Comment by mambodog

There are ways around such problems, especially in terms of bridging the gap between convex smooth surfaced solid objects and collections of cubes. As the technology gets more mature more sophisticated approaches will be fielded.

A classic way of solving the voxel vs. smooth object problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marching_cubes

Atomonontage still uses polygon-based rendering for some objects (the vehicle in that video is poly-based).

I believe the appropriate expression is 'Horses for courses'.

> Someone smarter than me will have to solve that problem.

Someone smarter, or someone with specific knowledge of the relevant domain and a lot more time to invest on the problem? I see a lot of people assuming that someone who can do something they can't is inherently smarter, even if they do something just as complicated for their daily job and think nothing of it.

RF:G only has destructible buildings/objects, however. The level geometry is still static.

The original Red Faction had largely destructible level geometry as well. However, that was just based on explosions deforming the terrain, rather than a physics simulation of destruction like RF:G. Polygons would fall if they were attached to nothing. The multiplayer level set in the natural canyon/bridge area is a good example of this: the large bridge in the second level (3 paths) is able to be taken out with some rockets and persistence to actually fall into the pit in the center. However, there was a limit to how much the level geometry could be deformed, and after a certain amount, explosions would stop removing sections from the terrain. It takes a good amount of time to get to this point, but it is possible. Also, the developers did a great job of hiding some interesting secrets in the deformable terrain. The multiplayer level with the two buildings on opposite sides and multiple levels with the desert in between has a hidden fusion rocket launcher (BFG, essentially) on the roof that's only accessible by destroying the terrain to get up there if my memory serves correctly. Also, the lobby level has four sections hidden behind walls, and a hidden roof area. Clearly, they put some work into using this feature well.

In Red Faction: Guerilla, only the buildings/objects are destructible, but there's more physics modeling. Taking out key supports will bring down buildings...in theory. I'm not a structural engineer, so I can't speak for its accuracy, but it often seems as if buildings are much hardier than they should be. Still, it's rather cathartic to take down an entire enemy barracks with a few explosives and a sledgehammer.

As for the actual math and methods behind this, I cannot say. I just know how it worked in gameplay from many hours playing the old RF multiplayer, and some recent time put into R:FG. Feel free to ask if you'd like to know more though.

(Huh, I never thought my videogame knowledge would be all that relevant here.)

Similarly we don't give children atoms to play with, we give atoms constrained into lego blocks.

This is probably why the old 8- and 16-bit games seem to have so much more compelling gameplay than ultra-realistic modern games. Well, that or we are just cranky oldtimers.