6 ms·

Meander: a procedural system for generating maps of rivers that never existed

267 points by henning 6y ago

xixixao 6y ago
This whole website is an absolute gold mine. 1) It's like someone finally worked on all the ideas I've had, 2) it's absolutely gorgeous in every respect. Wow.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
DethNinja 6y ago
Oh a post about Houdini, my favourite software! Results looks amazing, though I wish algorithms were explained more in detail. I think there are couple of more methods available for generating such rivers, approach taken by Guerilla Games is pretty good as well: https://www.sidefx.com/community/horizon-zero-dawn-guerrilla-games/ https://www.sidefx.com/community/horizon-zero-dawn-guerrilla...
- qubex 6y ago
  I started with Processing back in the 1.x days but I never made the transition to ‘professional’ tools. This really shows what an enormous difference there is between the two tools.
- dmos62 6y ago
  Why is it your favorite? I watched Houdini 17 and 18 sneak peeks and they are impressive, but I wouldn't be the first to be fooled by demos.
  - DethNinja 6y ago
    I do indie game development, Houdini extremely speeds up game development process by combining python programming, procedural generation, and conventional 3D asset modelling into one single software package. It must’ve increased my productivity at least 5x fold, and it costed around 250 USD, which is really cheap compared to other 3D software packages. Basically I just use Houdini to do everything from terrain generation, static mesh modelling, rigging/animation to VFX. It doesn’t have good sculpting capabilities, so zbrush is needed for organic character modelling. Most amazing thing about Houdini is that it let’s you basically code entire asset generation and baking process via python. I’m 100% sure Houdini will take over entire gaming industry, I doubt conventional modelling software like Maya or 3D Max will be utilised in new game studios, though older ones will still use them due to initial investments they made.
    - Catsandkites 6y ago
      Hi! Thanks for your thoughts, they are really interesting. Do you have any examples of your Houdini to game content or could you recommend any good learning resources for using Houdini in this way? I've been sharpening my blender skills for content creation and while I enjoy it, it's quite slow.
      - DethNinja 6y ago
        Game I’m making is still under wraps but for example: I got multiple building, door, control terminal, and signature variants all developed in Houdini. Doors have to open whenever a player within guest list comes near the door. Assume there are 100s of combinations you can make with these variants. I can just select the variants I want in Houdini, combine them within Houdini, click to a button I programmed in python that says bake and it will output a nice TOML file that automatically gets read by UE4 and I can just drop a blueprint that already exists within UE4 to world space and I’ll have my combined building show up on the planet literally immediately. Honestly Houdini is so complicated it will probably take you three months to get to basic proficiency and you will need to learn python if needed. I mostly used YouTube tutorials and documentation itself.
dylan604 6y ago
Is it the maps that never existed, or the rivers that never existed? What does this title mean?
- ajford 6y ago
  Author is creating a simulation of natural river meandering over time, and generating maps of that behavior in a style reminiscent of that used in a report by the US Army Corp of Engineers in 1944.
- tantalor 6y ago
  I think it's a play on recent "this X does not exist" trend. https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/ https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/ https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/ https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/ Maybe "never existed" alludes to the time dimension used to generate these fictitious rivers; they don't exist now and they didn't exist in the past.
datalus 6y ago
Robert Hodgin used to go by flight404 back in the days of Flash. I remember seeing him speak at a Flash Forward conference at the Masonic Center in SF awhile ago. I believe he also helped develop the Cinder library for creative coding... cool to see this popup on HN :)
layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
fyi, your “modified bitangent” is just the second derivative.
- yorwba 6y ago
  The second derivative of a circular arc points inwards, whereas the figure shows the "modified bitangent" pointing outwards. Maybe it's the negated second derivative, but without the exact formula it's hard to say.
0xcoffee 6y ago
This is really beautiful. Are prints available?
airstrike 6y ago
Forget the rivers, I love every single thing about this
bufferoverflow 6y ago
That's a lot of work, and a beautiful result. I'm just not sure what the purpose is.
- qmmmur 6y ago
  I can't understand how you so monumentally miss the point. It's art.
- foobarbecue 6y ago
  Actually I wonder if it might be a significant contribution to the field of hydrology. For example, for use in floodplain modeling after landscaping, or water resources work.
  - yorwba 6y ago
    Not really, since he's just trying to create a visually pleasing result and can ignore a lot of phenomena that would change the exact course of the river, like the water speed, water level, erosion resistance of different materials, slope of the terrain... (The example of a circular "river" meandering should be a pretty big hint that it's not physically accurate.)
- tantalor 6y ago
  Hi! Welcome to the website you are currently on. What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
hyko 6y ago
Very cool.
phreeza 6y ago
Fun fact, Albert Einstein wrote a paper explaining why rivers form meanders and tea leaves accumulate in the center of a stirred cup. http://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/005/03/0105-0108 http://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/005/03/0105-0108
- dhbradshaw 6y ago
  His son Hans is responsible for a whole body of work in river engineering. https://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/news/life-and-pioneering-work-hans-albert-einstein https://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/news/life-and-pioneering-w...

