Extend Wave Function Collapse to Large-Scale Content Generation

Abstract

Wave Function Collapse (WFC) is a widely used tile-based algorithm in procedural content generation, including textures, objects, and scenes. However, the current WFC algorithm and related research lack the ability to generate commercialized large-scale or infinite content due to constraint conflict and time complexity costs. This paper proposes a Nested WFC (N-WFC) algorithm framework to reduce time complexity. To avoid conflict and backtracking problems, we offer a complete and sub-complete tileset preparation strategy, which requires only a small number of tiles to generate aperiodic and deterministic infinite content. We also introduce the weight-brush system that combines N-WFC and sub-complete tileset, proving its suitability for game design. Our contribution addresses WFC's challenge in massive content generation and provides a theoretical basis for implementing concrete games.Comment: This paper is accepted by IEEE Conference on Games 2023 (nomination of the Best Paper Award