Aye, that's either ridiculous or a very, very complex stunt Bethsoft is pulling off. :eek:
No, really. It's indeed been more than less confirmed; the CS features all-new extremely powerful tools with hundreds of variables for terrain and population (and more). Everything from soil type and erosion to tree species and vegeation have settings to tweak for maximum customization, variance and detail. In addition, there's the populating generation which also has a lot of settings - I believe I've heard that you can set some basic, generic RAI packages for characters there - and populates the selected area (you simply select areas in which you tell the CS to generate stuff) with characters and, IIRC, monsters and such (if you want). Then tweak to your heart's content, and until you're done and satisfied.
Now, all this done randomly in a seamless method in-game - fitting with maps - could actually work since you could select which areas to generate with specific settings. So where there should be mountains, you could tell it generate mountains with parameters based on your wishes for how it should appear and which clutter to put around and on it. But kinda m00t IMO. And it gets kind of worse with characters, eh? Unscripted and all that stuff, sure, but completely random characters with completely random purposes dictated through random and/or generic RAI packages all over the place would be bleh-bleh. Doesn't have to be like that, sure.
One thing that could/can be interesting is if there was/is if there's a generator for making "clusters" or "groups" of, say, bandits with set RAI packages templated randomly through some pre-defined "bandit behavior" stuff or something similar. Make a forest, put a cave there and throw in some bandits. I do actually hope that there are some "template" package set-ups for somewhat generic clutter-characters.
All doubtful, though, since it's stated that it's about 1000+- polished, unique characters.
SpeedTree renders trees from template models, I think, yes, but since it's integrated into their creation process, which isn't all random when done, I doubt you can go all 'round with everything. Random trees, sure, maybe. Perhaps it is so - that a few trees change at cell load, chosen from a similar but still pre-defined and set template. But I don't know... What I do know that it'll be good. Trees good. Randomness in CS good. Generated but tweaked and cluttered much by hand, and populated with unique characters - goooood. Too bad we won't get the full version of SpeedTree shipped with the CS. :paperbag:
I'm
sooo excited about these recent news and clips. Great stuff coming from every direction; this really is a good May.
And good work, Rane! :goodjob: