What Is Procedural Generation
Procedural Generation can be interpreted quite broadly as just “making computers make cool creative things”. People make art, games, music, audio, stories and all sorts of weird things.
I’ve been doing it as a hobbyist for some time, and have become more and more involved: I make tutorials, projects, I sell a tool online for a niche algorithm, and recently taught a “masterclass” at Everything Procedural, the main conference for professionals in the space.
I thought I’d spill some digital ink about what it’s actually about. I get asked often enough, and this will help me clarify my verbal answers.
I am not a naturally creative person, but I am a visual person. I like to see results. Procedural generation is a super easy area to get into, and pretty much immediately you can get your own results to play around with. There’s no right answer to what looks best, so there’s always more stuff to explore.
It’s a fertile area for research, too. I think a lot of techniques remain undeveloped, and the space is recently being challeneged by generative AI, to the consternation of many.
