HackerTube.dev

New Voxel Engine Reveal - Crystal Islands Experiment

John Lin · 394.5K views · 2021-05-13 · 5:05

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

John Lin reveals a rewritten voxel engine demonstrated in a Crystal Islands scene, with much finer voxel detail, fast collision, fracture and path-traced global illumination.

On Hacker News

HN cites it as a showcase of one of the best voxel engines, impressive for its detail and smoothness.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2021–2025

Topics

Computer graphics & renderingGame programming & engines
Search by tags
voxelspath tracingglobal illuminationgraphicsgame engine

What people said

parlortricks · 2025-01 · Strong recommendation

John Lins [VIDEO] Crystal Island looks amazingly detailed and smooth. Wish he would continue or share how.

Read the original HN comment ↗
junon · 2021-09 · Strong recommendation

For reference, this is John Lin who posts semi-frequent devlogs[0] of his voxel engine progress - an engine that is, in my opinion, one of the best voxel engines in existence rivaled only by Dennis Gustafsson's "Teardown" voxel engine. [0] [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
Crestwave · 2024-05 · Reference

Hm, do you have a source for that? It's possible that you're mixing it up with his decision to shelf "micro-voxels" in favor of the traditional, chunkier voxel art style. [VIDEO] (see pinned comment)

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by John Lin, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources