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[nikki]

Before i forget :

the fixed overview world:
it's a '3d' tile world and i use binary techniques i've learned recently

The most recent refactored version of my world creator:

[Inanimate]

This is extremely clever! I hope to see some awesome (or rather some MORE awesome) things spring out of this.

[increpare]

binary techniques?

[kiwi]

Looks good, but the '3D' world is a bit weird, if I were you I'd add the water and only two terrain types, or make the world generate a more intuitive pattern, this one looks kinda random to me

[nikki]

In This post The beginnings of the textures are visible


Today I started the vegetation phase,
Because i fear days and days and weeks of tweaking the parameters without a specific goal,
I'll create a nice structured table of things I need to do.

Since the master biomes are in place it's mostly a matter of deciding the specific groundtype, plants, trees and other features.
I suspect i'll eventually have to add different soil types, but i'll worry about those when we get there.Each biome could be build up from more specific types (for example: riversides, swamps, fields, dense scrubland etc. etc.)

For each biome different textures, color choices, vegetations and other features need to be made. When such a thing is made i will add an image in the table.

OCEAN

obviously this will mostly be water. Where the ocean meets the land there are some possibilities.

floortextures : sandy, rocky, stones
shrubtype: small (dependant on biome: broadleaf, coniferous, evergreen)
planttype: small (some sea plants , like algae and seaweeds)
treetype: rare small tree (dependant on biome: broadleaf, coniferous, evergreen)
extra features: dunes, dead sea creatures.

POLAR

Snow and Ice , No vegetation

floortextures: snow, ice
extra features: glaciers

TUNDRA

No trees here.

floortextures : mossy, stones, rocky, mud
shrubtype: small (coniferous)
planttype: small (coniferous)
treetype: none
extra features: marches, great rocks, shrublands

BOREAL

also known as 'taiga'

floortextures : mossy, stones, rocky, mud, dead leaves
shrubtype: S M L (coniferous,evergreen)
planttype: S M  (coniferous)
treetype: S M L(coniferous,evergreen)
extra features: marches, great rocks, mossy plains,shrublands

MIXED FOREST

a place where the taiga and the broadleaf forest meet.

floortextures : mossy, stones, rocky, mud, dead leaves
shrubtype: S M L (coniferous,evergreen,broadleaf)
planttype: S M L (coniferous,evergreen,broadleaf)
treetype: S M L(coniferous,evergreen,broadleaf)
extra features: marches, great rocks, mossy plains, shrublands

DECIDIOUS FOREST

The place where the greatest of the broadleaf trees grow.

floortextures : mossy, stones, sandy, mud, dead leaves
shrubtype: S M L (broadleaf,coniferous)
planttype: S M L XL(coniferous,broadleaf)
treetype: S M L XL(broadleaf,coniferous)
extra features: open grassfields, shrublands, rock formations

PRAIRIE

comes in its wet-form and the dry one

in the dry version there are virtually no trees,
the wet version has some more vegetation, but still no trees

floortextures : sandy, mossy, weedy
shrubtype: S M L (smallleaf,coniferous,evergreen)
planttype: S M L XL(smallleaf,coniferous,evergreen)
treetype: none
extra features: open grassfields, shrublands, rock formations,grasslands, marches, bogs


MEDITERRAN

Holiday land !

floortextures : sandy, weedy, grass
shrubtype: S M L (smallleaf,coniferous,evergreen, rare broadleaf)
planttype: S M L XL(smallleaf,coniferous,evergreen)
treetype: S M L (smallleaf,coniferous,evergreen, rare broadleaf)
extra features: open grassfields, shrublands, rock formations,grasslands

DRYLANDS

An place inbetween the desert and the grass steppe

floortextures : sandy, grass, stones
shrubtype: S M  (smallleaf,evergreen)
planttype: S M L XL(smallleaf,evergreen)
treetype: S M L (smallleaf,coniferous,evergreen)
extra features: open grassfields, shrublands, rock formations,grasslands


DESERT

The dryest place

floortextures : sandy, stones
shrubtype: S M  (smallleaf,evergreen)
planttype: none
treetype: none
extra features: dunes, rock formations

DESERT STEPPE

A desert with an ocassional patch of grass

The dryest place

floortextures : sandy, stones, grass
shrubtype: S M  (smallleaf,evergreen)
planttype: S  (smallleaf,evergreen)
treetype:  a rare great (smallleaf,evergreen)
extra features: dunes, rock formations, grass fields

SAVANNA

The great plains


floortextures : sandy, stones, grass, weedy
shrubtype: S M  L XL(smallleaf,evergreen)
planttype: S M (smallleaf,evergreen)
treetype:  S M  (smallleaf,evergreen)
extra features: dunes, rock formations, grass fields, many different types of grass.

