Spore

**GoreBag** · 03-11-2006, 00:13

Originally Posted by Simon Appleton

The presenter kept mentioning that term "procedurally based" - what does it mean?

Great video, by the way. The game concept is impressive (although I'd never want to play it) and the presenter was great.

Essentially, it means that the game's engine is more concerned with the physics of the creature and its surroundings, and creates the animations to match it, instead of having a huge library of animations from which to pick and display.

**BelgradeWar** · 03-11-2006, 11:22

I have this feeling that the whole procedural thing will take it's toll in hardware requirements:(

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 03-12-2006, 03:56

If they're smart it shouldn't be too bad.

I imagine it could work like this: every time something is "defined" procedurally there is some data stored in a library somewhere, maybe online. Then it accesses that file every time, instead of continually regenerating content. Kind of like how your computer stores temporary internet files so you don't have to keep downloading them.

Of course, that's only my speculation.

**Zalmoxis** · 03-13-2006, 07:42

Will people without internet connections be able to get that content?

**GoreBag** · 03-14-2006, 00:18

Originally Posted by Alexander the Pretty Good

If they're smart it shouldn't be too bad.

I imagine it could work like this: every time something is "defined" procedurally there is some data stored in a library somewhere, maybe online. Then it accesses that file every time, instead of continually regenerating content. Kind of like how your computer stores temporary internet files so you don't have to keep downloading them.

Of course, that's only my speculation.

I doubt it. If the game itself has the capability of understanding the mechanics of movement for any given creature, it would probably just store them locally and use the data in-game, so long as it's still valid. The cache would be replaced when the creature was changed.

The online stuff is just to share your creatures, buildings and worlds with other people, who can interact with it as they wish. My worry is the the amount of space that a galaxy of the entire gaming community's content would need...

Zalmoxis, I don't think there's any other way for someone to access another player's content if it's not stored on a central server.

**hoom** · 03-14-2006, 01:27

Procedurally generated stuff is where you have a formula and variables that can can define a shape.
If you change the variables it creates a different shape.
eg if you have a formula for a cube all you need to tell the software is the side lengths and location relative to zero point & the computer can calculate its shape.
The same formula could make a brick or a pyramid with different variables.
Point being that you only have to store a couple of numbers instead of a whole mesh etc.

Fractals are a common form of procedural content.

The awesomeness of procedural stuff can be seen here (especially .kkrieger) and here, these being the demo scene he talks about in the videos.