BUG 3: Procedural Content Generation in Unity

Hi everyone,

Hot on the heels of our last meeting, Tom Betts will be talking about the development of Sir, You Are Being Hunted, a procedurally-generated, first person game of stealth and survival set in a world where robots hunt humans for sport.

It's currently available as an Early Access title on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/242880/), meaning that you get to support and shape the development of the game.

Sir, You are being Hunted: Creating FPS Open Worlds Using Procedural Techniques in Unity3D

This talk will describe, in technical detail, how I used procedural methods at Big Robot to drive the generation of content in Sir You Are Being Hunted.

Procedural content generation (PCG) is an area that is traditionally under-represented but is growing at a exciting rate in recent game design. Using PCG at Big Robot (a small development team, 2.5 people, with myself as the only coder) we've managed to build an ambitious and innovative FPS in Unity.

I'll talk about the design and production models we use (including Kickstarter and Early Access being core parts of the process), and show how the aesthetics of programming can be important to the art and design of a project.

I will briefly discuss the origins of the project and then present a detailed walkthrough of the generation process, from high level structural generation to the creation of local details. This will cover such aspects as: Terrain generation, biome definition, region construction, village layout, NPC placements and inventory generation. These issues will be examined with reference to the requirements of the AI system, overall design/visual coherence, and in relation to our methods of storage and reconstruction for procedural content. I will also mention any optimising approaches I used to speed up both generation and re-loading of world data.

Finally, I will examine the pros and cons of a procedural approach and will show both the errors and the achievements of the system. In closing, the talk will also reflect on the impact using procedural tech had on our development process and how we are planning to proceed with both "Sir, You Are Being Hunted" and future projects.

Check www.big-robot.com and http://www.nullpointer.co.uk for more info.

Biography

Tom Betts, aka Nullpointer, is an artist, academic and coder. He's been a lecturer, designer, published musician, professional artist, warlock… Tom is currently working on his PhD about the sublime in digital games as well as being head coder at Big Robot making "Sir, You Are Being Hunted". He has performed/talked at international venues such as DIGRA, FreePlay, UNITE, Sonar, Rezzed and Indievelopment. Tom has also worked on design/coding for the Tate, V&A and Southbank Centre. He really likes generative systems, drinking coffee, watching films where nothing much happens and quite likes ironing.

Please arrive at 7pm for a 7.30pm start. For security reasons, you will need to RSVP to attend this talk. We will be heading down to the Saint James pub at the end of the road at around 9pm.

Don't forget to fill in the polls which can be found here (https://www.meetup.com/Brighton-Unity-Group/polls/). They will be used to determine the content and level of future talks.

We also have a Message Board (https://www.meetup.com/Brighton-Unity-Group/messages/boards/) if there is anything (Unity-related) you want to ask or share with other members. Notifications of updates to the forums are disabled by default but you can enable them in your Profile settings.

Hopefully see you next week,

Nicola.