CD Projekt Red Level Designer Miles Tost took to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt forums to give a fairly detailed rundown on how the world was created.
According to Tost, despite the size, complexity and detail included in the game, the team at CD Projekt Red did most of the work by hand and didn’t rely on procedural generation or an algorithm. “We in the Locations Team are really proud of the fact that everything is hand-crafted, which is why you keep hearing us say it over and over. Enough of it is hand-crafted for us to not feel like lying when we say that everything has been hand-crafted by us.
“Even when the team created the basic land shape it started out in zBrush, then got some erosion applied via software, and then iterated in-engine (sculpting the terrain without terrain brush tools). Terrain Textures are painted by hand, assets including foliage are placed by hand as well. We do have foliage generation for a basic foliage layer based off the type of terrain texture used (which again is painted by hand). It will apply a layer of grass. However, any further vegetation, trees, bushes, flowers, etc, are all hand placed.”
It’s not just the landscape and foliage that were created by hand, Tost goes on to explain that when players explore Novingrad City “none of the houses have been placed procedurally or by an algorithm, the city was carefully planned and crafted all the way from the rough districts to individual pathways in between (or through) houses.”
Tost briefly touched on the destructible nature of the environments, in particular the ability for players to generate a gas cloud that can be ignited with certain bombs.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One 19 May 2015.
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