How much of a game in unreal can be procedurally generated. So what is the laziest way I can build a game? A ‘survival’ or builder game with zombies or whatever but how much can I procedurally generate, like the houses and and loot and the like
Short answer: **basically the whole damn thing** — if you’re clever (and just lazy enough to be brilliant).
**Here’s the skeptical breakdown:**
| **Thing** | **Procedural?** | **How hard is it to automate?** |
|:—|:—|:—|
| Terrain (hills, rivers, biomes) | ✅ | *Super easy* (heightmaps, noise functions like Perlin or Simplex) |
| Trees, rocks, foliage | ✅ | *Laughably easy* (scatter meshes based on rules) |
| Houses/buildings | ✅ | *Medium* (modular pieces + procedural assembly, think LEGO but slightly drunk) |
| Interiors (furniture, decor) | ✅ | *Medium-hard* (object spawning + collision checking) |
| Loot drops | ✅ | *Super easy* (weighted random tables) |
| Enemy spawns | ✅ | *Child’s play* (spawn volumes + random timers) |
| Quests/objectives | ✅ | *Possible but ugly* (template quests stitched together Mad-Libs style) |
| Dialogue and story | ❓ | *Procedural dialog is possible, but soulless unless you design for it intentionally* |
—
**If you’re *Maximum Laziness*, here’s the dirt-simple formula:**
– **World:** One big terrain → Apply layered noise → Auto-paint biomes → Scatter assets.
– **Houses:** Have 5–10 pre-made room “chunks” → Randomly combine them → Spawn loot points inside.
– **Loot:** Simple tables (“canned beans: 50%, rusty gun: 10%, holy artifact: 0.01%”) → Spawn at loot points.
– **Enemies:** Random spawn volumes + time-based wave multipliers.
– **Weather/Events:** Roll dice every few minutes for “Zombie Stampede” or “Tornado of Screams” events.
**Bonus Lazy Tricks:**
– Only load/generate chunks around the player (world streaming or level instancing).
– Recycle the same 10 textures and just *tint them differently* based on region (“swamp zombie” is just the regular one, but green. You’re welcome.)
—
**Skeptical Take:**
If you lean *too hard* on procedural everything, you get the No Man’s Sky “lots of samey crap” problem unless you intentionally design **rules** that make *interesting accidents* happen. Good procedural generation is like letting chaos *think it’s winning* while you quietly cheat behind the scenes.
**Forward-thinking tip:**
Spend most of your early time building *good generation rules* instead of building assets. One smart rule beats a thousand hand-placed trees.
—
**Want me to sketch out a “lazy dev starter kit” for procedural survival games in Unreal?** 🚬 (It’ll be rough and beautiful like a duct-taped chainsaw.)
I have yet to complete any project but this is just a leaning run. How long would it take to generate the landscape and the biome and some random roads and a small city?
Alright, mad genius in training — here’s the harsh but hopeful truth:
**If you’re *leaning* (not sprinting) and this is your *first serious run*,**
**➡️ Generating a rough landscape + biomes + random roads + a basic city could take you about:**
### ⏱️ **~20–40 hours** of *focused* work.
*(Translation: A couple weeks if you poke it casually between existential crises.)*
—
**Rough, skeptical timeline:**
| **Phase** | **Time Estimate** | **Reality Check** |
|:—|:—|:—|
| Setting up a landscape with procedural generation (noise maps) | 4–6 hrs | You’ll spend 2 hours fighting settings and 4 hours marveling at ugly mountains. |
| Adding biome painting (snowy tops, grassy valleys, etc.) | 3–5 hrs | Easy to *start*, harder to *make it not look like a toddler’s crayon attack*. |
| Procedural roads (splines following terrain) | 5–10 hrs | Roads love to randomly dive off cliffs. Debugging is where you suffer. |
| Spawning a “small city” (buildings on lots, basic grid or semi-organic placement) | 8–12 hrs | Depends if you roll “lazy grid” vs “organic chaos” generator. Either way expect pain. |
| Debugging collisions, weird placements, floating houses, roads in rivers, etc. | 4–8 hrs | Procedural generation *never* works right the first 5 tries. Accept it now. |
—
**Super Lazy Options if you get stuck:**
– **Terrain:** Use Unreal’s *landscape material auto-layering* + a noise heightmap from Gaea or World Machine (free demo versions exist).
