Terrain Prototype

Post by **uzurpator** » 04 Feb 2005 21:03

Kazam! For your viewin pleasure - terrain prototype for TE.

The terrain is created using pseudo-random noise pattern (beautiful thing - 1 number defines _whole_ terrain - no matter how big it is) then drawn using 3-pass bilinear filtered gouraud shading. It's a tad slow - so I'll try to make it faster. But nonetheless - have fun watching.

Hellfire · Post by **Hellfire** » 04 Feb 2005 21:31

Runs nice and smooth on my Gentoo box.

I did have to change some source files though... (change <gl\gl.h> into <GL/gl.h> and <SDL/blah> into <blah>)

But it compiles now, without any significant errors. Just some "enum" warnings.

Post by **uzurpator** » 06 Feb 2005 21:38

So - the newest changes ^^

Steve · Post by **Steve** » 06 Feb 2005 22:55

Looks a bit bumpy. Could you imagine getting a train to run over that? I think that style only works for mountains, you'll need a flatter bit too on a map.

Post by **uzurpator** » 06 Feb 2005 23:13

steve - au contrare - there are a few parameters that make the terrain flat or allow increasing amount of water. Take a look.

jfs · Post by **jfs** » 06 Feb 2005 23:17

Urzupator - no, what I think Steve means, is that even though the terrain is rough and mountaneous, it still needs plateaus and somewhat flat plains.

Hyronymus · Post by **Hyronymus** » 06 Feb 2005 23:18

Looks very nice, uz. Can I be nasty and ask if rivers are an option for your engine?

Post by **uzurpator** » 06 Feb 2005 23:28

jfs - entirely possible. I'm planning on adding a low-pass filter that will make the valleys/mountaintops flatter/smoother. Also - in a postprocessing part I can add pretty much any filter - ferinstance one that will make half of the map flat and the other half hilly. Take a look below

Frankly - send me your photo and I'll make a map out of it

Hyro - rivers would require erosion algorithm. They take TONS of computer resources. While possible - I don't think users want to wait a few days to get any effects.

jfs · Post by **jfs** » 07 Feb 2005 00:11

While it may not be entirely realistic, how about just "faking" an erosion algorithm? Like, starting by selecting what path the river will take (of course with some respect to the general shape of the terrain) and then just cut out a riverbed. As long as it looks somewhat realistic, anything will do.

Post by **uzurpator** » 07 Feb 2005 13:39

jfs - not to my knowledge. We'll have to settle for no rivers on random maps.

Hyronymus · Post by **Hyronymus** » 07 Feb 2005 14:33

I diagree with that, besides the FRD clearly says else. How does a game like SimCity create rivers (water in general) in custom maps?

PJayTycy · Post by **PJayTycy** » 07 Feb 2005 15:02

Isn't it possible to just choose some random points on the map which would be a "spring" and then calculate its way down? We don't really need erosion to have rivers.

Arathorn · Post by **Arathorn** » 07 Feb 2005 15:08

I don't think we need erosion either... games don't take that long...

Korenn · Post by **Korenn** » 07 Feb 2005 15:36

uzurpator wrote:jfs - not to my knowledge. We'll have to settle for no rivers on random maps.

I wrote a river generator for my ottd spinoff that combined random segments and turns and then adapted the land around it. it doesn't make for a fully realistic river but makes very nice fjords etc.

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » 08 Feb 2005 02:39

Arathorn wrote:I don't think we need erosion either... games don't take that long...

I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of an erosion engine; it's not to simulate erosion in-game, but for generating mroe realistic maps by simulating the way nature shapes land over millenia.

The shots look great. However, it would be even better if the terrain generator could combine the different types of terrain into a more varied landscape - i.e. a map containing flat land, hills, mountains, lakes, rivers, and shorelines in different combinations. That would give TE a massive edge over things like OpenTTD and Simutrans whose terrain generation is limited to one type of land at a time.

Post by **uzurpator** » 10 Feb 2005 15:12

Another revision - this one a bit more interactive

Space - generates a terrain
1 - hold it to increase amount of water
2 - hold it to decrease amount of water
3 - hold to make more mountains
4 - hold to make terrain flatter

g - display grid
t - display triangles in grid view

ESC exit program

Killer 11 · Post by **Killer 11** » 10 Feb 2005 15:59

This looks cool!
It just needs texture now

Zuu · Post by **Zuu** » 10 Feb 2005 18:35

Looks good, althrought the keybord commands still don't want to work in Linux using Wine nor Portable.NET. Plus that the mouse pointer is forced to the center of the window.

The main reason that I havn't compiled a Linux version is that I don't know how to link it. I have a year or so of experince of SDL (without GL), but almost no with GL. So I cant tell on straight arm whick arguments to send to the compiler.

Code: Select all

pkg-config --list-all | grep gl | less
pkg-config --list-all | grep GL | less

Does not list gl or GL.

By the way, I couldn't find any errors in the code that would be the reson for the non working keybord nor the problems with the mouse pointer.

About the demo/proto: Loking good, do you know the propotitions on how much resources that are used for the graphics and the algorithm?

Hellfire · Post by **Hellfire** » 11 Feb 2005 08:48

Zuu, here's a patch. I made a new Makefile and changed two of the source files.

You can apply the patch by running:

Code: Select all

$ patch -Np1 < terrain.patch

With this Makefile, the demo runs like a charm on my Gentoo machine.

Zuu · Post by **Zuu** » 11 Feb 2005 21:24

Thanks, Hellfire. Now it compiles fine on my Gentoo box too.

Now the keybord works, and the mouse pointer isn't forced into the middle of the window, as it were a black whole.

Transport Tycoon Forums

Terrain Prototype

Terrain Prototype

Who is online