system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star trek]Suppose I ask the Holodeck to create a simulation of ...an Eocene Jungle. is the computer simulating all the animals in the jungle From the moment I walk in, or does it just procedurally generate them as I travel around?


So like suppose I've walked 5KM through the Jungle and I come across a clearing with some Propalaeotheriums (horse ancestors) in it. Was the computer simulating them from the comment I walked in, or did it only "decide" to "create" them when I got there?
gpt
The second one. It procedurally generates the terrain you travel through. There wouldn't be any reason to simulate stuff you can't see, and also the holodeck isn't that big.  
  
The weird thing that's never clarified is how it works if two people on the holodeck walk away from each other. It SHOULD only work if they stay in the same area (an area the size of the actual holodeck), but it seems to cover for this somehow.