The Importance of Procedural Content Generation In Games 160
Gamasutra reports on a talk by Far Cry 2 developer Dominic Guay in which he discussed why procedural content generation is becoming more and more important as games get bigger and more complex. He also talks about some of the related difficulties, such as the amount of work required for the tools and the times when it's hard to retain control of the art direction. Quoting:
"Initially, the team created a procedural sky rendering approach based on algorithms — which led to a totally unconvincing skybox that was clearly inferior to what a hand-authored skybox would be. 'We considered it to be a total failure,' he said. He explained that a great deal of focus must be put on the tools that surround the algorithms, to allow the systems to be properly harnessed. In the end, the game shipped with a revamped procedural sky system that ended up much more effective than the first attempt."
Procedural? (Score:2, Informative)
Sounds like by "procedural" you mean "algorithmic". I guess the algorithm might be defined procedurally, but that's not really what is discussed here.
Re:Procedural? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, the actual term is "procedural", as in procedural textures [wikipedia.org] and procedural content generation [wikipedia.org].
No, this is not a discussion of procedural programming [wikipedia.org] vs object oriented vs functional, etc.
Re:Fractal Generation (Score:5, Informative)
The guys at Introversion are already trying this:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_zluTvROHXA [youtube.com]
Re:Absolutely (Score:3, Informative)
You're partly right and partly wrong.
Originally, 3D was actually much better in terms of time requirements. It was much easier to create a 3D model and animate it than it was to draw sprites and every single animation for them frame by frame, particularly if you dared to have your character/whatever "turn around". This problem was exagerated for games like desert strike and command and conquer where things weren't straight 2D but were on a slight angle so you couldn't get away with simply rotating sprites as you could if you were looking down, you had to redraw at different angles, something that took ages to get right.
Nowadays yes, 3D does take longer but there's a simple reason for that, graphics have moved on but 2D can't moved on, it's reached it's limit, you can draw just as beautiful sprites now as you could 15 years ago, it's reached it's peak. The only changes have been in resolution and colour depth here, but these are trivial to deal with in 2D still. 3D hasn't reached it's peak, it can still look better and better.
So you're right, 3D does take longer nowadays, but that doesn't mean 2D is superior, it just means 3D has higher bounds in terms of what it can do. To me it seems rather backwards to suggest we should stick to 2D because 3D takes longer.
Besides, I prefer recent games like Gears of War 2 that look jaw dropping over things like Megaman 9 anyway. There seems little point holding gaming back just because 2D is quicker and a few people like the nostalgic value of it. Companies don't make games in 3D because of "technolust", they do it because there's demand for it.
Re:Absolutely (Score:3, Informative)
I disagree on the point of 2D reaching its limit. There have been plenty of technologies that have been developed for 3d graphics that make significant improvements for 2D games as well.
If you haven't seen it before check out the game Oden Sphere. This is one have that took 3d technologies and using then to great effect in a 2D environment. Oden shpere used polygons on a 2 dimensional plane to stretch and distort the sprites textures allowing the game to have a more dynamic motion. it then used that technology to animate everything easily having the trees in the background sway with the wind convincingly. DirectX 10's swap over to shader based rendering also gives great things to the 2D development as shaders can create amazing effects on 2d objects.
But that is only talking technology that is somewhere that 2d can yet grow into. Artistically that are things that just can not be done as well in 3d as it can in 2d. Cell shading is not a replacement for traditional cell artwork. There is a reason that paintings stayed a relevant art form after sculpting came to be because there are things that you can express better in 2 dimensions than you can in 3.
Really I think once 3D has hit its plateau 2D will have a resurgence of 2D games.