
Procedural content generation: creating a universe (2015) - zeveb
http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2015/01/14/procedural-content-generation-creating-a-universe/
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rayalez
Somewhat related(okay, not really, but still fun) - awesome talks about modern
procedural generation techniques(with AI, Houdini, etc):

How AI will change 3D industry

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=FlgLxSLsYWQ](https://youtube.com/watch?v=FlgLxSLsYWQ)

Procedural world generation for Far Cry

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=NfizT369g60](https://youtube.com/watch?v=NfizT369g60)

Procedurally generating Manhattan for Spider Man

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=4aw9uyj9MAE](https://youtube.com/watch?v=4aw9uyj9MAE)

Mindblowing talks by Anastasia Opara (using cool math, deep learning, and a
lot of creativity to create crazy cool stuff)

[https://www.anastasiaopara.com/talks](https://www.anastasiaopara.com/talks)

Procedurally generating 3D landscape in Houdini (a little tutorial I have
made, can't resist sharing)

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=o3mbIRZhv20](https://youtube.com/watch?v=o3mbIRZhv20)

~~~
Impossible
To add to your list here are some more talks!

Machine Learning and Level Generation

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6lHExfem6U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6lHExfem6U)

Roguelike celebration has a ton of content on procedural generation techniques
and its worth watching all of them, but this one was one of my favorites.

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsCqXksJuAkfZRtnW5Pq1mw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsCqXksJuAkfZRtnW5Pq1mw)

GPU-Based Procedural Placement in Horizon Zero Dawn

[https://www.guerrilla-games.com/read/gpu-based-procedural-
pl...](https://www.guerrilla-games.com/read/gpu-based-procedural-placement-in-
horizon-zero-dawn)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ooDLiU-o6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ooDLiU-o6c)

Procedurally Generating History in 'Caves of Qud'

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0sLa1y3BW4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0sLa1y3BW4)

ProcJam has a lot of good talks as well

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgFSPzCM9rx_Hxl-g13KcYw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgFSPzCM9rx_Hxl-g13KcYw)

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listic
I am toying with the idea of constructing a virtual social network of
artificial persons. It should have a population of artificial people each
having a believable friends and family.

How do I go about making a believable social graph?

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elihu
Erdos Renyi random graphs might be a good place to start.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93R%C3%A9nyi_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93R%C3%A9nyi_model)

If you want to start from a real-world dataset, take a look at Stanford's SNAP
large network dataset collection.

[https://snap.stanford.edu/data/](https://snap.stanford.edu/data/)

~~~
sago
Watts-Strogatz[0] has some characteristics that improve on pure ER.

GP: Sounds like a great project. What's the application?

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts%E2%80%93Strogatz_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts%E2%80%93Strogatz_model)

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blakespot
No Man's Sky is the most impressive implementation of this in a game that I've
ever seen. Not just basic data defining the systems and the planets and stars
within them, but the fractal detail that is each world full of flora, fauna,
etc.

A big jump over Fractalus, on that. :-) (
[https://bytecellar.com/2016/11/14/procedural-planetary-
explo...](https://bytecellar.com/2016/11/14/procedural-planetary-exploration-
across-the-decades/) )

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hinkley
Between the two games he talks about we had Starflight:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starflight)

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Epholys
I can't help but to do a shameless plug: the author also have an article about
L-Systems [0] which inspired me to create my own interactive generator [1].
There isn't a release yet, but it is mainly functional and I already have some
awesome results! Here is a video demo [2] and some produced L-Systems [3].

[0] [http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural-
content-g...](http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural-content-
generation-l-systems/) [1]
[https://github.com/epholys/procgen](https://github.com/epholys/procgen) [2]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/comments/b4kpa...](https://www.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/comments/b4kpaw/weekly_lsystem_special_edition_demo/)
[3] [https://imgur.com/a/0Rx7uln](https://imgur.com/a/0Rx7uln)

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pkaye
Also check out Space Engine which uses procedural content generation along
with real astronomical data.

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sibeshk96
This reminded me of the cosmological fine-tuning argument : that there are few
precisely fine-tuned constants which seeded the universe in it's inception,
which lead to complexity (life, planets, galaxies) emerging in the universe.

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z3phyr
Can anyone recommend any books or resources to get started with pcg??

~~~
codesushi42
Procedural Generation in Game Design - provides a good overview, but is a bit
light on implementation details. [https://www.amazon.com/Procedural-
Generation-Design-Tanya-Sh...](https://www.amazon.com/Procedural-Generation-
Design-Tanya-Short)

Mazes for Programmers - only covers procedural mazes, but contains a lot of
code and different types of mazes. [https://www.amazon.com/Mazes-Programmers-
Twisty-Little-Passa...](https://www.amazon.com/Mazes-Programmers-Twisty-
Little-Passages)

Great channel with Unity tutorials on terrain generation, cave generation
using cellular automata etc:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmtyQOKKmrMVaKuRXz02jbQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmtyQOKKmrMVaKuRXz02jbQ)

Procedural Content Generation for C++ Game Development - decent, but basic
book with 2D examples in SFML. [https://www.packtpub.com/game-
development/procedural-content...](https://www.packtpub.com/game-
development/procedural-content-generation-c-game-development)

Procedural generation Reddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/](https://www.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/)

~~~
z3phyr
Thank you so much!

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_bxg1
I was not aware that Elite Dangerous is a sequel

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taneq
Elite is the granddaddy of all open-universe space sims. It was also super
impressive technically, not only for the pseudorandom world generation but for
the 3D space combat in a time when simply drawing a single line on the screen
took a perceptible duration.

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Haga
Procedural compression is best compression.

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Epopeehief54
Google has done more to advance human knowledge than any other corporation.

