Weird idea for game makers..

[wolfwing1]

Heh just a thought, some of the fractal images are just crazy and would love to see them made into games and such, how hard would it be to allow a output of some kind to recreate the 3d image of the current in view into 3d making programs?

[kameelian]

Hmmm,

I've wondered this myself.

I'm working on my non-Hollywood blockbuster as it happens.

kam

[David Makin]

Hollywood and the film TV industry generally have been using fractals for years e.g. the Genesis Effect (Star Trek III:The Search for Spock), though granted AFAIK not Mandelbulbs or Mandelboxes (yet)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_computer_animation_in_film_and_television

Computer games have been using code that is essentially controlled fractals and/or CSG trees for years, in fact in some ways Fractal Art software is lagging way behind the use of fractal principles in computer games.

[lycium]

Computer games have been using code that is essentially controlled fractals and/or CSG trees for years

[citation needed]

CSG might be used in 3D modeling, but as for "controlled fractals" in games... not sure what you're referring to here.

in fact in some ways Fractal Art software is lagging way behind the use of fractal principles in computer games.

Fractal art software is largely stuck in the 80s 

[marius]

Computer games have been using code that is essentially controlled fractals and/or CSG trees for years

[citation needed]

CSG might be used in 3D modeling, but as for "controlled fractals" in games... not sure what you're referring to here.

in fact in some ways Fractal Art software is lagging way behind the use of fractal principles in computer games.

Fractal art software is largely stuck in the 80s 

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/iSE1bjCEsYA&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/iSE1bjCEsYA&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>

[lycium]

June 21st 2011 isn't exactly "for years" (a little over a month), and um... if you mean anything that could be construed as a game...

[David Makin]

The only essential difference between CSG trees and IFS is that strictly IFS never stops mathematically (CSG trees are basically LRIFS i.e. Language Restricted IFS).
IMHO most procedural objects in modern games are built on fractal principles - whether the game coders knew or not !
As to first use of IFS in a game/sim if I remember correctly a US miitary sim used fractal trees in the 90's or maybe even earlier.

[eiffie]

Hey my video! I was just showing the possibility of using the fractal formula within a game and bypassing the conversion to a mesh. The advantage is it has built-in collision detection (DE).
If anyone knows a good algorithm for converting voxels (with normals) into a smooth mesh I'd give it a try.

[AndyAlias]

Hey my video! I was just showing the possibility of using the fractal formula within a game and bypassing the conversion to a mesh. The advantage is it has built-in collision detection (DE).
If anyone knows a good algorithm for converting voxels (with normals) into a smooth mesh I'd give it a try.

This is very cool. I've been working on the same idea for a while, though I'm not as far along.

Do you use a CPU implementation of the DE formula for doing the collision detection (this is what I'm doing right now) or are you pulling data back from the GPU somehow?

For those who haven't seen it, this is a fantastic little FPS made by Farbrausch for a demo competition years ago:

http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=12036

Also their demo last year features 3D models interacting with a Mandelbulb (the comments imply they use a cpu generated mesh):

http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=56458

[eiffie]

Yes DE checks are done on the CPU. Very fast since not per pixel. I just did an implementation of Boids (flocking) inside a fractal the same way. Great for animations but soon fractals should show up in games (ok by soon I mean years