New World Gaming: "From Dust", a Dynamic Nature Simulator Where a Whole World's Your Plaything

Coming soonish for the Xbox 360 and PS3, "From Dust" is a realistic dynamic nature simulation and god game which aims to recreate the experience you had as a child building and destroying sand castles -- except here, you play with lava floes, whole oceans, and other fun stuff. Watch this awe-inspiring demo:

Lead developer is Eric Chahi, creator of the groundbreaking AMIGA classic "Out of This World", and set for a 2011 release (but for the ambition evident here, don't be surprised if that date slips.) Meantime, here's an interview with Chahi.

Hat tip: The all-seeing eye of Mal Burns.

Comments

[qarl]

ahem - "out of this world" was originally an AMIGA game.

(sorry, couldn't resist.)

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Love the way the water flows around the land as you raise and lower it - maybe Second Life will get water like that one day.

[Hamlet Au]

Hmm, I thought it came out on PC at the same time, Qarl, but I defer and correct!

[Lalo Telling]

I'm assured that there will also be a version for PC, for geezers like me who don't own a console... they're just not promoting that in the trailer.

[qarl]

Hamlet - possibly released at the same time - but the pirated pre-release version was definitely amiga only. :)

[Nexii Malthus]

Interesting.

I can see how they kind of did that too.

The fluids stick to the surface, they never topple over. It is a cheap realtime way to do it effectively without starting to hit performance like real fluid simulators do.

But it's also very beautiful how they executed it, the colours, motion, textures..

In SL this would be harder to do, you have complex 3D geometry, but a hack may be possible. Or even if it only worked with the SL terrain it would still be a significant enhancement.

You wouldn't need to re-compute the fluids all the time either, once a stable solution is found the texture animations can be kept in a perpetual state.

[Little Lost Linden]

Fantastic game in deed.

Out of this World also goes by Another World and it was re-released for the PC in a higher rez with more colors. I think you can still d/l the demo:

http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/index.htm

One of the best Amiga games ever, besides Hybris.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I worked as a secretary back in the early '90s, and on one particularly slow day I created an Excel app to generate random landforms using the built-in graphing functions.

I think they may have built this game just for me :)

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

This has real possibilities for education...and we have consoles and giant screens on campus.

But, and I'm not being silly, higher-ed faculty will want avatars who don't look like extras from the original King Kong. Those shown in the preview would be labeled "racist" in no time flat.

Heh. I know my people well, but other than that quibble, this could be a spectacular project.

[Adeon Writer]

Those water physics... are amazing. Shows that you don't need fluid physics to make realistic water physics.

[John "Pathfinder" Lester]

Wow. That video evokes powerful feelings of being on the beach as a child, sculpting riverbeds and mountains, and excitedly watching what happens as the tide washes in.

Evocative tools are often the most powerful and successful. Looks like they've nailed it.

[Renmiri]

Drooling at teh terraforming!