Designing a 4D World: The Technology behind Miegakure [Hide&Reveal] 

Visualised in your 1D brain...

Yan Zenith Sciencephile?

Yan Zenith OOOOOOOHHHHH! Epic burn! Your almost as good as Mr. H (He is a teacher in my school who punishes his students by roasting them)

JZ AK, I don't think it's very useful, the students probably like the teacher

Watched by our 1D brains

that should apply to minecraft too

@@ipablol Minecraft Nether is a part of 4D space with Overworld :-)

@Michael Darrow No. Nether is not down. Press F3 in Nether and see for yourself. Also, here whar Minecraft Wiki says: minecraft.gamepedia.com/The_Nether Not a single word that it's down or up.

@@igorthelight huge wooosh

@@igorthelight Maybe the Nether is down in the 4th dimension...

+PauLtus B On the one hand, I would wager it must have taught him a number of things he had not already intuited, on the other he must have already known quite a lot more than average about 4d just to begin designing this game. One example I can safely extrapolate on his behalf is that the first demo versions of this game (back when XKCD commented on it, which is how I found out) were voxel based (so everything in the landscape was built from tesseract / 8-cell building blocks similar to Minecraft's 1m^3 voxels) but then suddenly after a year or two hiatus the video illustrations upgraded to the kinds of objects he describes here, using tetrahedral faces.. So I'm going to speculate that he came to the realization of how to do that smoothly *after* already working on the game, and likely from working with displaying graphical 4-rotations of his 4d voxels.. ;3

+Jesse Thompson Pretty Much! ahah

I can see how a game like this could "teach" you a sense of 4 spacial dimensions, and that really attracts me.

+PauLtus B This can't visualize fourth dimension. It just flattens it into three dimensions.

PerunaVallankumous Well of course it can't visualize fourth dimensions. I don't think humans can see four dimensions in any way. But we might be able to develop a feeling for it.

clonetrp Official, nah. It doesn't have to mean that it is 3D just because we can't see 4D.

clonetrp Official Our universe can go up to 11D

I guess he's talking about String Theory

Khanis Rok jep, he is, and I actually knew about the whole 11D thing but thought that wouldn't work with the point I was trying to make

I think that even in String theory there's only 3 dimensions of space, the others fall into different categories. Not sure though. If true, your comment is still correct in this context.

That's why we have to code 4D to have any chance at seeing what the hell is going on... our minds' eyes can't do it.

Yep

Time to see if I can upgrade my shader a little

OuO I'm excited to see

Early stages in a JVM... I need to convert from triangles having vector corners to storing meshes as vertices and indices.

Some people don't like brain-hurty things. I don't know why, either.

It's the contrary: only some people like brain-hurty things. Most people don't like brainies, because it breaks their self-confidence and authority, and they get no reward in the end. Few other people don't do puzzles, because they know they can do it, but their time can be spent much more efficiently doing other things.

my brain does hurt a little bit, but in a good way. like there's a headache when you completely don't understand something but are still trying to follow, and a headache when your brain is doing some work to try and comprehend it. also a supreme feeling of excitement because THIS IS SO COOL

I just can't understand what is going on in the domputer simulation. All I got out of it was objects being deformed.

Im not fascinated by this.

+Simulation and Math Visualization I agree, it is fascinating! It makes me wonder how it would play if it was a projection of the 4th dimension instead of a slice.

I think this might be the smartest game ever. I wonder if you play it for long enough you actually start thinking in four dimensions

Dwarf Fortress will always be the smartest game ever. This does appear to be pretty damned smart though. 10/10, would try to imagine the 4-d shape that would project to the shape of trees again.

LordBowler never heard of dwarf fortress, ill look it up tho

Yanay H Developed by one guy, it has been in progress for a decade. It cannot be summarized. Start by reading the saga of Boatmurdered, an early build DF community let's play. Happy hunting.

Ry P no i destroyed the 69 likes :. (

still 96

Blackofnight 98

323

Ry P they are lost in the 4-D :p

SCP-3966 a 4d Spider that eats people's brains when they sleep and are the primary reason for sleep paralysis

Ghosts?

@@arvinroidoatienza7082 Of course there is an SCP like this.

Those movie makers have one-dimensional brains.

Which isn't wrong.

Geert van 't Zand Which is wrong

bullshit. the fourth dimension is love!

