Procedural Map Generation - Rust

[url]https://trello.com/c/lXNAVJ9X/292-procedural-map-generation[/url] Anyone else excited at the possibility of servers with random maps each wipe?

[QUOTE=thethrax;44290284][url]https://trello.com/c/lXNAVJ9X/292-procedural-map-generation[/url] Anyone else excited at the possibility of servers with random maps each wipe?[/QUOTE] I saw this last night, got super stoked on the idea. If they can keep a good balance on it I think it'd be a really cool way to mix things up :D Sidenote: R.I.P. Rustmap.net shortcut on my desktop, you served me well.

im just wondering how would rad towns work on these? or are they planning on getting rid of them?

[QUOTE=hippowombat;44290346]I saw this last night, got super stoked on the idea. If they can keep a good balance on it I think it'd be a really cool way to mix things up :D Sidenote: R.I.P. Rustmap.net shortcut on my desktop, you served me well.[/QUOTE] That map is already inaccurate anyways since they rotated the map.

[QUOTE=Warm;44290566]That map is already inaccurate anyways since they rotated the map.[/QUOTE] Didn't know that, thanks for the heads up!

[QUOTE=mattzey;44290487]im just wondering how would rad towns work on these? or are they planning on getting rid of them?[/QUOTE] You could set it up the same way they are planning on implementing dynamic resources. Basically towns would have specific dynamic templates and would be placed on the procedural map wherever there is space form them but based on a random algorithm. It probably is harder than it sounds. There would have to be many variables set up to prevent towns from spawning inside mountains or underwater. The hardest part would be road implementation to connect the randomly placed towns.

yep that's why I was wondering what they were planning on doing with the rad town spawning because the roads could end up very messy

[QUOTE=mattzey;44291072]yep that's why I was wondering what they were planning on doing with the rad town spawning because the roads could end up very messy[/QUOTE] They could make the roads something the admins would have to implement manually for the time being. Give them a friendly GUI interface to create a randomly generated map with the towns randomly generated and the ability to draw the roads manually.

[QUOTE=laminblake;44291286]They could make the roads something the admins would have to implement manually for the time being. HGive them a friendly GUI interface to create a randomly generated map with the towns randomly generated and the ability to draw the roads manually.[/QUOTE] Why? Roads can be procedurally generated as well. Just use a pathfinding algorithm to connect them.

Very exciting possibility.. Trying to keep my enthusiasm in check, knowing this is probably quite a ways away.. but FP is making it hard teasing us like this! However Andre said on the Trello that he just started working on it yesterday? Really? Already from this: [IMG]https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/52499327144924b10600289a/5328a747db0ae5a26f25dec9/600x447/f60f7363ac9383a68d1cc6c4c88a249f/Screen_Shot_2014-03-18_at_20.53.08.png[/IMG] To this today: [IMG]https://trello-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/52499327144924b10600289a/5328a747db0ae5a26f25dec9/600x600/87886ac9fc4213aabee473bb766d44df/Screen_Shot_2014-03-19_at_18.58.22.png[/IMG] Looks like some damn good progress to me. Also... [QUOTE="André Straubmeier"]The terrain should probably be highly configurable by the admins so that they can do things like waterworld.[/QUOTE] This. Rust Waterworld. YesssPlease! :dance:

Procedurally generated would be sick. I wouldn't worry too much about radtowns and roads, it just takes refinement a la dwarf fortress.

There are many different games that have attempted procedural generation of large outdoor areas that include towns. I think Dwarf Fortress probably does it better than most. Daggerfall did it very well for it coming out in 1996. There's also Minecraft and those 3079/3089 games. There was a cool demo out there showing a procedurally generated city. I've always wanted to learn how to do these kinds of things. I'd like to see games that can make themselves one day. We just give the computer the knowledge and conditions and it generates something for us to play. Dwarf Fortress is the closest we have for now.

[QUOTE=bustaballs;44291455]There are many different games that have attempted proc medural generation of large outdoor areas that include towns. I think Dwarf Fortress probably does it better than most. Daggerfall did it very well for it coming out in 1996. There's also Minecraft and those 3079/3089 games. There was a cool demo out there showing a procedurally generated city. I've always wanted to learn how to do these kinds of things. I'd like to see games that can make themselves one day. We just give the computer the knowledge and conditions and it generates something for us to play. Dwarf Fortress is the closest we have for now.[/QUOTE] Take a look at Sir, you are being hunted. Tom Betts is doing amazing things with procedural generation. But it sounds like they are going at it in a different manner for rust.

Cube World is also doing something like this. Rust I think would have it easier, depending on what sort of other rad-town like places they plan to include in the game. Since the majority of the content right now is player generated, all they are doing is backdrop stuff.

Yes i was going to make a topic about this, if it also was voxel based we would have terraforming and the ability the dig caves ad do proper mining, aswell as the ability to cut down trees.

For the nostalgic who remember, we had procedural map generation in 1991: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_(video_game)[/url]

cant wait, having a map full of islands is gonna be great

[QUOTE=Corvo;44292090]cant wait, having a map full of islands is gonna be great[/QUOTE] Yes and the ability to craft boats, with space for storage to get stuff from one place to another, also swimming with the possibility of drowning when you swim longer than 100 meters.

