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Ask HN: Where to begin learning how to generate procedural worlds?

I want to start writing 3d games, and have no clue where to begin. Been watching some youtube videos about perlin noise and 3d world generation in three.js and I think I'm starting to grasp the concepts but it's overwhelming atm. If you can suggest any tutorials or books to read I would greatly appreciate it.

aww_dang 5y ago
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/ http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/...
- amitp 5y ago
  That's more of an intermediate level; I think https://www.redblobgames.com/maps/terrain-from-noise/ https://www.redblobgames.com/maps/terrain-from-noise/ is a simpler place to get started. For concepts ("frequency", "octaves", etc.), see https://www.redblobgames.com/articles/noise/introduction.html https://www.redblobgames.com/articles/noise/introduction.htm... but I would recommend starting with the practical page and then reading the theory page afterwards. Also, there's a procedural generation reddit (https://old.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/ https://old.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/) which has resources in the sidebar and there's also a procedural generation discord https://discord.gg/67yD223 https://discord.gg/67yD223
  - aww_dang 5y ago
    Thanks for all of the resources.
RobRivera 5y ago
your local random number generation library and an understanding of seeding and number distributions
manx 5y ago
Some hopefully useful keywords: iso surface, marching cubes, dual contouring, octree, kd-tree, perlin noise, worley noise, level of detail
- johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
  I have come across a number of those terms in the past few days, so I must be on the right track!
mrpf1ster 5y ago
Sebastian Lague has a bunch of videos on youtube about creating games and 3d worlds. I saw him described as the “Bob Ross” of programming and I agree wholeheartedly. Creating Virtual Planets: https://youtu.be/lctXaT9pxA0 https://youtu.be/lctXaT9pxA0 Creating Terrain: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFt_AvWsXl0eBW2EiBtl_sxmDtSgZBxB3 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFt_AvWsXl0eBW2EiBtl_sxmD...
- johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
  That's funny. I have seen no less than 2 other youtubers be described as the bob ross of programming in the past few days... and they were all creating procedural worlds! Came across Lague but have not checked him out yet. I will now, thanks!
f0e4c2f7 5y ago
I've been doing a deep dive on the unreal engine 5 beta. It's absolutely incredible and 10x easier to use than when I've tried in the past. I used this tutorial to get started. https://youtube.com/watch?v=gQmiqmxJMtA https://youtube.com/watch?v=gQmiqmxJMtA Following along with the tutorial I felt not that far from something that I could release as a playable game. Really fun to use. Unreal engine has an extremely rich plugin ecosystem with dozens of procedural plugins. So for example: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/worldscape-pro-plugin-make-planet-and-infinite-world https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/world... I haven't found something that feels comprehensive yet. But it's probably because I'm not familiar enough with the space. You can cobble it all together with the plugins though. Unfortunately, unlike traditional software development the unreal plugins tend to cost money (or good news if you have an interest in plugin development). Unreal Engine on the other hand is free up to some crazy amount of sales and then you pay a small royalty. There is also another program I ran across that I think can import to unreal and other software. https://www.world-creator.com/ https://www.world-creator.com/ Oh and here's a shorter video of some of the unreal engine 5 stuff that highlight the technical updates. https://youtube.com/watch?v=d1ZnM7CH-v4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=d1ZnM7CH-v4
- johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
  I like the way that first video starts out. I can tell already I'm going to watch the entire series. Thank you so much! Just curious... can unreal create games that can be played in the browser?
  - f0e4c2f7 5y ago
    You know I'm not sure. It's pretty versatile so maybe? I've been focused on VR dev. Googling it looks like at least some people are. https://itch.io/games/made-with-unreal-engine/platform-web https://itch.io/games/made-with-unreal-engine/platform-web

aww_dang 5y ago

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/ http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/...

amitp 5y ago
That's more of an intermediate level; I think https://www.redblobgames.com/maps/terrain-from-noise/ https://www.redblobgames.com/maps/terrain-from-noise/ is a simpler place to get started. For concepts ("frequency", "octaves", etc.), see https://www.redblobgames.com/articles/noise/introduction.html https://www.redblobgames.com/articles/noise/introduction.htm... but I would recommend starting with the practical page and then reading the theory page afterwards. Also, there's a procedural generation reddit (https://old.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/ https://old.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/) which has resources in the sidebar and there's also a procedural generation discord https://discord.gg/67yD223 https://discord.gg/67yD223
- aww_dang 5y ago
  Thanks for all of the resources.

RobRivera 5y ago

your local random number generation library and an understanding of seeding and number distributions

manx 5y ago

Some hopefully useful keywords: iso surface, marching cubes, dual contouring, octree, kd-tree, perlin noise, worley noise, level of detail

johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
I have come across a number of those terms in the past few days, so I must be on the right track!

mrpf1ster 5y ago

Sebastian Lague has a bunch of videos on youtube about creating games and 3d worlds. I saw him described as the “Bob Ross” of programming and I agree wholeheartedly. Creating Virtual Planets: https://youtu.be/lctXaT9pxA0 https://youtu.be/lctXaT9pxA0 Creating Terrain: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFt_AvWsXl0eBW2EiBtl_sxmDtSgZBxB3 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFt_AvWsXl0eBW2EiBtl_sxmD...

johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
That's funny. I have seen no less than 2 other youtubers be described as the bob ross of programming in the past few days... and they were all creating procedural worlds! Came across Lague but have not checked him out yet. I will now, thanks!

f0e4c2f7 5y ago

I've been doing a deep dive on the unreal engine 5 beta. It's absolutely incredible and 10x easier to use than when I've tried in the past. I used this tutorial to get started. https://youtube.com/watch?v=gQmiqmxJMtA https://youtube.com/watch?v=gQmiqmxJMtA Following along with the tutorial I felt not that far from something that I could release as a playable game. Really fun to use. Unreal engine has an extremely rich plugin ecosystem with dozens of procedural plugins. So for example: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/worldscape-pro-plugin-make-planet-and-infinite-world https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/world... I haven't found something that feels comprehensive yet. But it's probably because I'm not familiar enough with the space. You can cobble it all together with the plugins though. Unfortunately, unlike traditional software development the unreal plugins tend to cost money (or good news if you have an interest in plugin development). Unreal Engine on the other hand is free up to some crazy amount of sales and then you pay a small royalty. There is also another program I ran across that I think can import to unreal and other software. https://www.world-creator.com/ https://www.world-creator.com/ Oh and here's a shorter video of some of the unreal engine 5 stuff that highlight the technical updates. https://youtube.com/watch?v=d1ZnM7CH-v4 https://youtube.com/watch?v=d1ZnM7CH-v4

johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
I like the way that first video starts out. I can tell already I'm going to watch the entire series. Thank you so much! Just curious... can unreal create games that can be played in the browser?
- f0e4c2f7 5y ago
  You know I'm not sure. It's pretty versatile so maybe? I've been focused on VR dev. Googling it looks like at least some people are. https://itch.io/games/made-with-unreal-engine/platform-web https://itch.io/games/made-with-unreal-engine/platform-web