Dev Log 2 – Procedural Generation vs Human Ingenuity

Introduction

Since last week, much progress has been made in coordination between the team and seeing where we would end up pushing our idea to fruition. This week was filled with much work on either side of Blender and Unreal Engine 5. Both sides went out through their procedural and manual creation paths, the procedural side looking much nicer while being much more demanding, obviously.

Blender

We had one person working on the procedural generation side while the other person worked on the manual generation. Since we began our project, we have made significant progress in both procedural and manual generation. In procedural generation, we have developed several algorithms that can generate various models, including landscapes, and objects into the environment. These algorithms use parameters to control the shape, size, and density of the models, allowing for a high degree of customization.

In manual generation, we have one artist working to create a landscape using Blender’s traditional modeling tools, the sculpting and edit. While it doesn’t look nearly as good as the procedurally generated complexities created from the procedural generation, it was able to get more unique assets within the landscape like caves and mountains, while the procedural generated was generally flat and wet.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. Procedural generation is faster and more efficient for creating large-scale models, such as landscapes and cities, while manual generation is more effective for creating detailed and complex models, such as characters and vehicles. However, procedural generation requires a high level of programming expertise, while manual generation requires a high level of artistic skill.

In conclusion, while our project aims to explore the strengths and weaknesses of procedural and manual generation in Blender as well as other apps like Unreal Engine, we found that both methods have their place in 3D modeling.