267 points by henning 6y ago

This whole website is an absolute gold mine. 1) It's like someone finally worked on all the ideas I've had, 2) it's absolutely gorgeous in every respect. Wow.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

DethNinja 6y ago

Oh a post about Houdini, my favourite software! Results looks amazing, though I wish algorithms were explained more in detail. I think there are couple of more methods available for generating such rivers, approach taken by Guerilla Games is pretty good as well: https://www.sidefx.com/community/horizon-zero-dawn-guerrilla-games/ https://www.sidefx.com/community/horizon-zero-dawn-guerrilla...

qubex 6y ago
I started with Processing back in the 1.x days but I never made the transition to ‘professional’ tools. This really shows what an enormous difference there is between the two tools.
dmos62 6y ago
Why is it your favorite? I watched Houdini 17 and 18 sneak peeks and they are impressive, but I wouldn't be the first to be fooled by demos.
- DethNinja 6y ago
  I do indie game development, Houdini extremely speeds up game development process by combining python programming, procedural generation, and conventional 3D asset modelling into one single software package. It must’ve increased my productivity at least 5x fold, and it costed around 250 USD, which is really cheap compared to other 3D software packages. Basically I just use Houdini to do everything from terrain generation, static mesh modelling, rigging/animation to VFX. It doesn’t have good sculpting capabilities, so zbrush is needed for organic character modelling. Most amazing thing about Houdini is that it let’s you basically code entire asset generation and baking process via python. I’m 100% sure Houdini will take over entire gaming industry, I doubt conventional modelling software like Maya or 3D Max will be utilised in new game studios, though older ones will still use them due to initial investments they made.
  - Catsandkites 6y ago
    Hi! Thanks for your thoughts, they are really interesting. Do you have any examples of your Houdini to game content or could you recommend any good learning resources for using Houdini in this way? I've been sharpening my blender skills for content creation and while I enjoy it, it's quite slow.
    - DethNinja 6y ago
      Game I’m making is still under wraps but for example: I got multiple building, door, control terminal, and signature variants all developed in Houdini. Doors have to open whenever a player within guest list comes near the door. Assume there are 100s of combinations you can make with these variants. I can just select the variants I want in Houdini, combine them within Houdini, click to a button I programmed in python that says bake and it will output a nice TOML file that automatically gets read by UE4 and I can just drop a blueprint that already exists within UE4 to world space and I’ll have my combined building show up on the planet literally immediately. Honestly Houdini is so complicated it will probably take you three months to get to basic proficiency and you will need to learn python if needed. I mostly used YouTube tutorials and documentation itself.

dylan604 6y ago

Is it the maps that never existed, or the rivers that never existed? What does this title mean?

ajford 6y ago
Author is creating a simulation of natural river meandering over time, and generating maps of that behavior in a style reminiscent of that used in a report by the US Army Corp of Engineers in 1944.
tantalor 6y ago
I think it's a play on recent "this X does not exist" trend. https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/ https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/ https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/ https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/ Maybe "never existed" alludes to the time dimension used to generate these fictitious rivers; they don't exist now and they didn't exist in the past.

datalus 6y ago

Robert Hodgin used to go by flight404 back in the days of Flash. I remember seeing him speak at a Flash Forward conference at the Masonic Center in SF awhile ago. I believe he also helped develop the Cinder library for creative coding... cool to see this popup on HN :)

layoutIfNeeded 6y ago

fyi, your “modified bitangent” is just the second derivative.

yorwba 6y ago
The second derivative of a circular arc points inwards, whereas the figure shows the "modified bitangent" pointing outwards. Maybe it's the negated second derivative, but without the exact formula it's hard to say.

0xcoffee 6y ago

This is really beautiful. Are prints available?

airstrike 6y ago

Forget the rivers, I love every single thing about this

bufferoverflow 6y ago

That's a lot of work, and a beautiful result. I'm just not sure what the purpose is.

qmmmur 6y ago
I can't understand how you so monumentally miss the point. It's art.
foobarbecue 6y ago
Actually I wonder if it might be a significant contribution to the field of hydrology. For example, for use in floodplain modeling after landscaping, or water resources work.
- yorwba 6y ago
  Not really, since he's just trying to create a visually pleasing result and can ignore a lot of phenomena that would change the exact course of the river, like the water speed, water level, erosion resistance of different materials, slope of the terrain... (The example of a circular "river" meandering should be a pretty big hint that it's not physically accurate.)
tantalor 6y ago
Hi! Welcome to the website you are currently on. What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

hyko 6y ago

Very cool.

phreeza 6y ago

Fun fact, Albert Einstein wrote a paper explaining why rivers form meanders and tea leaves accumulate in the center of a stirred cup. http://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/005/03/0105-0108 http://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/005/03/0105-0108

dhbradshaw 6y ago
His son Hans is responsible for a whole body of work in river engineering. https://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/news/life-and-pioneering-work-hans-albert-einstein https://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/news/life-and-pioneering-w...