Procedural content generation of virtual terrain for games

Abstract. Game developers use Procedural Content Generation (PCG) in aid of game development to reduce costs, reach better memory consumption, increase creativity, and augment our limited human imagination by generating content algorithmically. Virtual terrain is one of the main topics of PCG; how well do these techniques support the special needs of game level design? To answer this question, a literature review was conducted to analyse correlation between the capabilities of various PCG-techniques and the needs of level design patterns. We observed that techniques permitting higher degree of local control increased their applicability for virtual terrain in games and that traditional fractal techniques, such as the midpoint displacement method and noise-functions, performed poorly despite their popularity. Our foremost contributions to this field of study were new insights towards more suitable PCG-techniques for use in game development

Quantifiable isovist and graph-based measures for automatic evaluation of different area types in virtual terrain generation

© 2013 IEEE. This article describes a set of proposed measures for characterizing areas within a virtual terrain in terms of their attributes and their relationships with other areas for incorporating game designers\u27 intent in gameplay requirement-based terrain generation. Examples of such gameplay elements include vantage point, strongholds, chokepoints and hidden areas. Our measures are constructed on characteristics of an isovist, that is, the volume of visible space at a local area and the connectivity of areas within the terrain. The calculation of these measures is detailed, in particular we introduce two new ways to accurately and efficiently calculate the 3D isovist volume. Unlike previous research that has mainly focused on aesthetic-based terrain generation, the proposed measures address a gap in gameplay requirement-based terrain generation-the need for a flexible mechanism to automatically parameterise specified areas and their associated relationships, capturing semantic knowledge relating to high level user intent associated with specific gameplay elements within the virtual terrain. We demonstrate applications of using the measures in an evolutionary process to automatically generate terrains that include specific gameplay elements as defined by a game designer. This is significant as this shows that the measures can characterize different gameplay elements and allow gameplay elements consistent with the designers\u27 intents to be generated and positioned in a virtual terrain without the need to specify low-level details at a model or logic level, hence leading to higher productivity and lower cost

Quantifiable isovist and graph-based measures for automatic evaluation of different area types in virtual terrain generation

© 2013 IEEE. This article describes a set of proposed measures for characterizing areas within a virtual terrain in terms of their attributes and their relationships with other areas for incorporating game designers\u27 intent in gameplay requirement-based terrain generation. Examples of such gameplay elements include vantage point, strongholds, chokepoints and hidden areas. Our measures are constructed on characteristics of an isovist, that is, the volume of visible space at a local area and the connectivity of areas within the terrain. The calculation of these measures is detailed, in particular we introduce two new ways to accurately and efficiently calculate the 3D isovist volume. Unlike previous research that has mainly focused on aesthetic-based terrain generation, the proposed measures address a gap in gameplay requirement-based terrain generation-the need for a flexible mechanism to automatically parameterise specified areas and their associated relationships, capturing semantic knowledge relating to high level user intent associated with specific gameplay elements within the virtual terrain. We demonstrate applications of using the measures in an evolutionary process to automatically generate terrains that include specific gameplay elements as defined by a game designer. This is significant as this shows that the measures can characterize different gameplay elements and allow gameplay elements consistent with the designers\u27 intents to be generated and positioned in a virtual terrain without the need to specify low-level details at a model or logic level, hence leading to higher productivity and lower cost

Conception d’un outil de génération procédurale d’environnements urbains destiné à la production de jeu vidéo

