Procedural Content Generation in Video Games A Guefte-Leckture in Several Diftinguish'd Actes A Guefte-Leckture in Several Diftinguish'd Actes Nick Rudzicz (loves fonts) Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Background The Man: Nick Rudzicz Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Background The Man: Nick Rudzicz The Legend: It's pronounced ''ROO-jich'' Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Background The Man: Nick Rudzicz The Legend: It's pronounced ''ROO-jich'' ...the hell? Seeking a Master's degree in Computer Science in the field of video game awesomeness Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Motivation I am both a giant nerd and a giant geek Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Motivation I am both a giant nerd and a giant geek Nerd: I can read this: Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Motivation I am both a giant nerd and a giant geek Geek: The following is the Nerd: I can read this: Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Motivation I am both a giant nerd and a giant geek Geek: The following is the Nerd: I can read this: Best. Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Motivation I am both a giant nerd and a giant geek Geek: The following is the Nerd: I can read this: Best. Game. Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Motivation I am both a giant nerd and a giant geek Geek: The following is the Nerd: I can read this: Best. Game. Ever. Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Motivation I get a kick out of world creation, exploration Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Motivation I get a kick out of world creation, exploration (Recall your 4 basic gamer types...) Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content Q: What is content? Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content Q: What is content? A: Everything in the game that provides the gamer w/ sensory input (graphics, music, NPCs, text, etc.) Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content Q: What is content? A: Everything in the game that provides the gamer w/ sensory input (graphics, music, NPCs, text, etc.) Content: Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content Q: Why is content important? Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content Q: Why is content important? A: Storage space is expanding, graphical capability is skyrocketing – and both are getting cheaper. Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content Q: Why is content important? A: Storage space is expanding, graphical capability is skyrocketing – and both are getting cheaper. Gamers expect more ''stuff'' in their games! Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content Q: Why is content important? (cont'd) Compare: 2002 1993 2006 Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content Q: What makes content an important business problem? Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content Q: What makes content an important business problem? A: It sucks up resources like the Mega Maid in ''Spaceballs'' Game development budget Game development time Content Content Everything Everything else else * Entirely made-up graphs, but probably not far off Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content A problem of scale: Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content A problem of scale: Dorval: 20.87km 2 GTA:SA: 36km 2 TES:Oblivion: 41.439km 2 WoW: 207.2km 2 Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Content A problem of scale: Dorval: 20.87km 2 GTA:SA: 36km 2 TES:Oblivion: 41.439km 2 WoW: 207.2km 2 Island of Montreal: 500km 2 Tolkien's world (Arda): ??? How could we possibly build ''realistically-sized'' environments by hand? (And do we want to?) Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Various levels of environmental content creation: Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Various levels of environmental content creation: Landscape Vegetation Cities Buildings Objects Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Various levels of environmental content creation: Landscape Vegetation Cities Buildings Objects Forms a nice hierarchy Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Various levels of environmental content creation: Landscape Vegetation Cities Buildings Objects Forms a nice hierarchy Work has been done on individual levels Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Levels of content creation: Landscape Vegetation Cities Buildings Objects Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Landscapes Perlin Noise (!), Iterated fault lines, GIS, ... Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Landscapes Perlin Noise (!), Iterated fault lines, GIS, ... Terragen (+ user input) is very good at this: Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How [Prusinkiewicz 1993] discusses the formation of rivers using fractals: Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Levels of content creation: Landscape Vegetation Cities Buildings Objects Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How [Wells 2005] uses cellular automata to simulate a floral ecosystem Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How [Wells 2005] uses cellular automata to simulate a floral ecosystem Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Even individual plants can be procedurally generated using Lindenmeyer systems (L-Systems) Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Even individual plants can be procedurally generated using Lindenmeyer systems (L-Systems) String rewriting mechanism, much like a context-free grammar (or even context sensitive) Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Even individual plants can be procedurally generated using Lindenmeyer systems (L-Systems) String rewriting mechanism, much like a context-free grammar (or even context sensitive) Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Levels of content creation: Landscape Vegetation Cities Buildings Objects Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How [Parish & Mueller 2000] developed CityEngine Re-uses L-Systems for branching road networks! Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How [Parish & Mueller 2000] developed CityEngine Re-uses L-Systems for branching road networks! Results are visually phenomenal Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How CityEngine + Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How CityEngine + Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How [Glass 2006] uses Voronoi diagrams to generate ''informal settlements'' Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How [Glass 2006] uses Voronoi diagrams to generate ''informal settlements'' Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Levels of content creation: Landscape Vegetation Cities Buildings Objects Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How [Wonka 2003] uses a ''shape grammar'' (much like an L-System) to generate building exteriors Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How [Wonka 2003] uses a ''shape grammar'' (much like an L-System) to generate building exteriors Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Levels of content creation: Landscape Vegetation Cities Buildings Objects Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Very little (if any) work done at this level Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Very little (if any) work done at this level ...which makes this exciting Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Very little (if any) work done at this level ...which makes this exciting What would this look like? A formal grammar or rule set? Object fork { placedIn{ ''counterDrawer'', 0.5; ''toilet'', 0.0 }; placedOn{ ''table'', 0.5; ...} ... nextTo{ ''plate'', 0.75; ...} } Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
World-building: What and How Very little (if any) work done at this level ...which makes this exciting What would this look like? A swarm of interior decorator agents? Sort of like a backwards riot... Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Where do I come in? Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
Where do I come in? Thesising! Word? No. Fun to say? Very yes! Nick Rudzicz COMP521 – Winter 2008
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