I was reading this (I’d heard of this game before):
This, to me, is… the COOLEST SHIT IN THE WORLD!! I was wondering what people HERE’s reactions are, to this kind of thing? Are there even human modellers involved in making the world, or is simply the Whole Thing algorithmically generated?? If anyone’s played this game - is it different every time??!! (the scenery, the gameplay, etc.?) I hope this paves the way for many more games like this??
Its just procedural generation, nothing new…but in this case its being done on on a massive scale. Think of substance designer, humans are involved without question, setting up the procedural textures with different branches for various looks, from say A to Z, or green leaf to purple leaf, allowing control for everything in between, witch can be controlled by a random function/math. Its quite old school, again, just on a massive scale, with the majority of the assets being procedural , after an artist creates the setup.
Just start the video at 2:40, again, showing procedural generation has been used since the dawn of video games, then goes off to explain no mans sky gen in simplistic terms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Ea2GOECEs
Procedural gen is used in film, scientific visuals, and pretty much anywhere in CG if the artist takes advantage of it…and has been since the start of 3D.
Initially it was pretty poor gameplay or mediocre mission gameplay and mediocre procedural generation, but nothing was really broken. Since they’ve been working on it the procedural generation has gotten somewhat better, gameplay improvement is debatable.
All of the actual objects or assets are built in pieces that can be mixed and matched and categorized into like groups. The engine is coded to mix and match components from like groups and more or less there you have it. While the method is more randomized then a standard game there’s still no “Make Good Art” button or “Make good GamePlay” button.
If you are this excited about No Man’s Sky i wonder have you seen Star Citizen?
Same kind of procedural generation used, but on a massive scale not in terms of quantity (number of stars), but quality (level of detail). And they try to keep it artist driven not completely random.