Procedural World Generation in Stars Reach
By Meghann Bledsoe
Stars Reach is a game where there’s always something new to discover around the corner whether it be new ways to interact with other players or with the environment. So how do we make huge numbers of worlds for players to explore that ensure that they always have something new to find? Procedural generation is the answer, and will be pretty familiar to those that have played No Man’s Sky, Terraria, Minecraft, and many other games.
THE POWER OF THE THIRD DIMENSION
Procedural generation, when used to create 3D terrain, tends to use mathematical algorithms with different seeds to generate 2D height fields like the one below.
When these 2D images are translated into 3D, the black areas are the lowest points and the white areas are the tallest. By changing the seed that the algorithms use, we can create an infinite number of these height fields. This is so powerful, but the downside is that these are 2D images. That means no overhangs, no caves, etc. Everything has to be wide at the lowest point of the map and narrow at the top.
What we’re doing at Playable Worlds though is unique and allows us to create fully 3D worlds that use these algorithms to create chains of tunnels, unique terrain formations, arches, overhangs, and ledges! This opens up all kinds of possibilities for new and exciting environments.
WAIT…THAT’S A REAL PLACE?
A lot of the inspiration for our worlds comes from the most unique landforms that occur naturally on Earth. There are truly amazing and surprising things out there!
For fun, let’s grab that last image of the mushroom rock and see what we can do with our tools to make some mushroom rocks and get them into the game! The image below will be our initial shape. It’s interesting for sure, but this is the limit of what most procedural generation tech would let us do.
Now! With our tool, we can scoop out the underside and leave a cool stem shaped rock underneath. Then, all we have to do is throw it into the game.
And here’s another entirely different mushroom created by taking the algorithms that made the first mushroom and changing just the initial input value!
Both of these are made entirely of mathematical algorithms with our awesome tool, and we can combine shapes like these with other types of terrains and features in infinite numbers of combinations to bring new adventures to all the eager explorers out there!
KEEP IN TOUCH WITH OUR EXPLORERS
Join our official game Discord for an afternoon and read their stories, see their screenshots in the #your-wow-moments channel. Keep up with the amazing things folks are finding and doing in our first few planets and the space between.