The man who put Doom in a Lego brick is now playing it on a volumetric voxel display

Sep 07, 2024 07:27 AM - 1 month ago 47895

In 2022, I introduced you to James Brown, nan Weta Workshop graphics technologist whose hobby is building astonishing displays. Now, he’s built a crystal shot filled pinch shimmering, spinning volumetric ray — and of people he’s playing Doom connected it.

But not conscionable immoderate Doom. Voxel Doom, wherever each dot of nan game’s graphics lives successful 3D space, conscionable for illustration nan dots of nan volumetric show he’s created.

As he explains connected YouTube, nan beingness illusion is reasonably simple: “It’s for illustration a hologram fan, but alternatively of spinning a 1D portion to make a 2D image, it spins a 2D sheet to make a 3D image.” On his Mastodon, he breaks it down a spot much with ocular aids:

Brown’s been moving connected this for complete a twelvemonth now: if I’m not mistaken, he introduced nan task successful August 2023 by channeling his soul Doc Brown, saying “If my calculations are correct, erstwhile this babe hits 300rpm you’re going to spot immoderate superior shit.” But he’s since discovered it needs to rotation a bully spot faster than that for a soft image, peculiarly erstwhile he’s trying to movie it. So support your fingers away.

You tin travel his advancement on his Mastodon, wherever he’s not just playing Doom — you tin find volumetric lunar landers and skulls and dino heads, for example. He conscionable published this to his YouTube too:

When we first checked successful pinch Brown, he’d conscionable vanished putting real computers wrong Lego machine bricks:

GIF by Sean Hollister / The Verge; Video by James Brown

And yes, they tin play Doom.

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