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And perhaps you are severley underestimating the effort large-scale world assets take to create. I agree that doing procedural generation properly takes a lot

And perhaps you are severley underestimating the effort large-scale world assets take to create. I agree that doing procedural generation properly takes a lot of work, but there's a reason that AAA open-world games like GTAV cost hunderends of millions of dollars to develop.

moron4hire 10y ago
I don't think No Man's Sky will show a significantly better RoI, in the long run. Star Citizen is certainly racking up the bills. We could even argue that AAA game studios using hand-modeled art assets instead of procedurally generated content is proof that hand-modelling is the "cheaper" route. Though most AAA game studios are using a hybrid approach and have some form of procedurally generated content in their pipeline, whether it's to create quests or to create the baseline environment on top of which bespoke content is added. Projects are hard. Full stop.
MaulingMonkey 10y ago
There's a reason that AAA open-world games like GTAV are using rather limited procedural generation, too. The problem is that to create N pieces of satisfyingly unique procedurally generated content, you need M pieces of content that were carefully designed within additional restrictions to make them combineable in various fashions - making them harder to create. Then you add code to glue that all together. If you think M=0, that just means you've hardcoded your content in code. When N >> M - e.g. you're generating thousands of similar-yet-distinct roguelike levels, trees, etc. - procedural generation can pay off. But even for large-scale world assets, it's frequently the case that N < M. Making the content non-procedurally is going to be cheaper - fewer limitations to worry about, and fewer pieces of content to actually generate. A few clever tricks - rotating, retexturing, tweaking a base model, etc. - let you make a lot of non-procedural content without creating each piece from scatch, and lets you stretch that content to appear like you have more variations than you actually do.

moron4hire 10y ago

I don't think No Man's Sky will show a significantly better RoI, in the long run. Star Citizen is certainly racking up the bills. We could even argue that AAA game studios using hand-modeled art assets instead of procedurally generated content is proof that hand-modelling is the "cheaper" route. Though most AAA game studios are using a hybrid approach and have some form of procedurally generated content in their pipeline, whether it's to create quests or to create the baseline environment on top of which bespoke content is added. Projects are hard. Full stop.

MaulingMonkey 10y ago

There's a reason that AAA open-world games like GTAV are using rather limited procedural generation, too. The problem is that to create N pieces of satisfyingly unique procedurally generated content, you need M pieces of content that were carefully designed within additional restrictions to make them combineable in various fashions - making them harder to create. Then you add code to glue that all together. If you think M=0, that just means you've hardcoded your content in code. When N >> M - e.g. you're generating thousands of similar-yet-distinct roguelike levels, trees, etc. - procedural generation can pay off. But even for large-scale world assets, it's frequently the case that N < M. Making the content non-procedurally is going to be cheaper - fewer limitations to worry about, and fewer pieces of content to actually generate. A few clever tricks - rotating, retexturing, tweaking a base model, etc. - let you make a lot of non-procedural content without creating each piece from scatch, and lets you stretch that content to appear like you have more variations than you actually do.