So, the last time you were with us you read how we'd be making the world generation happen in 2D first, to get it working flawlessly, before moving on to turn it into the 3D epic that you will end up playing. Well, we've done quite a bit of work on it, and it's working BEAUTIFULLY.
However, after the last post, I've been inundated with emails from people saying that they desperately want to see the 2D world simulation so that they can see the sorts of things they'll be finding in the game. Being a fan of our fans, we decided to capitulate and show you.
Anyway, here's a rough outline of the sorts of things you'll find (though only a small portion of what will be in the final game)
Of course, in the real thing, all these things won't be so close to one another. The area that you can see here is about 1km x 1km, but in reality, things will be miles apart! Here's a video of me traveling North. See how many things you can spot!
Since we recorded that though we've also begun work on factoring in water bodies, and after that, we'll be starting work on biomes (yes, this game has biomes :P)
So that's what we've been doing. There is MUCH more to find in the world than we've put in here, but you'll see more and more of it as we go along. And once it all goes into 3D, your minds will be blown :D
So stay tuned, and check us out on all of the channels!
Very interesting. So is this 2D productivity part of your engine, or a different application that can import a file for the engine to translate?
I really like this 2D idea to layout entire maps with objects.
Keep up the hard work, as always, I'm impressed!
Hi Booman! This is basically just a simulation to get it all working in memory before we go ahead and create it all in 3D for the game proper :) think of it like the minimap! Before, we had tried to dive right into 3D and make it work, which didn't go so well for us. This way is proving to be MUCH more efficient!
Nice work so far! Honestly, I'd be satisfied with a sort of 'tech demo' release of this so I could try this out and see what sort of things there are to see in this infinite 2D world!
Now, some questions for the upcoming Q&A blog post:
1. Have you considered adapting your procedural generation method for use with planetoids and/or sphereoids? I would imagine being able to procedurally generate an planet's worth of content and have the same content show up at the same spot every time would be very attractive to other developers looking to license your technology.
2. What inspired you to use the fourth dimension as a means to make your procedural generation method predictable (i.e. going from Point A to Point B, then returning to A from B, with the content remaining the same at A, B and all the points in-between)?
3. Why do you think it is important to let the community see your progress and give their feedback on it?
4. What resources (e.g. games, papers, source code, etc.) did you use to research ways of generating procedural content?
5. Are you working on other procedural generation content?
Lastly, if you'll take this one:
6. Given as Euclideon, the developers of the controversial game engine Unlimited Detail Engine, are also based in Australia, what is your opinion on their engine, and why?
Thanks for getting back to us! We're going to be giving the answers in a big blog post, so we've added yours to the list!