Project - Procedural Population of Virtual Terrains

technopolitica · 2010-09-10T14:02:49

Edit: I've considerably shortened this post and made some clarifications. PM me if you want more details.I'm seeking feedback from the game development community on a project I'm designing which will be able to procedurally populate a virtual terrain with 3d or 2d vegetation models/meshes given only a heightmap, a few parameters and a set of files that define the types of vegetation used to populate the terrain. The x,y coordinates of vegetation models/meshes output by this program will be ecologically-realistic, allowing the production of highly detailed and diverse virtual environments with minimal effort required on the level designer's part.In particular, my project could prove especially useful for populating large-scale, seamless outdoor landscapes that cross multiple climates.The project, if completed, would be lost-cost (under $100) or even free and use a non-restrictive, open-source license. My primary motivation for developing such a project is to contribute to the independent game development community, as well as to gain experience in real-world software development and distribution.Potential users of my project include small-scale independent teams of game developers primarily using low-cost middleware with non-restrictive licenses (GPL, LGPL, BSD etc.) such as Blender and the Ogre3d Rendering Engine.Any and all feedback on the project is greatly appreciated. However I am particularly interested in:whether practicing independent game designers would find my project useful; andif they think that such a tool could be easily integrated into their established design workflows[Edited by - technopolitica on August 26, 2010 8:20:18 PM]

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by technopolitica August 25, 2010 03:18 PM

10 comments, last by EJH 13 years, 7 months ago

wodinoneeye

1,691

September 04, 2010 11:36 PM

I did something like this years ago and the type/placement of the vegetation is largely dependant on factors like water/weather which have to be supplied in addition to altitude/heightmap(slopes) and possibly surface composition (soil typeing).

The same land structure (even very steep rockwork) with no water is a desert without water or a rainforest in a region of extreme rain. Where the land meets standing water is also a factor and plant life often extends into the water (moreso if you also have realistic underwater flora).

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EJH

315

September 10, 2010 02:02 PM

There are a bunch of procedural terrain programs linked here:

http://www.vterrain.org/Packages/Artificial/

Also, I think SpeedTree has a some tools to auto-populate grass and vegetation:

http://www.speedtree.com/apps/sdk.php#features

Can't really comment on them though, since I have never used them. Would probably be worth looking into what features those have and improving up them.

Project - Procedural Population of Virtual Terrains

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Project - Procedural Population of Virtual Terrains

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