Slashdot Mirror

(maybe a bit OT) Pandromeda make a procedural world generator called Mojoworld which creates very complex worlds with layered fractals mapped onto a sphere, they look quite amazing. I would like to see something like their engine in a game world, and it looks as though Spore will be fractally generating their worlds too.

I'll take a moment to plug our indie-developed first-person shooter, Inago Rage. We tried to make the game different from most by focusing gameplay on short burts of flight (MPEG), but what we really concentrated on was the ability for players to create their own arenas (scroll down) without having to use external mod tools. Basically, we've implemented a drag-and-drop system to allow players to place buildings, towers, bridges, enemies, prizes, and particle generators.

The graphics are not likely to outdo those of this past year's AAA titles, but I'm happy with what we were able to produce. There are a good number of reasonably-priced tools that (I think) make it possible for smaller studios to create visually attractive games.

We're hoping to release a demo by the end of Janary, and have experimented with attempts at web commercials to get the word out. (The holy grail of the Viral Video eludes us, as yet -- we'll keep trying). We're also in the alpha test stage of an overhead shooter using the same technology called Last Man on Mars (WMV video).

Here's hoping Inago Rage will be a contender for the top 10 indie titles of 2005.
__________________________
Inago Rage

It should be noted that the nice backgrounds were all made using a program called Mojoworld by Pandromeda Software ...

It's the most hardcore procedural world generator available.

MojoWorld from Pandromeda is a world-generation engine that generates fractal-based worlds with "pixel-perfect quality" (that is without obvious pixelation artefacts and loss of details in closeups). It's not yet photorealistic, but already very impressive (Gallery)

MojoWorld from Pandromeda is a world-generation engine that generates fractal-based worlds with "pixel-perfect quality" (that is without obvious pixelation artefacts and loss of details in closeups). It's not yet photorealistic, but already very impressive (Gallery)

I think the big question is, how can we get small game studios back? Is it really not possible for a small team to make commercial games?

I believe that the problem smaller studios face can be overcome with some lateral thinking. The problem is two-fold: production costs and marketing costs are too high to allow indies to compete on equal footing with the big boys. The solution, then, is to not compete on equal footing.

Don't: Try to copy a game that took 60 people 3 years to create.
Do: Draw from an existing genre, but come up with a unique twist -- something meaty that doesn't exist elsewhere.

Don't: Compete with larger productions on the same style of graphics.
Do: Come up with a unique look; it's easier to wow people with a fresh style. (Though Monolith is not a small studio, Tron 2.0 was the opposite of the hyper-realism trend, and set itself apart on appearance, among other things.)

Don't: Try to out-advertise Activision, Microsoft, or Infogr- er- Atari. A small studio's meager advertising budget should be used towards development.
Do: Make as much use of word-of-mouth marketing as is humanly possible. It's easier to connect with your individual players because... well... there are fewer of them.

Don't: Re-invent the wheel. id Software must create its own 3D engine from scratch; you don't (necessarily) have to.
Do: Make as much use of middleware as possible. You don't need to be an artist to create skycubes. You don't need to know DirectX or OpenGL intimately to create an engine. You don't need to write your audio engine from scratch.

And I deeply believe better games would be coming out of a smaller and more laid back studio...

I like the cut of your jib. I hope you're right.

________________________
Inago Rage - A first-person shooter where you fight in arenas of your own creation.

Check this article in Millimeter magazine about various 3d world creation tools... They say of MojoWorld:

Let me begin with the advice that anyone interested in computer graphics technology and its application to the imagination should really get ahold of this product. MojoWorld is as much a vision, dream, and concept of the entertainment future as it is a landscape generation application.

-calyxa

if you're interested in rendering landscapes (as opposed to building models and rendering those), I have to recommend MojoWorld. there's a free demo, there's also a free "Transporter" version of the program which lets you explore planets made by others.

http://www.pandromeda.com

you may also want to look in to Bryce - it's relatively inexpensive, it's possible to do some limited modeling with it (I've seen some flat out amazing stuff done w/ only Bryce's tools - but note that Bryce is not "a modeler") - however, with Corel teetering on the brink, Bryce may not be around much longer (all the more reason to look into getting an older version for cheap!)

-calyxa

Yes. Karma-whoring, here I come :-)

The best land generator I've found is Torben Mongensen's "planet.c". You can find it here. It's not GPL, but you can see the source and learn of it, at least :-) The results are quite good, though there's a few limitations: it doesn't do erosion and rivers, for example, which is something that could be very, very important if you want to use a map for a RPG setting. Rivers are the places where many cities are built, and crossing of rivers are always fertile lands. Well, anyway it's the only gripe I have about this program. For the rest, I like it very much :-) It can do a lot of different projections, and magnification, so you can really see the world from every point of view.

There's other nice terrain generator here. This does erosion and rivers, and the source is also available. It's for Windows, though the creator says that should compile well in Linux or related. I haven't tried yet O:-) The problem is that, besides not being "readily available" for Linux, I don't like the maps generated by it too much. And it doesn't plenty of projections, as Mogensen's program does (or, to be precise, I think it doesn't; I'm not a expert with this program). It runs fine under Wine, btw ;-)

Another fine tool: TerraGen. Shareware, but free for personal use. Great. The results of this program are awesome. I'm sure that it's easy to use the output of Mogensen's program to renderize it (some small part, I mean) with TerraGen, but I haven't tried a lot and consequently I don't know how :-/ This runs somewhat well under Wine, too.

The program that looks great for all this, anyway, is MojoWorld. And not forgetting, of course, all of ProFantasy Products. But these cost quite a few bucks, so I don't have and can't speak about them O:-)

Fractal terrain generation is something I'm quite interested, though only from the user point of view. I don't know how to even program something to output a simple Mandelbrot fractal O:-) If you know something more about all this, don't make me check for every /. post: mail me at ask4it (at) gpul.org :-)

Here's the Google cached copy (which isn't doing much better)

If you have to see the images, BryceWorld got a beta release and posted a gallery of images online.

And if you want to download it immediately to start playing with it, you can do it by filling out this questionairre