Book Image

Procedural Content Generation for Unity Game Development

By : Ryan Watkins
Book Image

Procedural Content Generation for Unity Game Development

By: Ryan Watkins

Overview of this book

Procedural Content Generation is a process by which game content is developed using computer algorithms, rather than through the manual efforts of game developers. This book teaches readers how to develop algorithms for procedural generation that they can use in their own games. These concepts are put into practice using C# and Unity is used as the game development engine. This book provides the fundamentals of learning and continued learning using PCG. You'll discover the theory of PCG and the mighty Pseudo Random Number Generator. Random numbers such as die rolls and card drafting provide the chance factor that makes games fun and supplies spontaneity. This book also takes you through the full development of a 2D game. Starting with level generation, you'll learn how PCG can make the game environment for you. You'll move into item generation and learn the different techniques to procedurally create game items. Thereafter, you'll be guided through the more abstract PCG areas such as scaling difficulty to the player and even generating music! The book helps you set up systems within your games where algorithms create computationally generated levels, art assets, quests, stories, characters, and weapons; these can substantially reduce the burden of manually creating every aspect of the game. Finally, you'll get to try out your new PCG skills on 3D terrain generation.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Procedural Content Generation for Unity Game Development
Credits
Disclaimer
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Summary


Even though randomization makes our procedures more spontaneous, it isn't always the correct path to take in PCG. You should be willing to explore the more involved route of fleshing out the modules or states to provide the player the best possible experience. In some cases, you should look to constrain your PCG to some parameters and tight bounds, while other times, you might want to turn over control to the payer entirely and let them choose their own fate.

In this chapter, we discussed the many ways we can apply PCG. However, the discussion of PCG goes far beyond this book and Unity. You did learn the different areas to begin your research of PCG in and the various fields in which it can be applied.

PCG is a great idea. We can generate whole universes at runtime, making our file size incredibly small while making our game incredibly huge. We can use it to spend less time designing art for our game by reusing art modules in inventive ways. We can make every playthrough of a game...