Adam's Game Log Blog

Flow Fields!      Flow fields are a method/data structure for pathfinding with AI that takes what would usually be the job of many independent actors and turns it into a one-time gig that everyone can take advantage of (depending on how you implement it). I am going to talk about this subject under the assumption that you have a basic understanding of pathfinding (so if you have no clue then I suggest you google things like Dijkstra's algorithm and A* to get an idea of the methods/terms used).     I want to start off by talking about what a flow field is, its advantages and its shortcomings. This won't be an in-depth dive into flow fields, just a surface-level analysis based on what I can see/understand. I do want to mention though that all of this can change based on how you implement your flow field. This is the flow field example that I made for this blog post. It shows the "units" pathing to a target in a basic 2D environment that I generated using Unity's b...

Procedural Generation in games Specifically Terrain Generation (sort of)      I want to start this off by saying that I am not a professional in the industry (I'm a college student that is loosely studying this for my minor so I'm not even an amateur yet) so take all of this with a few fists full of salt (and maybe a teaspoon of sugar). Hopefully though, after all of this is said and done you will have learned something new. I will have sources for some of the topics I mention but a lot of it might be me speculating on the topic or waxing poetic. Anyway, let's get back to the main topic...      As environments in games get larger and more diverse, Developers have had to start pulling more and more tricks out of their magical little bags in order to make a gaming experience that is fresh and enticing. One of these "tricks" that could allow for potentially infinite worlds/replayability is procedural generation. The reason I say "potentially infinite worl...