KM: MojoWorld’s atmospherics are relatively
simple in version 1.0. Look for that to change in
future versions — we want to catch up with
Terragen in that area! But for terrain modeling
and rendering, well, nothing can hold a candle to
MojoWorld. None of them delivers entire planets
or has the real-time interface for exploration.
They don’t need it; there’s nothing to explore.
In superficial ways, all these landscape packages
inevitably look similar. Here’s what’s
fundamentally new and different about
MojoWorld: it’s the first 3D package, at any
price, that delivers more than strictly local “stage
sets.” Stage sets are always designed to be
viewed from specific angles and distances;
they’re always finite in size and generally, they
look like crap if you inspect them too closely. In
all other 3D software, your models are finite. So
are MojoWorlds, but they’re huge — the size of
planet Earth. If you move very far, you reach the
end of the model or environment; you “exit
stage left,” so to speak. If you get too close, you
run out of detail and the view becomes boring.
Not so MojoWorlds!
Of course, MojoWorlds have a less-than-infinite
amount of detail, but for practical purposes, it’s
far more than you’ll ever need. [MojoWorld on
‘fast render’ settings also provides a nice
painterly effect, ready for overpainting].
So MojoWorld delivers the first truly global
models, global environments for whatever you
want to put there; entire worlds, rather than
strictly local stage sets. MojoWorlds, as we find
them, are pristine, barren and empty worlds. But
what is an empty world, but a place to put stuff?
Huw: Might it go open source at some point?
KM: Well, MojoWorld is also the one commercial
landscape package with an open architecture —
which is the next best thing to open source.
We’d go open source, but we need to make
money to support our Mojo habit! This open
architecture will let third party developers add
vegetation, cities, avatars, cars, etc. — stuff, in
a word. We’ve deliberately designed MojoWorld
to become much bigger than what Pandromeda
can make it. It’s a sandbox for all to play in! The
old hippie at play, you know? That’d be me.
Our plan for future releases of MojoWorld is first
to create a solar system with multiple planets,
then clusters of such solar systems, then a
galaxy, then clusters of galaxies, then an entire
universe. [Spore later superbly realised this core
concept, as a procedural game, Ed.].Simultaneously, MojoWorld will get faster. We
will close the performance gap between the real-
time renderer and the photorealistic renderer. Of
course, that’s an ever-receding horizon, too, as
the photorealistic renderer gets more and more
ambitious, with radiosity and the like. When
we’ve added lots of content to the context of the
MojoWorld environments, and can image it in
real time with something like the realism of the
current photorealistic renderer, we’ll have
cyberspace. That should happen within the next
ten years. Though my friends at Nvidia tell me,
“What are you, nuts? More like two!” To that I
say, “Good on ya’, mate!” Please excuse the
colloquialism, I’m here in our programming office
in Duendin, New Zealand, as I write.
Huw: What was it that kicked off your interest in
fractal landscapes? I mean, I can understand
someone being interested after having seen
some examples of virtual landscapes. But I
guess you must have taken up an interest before
there were any such landscapes available to
see...? Did you already have a mental picture of
what you wanted to create?
KM: It’s been an interplay of what I saw as being
possible, with exploration and discovery of what
the fractal maths could conjure up. I’ve always“I’d taken an aptitude test
way back in high school
that said I should be a
computer programmer, a
forest ranger, or an
interior decorator, in that
order. Little did I know
that I’d become a bit of
each!”