By Jim Drewes - July 8, 2005
Matthew Hanlon, programmer for Black and White 2, recently gave a few quotes about the development of forests and trees in the upcoming title. In one quote, Hanlon states:
"Forests are just one of the many background simulations that make up
the world of Black & White 2; we wanted the simulation to act like
you'd expect a real forest to. Trees in the forest are split into those
which are still growing and fully grown mature trees. The mature trees
drop seeds which, under the right conditions, sprout into saplings, so
the forest will naturally expand and produce new trees. If, for
example, you pull all the trees out of the centre of a forest, over
time new trees will grow into the space filling in the hole."
It seems that more development goes into environment programming than used to take place for entire games.
More quotes on the development of Black and White 2 can be found
here.