Thanks for this!
Game Informer: 30 minute 'BTS' video of No Man's Sky
- Thread starter JehutyRunner
- Start date
Thanks for this!
Cheat Code
Member
Sean Murray is the most humble man in the world.
Veritigo_X
Member
Pretty much why I'm okay with the planets being closer together. It would suck having to travel 5 hours just to reach a moon orbiting the planet you are on. I imagine some planets will be farther apart.
best way to think of it is this: the algorithm is the same every time.... so if a point youre standing at is 1+1 everthing thats generated at that point equals 2. the algorithm never changes...
SpookyFries
Member
For those of you who want to know more about the technology, here's a nice breakdown that I've seen awhile back. Its a few years old but the concepts remain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhyyUiYQolA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhyyUiYQolA
Net_Wrecker
Member
By the way, I appreciate but am surprised that they are going into the nitty-gritty of the random generation.
I appreciate it immensely from the math perspective, but I can see it totally killing the "magic" for some people. At the end of the day, the game's massive world doesn't exist, other than as a series of functions to be evaluated and a distribution of values. That's beautiful to me, but can be kind of meaningless to some people I think
It's no different to assets, characters, and scripting being lost when a game world "refreshes", or something like Mass Effect where the rest of the universe doesn't actually exist when you land on your little carefully built level. The presentation of the tech is what brings the illusion together. It's hard to get a feel for that when seeing dev cam flythroughs with no visual feedback, no day/night transitions, no AI, no ship gameplay, no interstellar travel, no music, no ambiance, etc. If you think about it hard enough, you can ruin the "magic" in any game.
Oh wow. The sine wave example really explained everything.
The entire video Sean was saying that any input to the generation function would always yield the same output, but the literal explanation of that didn't dawn on me until he used a Sine Function to explain himself. That is why they do not have to store any information about their procedurally generated universe, when two different people observe the same planet, it will always be the same thing, but it also hasn't been generated until they actually visit.
Mind blowing stuff.
Gameinformer: "So the entire game is a sine wave?"
Also, better get those i7s, this is going to be one of those games that requires multithreading.
The entire video Sean was saying that any input to the generation function would always yield the same output, but the literal explanation of that didn't dawn on me until he used a Sine Function to explain himself. That is why they do not have to store any information about their procedurally generated universe, when two different people observe the same planet, it will always be the same thing, but it also hasn't been generated until they actually visit.
Mind blowing stuff.
Gameinformer: "So the entire game is a sine wave?"
Also, better get those i7s, this is going to be one of those games that requires multithreading.
Clauss
Member
God this tech is amazing. I'm hoping that we see some real game play soon though. Either way, this has got me all sorts of stoked. At its most basic level, this has what it takes to be my dream game. Exploring space and alien worlds on an essentially infinite scale? Yes. Instabuy on PS4 and PC for me. No doubt.
This is what I'm worried about. I'm super hyped by the premise of the whole thing, but I really don't think the planets are going to have as much character as I would like for them to. Everything looked great when he was flying around in space and then to the planet's surface, but much of the terrain looked kinda bland even at the highest LOD. I also wonder how much of the smaller, tertiary details are going to look in comparison to that one planet they've been showing off. There's a reason studios have so many artists on large, AAA titles.
I wonder if it's like in Kerbal Space Program where there is at least two different "maps" with different scales. When you go far enough from planet surface, the game switches to the orbit mode which is basically same as map view. But instead of static map like in KSP, in NMS when you "skip" closer to surface, it loads the minecraft style world generation again. The skybox is then just projected from map view. The interesting part is that you can walk around the map and the coordinates go back to zero at some point. I'd really like to peek under the hood of this one
Lord Panda
The Sea is Always Right
Great and straight interview. No spin or BS.
Sean mentioned Mass Effect games having a galaxy map with a smattering of planets and locations. I'd love a Mass Effect world that used this procedural approach to generate planets and star systems in addition to obviously the usual amount of 'Jewel' planets that have direct or heavy creative input and polish for the sake of the narrative.
Sean mentioned Mass Effect games having a galaxy map with a smattering of planets and locations. I'd love a Mass Effect world that used this procedural approach to generate planets and star systems in addition to obviously the usual amount of 'Jewel' planets that have direct or heavy creative input and polish for the sake of the narrative.
ReplacementPelican
Member
This game is just so unreal, I'm so excited for this.
GifGafIsTheBestGaf
Member
Oh wow. The sine wave example really explained everything.
The entire video he was saying that any input to the function will always have the same output, but the literal explanation of that didn't dawn on me until the sine example. That is why they do not have to store any information about their procedurally generated universe, when two different people see that planet, it will always be the same thing, but it also hasn't been generated until they visit.
Mind blowing stuff.
Gameinformer: "So the entire game is a sine wave?"
Also, better get those i7s, this is going to be one of those games that requires multithreading.
just amazing, will watch this when i get home. (hope by that time GI release a YT video )
About 4 min. into the segment, there's apart where creator, Sean Murray is demonstrating how fast flying over terrain on a planet is; he says that terrain is being generated on the fly (mathematical algorithms and what-not). He said it will (the terrain will) be different on each individuals instance of the game.
It makes me wonder - from a multiplayer perspective - is this game going to use seeds, akin to Minecraft - anybody have a clue...it would have to, right?
It makes me wonder - from a multiplayer perspective - is this game going to use seeds, akin to Minecraft - anybody have a clue...it would have to, right?
