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Generated vs. Crafted.
Author
What are your views on the subject of "mathematically generated levels" (random levels), vs. levels designed by people.
The so called random levels discussed here can range from those created with complex geographical, ecosystem generation and semi-predefined content procedures ( as of yet non-existant?), to randomly made Dungeons.
I''m working right now on practically randomly generating everything, setting wise, for a SF RPG. Random star systems, planets, cities, interiors... Randomization can be great if you need *alot* of different things.
If you go the random route be forwarned that it''s going to be difficult to get things right. I just recently finished my random solar system generator, and I still can''t get a Titan like moon around Jupiter!!! (Earth-type worlds form nicely, though
). Depending on what it is, you''ll need to work to understand why something looks the way it looks, then figure out how to break it up into parts.
You *can* lose some of the specialness that you get with handcrafted content. I''m not sure if this is a global rule, but from talking to folks here I get that the more complex the thing is, the more it needs to be composed of well designed parts. Some things, like level secrets or goodies, maybe need to be hand placed, I''m not sure yet (haven''t gotten into designing building / starship interiors in detail yet).
Another things some folks were pointing out to me in another thread is that there should be a compelling reason for randomizing something (rand() for rand()''s sake is a no-no).
And it probably goes without saying that the randomized thing should look as good as or better than the predesigned thing.
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Just waiting for the mothership...
If you go the random route be forwarned that it''s going to be difficult to get things right. I just recently finished my random solar system generator, and I still can''t get a Titan like moon around Jupiter!!! (Earth-type worlds form nicely, though
). Depending on what it is, you''ll need to work to understand why something looks the way it looks, then figure out how to break it up into parts.You *can* lose some of the specialness that you get with handcrafted content. I''m not sure if this is a global rule, but from talking to folks here I get that the more complex the thing is, the more it needs to be composed of well designed parts. Some things, like level secrets or goodies, maybe need to be hand placed, I''m not sure yet (haven''t gotten into designing building / starship interiors in detail yet
). Another things some folks were pointing out to me in another thread is that there should be a compelling reason for randomizing something (rand() for rand()''s sake is a no-no).
And it probably goes without saying that the randomized thing should look as good as or better than the predesigned thing.
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Just waiting for the mothership...
Author
I think that one of the main differences between conventional randomly generated levels, and some designed levels. Is that every item in the designer level has a reason for being there. Ie. The bear's head on the wall, is there because the NPC had a vicious fight with the bear.
I think that (small) areas of randomly generated content can add excitement to a game. For instance when a player goes through a game that they have played before, they know what the layout of the level is, and where the monsters are positioned. This makes replaying that section of the game a far more sterile experience for the these players. There is little feeling of charting dangerous and unpredicatable territory, where the next step could be their last (although in a well designed game it probably won't be).
You could say that randomising the monsters positions would remove this sterileness that occurs, but I don't think that it would fully do so. The randomised monster positioning will add relatively new tactical considerations, but the player will still have the unchanged environment. There is an excitement that "random" settlements, cave systems, and special encounters will provide. Making every new step, a path along the road to discovery.
But as noted earlier, the randomly generated areas need to 1. be playable *. 2. It would help if these levels also had a reason for each object being there. Which could be achieved by using lots of rules, ie. the ecosystem + politics of this area will allow wolves, pigs, and harpies to coexist. But this regions e + p doesn't allow orcs because it is so near to the heavily guarded "hostile" human settlement. This would provide the random monster status of the area, then there would be a system which would allocate dwellings, and design them ie. this is a rich dwelling it can a have a store of papyrus, some small hidden gold stores, a quality duvet + a randomly chosen selection of personal items from a large list. If done wll tere wouldn't be much incongruity between the designed levels and the linking "randomly crafted" levels between them.
Ie. The system works like this, you are in a (designed) cave system, and are hunting for a Quarkette but as you follow it's trail, you are ambushed by a group of angry yeti which are annoyed because you are invading their territory and getting too near their young. Running away as fast as you can, you spot a fast animal, and jump on its back.. it runs off honking, and trying to buck you off it's back. It fails, and runs into one of the side tunnels, which leads down into somewhere you haven't been before... what will be in there? The area that you enter is (randomly generated).
Edited by - Ketchaval on September 14, 2000 8:10:51 PM
I think that (small) areas of randomly generated content can add excitement to a game. For instance when a player goes through a game that they have played before, they know what the layout of the level is, and where the monsters are positioned. This makes replaying that section of the game a far more sterile experience for the these players. There is little feeling of charting dangerous and unpredicatable territory, where the next step could be their last (although in a well designed game it probably won't be).
You could say that randomising the monsters positions would remove this sterileness that occurs, but I don't think that it would fully do so. The randomised monster positioning will add relatively new tactical considerations, but the player will still have the unchanged environment. There is an excitement that "random" settlements, cave systems, and special encounters will provide. Making every new step, a path along the road to discovery.
