Feedback request: Procedural model generator?

Hi folks,

It wouldn't be hard to whip up a procedural generator for all kinds of models. Examples and advantages:

-Given a hand-authored emperor parasol, generate slightly modified variants: leaning over, slightly deformed, taller, etc.

-Emperor parasol generator from scratch :-)

-Dial-a-staircase/ladder. How many rungs? How high? Etc.

-Gimme 2,000 distinct boulders

-We don't like the triangulation of a particular set of generated models: tweak the generation code and re-gen the lot in one go.

-Dial vertex density at will

-Local styles for some objects: e.g. an urn/pot generator that takes as input some parameters that are unique to a region, such as "pot-bellied-ness", but other parameters like size and height/width ratio could be tweaked at will to generate pots that are the right size but still match the local style.

Of course, there are many limitations to such a thing, but in those few cases where it's appropriate, procedural generation might make a lot of sense.

Feedback on this notion is appreciated.

-Jeff(No)

What you are suggesting is

What you are suggesting is nothing short of witch craft, and I'll have no part it in. And/or as an artist, i'm butthurt when i get replaced by machine code.

Are u suggesting this because you are a tech artist wiz who can create such wonders?

proper feedback:

For non organics I can see it working, perhaps with some noise/wobble at the end.

u can try to make us some

u can try to make us some branching staff. my machines cant into lowpoly models.

Started on this. You just

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Started on this. You just need to input a Dunmer house and it will generate all the buildings and furniture.

Ravanna you could always get into the hospitality now that you are basically redundant to gaming.

It wouldn't be hard to whip up a procedural generator for all kinds of models.

All kidding aside, billions of dollars are spent on programs like speedtree and terrain generators, we have a sum total of $0 to do development like this. Best left to software houses where thousands of man hours have been invested doing such things.

I sense skepticism :-)

Those examples of alysander's are trivial to generate procedurally. Maybe a day's coding to generate all of them and bazillions more besides, with judicious choice of parameters.

Perhaps I will noodle away at some examples and post them here. If you care to choose something you'd like to see me generate, then by all means do so. Otherwise I'll pick some simple things and get cracking. Bear in mind that it's not just models-from-scratch that we (I) can do this way: those sorts of utilities I mention above where I take an artist-produced model and generate variations are all eminently do-able.

Stay tuned...

Sure, how about "Urns". We

Sure, how about "Urns". We want at least 10 different styles. Now normally we want baked textures to really highlight edges, etc...

I don't understand skepticism

I don't understand skepticism here. Procedural modeling is existing thing. The only problem with that there is not so many people which can do that well and additionally for free. But I wait for samples ;)

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I would say just go for it

I would say just go for it JeffNo, I can’t wait to see the result and abilities of such tool. Until it exists it does not mater what you do. Only things that are real can be useful.

Art requires a human touch or

Art requires a human touch or it is unappealing. It loses relatability.

The human touch comes in the

The human touch comes in the coding. It's just another medium...

Procedural generation has its

Procedural generation has its place. Its very good for certain things. Games like minecraft use very well to create an endless world. For something as "small" as morrowind, a handcrafted experience is more appropriate. A good use of this sort of coding for our purposes would be something like automatic variants of different creatures.

I guess I'll shut my face

I guess I'll shut my face until I see what you can whip up with it. :)

Might there be a real artist

Might there be a real artist (i.e. not me :-) ) who would be willing to work 1:1 with me to see if we can close the whole pipeline on this thing and see if it's feasible and useful? I wouldn't expect to be much of a burden: I'll have a few questions and I'd need someone who could ingest what I produce and place the results in a real level.

I'll get started on Urns- they are a great proof-of-concept model. The same generation-code would generalize fairly easily to any similarly-shaped vessel like glasses, plates, mugs, cooking pots, etc.

I'd also just like to reiterate where I'm coming from: I'm not waltzing in all confident with The Solution, but rather meekly offering to help out with modeling in the way in which I roll. I am in awe of what all you artistically talented people can do, and don't in any way claim to be able to replicate that. My role, if any, would be to automate the tedious-but-easy creation of fairly simple objects so you guys can spend your gifts on things worthy of them. I'm sure you don't want to model a dozen slightly different wooden planks with a dozen polies in them when you could be building statues of gods or sculpting wicked-cool armor.

I'm a big fan of procedural,

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I'm a big fan of procedural, I try to make all my work as modular and procedural as possible when using photoshop.

I'm working in Substance Designer (procedural middleware) to do texturing. If you can make something to create a procedural model, maybe unwrap it. I can then create a substance which will texture it with user parameters.