My take is that they are hand crafted but position, scale etc are influenced by factors such as gravity, star type and planet distance from star.
Odyssey - Plant life confirmed
- Thread starter NeilF
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My take is that they are hand crafted but position, scale etc are influenced by factors such as gravity, star type and planet distance from star.
I would call it partial procedural generation.
I would take that to mean the placement and -- at best -- combination of these handcrafted elements, but I guess we'll see.
Oh I agree, handcrafted elements and generated and placed by algorithm based on the makeup of the planet. But the description suggests a much larger variety than the half dozen with colour variations we currently have.
We also have to remember the scale. Brain trees or bark mounds etc, they are very large relative to a human. The new (lets call them) plants will I imagine be small, as would make sense for something we will see at human height on foot. There will need to be a wider procedural/algo element to make them work, I think.
But, as ever, we will see when we see.
That's my fear... In short, little reward for going out exploring, as there will be X hard coded variations on a common them, with no chance of unusual/interesting/unique plant outcomes given extreme parameters in to a sexy procedural engine
I dunno. If Frontier had made those same statements prior to the release of Horizons+Beyond, would you be calling them liars right now? Or does what we already have now still technically fulfill the same criteria as the statements they have made about Odyssey? If you can imagine Frontier making such an argument, and if you can imagine forum-goers defending it and/or dismissing disappointed fans as unrealistic crybabies, then you should prepare yourself for the possibility that what we’re getting might be in the same ballpark of variation and interactivity as the anomalies released with Beyond.
It can't be randomise template shuffling if it takes into consideration the atmosphere, the gravity, and all the other factors they mentioned.
Also keep in mind the first dev diary talked about the plants being "convergent", so I imagine the idea is there won't be (as now) half a dozen variations of brain tree, but huge numbers of different new plants which will register and hopefully appear quite different while being clearly convergent evolution. What we would see as types of grass from our perspective for example, convergent in that they all have evolved on different planets in different systems but all different species with some difference in appearance.
They'll procedurally generate 4 different plants just like resource formations!
They better call Sean Murray and c how its done
They better call Sean Murray and c how its done
I hope the new plant life is more varied than the current bio POIs by many orders of magnitude, or the interest will be gone after the first week or two.
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Yeah but could they believe his answer?
i think you will find its a procedural generation is output of one system to define which hand-crafted assets to use.
The assets have been designed to dovetail together and mesh coherently so they become their own unique thing,
but at the end of the day the assets still have to be made, and chosen how be sliced up by a human for the procedural generation to cherry pick them.
The assets have been designed to dovetail together and mesh coherently so they become their own unique thing,
but at the end of the day the assets still have to be made, and chosen how be sliced up by a human for the procedural generation to cherry pick them.
you are annoying.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict it won't be as in-depth as this. As much as I'd like that.
That's like the No Man's Sky way where a hand-crafted limb or a bud or a stalk can attach to another hand-crafted body/plant part, thus making up a Frankenstein's organism based on procedural generation. That would be amazing (assuming it fitted the game visually).
But I don't expect them to have achieved that.
Because I think if they had achieved that, there's no way they'd seek to spin that as "these will be hand-crafted, resulting in a high-quality experience".
I think they would be shouting from the rooftops about their new procedural life generator, with the emphasis heavily on the procedural generation rather than the technicality of sub-parts being made from handcrafted assets.
My expectation is a few tens (at best a couple hundred) of base flora types, with some minor procedural variations in colouration, texture, and distribution based on star class, temperature, geography, etc. At absolute best (and probably not as likely), maybe biome-type groupings of assets like grasses procedurally placed alongside weird plants and cacti in a credible and visually-appealing way.
I think we'll be able to sequence two identical looking plants on two different planets and the scans will tell us they have different genomes and just happen to look the same due to their adaptations (hence the comments about "convergent life").
To be honest, I'd be happy enough with that, but if I'm wrong and you're right, then I'll be even happier.
Yeah, to be honest I'd be happy with that.
My hope is that if/when they do atmospheric worlds they will maybe change their approach to vegetation just because you have to do it on a much larger scale. A "simple" solution isn't going to be appropriate. You're obliged to go further with it.
Facehuggers or riot!