Hello, my name is Ryan Cruz. I am a undergrad majoring in computer science with a minor in psychology. This is my last year as an undergraduate but I hope to continue at UNM and pursue my master’s degree. I enrolled in this class because I enjoy creating. Whether it involves baking, sculpting, or coding, it’s fun to see what I’m capable of. I hope this class introduces me to another way to express myself.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is an open-world western shooter game that follows a group of outlaws during the end of the Wild West era. Through a beautiful and captivating world, you’ll experience a plethora of scenarios and will have to make tough decisions.
Read Dead Redemption 2 was created by the team Rockstar Games founded in 1998. They are a massive team that has made popular games/series like Grand Theft Auto and Bully.
To immerse players in the game, they had to make numerous large and small additions to depict a realistic world. One of the “smaller” ways they accomplished this was through the use of algorithmic and procedural animation for the Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) in the game. These NPCs have to respond to a vast number of situations that would have taken too long to program manually. Therefore, with a set of parameters like weather, terrain, player actions, etc., they were able to make the NPCs feel real and respond to situations appropriately.
For example, each NPC has a routine they follow throughout the day. Although this doesn’t seem like much, when you account for the hundreds of NPCs with different jobs, locations, and reactions, it’s impressive how real they made it all feel using computational methods.
(Above) Follows an NPCs daily activities. Although it is hard to see, in the “Taking Shelter” image the NPC is responding to the current weather, rain.
Images taken from: https://youtu.be/MrUJJgppMn4?si=YNcegxvF20gQKdYc
Small things like this are compelling to me because they show just how much detail and effort this team puts into their work. They make the world feel alive and unscripted, which allows you to get lost and explore.
Link to game info: https://www.rockstargames.com/reddeadredemption2
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a interesting game! To develop this game is really a big project. I used develop a game in my second year of my university based on Unity, it include many work, you need some friends to design the 3D model of NPC and the asset of the environment, some friends to program code make every object can move or interact each other, and many work else. Some of my friends they still work in this area, I am not. They are trying to add AI into the development of game, the NPC will auto judge the environment and react, in addition they can also predict next steps automatically, for example, if the player always use the same way to attact the NPC, maybe it will avoid this attact maybe 10 times later. This is based on the trained large AI model. If you interested, you could try to know more about it.
Hi Ryan, I played Red Dead Redemption 2, and it was a lot of fun! I never got to finish it because there are so many tasks and adventures to choose from. I agree the development of this game is mesmerizing, with so much attention to detail. It’s amazing to think how far gaming has advanced, allowing players to experience a world that feels limitless.