RAINFOREST

The tallest of all trees grow here

there is the tropical rainforest and the moderate one. The unique thing about the tropical rainforest are the very tall trees >50 (or 80) meter !

floortextures : sandy, stones, dead plants, muddy,mosses
shrubtype: S M  L XL(smallleaf,evergreen)
planttype: S M L XL(smallleaf,evergreen)
treetype:  S M  L XL XXL(smallleaf,evergreen)
extra features: riversides, rockformations, streams


RIVERS/LAKES

special grasses grow there, banks are formed, and waterplants could grow here.
The type and size depends on the biome the river is in.

floortextures : sandy, stones, dead plants, muddy,mosses
extra features: riversides, rockformations, streams

[nikki]

at kiwi:
that is correct the ground covering (including water) is totally random in that image, only the heightmap is formed with a little thought, the rest is noise... (thats next on the list )

at increpare :
 terrain transitions || test program

edit: I just tested my test program on te PC i am at right now (not my own) And i noticed it didn't work properly at all (VISTA, dont know or care about the drivers) So it could work different as it should, ill look into it

[nikki]

Hello !

the Festivities are over, new year was nice , i hope yours was good too .
I thought some more about the biomes and their respective look(s)
Yesterday evening I build a procedural texture-maker (with a hangover)
(I just couldn't stand drawing in Graphics Gale/saving/messing about in code/generating/view result,  this took too long)

Hopefully today i'll finish some textures and decide on the right colors.

.

I've also been looking into biomes on wikipedia, and do feel the need for a more structured way of subdividing them, this sound academic, but what i mean is some stuff like dense forest, light forest, dense shrubs etc etc.
I can just write those sub-biomes as percentage tables.

[shrimp]

Hey man, this is amazing! Great looking continents and biomes, and the first-person collage-style view is really intriguing!

[Mocker]

This is looking good. How are you seeding the initial algorithms? I am making a space exploration game and I want to add in something like this to be able to generate explorable planets

[nikki]

at Mocker:
wich initial algortihms you mean ? Initially i just use a random number generator to seed stuff like a diamond square algorithm to make a heightmap, or are you talking about the biomes?

quick update :
I've made a little more freedom for the textures a whipped up a tundra-i kind of landscape

luckily there aren't any trees in the tundra, so thats ok!

quick update2 :
the desert

quick update3
with proto-trees

[Petethegoat]

Woah, very impressive!

The trees seem fairly fern-like, more distinct branches and leaves would help, I think.

Also, are you planning to implement some sort of sway or wind?
Because that would make the whole scene absolutely astounding. 

[kiwi]

That certainly looks cool.
Clouds could use some improvement though.

[nikki]

at Petethegoat:
I can imagine that being sweet, I can't tell if it's possible in this case, I think I have an idea of how, but i don't know if it is as light on the mem/updateloop as i'd hope.
Definatily something to work towards though
edit:[more specific]

The trees and other vegetation will be generated and offloaded in videomemory,
to be able to wind sweep them or move them sensible, I couldnt do that ^{the offloading in videomemory}.
Instead i would need all the individual data (trunk , branches, leaves even) and apply force to that. That's the problem i'm seeing with motion in the trees, but i don't know really , because I havent tested it.



at kiwi:
yeah your right about the clouds,
I had them lying about somewhere (from before), I like the simpleness of them, but i'm thinking a simple 2d heightmap as a sky could work better

cheers for the feedback
bye

[nikki]

Ok Update:  

In total there will be 70 textured tiles that need defining, for every biome 5
That means that in most of the cases, there will be a maximum of 5 different textured tiles as a ground layer. these 5 are layered as in previous screenshots. When different biomes lay next to eachother, the borderline could have more than 5 textured tiles. Because 70 textured tiles is a big number to define I made a helper program..

This is what it looks like:

Its for choosing colors and textures and saving that data as a biome-set ....

Hopefully now, it will be a piece of cake, and i won't get as scared of the big numbers   And can I finally fill my table on page 2

[Eclipse]

the 3d-ish world is quite ugly to my eyes even if it has potential as it looks a bit like an old Sim-City landscape or the one of Populous



I think an isometric view would work better (basically without the sky) but it's your choice. The procedural planet thing looks amazing good work

[mokesmoe]

I don't mind the 3d, but I agree: a sky-less isometric view would look nice.

[Alex May]

The sky is fine, you just need to make clear which bits are flat. Some lighting will help.

Amazing work, keep it up.

[nikki]

I am actually pretty happy with someone not liking this specific perspective.
Now atleast I can explain why I have chosen this, and why not the isometric.

Originally I had ofcourse also thought about the isometric solution.
Its like a standard of showing terrain with height since... well Qbert (1982) i think.
It is a good perspective if you want to make a terrain where almost everything is always visible. If you look at those populous shots, you can almost see every side of the mountain. And in alot of cases this is good, becauze otherwise the player can't see what he/she is doing. but this doesn't mean it's always the best solution.

I used to have this book on simcity2000 where a chapter is about the failed perspectives, the one i use looks abit like one....

The simplest reason i don't like the isometric , is that i love a frontal view on the things.this is not possible with an isometric view.

The other thing i really don't like about isometric , is the way people tend to choose this perspective without actually thinking why. Its just the standard way to go, every beginner book on programming explains about it, maybe thats why, and thus you have thousands of isometric games. I don't wanna make the thousands+1 th

anyway, the choice i've made is a bit different then the most standard, this can be perceived as ugly, it's ok with me.
I do have to look in the proper shading/lighting because in some cases you can flip the perspective in your minds eye, and thing get very strange.

ps I love to disagree friendly

 

[Mipe]

Full frontal terrain action!

Eh, yeah, in my case I am dealing with overhead perspective, however I've been toying with an idea of frontal view (basically viewing elevations from the side and layering them by distance). In that case slopes facing the player would show features. Now imagine a panoramic view of your surroundings.

We are talking about the same thing, right?

[nikki]

oh yeah