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Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

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Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#111

Post by hyp0 »

DanAndersen wrote: post #11

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…

idea: random constraints

A grammar that generates every possible squence of symbols is boring. What makes it interesting is contraints, that only some subset of all possibilities is generatable. Even the Chomsky hierarchy relates to characterists of the subset defined.

So, you don't need more elements, but more constraints. e.g. a novel is a sequence of a small number of symbols...

This would make each section of a game have a certain style or character. For gameplay elements, figuring out the constraint could be part of the puzzle.

Generating interesting constraints then would be the difficulty...

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#112

Post by Robadob »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #56
mbenjaminsmith wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what would be interesting is everything that you said with the addition of relativistic-speed travel. Take round trips near (or over, depending on your reference) the speed of light and watch how things evolve.

My god, the Loading times would be unbearable.

At a low enough LOD it's not unthinkable to simulate such stuff using GPGPU (CUDA/OPENCL) for performing such simulations in realtime.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#113

Post by Flenser »

lifeformed wrote: post #86
DanAndersen wrote: post #11

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…

I've been working on combating this problem for a few years now. I'm working on a game called Spire ( http://hitboxteam.tumblr.com/ ), which is a mix of Quake and Roguelikes. Every procedural dungeon creator I've seen so far seems to just use pre-made rooms or chunks of rooms, and shuffles them around. It never feels like you're in a new world each time, it just feels like you're in the same world jumbled up. For the…

Sounds a lot like the AI director in left 4 dead: http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2009/ai_systems_of...

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#114

Post by Cthulhu_ »

hrjet wrote: post #97
yoklov wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author open sourced his last game, Liberal Crime Squad, and its... The work of a madman. IIRC it was one ~40kloc C++ file full of globals and switch statements 6+ levels deep. I'm sure someone's cleaned it up some now, but it made me wonder if that (unpredictable spaghetti code) is what's required for truly dynamic behavior, the kind that you see in DF and (to a lesser extent) LCS.

Interesting. Perhaps, it was the output of a tool that compiled higher-level code down to C.

Or what you get when you leave a developer to his own devices for a decade.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#116

Post by lifeformed »

Flenser wrote: post #113
lifeformed wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working on combating this problem for a few years now. I'm working on a game called Spire ( http://hitboxteam.tumblr.com/ ), which is a mix of Quake and Roguelikes. Every procedural dungeon creator I've seen so far seems to just use pre-made rooms or chunks of rooms, and shuffles them around. It never feels like you're in a new world each time, it just feels like you're in the same world jumbled up. For the…

Sounds a lot like the AI director in left 4 dead: http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2009/ai_systems_of...

Yup, there's a lot of inspiration from that, except the big difference is that this system isn't dynamic. In L4D, the flow would change based on your performance. We want our system to be fully set up from the start, since we're designing it to also be a competitive speedrunning game and need reproducible challenges for everyone.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#117

Post by lifeformed »

taurath wrote: post #105
lifeformed wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working on combating this problem for a few years now. I'm working on a game called Spire ( http://hitboxteam.tumblr.com/ ), which is a mix of Quake and Roguelikes. Every procedural dungeon creator I've seen so far seems to just use pre-made rooms or chunks of rooms, and shuffles them around. It never feels like you're in a new world each time, it just feels like you're in the same world jumbled up. For the…

The "emotional analogues" sound actually very interesting. I wonder how well that will hold up in practice - it seems like if it were possible to generate a compelling story from variables we'd be able to do it by now - we would be able to consistently put out compelling stories in book form at the very least. Its frequently not the structure or even the overall plot that's the point, but the little details that matt…

It's certainly an experimental method, so I'm not quite sure how it'll turn out (but it's getting there). I agree about the details - although of course it's important to have a proper structure to the world and narrative, as it gives context to the details. My aim to build a thematic structure, and then to bring it alive through the details. Things like light placement, color, room shape, prop placement, and the overall mood of each section should all work to build an interesting world.

We even have generators that make tiny little stories out of the props - a campfire might have candles and tomes next to it (signs of a ritual), or maybe utensils and dishes (signs of a traveler's meal). Not to mention, the actual gameplay of movement and combat is intended to be its own world of intricacy (the other guys are working on that).

