4 ms·

Procedural Heightmap Terrain Generation

46 points by bemmu 11y ago

yoha 11y ago
Nice detailed article. There is also some interesting information about making quadtree-based quad spheres (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrilateralized_spherical_cube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrilateralized_spherical_cu...) in this presentation about the making of Kerbal Space Program, at 30min 40s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXTxQko-JH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXTxQko-JH0 (the whole thing is worth the watch).
tluyben2 11y ago
There are a lot of helpful blogs / pages to get started, but non (that I could find) teach about perfecting the result. Are there any? From the end result here to a real scenery like https://www.seedofandromeda.com/assets/images/blogs/rockies.jpg https://www.seedofandromeda.com/assets/images/blogs/rockies.... seems quite far off.
azernik 11y ago
This looks very good on the micro level, but not so much on the macro level ("blobby", in the author's own words). Part of what's needed is something that at least somewhat emulates plate tectonics and other real geological processes - not well enough for simulation purposes, but well enough to get things to look right to a human viewer. This is a nice description of the manual version of the process (in the context of RPG setting design): http://www.giantitp.com/articles/xO3dVM8EDKJPlKxmVoG.html http://www.giantitp.com/articles/xO3dVM8EDKJPlKxmVoG.html
- zamalek 11y ago
  To add to that list of references[1]. This example is particularly good in terms of believability - it does a good job at hiding the procedural origins and is really believable. [1]: http://experilous.com/1/blog/post/procedural-planet-generation http://experilous.com/1/blog/post/procedural-planet-generati...
robotkilla 11y ago
I've been working on a version of this (almost the same techniques described in this post) for a game I'm working on. The internets has loads of tutorials on how to do this sort of thing - there was a paper published describing these techniques from 2011). Pretty cool stuff.
eigenbom 11y ago
This is a great introduction to procedural planet generation. There's only so far you can go with this tactic. Instead of a high-res LOD height-map built with the same old functions, I'd really love to see a low-res off-line calculated world with overhangs, erosion effects, impact crater, and other crazy structures.

46 points by bemmu 11y ago

yoha 11y ago

Nice detailed article. There is also some interesting information about making quadtree-based quad spheres (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrilateralized_spherical_cube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrilateralized_spherical_cu...) in this presentation about the making of Kerbal Space Program, at 30min 40s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXTxQko-JH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXTxQko-JH0 (the whole thing is worth the watch).

tluyben2 11y ago

There are a lot of helpful blogs / pages to get started, but non (that I could find) teach about perfecting the result. Are there any? From the end result here to a real scenery like https://www.seedofandromeda.com/assets/images/blogs/rockies.jpg https://www.seedofandromeda.com/assets/images/blogs/rockies.... seems quite far off.

azernik 11y ago

This looks very good on the micro level, but not so much on the macro level ("blobby", in the author's own words). Part of what's needed is something that at least somewhat emulates plate tectonics and other real geological processes - not well enough for simulation purposes, but well enough to get things to look right to a human viewer. This is a nice description of the manual version of the process (in the context of RPG setting design): http://www.giantitp.com/articles/xO3dVM8EDKJPlKxmVoG.html http://www.giantitp.com/articles/xO3dVM8EDKJPlKxmVoG.html

zamalek 11y ago
To add to that list of references[1]. This example is particularly good in terms of believability - it does a good job at hiding the procedural origins and is really believable. [1]: http://experilous.com/1/blog/post/procedural-planet-generation http://experilous.com/1/blog/post/procedural-planet-generati...

robotkilla 11y ago

I've been working on a version of this (almost the same techniques described in this post) for a game I'm working on. The internets has loads of tutorials on how to do this sort of thing - there was a paper published describing these techniques from 2011). Pretty cool stuff.

eigenbom 11y ago

This is a great introduction to procedural planet generation. There's only so far you can go with this tactic. Instead of a high-res LOD height-map built with the same old functions, I'd really love to see a low-res off-line calculated world with overhangs, erosion effects, impact crater, and other crazy structures.