Even if you’ve been playing video games for just the last four or five years, you’ll have noticed a shift – a seismic one. The speed at which technology is evolving is incredible, almost incomprehensible (for those who don’t work in the tech space).
We could look back to the 8-bit games of yesteryear, but we actually don’t even need to look that far to see the shift. Just a decade ago the idea of an open world so vast that it would take you – hours – to just traverse it, was unthinkable.
Now, it’s the case in several games. In a year or so, it will be the norm. Anyway, let’s take a look at some of the most fascinating bits of technology that are making these leaps and bounds possible.
Procedural Generation
Remember those huge open-world games we were talking about? Procedural generation is one of the keys to how they have become possible – especially so quickly. This works as it allows developers to create super vast worlds, that are intricate and beautiful, but actually have fairly little input from humans. How? Instead of painstakingly creating every leaf on every tree, every ripple on the water, algorithms can generate this, pretty much ‘on the fly’.
They’re programmed with how things should look (and work) and they hop to it! Leaving the developers with time to do the things that – do – require human intervention. No Man’s Sky is a classic example. This game has, wait for it, 18 quintillion planets.
There literally hasn’t been enough time on this planet yet for developers to create all of those, so, algorithms do it. None of the planets are the same either, each one is procedurally generated to allow almost limitless exploration. If you’ve not tried this game out yet then, from a nerding-out standpoint alone, you must.
Motion Capture (MoCap)
So, we know how worlds are made, what about characters? Well, generally speaking, they’re designed by humans rather than procedurally generated (except Spore, but we’ll get into that another time). However, motion capture technology or MoCap has revolutionized the animation of characters.
This tech allows us to capture the motion (hence the name) of real people and use it to animate 3D models of characters. This moves seem fluid and realistic, in a way that just wasn’t possible before this technology existed.
It can capture everything from limbs to wrinkles in the nose, allowing combat moves and the teeniest tiniest facial expressions to be transcribed onto the video game character. The Last of Us Part II is a great example of a video game that’s used MoCap to brilliant effect. The ‘zombies’ seem terrifyingly real, thanks to a talented team of actors who were able to move and twitch in frighteningly undead ways.
Random Number Generators (RNG) in Casino Games
In casino games like roulette, random number generators (RNG) play a crucial role in ensuring fairness – in the form of total unpredictability. While there are two types of RNGs True RNGs and Pseudo RNGs, you’ll never find a true RNG in a casino game, as it’s far too expensive and frankly, not really necessary. So with that in mind, we’ll be focusing on PRNGs!
These are algorithms that generate a sequence of numbers or outcomes that cannot be predicted. It mimics the randomness of real-world events, just like the spinning of a roulette wheel! In an online roulette game, the RNG determines where the ball lands, ensuring that each spin is independent and random, just as it would be in a physical casino.
There are auditing agencies that test the RNGs that casinos are using to make sure they’re fair and as close to random as possible. This gives players confidence in the casino and makes sure that every spin of that virtual roulette wheel is as random as it would be in a ‘real’ casino (if not more).
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)
These two were the buzzwords for quite some time! Remember back when Pokemon Go was released and everybody – lost their minds – because they could see Pokemon in their actual environment? That was pretty early stages of Augmented Reality, where a Pokemon was superimposed over your environment, using your phone’s camera. It was pretty groundbreaking for the time, but things have got – way – more exciting since.
Through wearable tech devices like the Oculus Quest or PlayStation VR, you can be completely immersed in a virtual environment. These devices create a sense of presence that traditional gaming setups struggle to match, letting you physically move around within the digital spaces – as if you were truly there.
Half-Life: Alyx exemplifies this technology, offering intricate physics-based puzzles and combat scenarios that allow you to use every part of your body (and mind, let’s face it!) to solve them.
While it’s one of the better-established bits of game development tech, it’s also one of the most rapidly evolving. With the dawn of the metaverse, it seems as though we’ll be seeing even bigger leaps and bounds in VR and AR technology. So, watch this space!
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