I'm not aiming to explicitly generate narratives of characters and dialogue and words. Rather, the system generates the feeling of narratives. Rising action, conflicts, an interesting flow of emotions, pacing the intensity, etc. The player can fill in the details themselves, as they (not their character) are the protagonist, exploring the world and going on a journey of discovery and mastery.

My thinking is that what it lacks in human touch, it makes up for in mystery. Knowing that it's a unique world that no human has ever set foot upon before is genuinely exciting, and gives a real desire to explore. It's like that feeling you got the first time you played Minecraft, and found some amazing outdoor environments and knew your eyes were the first to see it - but then as you played over and over you saw the patterns and it lost the magic. My goal is to capture the first feeling, and to hide the second effect with not patterns but processes, generating things based on a thematic goal in mind.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#118

Post by Retric »

taurath wrote: post #105
lifeformed wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working on combating this problem for a few years now. I'm working on a game called Spire ( http://hitboxteam.tumblr.com/ ), which is a mix of Quake and Roguelikes. Every procedural dungeon creator I've seen so far seems to just use pre-made rooms or chunks of rooms, and shuffles them around. It never feels like you're in a new world each time, it just feels like you're in the same world jumbled up. For the…

The "emotional analogues" sound actually very interesting. I wonder how well that will hold up in practice - it seems like if it were possible to generate a compelling story from variables we'd be able to do it by now - we would be able to consistently put out compelling stories in book form at the very least. Its frequently not the structure or even the overall plot that's the point, but the little details that matt…

Good video games cover the little details through gameplay.

The secret seems to be a mix of a meaningful possibility of failure with 'fair' gameplay. Basicly, I did something stupid, so something happened, which I responded to by doing X which worked or almost worked but failed.

Think dangerous enemies with vary low HP. Or useful but not nessisary NPC's that can die.

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#119

Post by tigeba »

fisher-lebo wrote: post #2

I get the gist of how Minecraft is constructed: just a bunch of blocks with algorithms which hide certain blocks when they aren't in the player's view. Are there any articles about how an engine like this is built? It is an extreme level of procedural generation (apparently), but the graphics aren't blocky and as abstract, but rather pretty impressive. In a similar vein is Eskil Steenberg's Love [1], but this is on a…

You may want to check out Everquest Next. I think it would be fair to say that EQN is very close to a completely voxelized environment and at least mostly procedural. There is a great deal of curated content as well, but it seems like they are working on sourcing lots of that from players. The voxelized environment in EQN is based on Miguel Cepero's work. I believe they in fact hired him. I have been reading his blog for a long time and you can get a pretty good idea of the techniques that are being used.

http://procworld.blogspot.com/

A couple of quick hints to get you going in the right direction is that there are ( I believe ) a couple of generalized tricks involved to pull this off well. The first is using the 'correct' method to tesselate your voxel geometry. Minecraft literally uses cubes and you are familiar with the result. Another 'classic' method is the application of marching cubes/tetrahedra. This gives you fairly good organic-ish shapes but suffers from the inability to render sharp edges. Everything looks blobby. I believe the method used by EQN makes use dual-contouring, or a variant, which allows you to create organic shapes and also preserve sharp edges. A second factor is the ability to use different levels of resolution or scale for your voxels situationally. This allows you to craft human-scale things like cups and swords and whatnot, with human-scale details, and still craft houses and mountains and trees, without the need for storing extreme resolution in those items as well. It can be very tricky to patch together various bits of geometry tessellated from different voxel resolutions like this, and not end up with ugly visual artifacts. There is also the thorny issue of applying textures or materials to everything I have mentioned previously, which I have never investigated :)

Re: Exploring No Man’s Sky, A Computer Game Forged by Algorithms

#120

Post by namlem »

DanAndersen wrote: post #11

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…

This is true, but I don't think it's a huge obstacle for this game or others like it. Sure, it'll get boring after a while, but what game doesn't? It will likely remain interesting enough to enable dozens of hours of play, if not hundreds, which is more than anyone could ask. Minecraft and Starbound are both procedurally generated, and I got lots of enjoyment out of both before eventually getting bored.
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