Check out Ken Musgrave. He makes whole planets with fractals. It's cool. Twisting knobs is a lot less work than manual 3D modeling and such.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1558608486 On Jan 16, 2012, at 7:31 PM, BGB <cr88...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 1/16/2012 6:47 PM, Casey Ransberger wrote: >> >> Top post. Heightmapping can go a really long way. Probably not news though:) >> > > I am still not certain, since a lot of this has a lot more to do with my own > project than with general issues in computing. > > > I had messed with a few technologies already. > > height-maps (long ago, not much used since then, generally randomized). > > the issue was mostly one of being "not terribly interesting", but it makes > sense if one wants terrain (and is "fairly cheap" in terms of memory use and > performance impact). > > a more advanced variety would be to combine a height-map with a tile-map, > where the terrain generator would also vary the texture-map to give a little > more interest. I have considered this as a possibility. > > also tried randomly generated voxel terrain (similar to Minecraft, using > perlin noise). issues were of being difficult to integrate well with my > existing technology, and being very expensive in terms of both rendering and > memory usage (particularly for storing intermediate meshes). one may need to > devote about 500MB-1GB of RAM to the problem to have a moderately sized world > with (with similar specifics to those in Minecraft). > > I suspect that, apart from making something like Minecraft, the technology is > a bit too expensive and limited to really be all that "generally useful" at > this point in time and on current hardware (I suspect, however, it will > probably be much more relevant on future HW). > > > I also tried randomly generated grid-based areas (basically, stuff is built > from pre-made parts and randomly-chosen parts are put on a grid). I had also > tried combining this with maze-generation algorithms. the results were > "functional" but also "nothing to get excited about". the big drawback was > that I couldn't really think of any way to make the results of such a grid > based generator "particularly interesting" (this is I think more so with a > first-person viewpoint: such a structure is far less visually interesting > from the inside than with a top-down or isometric view). > > it could work if one were sufficiently desperate, but I doubt it would be > able to hold interest of players for all that long absent "something else of > redeeming value". > > > the "main maps" in my case mostly use a Quake/Doom3/... style maps, composed > mostly of entities (defined in terms of collections of key/value pairs > representing a given object), "brushes" (convex polyhedra), "patches" (Bezier > Surfaces), and "meshes" (mostly unstructured polygonal meshes). > > these would generally be created manually, by placing every object and piece > of geometry visible in the world, but this is fairly effort-intensive, and > simply running head first into it tends to quickly drain my motivation > (resulting in me producing worlds which look like "big boxes with some random > crap in them"). > > sadly, random generation not on a grid of some sort is a much more complex > problem (nor random generation directly in terms of unstructured or > loosely-structured geometry). > > fractals exist and work well on things like rocks or trees or terrain, but I > haven't found a good way to apply them to "general" map generation problem > (such as generating an interesting place to run around in and battle enemies, > and get to the exit). > > the "problem domain" is potentially best suited to some sort of maze > algorithm, but in my own tests, this fairly quickly stopped being all that > interesting. the "upper end" I think for this sort of thing was likely the > .Hack series games (which had a lot of apparently randomly generated > dungeons). > > > it is sad that I can't seem to pull off maps even half as interesting as > those (generally created by hand) in commercial games from well over a decade > ago. I can have a 3D engine which is technically much more advanced (or, at > least, runs considerably slower on much faster hardware with moderately more > features), but apart from reusing maps made by other people for other games, > I can't make it even a small amount nearly as "interesting" or "inspiring". > > > >> On Jan 16, 2012, at 8:45 AM, David Barbour <dmbarb...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Consider offloading some of your creativity burden onto your computer. The >>> idea is: >>> >>> It's easier to recognize and refine something interesting than to create >>> it. >>> >>> So turn it into a search, recognition, and refinement problem, and automate >>> creation. There are various techniques, which certainly can be combined: >>> >>> * constraint programming >>> * generative grammar programming >>> * genetic programming >>> * seeded fractals >>> >>> You might be surprised about how much of a world can be easily written with >>> code rather than mapping. A map can be simplified by marking regions up >>> with code and using libraries of procedures. Code can sometimes be >>> simplified by having it read a simple map or image. >>> >>> Remember, the basic role of programming is to automate that which bores you. >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Dave >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Jan 15, 2012 at 4:18 PM, BGB <cr88...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> I am generally personally stuck on the issue of how to make "interesting" >>> 3D worlds for a game-style project while lacking in both personal >>> creativity and either artistic skill or a team of artists to do it >>> (creating decent-looking 3D worlds generally requires a fair amount of >>> effort, and is in-fact I suspect somewhat bigger than the effort required >>> to make a "passable" 3D model of an object in a 3D modeling app, since at >>> least generally the model is smaller and well-defined). >>> >>> it seems some that creativity (or what little of it exists) is stifled by >>> it requiring a large amount of effort (all at once) for the activity needed >>> to express said creativity (vs things which are either easy to do all at >>> once, or can be easily decomposed into lots of incremental activities >>> spread over a large period of time). >>> >>> trying to build a non-trivial scene (something which would be "passable" in >>> a modern 3D game) at the level of dragging around and placing/resizing/... >>> cubes and/or messing with individual polygon-faces in a mapper-tool is sort >>> of a motivation killer (one can wish for some sort of "higher level" way to >>> express the scene). >>> >>> meanwhile, writing code, despite (in the grand scale) requiring far more >>> time and effort, seems to be a lot more enjoyable (but, one can't really >>> build a world in code, as this is more the mapper-tool's domain). >>> >> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> fonc mailing list >>> fonc@vpri.org >>> http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> fonc mailing list >> fonc@vpri.org >> http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > fonc@vpri.org > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
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