– **Roads:** Snap splines to terrain height + spawn road meshes along them.
– **City:** Drop a grid of “city lot actors” → randomly pick house blueprints per lot. If lazy, just spawn empty cubes first.
– **Biome:** Texture blending by height/angle and call it “biomes.” Biome enough.™
—
### ⚡ Reality Boost:
You are not “building a world,” you’re “building a *world generator*.”
Big difference.
You work once, then *let the chaos machine work for you forever.*
—
### 👻 Final Skeptical Note:
– **If you are patient and build modular**, your second, third, and tenth worlds will *basically cost zero additional hours*.
– **If you rush or hack it poorly,** your future self will hate you with the fiery rage of a thousand procedural suns.
—
Want me to lay out a **ridiculously lazy** Unreal setup (like, which nodes/systems you’d use, in “baby’s first apocalypse world generator” style)?
Could save you from inventing extra suffering. 🔥🛠️
any – suffering is due a look
Hell yes — grab your hard hat and a flask of poor decisions, because here’s your **“Lazy No-Suffering Procedural World”** starter pack:
—
### 🛠️ **1. Landscape Generation:**
– **Create a Landscape** → use **Landscape Mode**.
– Apply a **Noise Texture** to generate hills and valleys.
– Use **Perlin Noise** or **Simplex Noise** (free plugins exist, or cheat with a material).
– **Auto-paint** based on slope and height (snow on peaks, grass on flats, etc.).
– **Pro tip:** Scale up your terrain *big*, but detail it only *where the player walks*. The rest? Shove fog over it and pretend it’s meaningful.
**In Unreal:**
“`plaintext
Landscape Layer Blend -> Layer Height/Slope Rules -> Texture Auto-Paint
“`
—
### 🛣️ **2. Procedural Roads (with Minimum Agony):**
– **Spline System**: Lay down random points with some noise.
– Snap spline mesh to terrain height at each point.
– Apply simple **curvy smoothing** between points to avoid “spike roads.”
– Spawn a **road mesh** along the spline.
**Lazy Hack:**
Have splines avoid steep slopes by checking terrain normals. If slope too big → delete point or redirect.
(*Otherwise roads will look like a Hot Wheels track designed by Satan.*)
**In Unreal:**
“`plaintext
Spline Actor -> Random Points -> Terrain Trace -> Road Mesh Spline Component
“`
—
### 🏙️ **3. City Generation (Chaos City, Population: You):**
– Define a **City Zone** (just a giant box or volume).
– Inside that zone:
– Randomly spawn **grid cells** or **organic blobs**.
– Drop in **building prefabs** at each spot.
– Spawn **streets** between blobs (or fake them with decals and call it “ruins” if lazy).
**”Building Prefabs” =**
Super basic blueprints: a few walls + a roof + a couple sockets for “window” and “door” actors.
(You can slap garbage on them later for “character.”)
**In Unreal:**
“`plaintext
Spawner Actor -> Randomize Building Placement -> Ensure No Overlap -> Drop Meshes
“`
—
### 🌱 **4. Biomes (Without Crying About It):**
– Use **Landscape Material** with:
– Height-based blending (snow at >X meters)
– Slope-based blending (rocks on steep slopes)
– Random scatter grass and trees with **Foliage Tool**.
**In Unreal:**
“`plaintext
Landscape Auto Material -> Heightmap -> Blend Layers -> Grass Output Node
“`
—
### 🎁 **Bonus Lazy Moves:**
– **Modular Everything**: One wall mesh, one floor mesh, one roof = infinite variations.
– **Loot System:** Every building spawns a “LootPoint” blueprint inside, with random loot drops.
– **Spawn Zombies:** Just throw random spawn volumes *everywhere* and laugh maniacally.
– **World Streaming:** If terrain is too big → auto-load levels around the player only.
—
### 🔥 Final Devil’s Advocate Warning:
– First time = 70% frustration.
– Second time = 30% frustration.
– Third time = *your procedural generator will feel like black magic.*
You *are* still going to suffer a little…
**But if you build these simple generators first, the pain becomes *manageable and funny* rather than *soul-crushing and tragic*.**
—
Want me to throw you an even lazier “first prototype plan” that could get you from **blank world ➡️ generated terrain + city + zombies** in a single evening of chaos? 🚬🎲
(With like, *absurdly few* assets needed?)