May 29th, 2012 
Kamran Draeger
It has been almost a year since the public got their first look at Euclideon, a graphics engine created by Bruce Dell, who promised “Unlimited Detail Real-Time Rendering”. Seeing how this was coming from a man nobody had really heard of before, with no background in game development, the initial reaction was skeptical. The entire idea seemed too good to be true and many believed the new technology was a scam. However, in the months that followed, Dell granted a deeper insight into how the engine actually functioned, gaining him credibility from journalists and industry experts.
Months later, with no updates from the Australian company, I reached out to CEO Bruce Dell, who filled us in on the current status of their project and the team behind it.
For those who are not familiar with Euclideon, it is “a new way to run unlimited amounts of point cloud data in real time”. Dell explains “Normally 3D graphics are made out of flat shapes called polygons. Point cloud data is where you make everything out of little atoms. Other systems have been made that can run 3D objects made from atoms, but our system is many times faster and can run atom based graphics in unlimited quantities. We have been using 64 atoms per cubic millimetre so our graphics are of a much higher detail, than what most people are used to.”
Even though the numbers are staggering at first, running the engine is a fascinating concept in itself, as it does not require the 3D functions of a GPU. The trick behind this technology is that although there are countless atoms within an object, there are only so many pixels on a screen we can look at. By displaying only one atom per pixel Euclideon becomes highly efficient and therefore simple to run. Though Dell goes on to explain, “I have noticed our stubborn self-independence is starting to crack and I think we settled for a GPU sky box last week. I’m sure in time we will make more use of the GPU in many ways.”
At the moment the team working on Euclideon consists 23 people, amongst which there are mostly “refugees from the game industry”. “What I mean is, over the last 2 years all major games companies in Australia closed down, and so we managed to pick up the best talent in the country. It’s a really nice team and we are all good friends. Our work place is a bit different from most; it has lots of plants waterfalls and glass columns filled with water and bubbles,” the CEO says.
we were shown a vast landscape with models created either from scratch or by scanning-in actual objects from the real world. What many criticised was the lack of actual animations found in the video. According to Dell, the problem with creating several features, such as physics, deformable environments, animation etc. is that current middleware is simply not built to function with the atomic structure of the engine’s models. “Our animation efforts have been focused on the ability to convert animated polygon objects into unlimited detail objects with no lost information,” he elaborates. “Its quite difficult but I’m sure it will work in the end. As for physics, these are atoms not polygons so a lot of physics and deform-ability has to be recreated. We would prefer not to talk about things until we are happy enough to show them. The truth is we are working with converting movie quality animation and lighting from polygons to deformable point cloud.”
Another concern by the general public during the first reveal was the overall repetition of objects in the demo. “I suppose our big problem for a while was that we had so much power, but no content. Perhaps you noticed that Euclideon Island had to repeat the same objects over and over because one artist can’t make everything different. That problem has been fixed now because we have been doing a lot more work with laser scanners. You can make a lot more content when you start importing real environments from the real world.”
One of the highlights in the 2011 video, was a stone that was fully scanned and included as a 3D model. Dell shared one of their latest scans with us, to demonstrate how far their unlimited detail rendering has come. Needless to say, even he admits, “If you look closely you can see a few problems, but I’m glad that their are problems, it shows that the area really is computer generated. If it was perfect I am quite sure we would be accused of filming a box of toys with a video camera.” You can check out a short clip taken from the engine at the bottom of the article.
As mentioned when Euclideon was first revealed, this technology is something they plan to utilise not only for video games but also scientific research. Supposedly there will be “some Euclideon products released in non-games related industries over the next few months”. “There turned out to be a lot of demand for our capabilities across quite a few industries, so we have tried to put that demand in order and address each area one at a time. As soon as we have revenue coming in, we can expand our team into different departments to deal with each industry,” Dell tells us.
“I think it’s fair to say that people are starting to accept that the future of 3D graphics is atomic,” he finally points out. “Polygons will still be around a bit longer as an editing tool, but I don’t know how much longer they will remain for visualisation. So many games today have polygons that are so small that they are only a few pixels in size. When polygons become smaller than the 3 corner points that make them, there is no point in treating them like triangles anymore and it makes sense to use atoms instead.”
On the question, when we will get our next look at Euclideon powered gaming, all Dell responds is, “Well there is soooooo much I’d love to say about that, but I’m afraid that I’m sworn to silence at this point in time. My apologies, but I think you’ll find it worth the wait.”
