NES Emulator Voxel Engine Renders Games in 3D: Z Scroller

A couple of years ago we got a peek at what several NES games might look like if they were rendered in voxels instead of pixels, courtesy of deviantART member John Buonvino. Programmer ProcyonSJJ was inspired by John’s renders and decided to take them a step further, making a voxel engine for the NES emulator FCEUX.

fceux nes emulator voxel engine by procyonsjj 620x434magnify

According to ProcyonSJJ, “[t]he renderer takes the color in the upper left corner and treats that as the clear color while at the same time ignoring any pixel in the image buffer composed of that color (no voxel).”  In very simple terms, the engine will make voxels out of all the pixels, except for the ones with the same color as the “background”. This makes his engine work best with games that have single color backgrounds, as you’ll see in his demo video:

Sadly, it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll be able to toy with NES games using the voxel engine. Zeromus, one of the lead programmers of FCEUX, refused to integrate ProcyonSJJ’s engine into the Windows port of the emulator. Then the two had an argument and I don’t think the engine was incorporated into any version of the emulator. I’m not going to simplify their points here since you can read their messages for yourself on the TASVideos forum. As for the rest of us, we’ll just have to cherish the video.

[TASVideos via Tiny Cartridge]

Merrio Christmas!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to one and all! While here on Earth, your presents should have been delivered under the tree by a fat, bearded man who came down the chimney and ate your cookies (boy that sounds a bit creepy when I say it that way), if you happen to live in the Mushroom Kingdom, Santa has a unique way of delivering presents.

merrio christmas

He’s also much skinner than I remember him. I wonder what’s in the box? I sure hope it’s not another lousy gold coin. The value of gold isn’t what it once was in the Kingdom. I blame King Koopa and his economic policies. I was really hoping for a Fire Flower this year. Or maybe a Tanooki suit.

Thanks to Metin Seven of Seven’s Heaven for sending along this Merrio Christmas illustration. Be sure to check out his site for more great graphic design and illustrations.