Dildi Pinkoos Plz stop my mathematical brain cannot take it anymore

It would make aiming extremely difficult.

@@somerandomdragon558 until players get good at it and the competitive scene develops. I'm being serious, anyone who develops skill in a game like that would get comfortable thinking in 4 dimensions.

As far as aiming goes, unless you want it to play like Goldeneye, you would either need a third stick for consoles or a 3D mouse for PC. Get on it, Logitech!

@@pivotguydc1149 It would not only be difficult because of the 4th dimension itself, but because of the control. The mouse can be used to control 2 rotation planes. In 4 dimensions you would need at least 3 rotation planes (preferably 4) to move around properly. Also you would not only have wasd to move around, but also 2 more (q and e make sense here) to walk ana and kata. So in order to aim at someone moving in 4 dimensions, you would have to follow his movements with possibly more keys than you can actually press at the same time. Using the mousewheel to rotate on one 4D rotation plane would be possible too, but very jumpy.

Oops i kinda forgot the conclusion of all that here. So basically it is not easy to make proper controls for 4D games. Its not a big deal for something like 4D Minecraft which is more relaxed. But while one does not stand a chance with trying to dodge the bullets of a good gamer in 3 dimensions, its definitely different in 4. So both the game designer and the players would have to be creative when it comes to figuring out how to make it properly playable.

YES

Especially those 3D games with shaders and lighting effects.

Funny part is, shaders use vector4 datastructures as color format everytime,.

+Conex Xenon Huh...Interesting

Conex Xenon but that's like a completely different thing :p

same tbh

Teach us about abstract mathematical universes, yes. We can only program 4D to represent it well. Props to him for doing so much work for years, but I am not using 3D slices for my world, especially since I only put a few objects in it initially for testing and they would be invisible most of the time if they had to intersect a certain 3D space to be seen.

+Mark P. I also have the shortcut to Miegakure in my bookmarks for what now - four years? Five, maybe? About as long as Star Citizen, I guess.

Sebastian Böttger The XKCD comic was in 2010.

I thought it was dropped. There isn't any game here anyway. It's more of a proof.

Forrest Abbiott Do you really think, that a man that works 15 years on a 4 dimensional game and game engine to suddenly drop it? Rendering the game takes a long time, altering the game engine due to bugs takes a long time, imagining and creating new levels to tell the story takes a long time.

To answer your question, yes.

+Cubik Back in friggin' 2010!

No because when the world appears to change, you are not moving, just changing which way you are facing.

Oh...so that's what basicaly is happening

The ending gates resemble the logo for Coding Dojo. Who created it first?

@Cooper Gates : The Japanese did: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torii

What changes is the perspective according to you.

Yes!

+Zach Hixson That's why he's taking his time and trying to create something people would enjoy. Sure, I said that with most games. When I actually played it, I ended up enjoying it. Give this one a chance. This must be a very complex game and I don't think many will enjoy due to the reason of it being 4D in a way nobody has done.

your absolutely right...good graphics / look doesnt make a good game...

foreign warren And bad graphics / bad looks also does not make a good game...

Mustafa Öztürk that would depend on other factors

foreign warren Yeah, that is exactly what I am trying to tell you. There are some factors which makes a game a good game and graphics one of them. But this does not mean bad graphics = bad game. However, stop talking like graphics is not important for a game.

I hope I got that right :)

i think this is the first Cinema 4D p̶u̶n̶ joke I have ever seen.

The V8 dude what did he say?! can't you understand the words you're reading?

The V8 Ah thanks. non native english speaker here.

+ just learned something from a youtube comment.. this thread is getting more and more rare^^

fedor3000 Because were talking about 4D *objects* not 4D *space* , but going to the cinema and watching a 4D movie isn't actuall 4D it's 2D becuase you can't turn the movie around and see it from another angle, it's just multiple 2D frames (photos) played in a certain order that makes it seem to move. 4D movies aren't even 3D, the movie is still 2D they simply have real life effects (e.g splashes of water) and movment included to the seating area to simulate the enviroment of the movie. ( *EDIT* please if a got anything wrong correct me, I'm 12)

i wish, but he couldn't because he would need to move through parts we are not seeing and so we could get stuck without knowing

perfect idea for a XKCD episode

Dexis It only goes to 10th or 11th dimension.

