Conclusion

The full system described here consists of the combination of a number of techniques which compliment each other. Each of these techniques provides for interesting applications in their own right. These techniques can be applied together, or by themselves to solve common problems that arise in video games, as well as enabling new creative game-play ideas.

With a scene graph that can contain loops, we allow objects to have an infinite amount of detail, where the amount of visible detail is determined by the screen-space area that the object occupies. Objects such as plants can be defined recursively, similar to how the famous fern fractal is defined. Applying this technique can give a plant that occupies very little detail (and therefore graphics processing time) when far away, but is continuously refined as the viewer comes closer. Applying this technique allows an artist to describe an object in as much detail is they wish, letting the run-time engine determine how much of that detail to display at any time. A fern-like object constructed with the system is shown in figure 5.

Using the system that allows for a change in frame of reference, we enable scene graphs where the very large objects, such as galaxies, can co-exist in the same data structure with the very small objects, such as leaves. This is a very powerful system, since a viewer can seamlessly move from a close up of the tip of a leaf, back to a wide-shot view of an entire galaxy. As long as the frame of reference is continually switched to a bigger (or smaller) one as the user zooms out (or in), one gigantic scene can describe an entire galaxy and everything inside it with intricate detail.

These techniques can also be applied to create previously unimaginable artistic continuous environments where the user can continuously zoom in to objects as far as they desire, cycling the user back to previous environments as needed. It opens the door to creative new ideas, and previously unimaginable scenes.

References

The model of the man was created in Blender by following the tutorial from this site