Procedural Content Generation

There are plenty of problems with game development as a business. But one of the biggest ones is the problem of the cost of "content". Content is basically the assets used in the game, be it sound, character models, animation, textures, images, or whatever. Essentially, this is the "stuff" that makes it possible to realize your imagined game world.

Now the problem of content is a thorny one. Because many people would have you believe that so-called "AAA" development doesn't really have a constraint on content. But the reality is that content is a huge part of any game budget and as such it can hit hard on any development budget, be it AAA or indie.

As an indie developer, I've often been very tightly constrained by my lack of ability to produce my own content. To the point where I've looked for alternatives. So I thought it might be useful to enumerate some of the alternatives in this post.

Now, let me get this point across before we start. I am NOT advocating that we can ever totally replace artist-created peices. What I am suggesting is that there has to be a smarter way to produce some types of content. Or at least streamlining the content production process so that we reduce the burden of both cost and effort.

Opinion: The Content Conundrum - Gamasutra

Force Unleashed 2 lead engineer Szymon Swistun ( @sswistun ) talks about his concerns with increasingly complex workflows, in this #altdevblogaday -reprinted opinion piece.

Typically, the more cutting edge rendering features we add to our games, the more complex the workflow for the engineers, artists and content creators that deal with them.

There are many brilliant technology advancements that are in development or near release: real-time ray-tracing, real-time global illumination, major DirectX API changes, CPU ? GPU fusion, mega-meshes, just to name few.

However, our industry is already facing a tremendous problem: the exponentially increasing cost of game development. This will only get worse, very fast, unless simplifying workflows for all disciplines involved with game development is drastically improved.

Opinion: Rendering Technology: What's Next? - Gamasutra

I am currently trying to render a planet to simulate atmospheric scattering. As for the planet body i am using the exposed cube method with chunked size lod (implemented as a quad-tree). Currently i am using a static heightmap on all six cube faces, which looks ok from distance but lacks proper details when the camera is near the surface.

Therefore i am searching for a way to generate heightmaps proceduraly. What i need is some algorithm that lets me generate reasonably realistic heightmaps and lets me adjust the degree of details added. I have already read some articles but feel kind of lost as i am new to procedural content generation.

What is a good (and not to complicated!) method to achive good lod-terrain rendering? I would be glad if someone can push me in the right direction.

I also went out and bought the book, "Texturing and Modeling, Third Edition: A Procedural Approach". It's a little old now (published in 2002), but I found it still had a lot of relevant information in it.

Procedural heightmap for terrain method for increasing/decreasing detail when ... - GameDev.net

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (March 1st, 2010) On the 25th of March, LOVE, perhaps the most ambitious video game ever made by a single person, will be released.

LOVE is a first person cooperative persistent world game where players build settlements and venture out in to a world of adventure. Set on a small planet with a wide range of geographical landscapes, including canyons, fields, forests, glaciers and deserts, LOVE players experience an ever-evolving world with erosion, tectonics, changing wind and sea levels, and new, breathtaking vistas to explore. Using advanced procedural generation technology the game evolves while you are playing it to create new content and adapt to the players actions. The dynamic environment lets players create their own architecture by raising and lowering the ground, creating tunnels in addition to placing and connecting objects in a complex infrastructure.

Five different AI Tribes will also build their own settlements that players can attack but the AI can attack back and destroy player settlements.

Full Story: LOVE Beta Ends, Real Experience Begins - Bitbag

In the game, players jump from building to building in Boston and perform stunts, weaving around the city to accumulate points, and making split-second decisions. "Aaaaa!" then throws in the spectators: As a player "falls," they can give fans a "thumbs-up," or a "less appropriate" hand signal to protesters. Miller worked on the game's voiceovers and skits, and programmed code that built its levels, while Chadwick took on developing models, textures, and concept drawings, and added aesthetic touches to the levels.

 "WPI's IMGD program provides these incredibly bright, intelligent, and creative students an education that focuses on more than just their immediate areas of study,"Lambe noted. "IMGD project work is a great example of WPI's strengths; it's an amalgam of logic, art, sound, and storytelling, which is great blend of technology and the humanities." In the past two years, WPI students have placed in the top 3 in former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling's 38 Studios Massachusetts Game Challenge (MGC). The contest, which is on hiatus this year, asks students to submit their original videogame creations to win prizes. In 2009, two WPI student teams placed in the top three, which was opened that year to colleges and universities from across the United States and Canada. In 2008, a team of WPI first-year students placed third in the contest's inaugural year.

"The fact that so many of our students are already shining in the game industry – and they haven't even yet graduated from WPI -- is a sign of how high the quality is of the students that are being attracted to the IMGD major," said Professor Mark Claypool, director of WPI's IMGD program.

Full Story: WPI Students Garner Credits for Helping to Create New Video Game - WPI News