No, use the Chinese alphabet (for a bit more dimensions)

Since the complexity of worlds growls exponentially with the amount of dimensions, 26D would fuck the computer. xD

nO

Because there are three lateral axes perpendicular to any normal axis (facing outward/inward) in 4D space, you need tetrahedra to model even the surface mesh of the world.

+Trax2oooK1ng That's more gameplay related. If the levels are small there is less stuff to keep track of. The amount of tiles grows with N to the 4th power, so it gets overwhelming very quickly.

+Trax2oooK1ng I think it would look even more confusing when you rotate the slice of a bigger level. Stuff more distant to you would change even faster, it would be just a blur. I guess it could look okay if you limit "draw distance" during rotation or something like that. Just a thought.

+Miegakure Wouldn't it be the 3rd power, since you're only getting more floor tiles, and not more tiles vertically?

+Mark P. To be precise, the level design often involves height, so levels are small because they grow with the 4th power, but yes the ground does "only" grow to the 3rd power.

+Miegakure Is it a processor issue (ex. the frame rate crumbles with more tiles) or is it the size of the data generated?

Ah, the fallacy of originality. Yep, if you've thought of it, so have others. And as the population grows and the internet homogenizes the information available to us, this will only increase more.

and u were

yes precisely they did the same thing as everyone else but tied everything together in a complicated way. "impressive"

That would be pretty cool if the game had actually released yet.

If the character is purely 3D, he would simply vanish instantly. However, if he was given a bit of 4D thickness, he would probably be sliced away so you could temporarily see his insides, then he would vanish.

Not his insides, the borders of his 4d body. If the motion along the 4th dimension was gradual enough, he would appear to shrink and float and look a little deformed; turning into a floating lump before shrinking completely into nothingness.

That would happen if he would be 4d person and you would be watching 3d intersection (shadow) of his 4d body. But if he was really only 3d charactr he would vanish instantly. Just like if you have 2d character and move him on 3d dimention you dont see him schrink since he is only 2d in disapears imdiatly when you interest plane where he is not present. So If he is 3d not 4d than he would just instantly vanish. Remember the world is 4d the characters are 3d.

It would look just like the npcs look to the character.

Mark Neu gets it

If you like the subject, I suggest you to read "Flatland", by Edwin Abbott (which is mentioned in the video). The whole plot is very similar to Plato's cave allegory

You are right, I should definitely give it a shot.

2d to 3d is a tired trope in games. Super Paper Mario and Fez are two _major_ titles (almost "classics") that are already based on that premise. A game inspired by Plato's cave is interesting to literary critics, not game designers - I guarantee it won't yield interesting play behaviour.

+Nameguy Maybe Vegard will have some new insight on how to make it interesting?

Nameguy Super mario and Fez focus more in the direction of puzzle in 2 and 3 dimensions. I'm thinking about an artistic puzzle game that is more about experiencing going from 2 to 3 dimensions. Maybe having the first half of the game assuming that there is only 2 dimensions, and then figuring out that there was a third dimension all the time. Throughaout this first half I might also add some hints to this. In this game you might go back to experience the same map in 3 dimensions, but with another challenge in mind.

+BannedIP Yes

+Miegakure Will we be able to strafe along the 4th dimension or only Resident Evil-style?

+Googelplus Sucksys Who knows

Miegakure:0

Depends on how the bank vault is constructed. A 4D vault should have walls on the 4D sides aswell of course. So, probably no. Unless the builder of the vault was a little retarded and forgot about adding some walls. :p

The game is analogous to MRI images; seeing cuts of objects, not like a full head or body. A slice of a cube may look like a square or hexagon, but not a square drawn inside a square or two squares with vertices connected (typical cube drawings).

For me it's surreal and fascinating. I can't comprehend a 4 dimensional object, but here you see infinite 3D cross sections of 4 dimensional objects. It bends reality in my mind.

The 4th number represents another dimension. Imagine a 2D plane (like a paper), and then put a bunch of them together. Just stack a bunch of papers together, and the stack of papers is your 3d world. But you can only move in on one paper, and then between the papers. So you have like a dot on a paper that can move around, and can "jump" up to or down to the paper next to it's current paper. Now the problematic part, imagine stucking a bunch of 3d spaces together to form a 4d world. You really can't imagine it since we live in a 3d universe. To us there is simply nothing else than the 3d universe, there is nowhere "next to it" to put another 3d space. But if we lived in a 4d world it'd would basically be mutltiple 3d universes next to each other. So the 4th number tells you which 3d space you're currently in.