Au fil des dernières décennies, l’évolution de la capacité de calculs et de la qualité des outils a permis d’augmenter la qualité visuelle des jeux vidéo. En conséquence, l’effort et le coût nécessaires pour créer ces jeux ont explosé. Il y a donc un besoin concernant la création d’outils afin de permettre aux artistes d’automatiser certaines tâches non-créatives, notamment à ce qui a trait à la génération d’environnement. Ce mémoire a pour objectif de décrire les différentes étapes de la création d’un outil permettant de générer de manière semi-automatique un environnement urbain. Une des contraintes de cette recherche est que cet outil doit pouvoir être utilisé dans un cadre de production de jeu vidéo. Pour cela, l’outil doit répondre à un certain nombre de critères, comme pouvoir laisser l’artiste décider de l’aspect visuel des bâtiments ainsi que du plan du réseau routier pour répondre aux décisions prises par la direction artistique. Ce mémoire fait dans un premier temps un état des lieux des travaux existants dans le domaine de la génération procédurale en milieu de jeu, et plus précisément sur les méthodes de génération procédurale d’environnements urbains. Dans une deuxième partie, ce document présente les différentes étapes de création nécessaires pour obtenir un outil de génération procédurale d’environnements urbains. Enfin, les résultats obtenus avec l’outil en question sont présentés, ouvrant la porte à une discussion sur d’éventuels compléments et travaux futurs. Ce mémoire est accompagné d’une création, un outil de génération procédurale permettant à l’artiste de générer une zone urbaine peuplée de bâtiments paramétrables à partir de modules qu’il aura préalablement créé. During the last decades, the evolution of computation capacity and the quality of tools allows to improve the visual quality of video games. Consequently, effort and cost needed to create such games exploded. There is therefore a need for the creation of tools to allow artists to automate certain non-creative tasks, including those related to environment generation. This master’s thesis aims to describe the different stages of the development of a tool for semiautomatically generating an urban environment. One of the constraints of this research is that this tool must be operational in a context of video game production. To do so, the tool must meet a certain number of criteria, such as being able to let the artist determine the buildings’ visual aspect, or the road network scheme chosen by the artistic direction. Firstly, this master’s thesis analyzes literature reviews about PCG, and precisely urban environment generations. Secondly, this document presents the different steps needed to obtain an urban environment procedural generation tool. Then the results obtained with this tool are shown, leading to a discussion and an opening on potential future works on the subject. This master’s thesis is accompanied by a creation, a procedural generation tool allowing the artist to generate an urban area populated with configurable buildings made from modules built by the artist

Evolving gameplay elements into virtual terrains

With advancements in technology, consumers are expecting higher quality and more detailed video game content. This puts a strain on video game companies and their developers as they are required to manually design and create increasingly complex video game content. Procedural content generation can alleviate this burden by using technology to automatically generate video game content, effectively reducing development time and budget. This thesis presents a novel approach towards procedurally generating video game terrains that meet a set of gameplay requirements as specified by the user. This approach uses a genetic algorithm to evolve a set of modifications that, when applied to a user-specified terrain, incorporates the desired gameplay elements. This approach can aid developers by reducing time spent manually creating and editing video game terrains. An important aspect of this research involved designing a set of measures capable of characterising gameplay elements. A collection of isovist and graph-connectivity measures were discovered that can characterise different types of gameplay elements so that they can be automatically identified in a video game terrain. This set of measures may be useful in other procedural methods and related fields

Evolutionary Computation for Digital Artefact Design

This thesis presents novel systems for the automatic and semi-automatic design of digital artefacts. Currently, users wanting to create digital models, such as three-dimensional (3D) digital landscapes and website colour schemes, need to possess significant expertise, as the tools involved demand a high level of knowledge and skill. By developing an intuitive algorithmic process, founded on evolutionary computation (EC), this research enables non-specialist human designers to create digital assets more efficiently. This is achieved by replacing design activities that require significant manual input with algorithmic functions, thereby greatly improving the efficiency and accessibility of the practices involved. This research places an initial focus on the generation of 3D landscapes, but the latter aspect concentrates on the identification of text and background colour combinations more amenable to the reading process, particularly for readers with vision impairments. Choosing an ideal combination of colours requires knowledge of the cognitive and psychological procedures involved. Designers need to be aware of colour contrast ratios, brightness, and variations, which would require a series of aesthetic measurements if they are to be manually tested. In an effort to provide a colour design facility, this research offers algorithms that can generate colour schemes, based on the aforementioned principles, which can be used to derive an optimum scheme for a website. This research demonstrates a novel interactive genetic algorithm (IGA), coupled with the use of computational aesthetics, suitable for use in the evolution of terrain generation and digital landscape design. It also provides a tool for automatically creating EC-driven colour palettes for web design via evolutionary searches. Experimental trials use the EC framework developed from this research using both IGA technique and the computational aesthetic measures. Results indicate that the end-users can build any target digital landscape design with less inputs and more comfort, and if required can also automate the whole process to evolve aesthetically pleasing landscape designs. The results obtained for designing colour schemes for website design have proven that end-users can quickly develop a colour scheme, without the need for fine-tuning of colour combinations. Results can compete in quality the colour schemes that are designed by the professional website developers

Evolving patch-based terrains for use in video games

Procedurally generating content for video games is gaining interest as an approach to mitigate rising development costs and meet users' expectations for a broader range of experiences. This paper explores the use of evolutionary algorithms to aid in the content generation process, especially the creation of three-dimensional terrain. We outline a prototype for the generation of in-game terrain by compiling smaller height-map patches that have been extracted from sample maps. Evolutionary algorithms are applied to this generation process by using crossover and mutation to evolve the layout of the patches. This paper demonstrates the benefits of an interactive two-level parent selection mechanism as well as how to seamlessly stitch patches of terrain together. This unique patch-based terrain model enhances control over the evolution process, allowing for terrain to be refined more intuitively to meet the user's expectations