[QUOTE=utilitron;44291803]Take a look at Sir, you are being hunted. Tom Betts is doing amazing things with procedural generation. But it sounds like they are going at it in a different manner for rust.[/QUOTE] That game does the procedural generation pretty well, but there's not much to show for mountains and big differences in terrain (at least from what I've played of it so far). Would be nice to see this in Rust, as long as they keep the ability to make custom non-procedural maps. Definitely cannot be easy with all the math and checks involved like generating roads and paths that players can actually traverse through, placing loot drops and towns in places that make sense, etc. T'would be very impressive if they were able to pull this off while keeping gameplay and balance all good. As far as procedural generation goes, I'm really interested in seeing where developers go in the next few years with games that use actual real world "laws" or maths of nature implemented into the game's generation. I think No Man's Sky was supposed to be using something like this for whole world generation, but who knows if the worlds in their trailer were actually procedurally generated or prebaked to look nice.

love fractal terrains, I wrote a rough demo for IOS a few years back, I actually wanted to make a survival game with natural disasters, kinda like Rust but with terrain that changed. Here is an animation: [url]http://s17.postimg.org/xsbfwopyl/island.gif[/url]

They shouldn't add in procedural generation into the game until we have some type of official compass and coordinate or map system in place. It's not too terrible to have an area that you can learn over time. If they have completely generated maps while still in alpha, it'll be very difficult to play. Did you finally manage to learn your way around this map? Time for an update and server wipe. Enjoy the new map. What do people attempting to survive do in regards to not getting lost and being able to back track? They leave markings all around if they don't have tools like compasses. Gives us some way to leave basic marks that are saved locally and unseen by other players. Maybe that'll be an alternative to a map. Procedural generation is super cool but please give us the tools to make it fun instead of purely frustrating.

The biggest challenge is likely to be avoiding holes you cannot get out of when placing rocks/mountains.

[QUOTE=tornainbow;44293146]The biggest challenge is likely to be avoiding holes you cannot get out of when placing rocks/mountains.[/QUOTE] I think they might have to implement a terrain mesh with no overhangs and gradient limiters...and give us climbing gear :)

and need to learn the world again?sounds like a really bad idea

[QUOTE=mihai_pruna;44299358]I think they might have to implement a terrain mesh with no overhangs and gradient limiters...and give us climbing gear :)[/QUOTE] Well climbing would be alot of fun, and if they also made it voxel based. we could do terra forming, and more realistic mining for resources like going to mining shafts in the mountains and caves for stone, copper, gold and iron.

Really would make the game something really special. First thing I voted for on the Trello.

[QUOTE=Elias79;44300190]Well climbing would be alot of fun, and if they also made it voxel based. we could do terra forming, and more realistic mining for resources like going to mining shafts in the mountains and caves for stone, copper, gold and iron.[/QUOTE] Voxel support would be killer, but it'd be hard to implement in Unity, I don't think it has support for it by default. Edit: Scratch my last comment, it can totally be done, check out The Forest as an example :p [URL="http://www.survivetheforest.com"]http://www.survivetheforest.com[/URL]

[QUOTE=hippowombat;44301106]Voxel support would be killer, but it'd be hard to implement in Unity, I don't think it has support for it by default. Edit: Scratch my last comment, it can totally be done, check out The Forest as an example :p [URL="http://www.survivetheforest.com"]http://www.survivetheforest.com[/URL][/QUOTE] Speaking of which.. Garry's comments on the procedural terrain generation: [QUOTE=garry]Looks pretty impressive! This could potentially change everything. If we can sync the landscape between client and server we could really make the world dynamic. I think something to keep in mind.. the current 'pre generated' terrain looks terrible from above. Maybe it would be worth visualising it from the player's point of view for us? Also - I know you've worked on it before. Maybe we should be exploring the feasibility of it being voxel based too. It might turn out a bit too minecrafty if we do it wrong.. but I know a lot of people have hard ons for caves.[/QUOTE] If we can dig.. Bunkers, basements, caves, tunnels, moats, more realistic mining :dance: Not to mention other benefits of being voxel based like tree cutting, maybe some more interesting building decay/destruction, etc. I really hope this comes to fruition but it's going to be tough to do it right. I was always under the impression Rust would be somewhere around 100-150 player max (disregarding the 250/500slot experiments). That's a lot of different screens to correctly sync changing terrain.. Hopefully it doesn't drag down performance/cause FP to compromise the large-scale vision of the game. Really don't want Rust to end up looking like 7 Days to Die either. *fingers crossed*

Holy shit, I was not expecting this. I had no idea they would even attempt something like this. This is going to be great if they can fully go through with it. [QUOTE=EnderRay;44299373]and need to learn the world again?sounds like a really bad idea[/QUOTE] Yeah because playing the same static map over and over again is really really interesting.

Examples of procedural worlds [B]Procedural Worlds Blog [/B] Following one man's task of building a virtual world from the comfort of his pajamas. Discusses Procedural Terrain, Vegetation and Architecture generation. Also OpenCL, Voxels and Computer Graphics in general. [URL]http://procworld.blogspot.se[/URL] [B]Outerra[/B] 3D planetary engine for seamless planet rendering from space down to the surface. Can use arbitrary resolution of elevation data, refining it to centimeter resolution using fractal algorithms. [URL]http://www.outerra.com[/URL]