Yes. The world generates same way for everyone. This is because now you don't need to save any of the generated geometry.
SpookyFries
Member
Everybody will start on their own planet but the universe is going to be a shared seed
GoldenCrow
Member
No the terrain is the same, it uses a formula but because the formula is the same for everybody the input will always create the same output.
The Lone Courier
Member
Pretty impressive stuff.
ReplacementPelican
Member
I understand what you're saying but it takes so much just to understand the maths behind this game and it's fascinating to hear about.
Muppet of a Man
Member
This dude is awesome. I hope he and his team are very successful and head up new and interesting IPs in the future. Devs thinking outside of the box like him are what we need in this industry. We do not need more games where publishers and marketing departments take the reigns.
Yup. Going through an open-world game on ghost mode is very different than exploring it on foot. It can definitely ruin the magic in a world.
krypt0nian
Banned
This far out from the initial reveal and this is the most mindboggling thing I've ever seen. That he remains humble is the best part.
Wind's Howling
Member
I fully love and embrace the concept of the game.
But saying the game does not have pop-in, which it clearly has, and naming it an added aspect of "procedural generated content"?
Fuck that. It sounds like an Ubisoft defense statement.
But saying the game does not have pop-in, which it clearly has, and naming it an added aspect of "procedural generated content"?
Fuck that. It sounds like an Ubisoft defense statement.
It wouldn't be making much noise in academic circles because it's the other way round, academics and hobbyists have been playing with that stuff for years and NMS is basically a straight application of it. Just search for procedural planets on youtube. as for creative industries they're already using procedural generation but have been snubbing very direct approaches like this because it removes tons of creative control - you're essentially putting your entire assets in the hands of the machine and when you create assets for a living it's not gonna sound like a good thing.
EnlightenedMint
Member
Can't wait to see more GI coverage/videos of No Man's Sky, this is great stuff.
KCroxtonJr
Member
What? He was saying things don't pop-in, they fade-in, which is absolutely true and has nothing to do with things being procedural. Many regular games have things fade-in instead of pop-in.
He says that the game doesn't have pop-in but rather fade-in which it has, only time when it pops in is when he is travelling at a speed that won't be possible in the game.
Making games exclusives to some platforms is not very "outside of the box thinking". Also the game itself is mostly rehashing and using already old ideas in clever ways. I'd say this game is more trendy than groundbreaking. Does not make it less interesting though.
ReplacementPelican
Member
He framed it like that because pop-in would imply that the data is already there. I think you're being a fair bit too cynical here.
Also he called it fade-in because it doesn't pop, especially at speeds the player can actually travel.
It technically does have pop-in, but it is being phased in rather than just appearing. It is also constantly loading/generating that terrain, so you'd expect a gradual amount of pop-in as it calculates. Also remember that at some points he was going extremely fast, where you'll typically spend most of your time wandering either on foot or in a ship and they've tuned the speed to not cause too much distraction from the pop-in.
Oh, this is also on a PC build by the looks of it. At least, that's what I presume the giant box is underneath the TV.
its always the same world for everyone. its not randomly generated. same seed in the equation. explains it really early in the video.
still waiting to see if theres going to be gameplay in this game.
Yes if you want that play a game like Elite or Star Citizen having huge real distance. I like it just to hop in my spaceship and go to the next planet. Like murray said some planets are at a bigger distance so there is some room to play around where to go.
Can Crusher
Banned
That was fun.
GI's player doesn't work, is there a youtube link?
EDIT - Speak of the devil. They just uploaded it 3 minutes ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-kifCYToAU
EDIT - Speak of the devil. They just uploaded it 3 minutes ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-kifCYToAU
Well to be fair in Elite while the distances are huge (and accurate) your ship is capable of absolutely absurb levels of speed, so they really aren't that far apart. I went to a station last night that was something like 15,000 light seconds away and it only took a few minutes as I was going over 600 times the speed of light.
Muppet of a Man
Member
Isn't this game exclusive to one console platform by default due to microsoft's own parity clause?
Aside from that, the game is original in that sci-fi fantasy of this particular flavor, bizarrely enough, has been hugely underrepresented in the video game space, especially with this sort of scope.
If you watch the video, he drops huge truth bombs by saying that the same types of games are developed over and over again with just higher fidelity assets. While this is fine and all, it gets very repetitive. Instead of improving the fidelity of the assets, focusing on a combination of huge scope, procedural generation that seems to actual produce cool stuff, an appealing (albeit lower fidelity) art style, and what appears to the player to be randomness will provide inroads to emergent phenomena occurring.
Wind's Howling
Member
It really took me out of the atmosphere. The draw distance is incredibly low and that coupled with the fade/pop-in really bugs me. I just hope not every planet is filled with fog.
This is my most anticipated release since I saw it the first time at E3. I was kinda hoping he would touch on galaxy size. Like the number of planets and moons. I wonder if they even know themselves.
It just seems crazy that every player will start on their own planet. I wonder how that will work. Imagine if it sells a million copies. If every player starts on a new planet that means over a million planets to explore. It's really impressive and kinda mind blowing at the same time.
I really hope the development is moving along smoothly. I can't wait to play this.
It just seems crazy that every player will start on their own planet. I wonder how that will work. Imagine if it sells a million copies. If every player starts on a new planet that means over a million planets to explore. It's really impressive and kinda mind blowing at the same time.
I really hope the development is moving along smoothly. I can't wait to play this.