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Infinite procedurally-generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm

marian42.itch.io

81–90 of 145 posts

Re: Infinite procedurally-generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a vive, but I don't have a mac. I could throw the SteamVR plugin in and get it up on windows, but someone would have to test it on mac

I’d love to try it on windows if you can do it.

I'm at work and my Vive is at home, threw together a build that "in theory" works but I have yet to test it. If you wanna take a stab it you can download it here. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uRP9uan3iViBddmQ5iZ3...

or check out the source here https://github.com/matuszeg/wavefunctioncollapse

I'll update the build (and this comment) and make sure it works later when I get back to my Vive.

Re: Infinite procedurally-generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm

#82
post #63
post #9

I imagine a counter strike scenario where the area of engagement is constantly moving throughout this infinite city, so the fight is waged over a constantly changing landscape. Hecka fun or hecka confusing?!

I’ve worked as a level designer on FPS games. Dynamic generation might suit certain types of games (or something like an event mode), but a huge amount of design work and iteration goes into the layout of multiplayer game levels to make them enjoyable. It’s also important that players/teams can memorise the level layouts in order to form strategies. Still a cool idea though!

Oh yeah. I remember modding Quake and Unreal and such back in the day--after a lot of practice and experimentation, one learns to read a map like a book. Gameplay is built right into the structure of the world. When the map is made by an expert, players can still enjoy it without directly understanding it or even noticing it. It's an incredible example of intuitive design.

Not to say there isn't a way to make some form of satisfying gameplay out of a randomized sandbox, but it certainly won't be the same as an FPS map designed with experienced intent. That aside, it would probably produce a spot with excellent gameplay every so often out of pure serendipity, which would be fun to hunt for! I'd try it.

Re: Infinite procedurally-generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm

#83
post #8

Admittedly without yet reading but just looking at the pictures, I'd love to see examples of where it creates patterns of patterns. Sort of like the biomes in Minecraft: one pattern to draw out where the biomes are, one to fill them in with content. Could it be made to do patterns of patterns of patterns? If this were used to create level design where the local view is several iterations deep of patterns of patterns…

Each block has a probability of being selected. You could make this probability location dependent, for example by sampling a noise function. That way you get something like biomes.

Re: Infinite procedurally-generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm

#84

Amazing work! I've been excited about this technique since I first saw the original demos of it ( https://github.com/mxgmn/WaveFunctionCollapse ) - but can someone explain (at a very high level) how Wave Function Collapse works? I've read through some of the documentation on various repos - it starts with the nitty-gritty details, and I haven't been able to grasp the concepts.

Have you ever written a Sudoku solver. It works like that. You start with an array where every tile is possible in every location. Then you pick a random cell and assign a tile to it. That tile implies some choices are impossible, so you set those possibilities to false. That further implies some other possibilities are false and so on. You propogate that as far as it goes, and when you are done, pick another random…

How is that different from regular constraint propagation?

Re: Infinite procedurally-generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm

#86
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't currently have access to a Vive, but I worked with it earlier. All that needs to be done is add SteamVR to the project and hook up teleportation. That's it.

If possible, I'd love to be able to run it on a Mac, too.

I may be fulfilling this wish, but I have not build a unity game to Mac in a while and do not have a mac powerful enough to run VR games. Can you download mac.app from here and let me know if it runs on your machine or if it works with SteamVR.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uRP9uan3iViBddmQ5iZ3...

Re: Infinite procedurally-generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm

#87
post #63
post #9

I imagine a counter strike scenario where the area of engagement is constantly moving throughout this infinite city, so the fight is waged over a constantly changing landscape. Hecka fun or hecka confusing?!

I’ve worked as a level designer on FPS games. Dynamic generation might suit certain types of games (or something like an event mode), but a huge amount of design work and iteration goes into the layout of multiplayer game levels to make them enjoyable. It’s also important that players/teams can memorise the level layouts in order to form strategies. Still a cool idea though!

> It’s also important that players/teams can memorise the level layouts in order to form strategies.

I'd like to see someone challenge that notion. I mean, that's certainly a known and reliable model for multiplayer play, but we see single-player games like Spelunky where familiarity means being able to recognize how common elements interact and construct your strategy on the fly, as opposed to a Super Mario where you're just memorizing the layout. Has anyone seriously attempted that in a multiplayer game? Obviously there's a lot of ways it could fail, but I feel like it could be spectacular if done well.

Re: Infinite procedurally-generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm

#88
post #41

This is a really good example of an uncanny valley. Things like two staircases side-by-side of different sizes just looks... strange, even though there’s technically nothing wrong with it.

There's a book called "Possible Palladian Villas" which gets into procedurally generated houses (in the style of Palladio), and that kind of thing came up—they'd run their algorithm to generate some houses, and then notice details in what was generated that were just... off. Not impossible, just... not quite right, either. Things you wouldn't think about unless you saw plans for a house that didn't consider it. So th…

I assume McMansion builders use the same design process.

Re: Infinite procedurally-generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm

#89
post #9

I imagine a counter strike scenario where the area of engagement is constantly moving throughout this infinite city, so the fight is waged over a constantly changing landscape. Hecka fun or hecka confusing?!

As someone who already has an abysmal sense of direction (I basically never play 3D games because I'm just always lost), this is my nightmare.

Minecraft in survival mode is probably the worst. You can very easily get hopelessly lost - especially in the Nether world. Very easy to lose track of your portal which is not fun.

Re: Infinite procedurally-generated city with the Wave Function Collapse algorithm

#90
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who already has an abysmal sense of direction (I basically never play 3D games because I'm just always lost), this is my nightmare.

Minecraft in survival mode is probably the worst. You can very easily get hopelessly lost - especially in the Nether world. Very easy to lose track of your portal which is not fun.

It can be fun. It can also be fun to come up with some sort of breadcrumb system and movement planning.

Exploration in proc gen worlds is mostly pointless anyway. Build roads to everywhere you want to go and you'll never get lost.

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