shared it anywhere?
last public build of the old project : manadono.itch.io/you-dont-lik...
I've loved watching this develop, very cool.
thank you so much!
As someone who only has a cursory knowledge of this tech I've enjoyed watching your progress
thank you! i always really like seeing process in other people's work, so i try to do the same.
This is what the redo of Wizardry should have looked like.
would it be interesting to have pillar/cylindrical elements?
i'm very compelled by that! it's on my possible additions list. it's one of the reasons i started doing support for separate e/s/w/n walls so you can do pillars etc. with wraparound textures (maybe from an sdf?).
one question is whether some pillar shapes would have overlapping sections, and if that would look ok, or if or clipping out sections (alphatest) is better.
if you appreciate work like this, please consider chipping in a few dollars a month or spreading the word! numbers have dipped recently (no shade whatsoever to anyone who's lowered their contribution or stopped- it's an incredibly difficult time for many people). www.patreon.com/c/vacuumflow...
i already do! btw, what is the landscape renderer from the header? i love it a while ago, when i was looking for a similar aesthetic, i've been reimplementing captain blood's raycast fractal landscape renderer (github.com/vmedea/godot...)
oh wow, using indexed color? what's general approach and what is the terrain generation like? the header image is from a tribute to the older freeware game "Noctis". i'm hoping to finish it up and release it this summer or fall.
yes! it draws per vertical span, uses some magic based on height and delta-height (which i haven't completely figured out yet, it looks different from usual voxel approaches) to give a shaded appearance bringerp has a small write-up about it: bringerp.free.fr/RE/CaptainBl... oh cool, thanks!
ooh thank you so much for the link! this is really elegant.
This is so cool! It's got such a substantial feel to it.
thank you! i really love that about raycasters. one thing i want to try is messing with the projection to see if i can get it to be curvilinear on both axes!
holy moly this is awesome, absolutely gorgeous to look at! I can't stop watching the video play over and over and being astonished by how smooth and impressive everything looks question, though, is keeping the fisheye effect an aesthetic choice or is it a technical restriction?
Holy shit this is looking SO COOL
thank you! there's something so particular about voxel adjacent techniques, i think. they feel low detail but weirdly- not exactly real, but tactile? dimensional?
Tactile for SURE I just wanna reach out and FEEL the textures
I'm having Wolfenstein flashbacks. I miss that game 😁
This feels like Wolfenstein if it was rendered inside of a fever dream.
Really coming along nicely!
thank you! it scratches an itch, i've been doing so much weird abstract sim stuff.
Looks like you've got some wall bulging, I don't remember exactly what it is but there's a very simple fix; unless the fisheye effect is a deliberate thing you're going for
actually the ability to do nonplanar projections is one of the things i like most about raycasters. have you ever tried doing an FOV in the 120 to 360 range and comparing curvilinear projections to planar? it's really interesting comparing.
That's fair, I just know a lot of people find it sickening in old games that did it by mistake