61–70 of 123 posts
I'm having a partial flashback here and its killing me. Back in the 90's there was a guy who was building this exact same vision "Space Galaxy" or something where every planet was unique, every alien race unique, every solar system, full planet to planet seamlessness. Derek somebody? Generally considered impossible and derided by the PC gaming press corps. I agree with most that you need a certain dimensionality to t…
Derek Smart! Never forget!
We will probably never know, but I wonder if the reality of our own universe is that any life on other habitable planets will look remarkably similar to that here on Earth; given the parameters within which a sustainable biosphere are possible quite narrow. There might be some local variation but nothing that would be particularly mind-boggling to biologists (e.g. non-carbon lifeforms).
I think Brian Greene suggested that in a sufficiently large (i.e. approaching infinite) universe, if you travel far enough you will eventually encounter a multitude of 'Earths' that are the same as our own but subtly different in various ways.
In which case, if its a criticism of procedurally-generated worlds that they tend to have a lot of repetition, then the models are probably quite accurate!
I'm having a partial flashback here and its killing me. Back in the 90's there was a guy who was building this exact same vision "Space Galaxy" or something where every planet was unique, every alien race unique, every solar system, full planet to planet seamlessness. Derek somebody? Generally considered impossible and derided by the PC gaming press corps. I agree with most that you need a certain dimensionality to t…
Derek Smart! Never forget!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd agree that a lot of coders lack a good sense for design and art (hence the term "programmer art" :D). I'm not a great programmer or artist, but I'm a competent programmer and an "average" artist (at best). This is only because I put so much time into learning art as a kid, and then later doing a lot of design work (mostly related to web design). Additionally I began 3D modeling when I was 13 and most games were s…
Ya, I dig alot of that demo scene stuff too. I sniff a natural beauty there somewhere. A natural beauty, a smart shape game, or something. It's what I'm trying to get at with my own work ( http://fleen.org ). Sorta got a handle. Frankly done with the whole subject presently.
The issue with a lot of procedurally-generated content is that overall things become same-y. Lots of breadth, little depth. When you have a set number of variable sliders, you don't have to see all the possible worlds to get a sense of how many sliders there are and what their ranges are. The problem only gets worse when moving away from planet/landscape generation (dumb matter) and getting into simulations of histor…
But since even our best RNG algorithms eventually converge, the resulting systems would start converging as well. So the issue of same-yness is an inherent issue of CS.
I was impressed by the demo until I saw the very flat explosions that just faded out quickly, which took me out of the illusion immediately. Perhaps that's just a pre-production thing. Impressive product even if the article is sort of gushy and breathless...when I was playing Elite back in the 1980s the planets were just a circle with a smaller circle rotating on it for perspective XD
This game looks impressive in terms of generating fauna and flora etc. but the planet to space flight and procedural generation in itself is hardly new.
Looks like it could be a good game either way, but I'm questioning their use of words when they say "every atom" is procedurally-generated, as in their first reveal trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6fCn8oB-sg From what they have demoed, they have not proven that anything actually is being generated. My best guess is that they randomly vary colors and textures (and generate the atmospheres, as they say), and r…
That bothered me too. They clearly aren't simulating atoms here.
Mmmmm, somehow, no.
There has to be some level of abstraction, otherwise they'd be recreating the actual universe, and I don't think the PS4 could handle that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dwarf Fortress. Read about it. Play it. Marvel at it. http://www.bay12games.com There is nothing same-y about a game where you can't hit a bogeyman with a hammer because he's too fast, but you can kick his ass with cranberry leaves because they're lighter and let you hit faster. Or, how about the elephants roosting in trees? Or the vampirism that can take over a fortress? Of the possible were-versions of most creatur…
I love Dwarf Fortress, and there are some real treasures in the legends of many worlds. But even with all the possibilities, things still get redundant. Yes, the elephants have taken to their emergent treenests, and that's beautiful. But that's a single bug (feature) that makes us say 'wow' once, after which we've seen it. The possibilities of were-spiders and were-alpacas and reanimated spleens and rains of dwarf bl…
Another space game coming out this year that will heavily use procedural generation to re-create the milky way galaxy is Elite: Dangerous. I'm in the beta and it already looks great despite many features not yet being activated for the beta players.
You can't land on planets :(