12 minute interview with CR on procedural generation + extras:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGZJP5oVUn8
Answer Summary (very brief copy/paste from reddit)
0:27 Gamescom Recap
Chris discusses V0.9 alpha, indicates a next-week launch, talks racing, and more. Control mapping and multicrew ship combat previews referenced.
3:50 What is CIG's definition of "Procedural Generation?" It seems like so many companies use it as a buzz-word now -- how do you define it?
"We are going to use it as a tool for universe building. I know a lot of people think Star Citizen is purely hand-crafted and that something like Elite or No Man's Sky is all procedural, but the reality is that all of these games have a mix of hand-crafted and procedural stuff in them." Chris notes how procedural generation will be deployed modularly to "help" in world and universe creation, rather than replacing a hand-built approach. Voxel approach discussed.
7:50 What's the current status of the team? How many are working on procedural generation?
Total team size is now 271 people, more or less. Includes contractors. Procedural generation team recruits assistance from well-known industry veterans (unnamed).
9:00 What types of content will be procedurally generated? Planets? Stars? Systems?
Not ships. Not enemies. Planets and stars for sure. Systems might be generated in limited part by procedural generation as the game ages, but it isn't an immediate desire or concern. Discusses philosophy of deploying procedural generation as a helping tool. Discusses limits as players consume content faster than development. Talks mining asteroids and voxel formation of planets / space objects to allow player manipulation.
10:25 What sort of constraints are being placed on generation? Planet size, etc.
Too early to say. Moving to 64-bit, which is a huge change for Cry Engine, but it's needed for scale and special handling of planets. 32-bit doesn't handle the size of a planet vs. size of a space ship (scaling) very well.
11:34 What’s the next milestone / pipeline for procedural generation?
Still in R&D now. First major milestone for procedural generation will be using procedural generation as a tool, not an end-all, be-all solution to universe creation. Frees up artists to focus on things other than building millions of asteroids by hand.
12:35 Conclusion
Thank you, backers!
FOV -> Currently fixed due to early build. They might allow some modifying of FOV, but are very concerned about it being abused to see outside of what one would normally see in a ship. Will likely place constraints on FOV. Chris sounded like he was considering fixed FOV with the potential for slight changes in either direction. It is not a priority right now.
AMD 64-bit concerns -> We talked architecture for a bit and will have to resume the discussion when we have more time -- maybe a Skype call. Chris doesn't think the game will necessarily be demanding enough to warrant too much cause for concern on higher-end AMD chips (my assumption was FX8/9 will have no worries), though we didn't have time to get into lower-end stuff like the 760K. Chris said the good news is that not all of the game will require heavy 64-bit FP stuff. I think we actually answer this question at the very end of the impending customization video, so I don't want to misquote him. It sounded like -- without rechecking audio because I'm on the floor -- the scaling of the game (some objects seen are very far, some are very close) will allow the team to optimize for AMD hardware fairly efficiently. Chris did not seem concerned about performance on different processors, as long as they're within a reasonable spec to play a hi-fidelity game to begin with.
Shopping -> what is the user experience when buying ships / items -> More on this soon also! For now, Chris said that ship shopping is still being designed on a deeper level. I asked about the UI when shopping (what's the vision for the UI?) and he didn't want to get too deep into that discussion due to (1) time and (2) UI is still being designed.
