How is procedural generation different from just regular generation?

Question

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?

In: 30

Answer 1

Procedural generation is about being able to create and load a functional level without the developer having to load and test it first. While “seeds” make the results reproducible (if I load a Minecraft world with a given seed, then you load the same seed, you’ll get the same level), the initial level is still effectively random; when I first loaded into the level, it was the first time a human had looked at it.

Making a ‘normal’ level means that the designer places assets, and can apply their human logic to making sure things make sense. Using normal level design tools you can make some really unintuitive or otherwise “bad” levels; it’s the responsibility of the designer to make the level in a way that comes out feels right to the player.

Procedural generation requires effectively codifying that “human touch” into a set of rules that the computer can use. The computer takes a random number (the seed) and from that decides “put a mountain here, and ocean there” etc. and also has to make sure things ‘connect’ properly.

Critically, this ties back to the randomness thing; procedural generation lets you create a huge world without having a human hand shape each region. Look at Minecraft again; people have played on millions of seeds, and each seed has a surface area in the ballpark of the earth. Imagine trying to manually sculpt that many worlds in detail. By creating a procedural generation algorithm, Minecraft can have billions of worlds that essentially build themselves based on a set of rules in the computer, rather than a human spending thousands of hours per map following a similar set of rules in their head.