proc_gen

@procgen.bsky.social

957 Followers 663 Following

Procedural generation researcher. Currently making games. https://procedural-generation.tumblr.com #procgen #gamedev

Procedurally generated mountain with a beach in front of it.
Animation of white Perlin noise on a sky blue background.
GDMC AI Settlement 2023 generated Minecraft map: JEB_GEN_ by PositionNotLoaded
Isometric view of a generated Minecraft Settlement - 2024 contest winner by SpecificProtagonist
A triangular diagram, showing the relationship between Generative Aesthetic Forms: Individual, Gestalt, and Repetition. A tree or a snowflake is Individual. As is Exile (1988) which uses generativity to compress a single fixed, giant map into a tiny floppy disk. Or Nick Montfort's Megawatt which is a generated novel that uses repetition as part of creating a single artifact. In the repetition corner, we have orchards as well as things like repeating poetic forms (villanelles), the @infinite_scream bot, Aaron Reed's novel generator Aggressive Passive, and so forth. At the top in Gestalt, we have forests and No Man's Sky--insofar as No Man's Sky's original design goal was to keep you moving to the next planet, experiencing each mostly as a gestalt in passing, rather than exploring individual planets in depth.
Elite, Galaxy #6. Note the cluster in the lower left, which is disconnected from the bulk of the galaxy to the right - the only way to go between them is to jump to a different galaxy, travel to the corresponding stars, and jump back. Except the galaxy seed only rotated one way, so you'd have to loop around all 8 galaxies to return.
Trade route map of Elite Galaxy #1, with the stats for Zaonce. The lines show which stars are at a distance of seven light years or less. Since 7 lightyears is the maximum range of your ship, this traces all possible connections between stars.
BBC Elite Galactic Chart for Galaxy #1. (Or, number zero if you're looking at the internal bits.) Lave is circled in the lower left corner.
The Short Range Chart in Elite (1984) showing the original starting star systems. Lave, Diso, Riedquat, Leesti, Zaonce, Orerve, and Reorte are recognizable to a lot of players from back in the day and got carried forward into all of the sequels to Elite.
Screenshot of Lave Market Prices, in the BBC version of Elite (1984). Food, Textiles, Radioactives, Slaves (removed in the NES version), Liquor/Wines, Luxuries, Narcotics (also removed in the NES version), Computers, Machinery, Alloys, Firearms, Furs, Minerals, Gold, Platinum, Gem-stones, Alien items. Computers are valuable here, but there are none for sale since Lave is a Rich Agricultural planet.
High-level diagram of how the planet seed feeds into the different planet stats: some are directly from the seed bits, such as the X/Y location and name, some are wholly derived from other parts (e.g., production) and some, like the economy level, are from both direct and indirect sources.
Planet data display in four different versions of the original Elite, showing the major planet stats: Distance (from the player's current position), Economy type, Government type, Tech level, Population, etc. A slight rounding error difference meant that some distances were rounded differently across platforms, so Onrira might be anywhere from 6.8 to 7.2 light years away.
A Minecraft forest: no two trees are alike, but can you tell the difference? (Probably yes in this case, because you need a little noise for the organic feel. But it's a nice picture.)
Some forests in Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. The generator can only stamp down a handful of different trees, but no one notices because they're looking at the gestalt of the forest.
A classic Elite Dodecahedron space station in Elite: Dangerous (2014)
An ocean planet in Elite: Dangerous. One side is covered in ice, presumably because of tidal locking.
The interior of a space station in Elite: Dangerous
An Earth-like planet in Elite: Dangerous, with visible oceans, continents, and cloud-cover.
A planet from Elite: Dangerous, showing more recent impact craters with a different color than older, more worn-down craters.
A player rover drives across a lifeless planet in Elite: Dangerous
A procedurally generated earth-like planet with rings from Elite: Dangerous.
An Elite: Dangerous screenshot: a player-driven SRV Land Vehicle Buggy is driving across a rocky red planet, with the Milky Way rising dramatically above, vertically bisecting the image.
Screenshot of a mountain level in Moon Hunters, which is a top-down 2D game without a lot of real elevation changes.
A dream page from "The Seeker", where the protagonist dreams about the concept of DECIDE. The page starts: ==> INITIATE DREAM SEQUENCE...SYSTEM READY [DECIDE] to leave [DECIDE] these questions by evidence and... ...reason.i [DECIDE] to take it back and start running..
A page of blackout poetry by Liza Daly, spelling out "The Days Left Forebodings and Water" from the generated poetry collection "The Days Left Forebodings and Water"
A creature in Noctis IV, on the planet "Procgen Eden" at Parsis: 2539262; 4580564;-1033489.
View from inside the blocky interior of the spaceship in Noctis IV, overlaid with "UNKNOWN STAR / CLASS S00", "0.00 L.Y.", and "CALIBRATED"
Image of a castle from Ultima Castle Generator by Slashie, with some of the room placement being subtly asymmetric. It also shows furniture placement by room type.
A generated castle map, top down view, similar to both the graphical style and the map layouts used in Ultima V, from Slashie's Ultima Castle Generator
A screenshot of the Roguelike Celebration virtual MUD, showing the Obelisk room and live chat.
Bluesky "Celebrating 10M users" card, with number #355,691 for @procgen