Gotcha. So its exactly as I described it. Thank you.

Luke Gege Try reading my previous comment

My point is that no, it's not a 3D object. It's just projected as such.

Telecom Service The same thing as when you try to walk into a rock, I suppose; you can't

Pff.. you get stoned.

When it does that weird morphy thingy the character isn't moving at all, only rotating. Notice how none of the numbers at 1:18 are changing?

It's a tool running in real time :)

Want to make your own 4D engine?

great idea, but it has a sort of cluttering effect. you end up being forced to use wireframe graphics, and unless u restrict the game to simple geometry, the whole screen becomes a mess of intersecting lines

I suppose that with VR, you could project 4D objects onto the 3D virtual space, losing only one dimension instead of the two lost in this video. But I bet it would still take a long time to develop an intuition for such a projection.

your eyes can only see 2d ffs

HL3 will work on 6 spatial dimensions plus time travel in 12 directions! each one as DLC, obviously.

One direction = 10$ each

In our 3d universe, yes. However this game takes place in a 4d universe, where 5th dimension is time. It simply has 4 spatial dimensions, instead of our 3 spatial dimensions.

Dimensions can be anything. It's just another number involved in the computation. Often times in our culture, we equate the 4th dimension to time, with the three previous ones being some form of distance that are all perpendicular to each other.

Not necessarily, we make great visualizations of 3D objects on a 2D screen, we might be able to make a working visualization of 4D objects too one day once someone reaches some kind of enlightened state after playing with these sort of games enough to "get it". It's gonna be really freaking mind melting once that happens, though.

Colopty Even if there was a software that could let us be able to "see" a 4d object, we could't see, all we would see is just a projection of a 4d object in the 3d.

Videogameguy909 its not impossible. it doesnt exist! its illogical!

Videogameguy909 do yo ever wonder what the hell kind of perception a 2d being actually has? their reality would obviously be a slice of ours. when they look around would they really just see like lines or something? only moving up, down forward and back but if they did see lines then how thick would they be?

Videogameguy909 wait, lines would be 1d. so could they look around but only up down forward and back but not side to side. yea they would see 1d just like how we only see 2d technically, except our brain generates 3d concept with.. time i guess😕

Most. Epic. Comment. Ever!

Stiff Gam If you like puzzles the possibility might be "yes", maybe some platforming and, y'know, I can think of a couple of ways you can use the 4th dimension to make a game, like, if It works like I think it does it might be the nearest we can get to teleportation. So long story short: if done well.

Are the instruments of cinema used only to make fun and enjoyable pieces of film to watch while eating popcorn? Absolutely not. they are used also with analytics intents, to make documentaries for example, to explore new visual techniques, experiment, or maybe simply to explain something. We have the possibility and most importantly the need to get everything out of each form of expression. Software included. Because videogames are first of all pieces of software, programmed exactly like any other, not witchcraft. Now, try to see this as the first interactive essay about a possible rendition of the 4th dimension. Not all essays or lectures try to be fun, accessible or joyful to communicate their content. And when they do they're probably not written by an academic, but more likely by a writer with creative talent who got interested into that matter. We're not in the 90's anymore, developers have finally more freedom than ever, and the number of home-consoles in our houses will rise exponentially. Why would a powerful hardware like for example a ps4, an accessible and easy to use piece of hardware, be relegated to just play heavy-involving games? And I'm not talking about other entertainment services like streaming and such that xbox is pushing so hard. Im talking about different kinds of *experiences*, such as The Last Guardian, mocked by the incompetent buch of idiots that is videogame press for not being as responsive as other games only because it tried to simulate a living and disobedient creature aka artificial intelligence. Should every game have the option to be speedrun or exploited to be released? Are we insane? That game is a milestone in programming and on top of that gifted us with atmospheres and artistic elements that most of the hollywood flicks can't even reach. If you want fun games theres a clusterfuck of them, and a lot good too. And who knows maybe Migekure will be fun too, it's too early too judge. Just don't pretend everything to be Mad Max, because some people also want Stalker in their lives, understand?

Wow

XD