But as noted earlier, the randomly generated areas need to 1. be playable *. 2. It would help if these levels also had a reason for each object being there. Which could be achieved by using lots of rules, ie. the ecosystem + politics of this area will allow wolves, pigs, and harpies to coexist. But this regions e + p doesn't allow orcs because it is so near to the heavily guarded "hostile" human settlement. This would provide the random monster status of the area, then there would be a system which would allocate dwellings, and design them ie. this is a rich dwelling it can a have a store of papyrus, some small hidden gold stores, a quality duvet + a randomly chosen selection of personal items from a large list. If done wll tere wouldn't be much incongruity between the designed levels and the linking "randomly crafted" levels between them.
Ie. The system works like this, you are in a (designed) cave system, and are hunting for a Quarkette but as you follow it's trail, you are ambushed by a group of angry yeti which are annoyed because you are invading their territory and getting too near their young. Running away as fast as you can, you spot a fast animal, and jump on its back.. it runs off honking, and trying to buck you off it's back. It fails, and runs into one of the side tunnels, which leads down into somewhere you haven't been before... what will be in there? The area that you enter is (randomly generated).
Edited by - Ketchaval on September 14, 2000 8:10:51 PM
I think the idea of generating from states / attributes is a great idea and what I'm trying to do as well. The tricky thing becomes, "What stats to use?" These stats should some how describe the character of the area. For instance, a high law stat in a town might mean many guards. Or a high danger stat area might generate many monsters.
Keep in mind that you can recombine pregenerated items in a random way. The maps for Total Annihilation were made this way from what I hear. Precreated islands and hills and such were mixed and merged to create new and interesting terrain.
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Just waiting for the mothership...
Edited by - Wavinator on September 14, 2000 9:48:43 PM
Keep in mind that you can recombine pregenerated items in a random way. The maps for Total Annihilation were made this way from what I hear. Precreated islands and hills and such were mixed and merged to create new and interesting terrain.
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Just waiting for the mothership...
Edited by - Wavinator on September 14, 2000 9:48:43 PM
In terms of MMORPGs, I seem to think both are good, though I put a twist on it. The Venusoft team is going to try and use a generator to generate a pile of content for our MMORPG world. Terrain doesn't really need to be hand drawn. We plan on using a scheme that was posted here a while back(or maybe gamasutra) where you take an image file and expand each pixel of the image to a larger section of generated 3D terrain.
From that initial generation of terrain we think we can save a pretty decent amount of time in content development. Enough to justify the programming effort to generate the terrain. Once the terrain is there, our 3D artist will then import that into their tool and make modifications to the terrain fixing generated errors in the terrain.(ie places where a player couldn't possibly get to, wildly erratic mountain ranges...)
Given the terrain layout, this will be handed off for custom design to our design team which will use prebuilt 3D objects to poulate the vast majority of the world. If we do it right, building areas for the world should be very dynamic and content creation should be easy enough for a legion of college students on co-op to help create. I am not sure if something like this has ever been accomplished before, but we seem to think that a world more detailed than anything out today, and much larger in scope could be created using this approach. We will soon see.
Kressilac
ps The real challenge, will be doing this while maintaining the look and feel of a custom designed world. (ie cities with unique look and atmospheres to them, varied styles of landscape, and ever changing eye candy for the user to enjoy.)
Edited by - kressilac on September 14, 2000 12:39:38 AM
From that initial generation of terrain we think we can save a pretty decent amount of time in content development. Enough to justify the programming effort to generate the terrain. Once the terrain is there, our 3D artist will then import that into their tool and make modifications to the terrain fixing generated errors in the terrain.(ie places where a player couldn't possibly get to, wildly erratic mountain ranges...)
Given the terrain layout, this will be handed off for custom design to our design team which will use prebuilt 3D objects to poulate the vast majority of the world. If we do it right, building areas for the world should be very dynamic and content creation should be easy enough for a legion of college students on co-op to help create. I am not sure if something like this has ever been accomplished before, but we seem to think that a world more detailed than anything out today, and much larger in scope could be created using this approach. We will soon see.
Kressilac
ps The real challenge, will be doing this while maintaining the look and feel of a custom designed world. (ie cities with unique look and atmospheres to them, varied styles of landscape, and ever changing eye candy for the user to enjoy.)
Edited by - kressilac on September 14, 2000 12:39:38 AM
I think random generation is actually going to become a new form of creativness. Probably called modified randomness or something like that. It has to happen in order to provide players with more interaction with the creative fields of a game.
I love Game Design and it loves me back.
Our Goal is "Fun"!
I love Game Design and it loves me back.
Our Goal is "Fun"!
Our "4X space strategy" game will have both totally randomized scenarios, totally pre-made scenarios and everything inbetween. The scenario designer can choose which elements of his/her scenario are random, which predefined. Eg. he/she could design a scenario which was totally random except that the attributes of a single star system (but not location) would be predefined.
It all depends on your game''s style. Final Fantasy would not have worked with a random world. If you have a strong emphasis on story, it''s difficult to make a working random world.
