| JustBeingReal said: In the case of creating a universe or galaxy maybe, but not if developers procedurally generate just a world that they need. Procedural generation isn't limited to just creating some expansive universe, it can be used however you like. The generator will work however you code it. Another way to make a game is by doing what Ninja Theory are, create a toolchest of assets, for example like a brick, you can then multiply for the amount of bricks you need, but the engine can actually randomize geometry and pixels to make each brick look different, each brick will have the same art style and level of detail as the next one, but they'll look different from each other. The same can happen with all of the assets inside of a game world, essentially then the world is a stage for you to create great gameplay experiences within, for a game like Starfox Nintendo can create the solar system in a similar way, only they may have a studio 10X the size of the Hellblade team. Ninja Theory were using a team of like 13 people, making a game with a similar level of scope as Heavenly Sword, God of War or the like, only with a more open environment for players to explore.
Developing in this way studios can use their resources more wisely and make a game much more cost effective than previous generations, with way more gameplay. Nintendo could have used this kind of an approach to take Starfox from a single path of on rails gameplay through a few levels, to having a load more paths per level, on all levels, add in more dogfighting sections and it becomes a game with the same kind of arcade style player, only vastly expanded compared to past Starfox titles. |
Sure, but the assumptions in this thread were that there would be more than one planet in the scope of a game like No Man's Sky, Elite: Dangerous, and Star Citizen. I know how a generator works, use them often enough in computational physics. It depends greatly on which initial conditions and constants you choose. What you are describing is the equivalent of choosing a Skyrim preset and then modifying it to your liking. That works for one character, but let's say you know exactly how you want 60 characters to look. At that point you might as well just design the characters how you want them to look, and of course that would take just as much time and resources, while limiting your style to the generator's combinations. Hence, the issue with creating a universe or planet-sized game world for a game which depends on artificial assets and level design (like Starfox.)
