You may want to have a look at fractal clouds.

They probably won''t be suitable for game use right away, but if you apply a palette to a fractal cloud you can get a rather effect in 2D.

(incoming example pic)



This could easily be converted to use tiles instead of individual pixels. In the case of a 3D game, given the way this works you could very easily make a heightmap out of it.

Keep one thing in mind: the image I''ve provided has a palette applied to it. The actual cloud kept in memory contains a value between 0 and 255 for each pixel, meaning I could apply an other palette to the image with ease or convert it to a heightmap.

I have a really quick and dirty program I coded in about an afternoon that should help demonstrate what I mean. I THINK the source is included (somewhat sloppy; like I said it''s an afternoon''s work); if it isn''t I could include if you''re interested.

www.geocities.com/NekoLancer/Landscape.zip

(yes, geocities. now hush. ;P)