How does one get started with procedural generation?

Question

Procedural generation has been brought into the spotlight recently (by Spore, MMOs, etc), and it seems like an interesting/powerful programming technique.

My questio

Answer 1

Procedural generation is used heavily in the demoscene to create complex graphics in a small executable. Will Wright even said that he was inspired by the demoscene while making Spore. That may be your best place to start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene