WorldBrush: Interactive Example-based Synthesis of Procedural Virtual Worlds

International audienceWe present a novel approach for the interactive synthesis and editing of virtual worlds. Our method is inspired by painting operations and uses methods for statistical example-based synthesis to automate content synthesis and deformation. Our real-time approach takes a form of local inverse procedural modeling based on intermediate statistical models: selected regions of procedurally and manually constructed example scenes are analyzed, and their parameters are stored as distributions in a palette, similar to colors on a painter’s palette. These distributions can then be interactively applied with brushes and combined in various ways, like in painting systems. Selected regions can also be moved or stretched while maintaining the consistency of their content. Our method captures both distributions of elements and structured objects, and models their interactions. Results range from the interactive editing of 2D artwork maps to the design of 3D virtual worlds, where constraints set by the terrain’s slope are also taken into account

Procedural content creation in VR

3D content creation for virtual worlds is a difficult task, requiring specialized tools based on a WIMP interface for modelling, composition and animation. Natural interaction systems for modelling in augmented or virtual reality are currently being developed and studied, making use of pens, handheld controllers, voice commands, tracked hand gestures like pinching, tapping and dragging mid-air, etc. We propose a content creation approach for virtual reality, placing a focus on making procedural content generation (PCG) intuitive and generalizable. Our approach is to start with a library of 3D assets, with which the user populates an initially empty world by placing and replicating objects individually. The user can then construct procedural rules to automate this process on the fly, creating abstract entities that behave like a block of objects while still being treated and manipulated like other singleton objects. To this end, we design a rule system for procedural content generation adequate for virtual reality, including nested object replication, relative placement and spacing, and randomized selection. We then design and prototype a natural interaction model for virtual reality suited to this rule system, based on two-handed object manipulation, controller input and user voice commands. A prototype of this interaction model is built, and finally, a former user evaluation is conducted to assess its viability and identify avenues for improvement and future work

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

SentientWorld : human-based procedural cartography - an experiment in interactive sketching and iterative refining

This paper presents a first step towards a computer-assisted design tool for the creation of game maps. The tool, named Sentient World, allows the designer to draw a rough terrain sketch, adding extra levels of detail through stochastic and gradient search. Novelty search generates a number of dissimilar artificial neural networks that are trained to approximate a designer’s sketch and provide maps of higher resolution back to the designer. As the procedurally generated maps are presented to the designer (to accept, reject, or edit) the terrain sketches are iteratively refined into complete high resolution maps which may diverge from initial designer concepts. Results obtained on a number of test maps show that novelty search is beneficial for introducing divergent content to the designer without reducing the speed of iterative map refinement.This research was supported, in part, by the FP7 ICT project SIREN (project no: 258453).peer-reviewe

Methods for Procedural Terrain Generation

Procedural generation has been utilized in the automatic generation of data for a long time. This automated processing has been utilized in the entertainment industry as well as in research work in order to be able to quickly produce large amounts of just the kind of data needed, for example, in system testing. In this thesis, we examine different ways to utilize procedural generation to produce different synthetic terrains. First, we will take a closer look at what procedural generation is, where it originally started, and where it was utilized. From this we move on to look at how this technology is utilized in the creation of terrains and what terrain is generally visually required. From this we move on to look at different ways to implement terrain generation. As part of this thesis, we have selected three methods and implemented our own implementations for terrain generation. We look at the performance of these implementations, and what a test group thinks about those synthetic terrains. The results obtained from this are analyzed and presented at the end of the thesis.Proseduraalista generointia on hyödynnetty datan automaattisessa tuottamisessa jo pitkään. Tätä automatisoitua prosessointia on niin hyödynnetty viihdeteollisuudessa kuin tutkimustyössä, jotta ollaan voitu tuottaa nopeasti suuria määriä juuri sellaista dataa kuin tarvitaan esimerkiksi järjestelmän testauksessa. Tässä tutkielmassa tarkastellaan erilaisia tapoja hyödyntää proseduraalista generointia erilaisten synteettisten maastojen tuottamiseksi. Aluksi tutustutaan hieman tarkemmin siihen mitä proseduraalinen generointi on, mistä se on alunperin lähtenyt ja mihin sitä on hyödynnetty. Tästä siirrytään tarkastelemaan miten kyseistä tekniikkaa hyödynnetään maastojen luomisessa ja mitä maastoilta yleensä visuaalisesti vaaditaan. Tästä siirrytään tarkastelemaan eri tapoja toteuttaa maaston generointia. Osana tätä tutkielmaa, on valittu kolme menetelmää ja laadittu niistä kullekin oma toteutus maaston generointiin. Työssä tarkastellaan näiden toteutusten suoritustuloksia, ja mitä mieltä testiryhmä on kyseisistä synteettisistä maastoista. Saadut tulokset ja niiden analyyysi esitellään tutkielman lopussa