How We Talk About Procedural Generation
Michael Cook just posted something that I think is rather significant to the conversation around procedural generation: how we talk about it.
This is an important topic for me: one of my goals for this blog is to show people what I think is exciting about procedural generation, and to give them some insight into how it actually works. Grand claims about infinity can confuse more than they help, even though infinity is an easy way to start explaining what generative processes are. I’m on the constant look-out for terms to describe parts of procedural generation, such as order, flexibility, opulent, and mushroom.
And, as Michael pointed out on Twitter, we could really use more things explaining what is actually going on under the hood, as in National Geographic’s recent article about Martin O’Leary’s map generating bot.
The post I was working on for today (and will instead be posted tomorrow) was attempting to explain some new vocabulary. It talks about two terms I think are relevant to procedural generation that I haven’t seen discussed much: contrast and homogeneity.
I think Michael Cook’s article is an important one, and I look forward to seeing even more vocabulary develop in and around procedural generation.