-Jussi
It all depends on your game''s style. Final Fantasy would not have worked with a random world. If you have a strong emphasis on story, it''s difficult to make a working random world.
-Jussi
One thing you have to be careful of when making random dungeons especially (but this could apply to the interior of starships, etc) is dead ends. Yes, i hate them.
You follow this path for ages, and then its a dead end. You go back a bit, follow a different path. It''s a dead end also. Eventually you go right back to the start and go the other way on the first turn you come to because of dead ends.
Admittedly this happens more in "maze" games rather than open dungeons like Diablo.
Just my little warning.
wise_guy
"I don''t listen to drug cheats" - kieran perkins
You follow this path for ages, and then its a dead end. You go back a bit, follow a different path. It''s a dead end also. Eventually you go right back to the start and go the other way on the first turn you come to because of dead ends.
Admittedly this happens more in "maze" games rather than open dungeons like Diablo.
Just my little warning.
wise_guy
"I don''t listen to drug cheats" - kieran perkins
Author
Wise_guy, that is an important point, as ideally it would be possible to have them follow good criteria like every (critical?) location can be reached by at least two paths (like Deus Ex game levels). And to include lots of vertical and horizontal loops in the level design.
Interesting thread here. I''m currently researching how (if possible) to generate a large-scale SF world with stars, planets, etc in the before mentioned Star Trek/Star Wars genre without having to store too much (hand-made) or generate too booring settings. The reason for this research is the plan to (some day) be able to make a MMORPG from this.
So, my findings up til now are these: Use pseudo-random generators in the core to generate star maps in each universe (oh, yes, multiple universes/dimensions here). Use pseudo-random generators on sub-levels in your model rigth down to where the detail level should stop. The generators must of course be interconnected, but in a hierarchical sense.
The pseudo-random generators work in a way that given the same seed, they produce the same sequence of numbers. Example: You have a 3D universe where the limits are set (but huge or interconnected with a parallell universe/sector). Say each axis could have up to 1625 integral positions, always representing a (coarse) position in space as (423, 1176, 1603). These three numbers are input to your generator (where the seed should be fixed at all times) that in turn produces an integral number from 1 to (almost 2^32). This number is semi-random in the way that you can never really predict its value given its input. Say two positions in space next to each other will not yield numbers with close values. Using this value as a serial number you find a way to distribute your stars in space (all this is up until now taken from an article on Gamasutra). You can modify the distribution using statistically distributed schemes, pre-defined zones, etc.
Now this gives a totally computer generated way of positioning something in your space and it will be in the same place every time with the same serial number (keeping the seed constant). In the beginning your universe is a bit booring, so you customize it. Instead of taking the approach where everything must be hand-made or where everything is genertated, you combine. Fill the world with generated items (stars, planets, types of planets, people, landscape, history, etc) that never uses storage and position hand-made items to enhance the experience, These hand-made items will of course override anything generated.
The game I''m trying to design will have 3 basic player modes: (1) GM-mode where some limitied creation is possible, but not playing, (2) The traditional player mode and (3) A viewer mode where players that sign up to be viewed may be watched by other people and possibly interact with these (TV anyone :-) ).
Using the GM-mode actively we could have a game where some of the contents are created by the players them self.
Ideas or comments?
So, my findings up til now are these: Use pseudo-random generators in the core to generate star maps in each universe (oh, yes, multiple universes/dimensions here). Use pseudo-random generators on sub-levels in your model rigth down to where the detail level should stop. The generators must of course be interconnected, but in a hierarchical sense.
The pseudo-random generators work in a way that given the same seed, they produce the same sequence of numbers. Example: You have a 3D universe where the limits are set (but huge or interconnected with a parallell universe/sector). Say each axis could have up to 1625 integral positions, always representing a (coarse) position in space as (423, 1176, 1603). These three numbers are input to your generator (where the seed should be fixed at all times) that in turn produces an integral number from 1 to (almost 2^32). This number is semi-random in the way that you can never really predict its value given its input. Say two positions in space next to each other will not yield numbers with close values. Using this value as a serial number you find a way to distribute your stars in space (all this is up until now taken from an article on Gamasutra). You can modify the distribution using statistically distributed schemes, pre-defined zones, etc.
Now this gives a totally computer generated way of positioning something in your space and it will be in the same place every time with the same serial number (keeping the seed constant). In the beginning your universe is a bit booring, so you customize it. Instead of taking the approach where everything must be hand-made or where everything is genertated, you combine. Fill the world with generated items (stars, planets, types of planets, people, landscape, history, etc) that never uses storage and position hand-made items to enhance the experience, These hand-made items will of course override anything generated.
The game I''m trying to design will have 3 basic player modes: (1) GM-mode where some limitied creation is possible, but not playing, (2) The traditional player mode and (3) A viewer mode where players that sign up to be viewed may be watched by other people and possibly interact with these (TV anyone :-) ).
Using the GM-mode actively we could have a game where some of the contents are created by the players them self.
Ideas or comments?
This topic is closed to new replies.
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