Voxel Engine #1 - Software Renderer

Find Your Sanity. Jan 30, 2021
Global Game Jam 2021. Fri-Sun, Jan 29-31, 2021.
Custom software voxel engine.

1. Voxel engine. Software rendered. Mipmaps. Sky texture

Built from scratch using MonoGame / XNA.
Using assets from:
- Comanche Maximum Overkill
- random atmosphere picture borrow & processed

I first programmed this in VGA Mode 13h (320x200 x 256-color) in 32-bit assembly using a 16-bit assembler + machine code within Turbo Pascal IDE, using an "unreal-mode" method of linear 32-bit addressing within 20-bit (16-bit overlapped) segment + offset "real mode". It went 18 frames per second in 160x200 resolution, via Mode-X that allowed 2 pixels to be drawn at the same time (the same as Doom's low resolution mode). See frame-captured video here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Qq344BVD30o

0:09 - starting from the lake at the top of the mountain, down the waterfall, you can flow with the water motion throughout the level.
0:30 - the water appears to stop here, but you can continue in these low-lands to find it again.
0:35 - over these few humps, and you're back at the waterfall
0:44 - a good view of the draw distance. This uses mipmaps and increased texture scanning speed to reach significant distances -- as far as you'd ever need. Because it's a custom voxel engine, it could have Earth curvature easily (see later videos for the reverse: Inception mode!)
0:51 - In my original implementation, I'd rotate around this mountain top for a view of this seemingly thick chunk of rock. Doom was the only other engine at the time that gave a feeling of thickness (and not just empty-inside thin/flat polygons).


My playlists:
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- Voxel: https://youtu.be/watch?v=XCVWEuhCCDM&list=PLjnbT4UISq0bQF1g85tE9jTrKfEtdRYlY
- Road: https://youtu.be/watch?v=ck5ALX11YU4&list=PLjnbT4UISq0bnfd1RC3M4PgTgkmhlkikV
- Ray Casting 3D: https://youtu.be/watch?v=zjswXUTMP2o&list=PLjnbT4UISq0YcFtRFjFQqK0g6ONNCtrvY
- Side-Scroll Shmup: https://youtu.be/watch?v=fF4X8zN-Raw&list=PLjnbT4UISq0Y_7IAN_zUzxgZnfhXxo_0Q
- MonoGame Tutorial: https://youtube.com/watch?v=WW1dJnfXWb0&list=PLjnbT4UISq0adw__Y9B2eXA0LL35TyORU

My websites:
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- my GitHub: https://github.com/JDoucette
- my company: http://xona.com
- my Blog: http://thefirstpixel.com