Where did these strange buildings come from? They look like streets of some bizarrely monotone industrial park, but they’re actually renders based on the HTML of this blog. Inspired by this suggestion I used the Tilt extension for Firefox to export a 3D model of the page. (Firefox now has the 3D tech integrated into it natively, but not the export, at least as far as I could determine. Perhaps someone would like to port it?)

Grabbing data from unusual sources and remixing it can be a powerful way to add real-world familiar unpredictability to generative projects. Your twitter feed, the Digital Elevation Model for your home town, a recording of bird songs from outside your window: try constructing dungeons and conversations and textures out of them. 

fyprocessing:

p5art:

Hey everyone! If you’re interested in learning how to creatively code yourself then you should really, really check out the upcoming, free Creative Coding course from futurelearn.com! It will start on August 3, 2015 and run for 6 weeks.

When I first saw the preview video for this course last year I was blown away! This was not ‘just’ about learning how to program but also about how to approach programming from a really creative side, which was illustrated really well with a lot of philosophical and artistic interludes. Something that other online coding courses have been lacking to a high degree, as far as I know.

And this course is for total coding beginners. So do not worry if you have never programmed before. The course will gently introduce you to it.

Oh, and this time around yours truly will be an official mentor! So join us and see you in the forums and discussion threads!! :)

I tried 3 or 4 MOOCs on Processing over the past couple years. I’d agree that this is the best. Nice to see Jerome is involved in a more official capacity this time.

This may be of interest to some of you.

Realm of the Mad God

It’s a hardcore bullet-hell shooter, an indie permadeath MMO, and it makes use of procedural generation. This procedural generation, as a matter of fact, which evolved into Amit’s polygonal map generation, which we’ve talked about before.

Originally built in 30 days as part of TIGSource’s Assemblee competition, Realm of the Mad God would go on to be a successful MMO. 

In the current version of the game, there are 20 procedurally generated maps, with the list updated every few months. Each server stays on a map until Oryx pulls all of the players on the server to fight him, after which Oryx destroys the world and loads in a new map from the list. 

Although the maps can vary quite a bit, they all conform to a basic structure of low-level beaches rising to the high-level mountain godlands. Roads and rivers are positioned as navigational aids, acting as clues to the underlying structure of the part of the map where the player currently is. The generation is procedural but structured, not random and chaotic. In a game where encountering high-level enemies can cause permadeath, that kind of situational information is important.

Seraphs

The Voynich manuscript is a mysterious, untranslatable codex that has inspired many artists over the years (including Codex Seraphinianus). For NaNoGenMo 2014, Liza Daly had the delightful idea to generate a new Voynich manuscript. 

The result is something that embraces the current limitations of generative processes. Generating something that has both conceptual meaning and moment-to-moment sense is difficult, generating something that verges on making sense while not bothering to conform to the dictates of English is still hard, but more reachable. I think this is a concept worth exploring for your own generators: try making something that makes sense to the machine but doesn’t bother to explain it to the human viewer.

Success at NaNoGenMo is a nebulous, personal concept, but I think Seraph succeeds.

https://github.com/lizadaly/nanogenmo2014

A Full and Complete Reckoning of Uncommon, Mythical, and Monstrous Creatures

Your next roguelike is going great! But your monsters are all boring things like orcs and vampiric squash. What you need are some truly original monsters.

From NaNoGenMo 2014, Sam Brelsfoard’s A Full and Complete Reckoning of Uncommon, Mythical, and Monstrous Creatures has you covered. Ask it for a monster and it’ll give you five completely original beasties.

https://github.com/samtb/A-Full-and-Complete-Reckoning-of-Uncommon-Mythical-and-Monstrous-Creatures

Procjam 2015: November 7th - November 15th

joewintergreen:

Here are some sick gifs of game dev things I’ve done lately. Procedural ladder system, WIP procedural building generator, port of some InFlux levels to UE4, a stealth game prototype where you can slide along a rooftop while shooting a fire arrow, a Far Cry 2 style fire propagation system, and a procedural handrail generator that handles slopes. 

Feel free to check out my stuff on http://www.joewintergreen.com / my patreon, http://www.patreon.com/joewintergreen. Also you can buy some of this crap on the Unreal Engine 4 marketplace

I like the ladder generator. And supporting commercial artists working on generative stuff.

smalllandmarks:

Spent a rainy afternoon writing a script that generates houses. It’s pretty simple for now but might lead to better things. I didn’t teach it anything about urban planning, obviously.

fyprocessing:

notational:

(via Floraform on Vimeo)  from Nervous System.

Floraform is a generative design project by Nervous System inspired by the biomechanics of growing leaves and blooming flowers. It explores the development of surfaces through differential growth.

more information: n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/projects/sets/floraform/

the music is “Goodnight Sunlight” by Ketsa ketsamusic.com

Not sure if this was made with Processing, but Nervous System have been very active for years in the Processing community.

Processing or not, I like the look of this generative project. Very organic shapes.

doomlaser:

new project. fps roguelike.

the primary goal right now is to generate interesting procedural geometry and architecture.

i talk more on twitter

This looks cool.