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sick stuff!
hope they show something during this E3 week!
but the problem with this is that in order to use this 3D object, you need a real life object to scan first!
I mean on of the good things about making object in polygon is that if you can’t get them from real world, you can just make them in a game engine.
looking forward to it, they have my support.
You should check out their 2011 video, its not like they cant make stuff from scratch, scanning is just a new method for them to easily blend in simple objects, such as rocks. Last year they stated that they didn’t have proper artists working on designs though new job listings indicate that they’re hiring in that department.
Hope, there is a future for euclideon and their atomic point cloud engine. Since almost two years i follow news from their ideas. Hope that euclideon soon bring news about their future and so we can see the destinations for their work. Although there is currently no game engine, it is interesting to imagine the possibilities and for example what kind of virtual reality it can be created with it. Bruce Dell started first with his Amiga and the first ideas for the engine came when he saw Donkey Kong Country on the SNES. I wish him and us that the spirit of optimism that we have seen at the beginning, now does not break. Good luck and good decisions, Euclideon!
Thank you Kamran! I had waiting for new info for a long time, the new fotage is amazing but we wanted something real new, like animations or similar. I hope in the near future see thats things. Thank you agai!
Gladly! I’ve been waiting myself. Hopefully we’ll get a good look by the end of this year. You have to think about it this way, the engine is being built from the ground up, even the first Unreal took three years.
Their website is under construction as of 5th June… Exciting >:)
This…. Is….. Stunning
all my years of gaming and video editing, never have i come across something this intense with detail (considering it’s been around 7+ months since the last “update”) besides recent major movies, and they’re sometimes very noticeable, most people complain about their 1st vid, and as for the article stating some issues in their programme, i spotted the rocks seem to have an issue staying apart / separate, they seem to merge, but HEY, COD SUCKS COMPARED TO WHAT THIS IS.
this is such a failure. you STILL dont see the smallest animation that you can bring in any easy video to actually show what this renderer can do. this really does look like a big scam that turns out to be a “static phototool” without any changing to current gametechnology
“Our animation efforts have been focused on the ability to convert animated polygon objects into unlimited detail objects with no lost information. Its quite difficult but I’m sure it will work in the end. As for physics, these are atoms not polygons so a lot of physics and deform-ability has to be recreated. We would prefer not to talk about things until we are happy enough to show them. The truth is we are working with converting movie quality animation and lighting from polygons to deformable point cloud.”
I can understand reading such a long article can be tiring, I took the liberty of slecting a quote to address your concerns.
Building an engine from scratch takes a LONG time if it is supposed to be done right. Even Epic uses other companies to create certain effects within Unreal, because they can’t simply whip out a computer and start making up game physics.
Euclideon wrote recently
“Unlimited Detail has wide applicability and huge potential, but our present focus is on the Geospatial industry.”
So much for the games.
When did you hear that? Because they did say that a while back. Specifically in the interview we were told that we would be see in Euclideon being used in research however they are expanding their team to incorporate departments for projects such as games. A recent job listing on their site indicated that they were even looking for new game designers.
Even the comparison to the 3 years the supposedly took for the first unreal engine falls apart if you look at the staggering amount of third-party technology and all the driver/library-supported processes and effects that are the norm these days. A more accurate description would be trying to recreate the evolution which happened between the quake 1 engine and the latest U3Engine in terms of lightning, physics and animation without the ability to use any kind of proprietary technoglogy.
Todays games would probably take twice as long and look half as good if everyone would have to develop havoc, speedtree, even standard direct3d-libs and a basic skeletal animation system from scratch or at least make it all somewhat compatible to the toolset they use.
It might take a couple more years but since it will take another 20 years at the current rate of console developement for this amount of detail to arrive in games you can actually play, even 3 to 5 more years for them to figure out lightning and animations will be a stunning accomplishment.
So this scene is basically scanned ‘as is’ with lighting and everything baked in…the only thing that is realtime is the actual rendering of the ‘atoms’? Like navigating through a 3d photograph more or less?
I was hoping they would have gotten further by now.
Still no animation or lighting effects =/ i thought there would be by now
This is the future!
I’m so excited about this
I like the secrecy, and I’ll bet the CEO has something to do about that, since to much info will confuse a lot of people, and making I-think-I-know-it-all people more confused than the rest, haha! PRICELESS!
Little is more, a smart move
I’m a very patient guy, so let’s sit back and wait for the new age of gaming development begin!
Keep up the good work Euclideon!
It’s a scam….to get funding, it’s been going for years.
They’re full of crap.