Oooh... voxels!

[OB1]

Neato.

Torus Loves Voxels
The GBA developer builds a detail 3D engine for the handheld. First shots.

January 08, 2003 - Torus Games, the Australian team responsible for Game Boy Advance titles such as Duke Nukem Advance, Doom II and The Invincible Iron Man has revealed that it has created a voxel engine for the GBA. A "voxel" is a technique that allows developers to add height values to pixels in a flat 2D plane to simulate rolling hills, cliffs, and slopes.
The company is currently putting this engine to use in an original motocross racer for the GBA: Moto-X. The game features off-road, free-roaming dirtbiking over varying terrain for single and multiplayer challenges. Though the game currently has no publisher attached to it, Torus sent over the first screenshots of the game in action.

Voxel engines aren't entirely a new idea on the Game Boy Advance, as Destination Software's GBA conversion of Smuggler's Run features a similar technique. But Torus promises high performance out of its own technology, with a smooth framerate (currently 20 FPS), vertical texturing, static light-mapping, and link cable support.

We'll have more on Moto-X as the game continues in its development cycle.

-- Craig Harris