It’s a really interesting time for the technology that powers your favorite games. The industry is moving forward on several fronts: artificial intelligence, the metaverse, community content creation initiatives, and yes, even blockchain. It’s easy to get the impression that we’re on the precipice of a new big leap.
But where do those who bet on voxel technology’s big cube roulette table go? Over the past few generations, we’ve seen some incredibly ingenious developments in this particular geometric space; whether it’s gorgeous ray-traced lighting, or stunning physics sandboxes. I spoke with Dennis Dawson and Marcus Gustafsson of Tuxedo Labs (known for teardowns) about voxels’ place in an industry moving at this pace, and what we can expect from Tuxedo Labs going forward.
“We’re not really ready to move on from the teardown. It’s still picking up daily users — so we’ve decided to hold off on developing a new game and continue working on the teardown,” said Tuxedo Labs CEO Dawson. Teardown The game shocked many when it was released in 2020, but it continues to have a growing audience of casual players and creators even today. The two said they considered switching to Art Vandal after the 2022 Art Vandal update. A new game to take their voxel gaming adventure “to the next step”, but they decided to stick with Teardown due to its active and growing player base.
“Technically, it’s more fun to start something new. It always has been,” Gustafson said with a laugh. “But I think it also makes more sense to stick with something we already have an audience for. They love it and there’s a lot of content coming out.
“We’re also very dependent on our modding community, they’ve created a lot of amazing stuff. If we had another Voxel game, we risked splitting that community. Maybe none of them reached critical mass, which has big implications. Risk. Also, we think the modding community will appreciate the features we think of in the future.”
This community of creators has grown to such size and prestige that AMD’s game modding competition offers handsome prize money to the winning modder, who often comes out with something really cool. And dinosaurs, you know, kind of awesome.
But more doors are being opened for this group of vegetarians to jump onto exciting new platforms. You only have to look at the new Unreal Engine editor in Fortnite, or Everywhere’s creative sandbox, which was first announced last year at Gamescom Opening Night Live. Are voxels still as important as many speculated a decade ago?
“There’s been talk of voxels eventually taking over polygons and taking over completely. I don’t think that’s true—at least not for a long time,” Gustafson declared. “Polygons are really good at some things, and I think voxels are more of a complement and definitely open up more dynamic environments.”
Gustafsson continued: “There’s also a little more voxels in the background. Maybe handling lighting or AI or something that you as a player don’t know much about. But from a technical point of view, they still play an important role.”
There are benefits to sticking with voxels, even in this new era where publishers and developers are clearing their own paths and fueling a thriving community creator environment. One, it’s easier for players to understand voxels! Everyone gets their Legos, but throwing the Unreal Engine Editor in front of a novice can be intimidating. Being able to parse an in-engine pipeline from scratch is a daunting starting point.
Voxel games now benefit from years of major advances in lighting (games like Minecraft are a clear example of how pretty you can make once-browser-based games look with the right handling). Just take a look at some of these gorgeous ray tracing demos to see the benefits of voxels clearly.
As for the future of Voxels, Gustafsson sees it as “primarily a complement to future polygons,” noting how Teardown uses Voxels for physics, and how future games can emulate that example beyond using polygons. The same goes for collision detection, ray tracing, audio acoustics, and more. They are all tools that make the end product greater than the sum of its parts.
As for the two people’s expectations for the advancement of media technology, they quickly got the answer without hesitation. artificial intelligence. “I’d say artificial intelligence,” Gustafson said eagerly. “It’s really starting to take off. Yeah, at a pace that I didn’t expect, and I think it’s going to have a pretty big impact on the developers and the gameplay.”
Dawson went on to say that AI has a lot of potential, noting 2001 Lionhead’s title Black and White as a concept that might be interesting today. “That’s early days. But it would be great to do something like this today! Just play with the AI, like fully integrate it into the gameplay. That would be great.”
So rest assured, everyone’s favorite video game cartridge will remain a part of this grand future, whatever it may be. It may not be as sexy as the metaverse or other buzzwords right now, but voxels may be here to stay. After all, they are an important foundation upon which to build.
