I just watched the associated dev video And if I understand it, what the author is doing is kind of interesting.
The sensor to see a 3d scene is 2d(eye or camera). What is being done here is simulating a 3d sensor(for a 4d world) then we are looking at this 3d sensor using our 2d sensors (eyes). I don't know if this is the common way of rendering these 4d physics simulations. But it is the first I have heard it described this way. It is also why the narrative of the game focuses on eyes, because that is what it is doing.
The problem with these attempts always seems to be that you can see in dimensions 1-3, but never in dimension 4, so any movement or exploration along that axis is always just blind fumbling. The extra dimension is not equivalent to the others
The only answer would seem to be an extra axis of rotation, but (a) doesnt work well with existing input methods, and (b) would be even more of a brain-breaker
no, you do see along the fourth dimension when you're pointing that way. i think you have a deep confusion here actually, but i can't really help because i don't actually understand your confusion. but, for whatever help it will be:
- all the dimensions are treated the same
- you only actually see two dimensions.
(it goes without saying that it's actually me who's confused.)
It's cool and all and I typically enjoy lowres renditions... unless, it actually impacts gameplay.
Since the gameplay is so much about 4D, clarity in what you see becomes more important and the extremely low resolution actually impairs the player rather than serve a positive (typically 'leaves more to the imagination').
It wouldn't take much of an effort to double or triple the resolution which I think would help the gameplay.
I tried pretty hard to increase the rendering efficiency on consumer GPUs. The biggest issue is that the main view is actually a 96x96x96 grid of "pixels" (or voxels). This makes scaling brutal: going up to 128x128x128 we'd double the total amount of pixels, to around as much as 1920x1080 resolution. Doubling the grid res to 256 would get us 16M voxels, which is about the same as two 4K displays. On top of that simple 4D object meshes scale much worse in terms of tetras than 3D objects do.
A quick solution could be to give the user a few resolution options, so they can bravely test the limits of their hardware.
So I've just modified the engine to allow you to specify a custom resolution in the URL:
(Higher resolutions might break rendering entirely if the accel structure doesn't fit in allowed memory anymore. I was able to push it to 160x160x160 on my machines)
I'll also try to think of other ways to make the rendering more efficient, maybe a BVH instead of my simpler grid-based acceleration structure? My background is not in computer graphics, so others here might have better ideas.
I read a novel when I was 14 or so who's premise is all about creatures inhabiting higher-dimensional space called "The Boy Who Reversed Himself" by William Sleator. I loved Sleator's books, they introduced me to really interesting concepts from theoretical physics as a youngun. If you find 4D Doom intriguing, I encourage you to borrow the book from your favorite ebook library, it's a quick fun read (at least, I remember it that way).
I feel like now that I'm older, my brain just can't fully understand it say as quickly if I were younger. Makes me wonder if younger more plastic brains can adjust to having to juggle more dimensions than crochety old ones like mine with very rigid 3D grooves baked in. Or brains from other animals.
I guess taken to the logical extreme, what does the brain of someone/thing that's good at playing this (or any game of N dimensions) look like?
I feel the opposite. I'm 61 and I feel like I understand ideas more quickly than I ever did before, so much so that I'm surprised at how shallowly I thought about some things in the past.
While there is definitely something to the plasticity of young brains, for example in language acquisition, or the fact that the Fields Medal eligibility ages out at 40, I believe it's not a linear thing and not a one-way thing.
I'd definitely prefer a human made one. If you know any artists willing to make a proper version of the cover art, I'd be happy to commission one (paid, of course).
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 58.9 ms ] threadi managed to kill three enemies before succumbing to my fate
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miegakure
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yW--eQaA2I
[3] https://xkcd.com/721/
They haven't showed anything for like a decade.
The sensor to see a 3d scene is 2d(eye or camera). What is being done here is simulating a 3d sensor(for a 4d world) then we are looking at this 3d sensor using our 2d sensors (eyes). I don't know if this is the common way of rendering these 4d physics simulations. But it is the first I have heard it described this way. It is also why the narrative of the game focuses on eyes, because that is what it is doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKDMcLW9OnI
The only answer would seem to be an extra axis of rotation, but (a) doesnt work well with existing input methods, and (b) would be even more of a brain-breaker
- all the dimensions are treated the same
- you only actually see two dimensions.
(it goes without saying that it's actually me who's confused.)
Since the gameplay is so much about 4D, clarity in what you see becomes more important and the extremely low resolution actually impairs the player rather than serve a positive (typically 'leaves more to the imagination').
It wouldn't take much of an effort to double or triple the resolution which I think would help the gameplay.
I tried pretty hard to increase the rendering efficiency on consumer GPUs. The biggest issue is that the main view is actually a 96x96x96 grid of "pixels" (or voxels). This makes scaling brutal: going up to 128x128x128 we'd double the total amount of pixels, to around as much as 1920x1080 resolution. Doubling the grid res to 256 would get us 16M voxels, which is about the same as two 4K displays. On top of that simple 4D object meshes scale much worse in terms of tetras than 3D objects do.
A quick solution could be to give the user a few resolution options, so they can bravely test the limits of their hardware.
So I've just modified the engine to allow you to specify a custom resolution in the URL:
https://dugas.ch/hyperhell/levels/the_bargain.html?vox_resol...
(Higher resolutions might break rendering entirely if the accel structure doesn't fit in allowed memory anymore. I was able to push it to 160x160x160 on my machines)
I'll also try to think of other ways to make the rendering more efficient, maybe a BVH instead of my simpler grid-based acceleration structure? My background is not in computer graphics, so others here might have better ideas.
I guess taken to the logical extreme, what does the brain of someone/thing that's good at playing this (or any game of N dimensions) look like?
While there is definitely something to the plasticity of young brains, for example in language acquisition, or the fact that the Fields Medal eligibility ages out at 40, I believe it's not a linear thing and not a one-way thing.
https://youtu.be/u8LMyWcKL_c?si=XZrCdSSSk9PtpNIP