Automata renderer

This application renders a low detail voxel map making use of 3d fractal automata to add detail. Depending on the automata type, the detail can appear as rock-like formations, trees, craters etc. It is written on CPU so we should expect a big performance improvement from moving to GPU due to its parallel nature.

The benefits of a renderer such as this are:

• • As computation continues to improve faster than bandwidth, procedural geometry renderers such as this become more and more competitive

  • Since the saved geometry data is so small, huge levels can be used and fit in memory

  • Moreover users could choose the amount of control they need, so build a high detail head in a mountain but build the rest in low detail with a rock automata.

  • Level-of-detail is inherent in the system, allowing as much visual detail as the processor wishes to handle

  • Shadowing using shadow maps can be built robustly

  • Collision detection and ray detection are efficient due to simple grid-tree volume hierarchy

  • Decent ambient occlusion can be implemented in the render by calculating from neighbour data in the tree iteration

  • Adjustable terrain is possible for sudden changes like applying an impact crater to the terrain

  • Streaming is not needed, the detail levels update as you move without requiring any allocation of memory

  • Pretty much any geometry is possible, voxels don't restrict the terrain to be a height field or even connected

  • Efficient occlusion culling, so copes well with 'fuzzy' terrain, like woods, forests

The disadvantages are

• • No animation possible.

Future possibilities

• • This can be extended to dynamic automata, which will allow moving automata. This includes smooth paths, perhaps allowing a low detail character to have tweening.

  • Dynamic automata take much longer to find useful ones, and would require a sizeable reworking of the code