Slightly related to a recent post.
I understand procedural generation in video games is basically an instruction set to tell the computer to run through to get the same result every time so that it doesn’t load a whole level each time, it builds the level based on a set of parameters.
How is this different than just loading a built level? Isn’t that what a normal script of code is in any other game? Is an instruction set to tell the computer to load the level?
Is it just the difference between one being done by a programmer and one done by a level designer/artist? They both need assets already designed and made to work right?
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For regular games: (an RPG or first person shooter) designing the level involves designing the terrain, and the flora and fauna, and the buildings, and the characters, and all the various 3D models and animations/model-rigging and textures.
For procedural generation (PG) : designing the level involves the developer building a system/algorithm that can generate the scene from a series of random numbers. With a different series of numbers, you get a different scene.
e.g. To build a mountain level, the first number might be the number of mountains (say.. “7”), then the next 7 numbers would be interpreted as the heights of each mountain, then the next 14 numbers would be the x and y (or latitude and longitude) of each of those mountains etc. Or more typically, you’d use the number series to generate a “height map” which is just a grid of squares and each number is the height of the next point.
Typically though, you use a mix of both. On huge, non-procedural games, they don’t hand-craft every single tree and bush, but let procedural generation place a lot of these kind of objects, and then hand-craft the interesting locations.
Similarly very, very few games are completely PG (with procedurally generated models and textures) but rather they have a set of hand-crafted tree models, and building models, and outpost layouts etc., and uses the PG system to place these, and select which of the trees to use, and which way to rotate it etc.
Hand-crafted games are usually more interesting and varied, but increase the game size, and take a lot of time and effort from the designers.
PG games can generate effectively infinite content, with far, far less game size needed; but often become very repetitive and boring once you start seeing patterns emerge. They can also present problems for the game AI, with characters getting stuck on the terrain or not being able to path-find (since no one may ever see much of the PG content, let alone test it to make sure it’s traversable by the player and by the NPCs).
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