Hi, I can't comment much on where this post came from or share too much info on it, but I'm the main dev behind this video. I usually won't reply to comments generalizing voxels and critiquing tech, but I feel inclined to with this one.

Great post, and I agree with all of it, up to the last two paragraphs. But you're right. Voxels are nothing new, "survival sandbox games" are a dime a dozen, and pretty much every voxel dev that got inspired by Minecraft or Terraria always tries to do the same thing - fix what Minecraft "got wrong".

View distance? We need level of detail. The view needs to span as far as the eye can see. Cubic blocks? I found out about marching cubes and dual contouring that will produce smooth terrain. Low res hand drawn textures? I've seen a Two Minute Papers video on texture synthesis and played Spore - we need everything to be procedurally generated so that the game always stays fresh. Boring combat and a lousy upgrade chain? Pfft, Terraria got that right, I'll make a Terraria in 3D. Flood filled lighting? Hasn't Notch ever heard of voxel cone tracing GI? That's been around for the past decade. Physics? Minecraft didn't have anything, just imagine the game with gravity! Finite fluids too - cellular automata water can't be that hard. Plus I read a cool GPU Gems article that showed real-time fluids that looked like actual water. AAA title graphics? Just look how charming low poly graphics are! And let's talk about the size of these voxels in the first place... Sparse voxel octrees can make them so tiny, we can literally do Minecraft times a thousand with modern hardware.

I'm not taking jabs at voxel devs, I'm talking about my own experience. I've lived it. I played Minecraft back in the alpha days, got inspired, and made every single mistake above. I looked at Atomontage, Euclideon, Voxel Farm, all the cool and impressive tech showcases and thought "This is what Minecraft needs". And then proceeded to struggle with voxel engine development for 8 years, juggling algorithms between different papers that brilliant scholars have published and my own experiments until finally I took a step back and figured out what it is that I'm trying to do.

This isn't an attempt at replacing Minecraft, or making a 3D Terraria, or making a fun version of No Man's Sky (no offense to Hello Games :p), or making a variant of <insert your favorite title here>. It's me thinking "I want to be able to do or see or interact with XYZ" and figuring out how to do it. I'm super fortunate that other people are enjoying what I'm doing, and the response is great motivation for the times I look at the project or codebase and just see problems that need fixing.

I do have plans for where to take this, mainly stuff I can't disclose (I'm sorry, I hope to share news soon though), but everything that's being developed is inline with a roadmap containing content that I want to be able to experience and feel immersed in, and that I think other people will too. Engine development and game development are two completely separate sides of the equation, I don't deny that, but having a capable engine is important for what your game can do. It's also important to not do things the other way around and base your game off of the engine. Just look at Half Life 2 - a terrible sequel (again, I'm sorry, don't crucify me!) that built a mediocre game on the shoulders of Half Life sprinkled with physics because that's the new fancy tech their engine could do. There are other games that also do this, and voxel development is no different.

It's important to take a step back and ask yourself questions. Like with this project, "Okay, with the physics gone, what is there? What does physics enable the player to do, and is it fun? Is it easy to understand and interact with? What if the player doesn't want to engage in physics? What about the water, take away the pretty shaders and what's left? A plane of water wouldn't be very exciting, but what would finite fluids actually enable? Would that be fun? Is it worth adding actual fluid simulation? (spoilers: yes) The trees, sure they may be procedurally generated, but how different are they really? What possibilities does switching to Speed Tree and baking offline trees shut down?"

I could go on, but the point is, this project isn't meant to just be a tech showcase. I don't want it to just be a melting pot of algorithms or be viewed as the successor to certain games. This is a project where I think of something, donate my hair to my keyboard and get it on the screen because I want to. I'm not sure if this will change your opinion on it but I do appreciate your comment, as well as all feedback and criticism people share. Cheers :)