abercag28-blog

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Updated list

Terrain

Noise Map Gen  ✓ Noise Map Application to Mesh  ✓ Colour Map Gen  ✓ (Not as realistic as it can be)

Water

Apply Terrain Noise Map to Water Mesh  ✓ Water Flow Algorithm  ✓   Water Pooling Algorithm  ✓ Apply Water to Mesh Function  ✓ (one thing left to do i think)  Add Water of Z amount to Location [X, Y]  ✓

Temperature

Temperature Map based on height ✓ Temp Map edited based on suns height (just a daylight cycle)  ✓ Temp Map edited based on shadows from objects like trees and clouds Temp Map edited by temp model of seasonal progression(Bell curve)

Plantlife

A universal cycle of growth 1-3 tree presets using L-Systems Statistics for trees(how far from water, how steep, how hot etc)   ✓ How often trees reproduce Tree Models  ✓

Wildlife(Stretch) Wind(Stretch)

MISC(Stretch) make things look pretty 

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Update 06/04

I have discovered why water causes spikes in the mesh. I use the terrain modifier properties to match the water mesh to just beneath the terrain mesh. These properties include a multiplier that increases the height of the mesh from between 0 and 1 to whatever I want it to be. I use this multiplier when adding water too because I need to redraw the mesh, and without the multiplier the mesh becomes a lot shorter! I can fix this by creating a script based vertex editor instead of redrawing the whole mesh. I have successfully implemented propagating trees however they still look like squares they do have a growth cycle that causes trees to begin replicating given certain environmental conditions. left to do is to re implement mesh editing and use a tutortial for L-systems before plugging it wherever create cube is used.

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Update 29/03

I have completed the water mechanics and have begun to make headway into trees and L-systems. Water mechanics has been reworked to store the value of water locally using a create asset menu and I have discovered that the height of the water mesh, when spliced with the water overlay, seem to spike to an incredible extent. The extent to which it spikes does not reflect the actual values stored in the array. Trees are currently underway and I have completed mechanics to detect water, spawn more trees and keep track of time using unity’s mono behaviour. Next step for trees, is creating a propagation mechanic and removing an unnecessary cloned cube that appears when the trees are spawned.

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Poster

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Checklist

Terrain

Noise Map Gen  ✓ Noise Map Application to Mesh  ✓ Colour Map Gen  ✓ (Not as realistic as it can be)

Water

Apply Terrain Noise Map to Water Mesh  ✓ Water Flow Algorithm  ✓   Water Pooling Algorithm  ✓ Apply Water to Mesh Function  ✓ (one thing left to do i think) Add Water of Z amount to Location [X, Y]  ✓

Temperature

Temperature Map based on height ✓ Temp Map edited based on suns height Temp Map edited based on shadows from objects like trees and clouds Temp Map edited by temp model of seasonal progression(Bell curve)

Plantlife

A universal cycle of growth 1-3 tree presets using L-Systems Statistics for trees(how far from water, how steep, how hot etc) How often trees reproduce Tree Models

Wildlife(Stretch) Wind(Stretch)

MISC(Stretch) make things look pretty

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Diagrams pt 1

Height Map

A height map is a black and white image that represents the distance between the highest(white) and lowest(black) points. This height map has a map of vertices that can be used to look up the height(the colour) of any single point. The height is represented as a value between 0 and 1 because it is implemented as a mesh with height constraints

Temp Map

Temperature and climate, on its surface, are affected by several factors; Topology, Air Pressure(weather) and water. The temperature is used to determine several factors; type of terrain, plant type and growth conditions, and rainfall.  Topology can prevent temperatures rising in some areas by blocking sunlight. clouds and foliage can do the same thing to a lesser effect. The temperature map above does not currently reflect the effects of these factors.

Weather Notes

The weather is a complicated affair and I have yet to do a diagram for them. The short explanation is that I will need to create a system that takes into account the height map, the temperature map and one other item to represent wind/air pressure. Water

Water levels can be visualised using a height map. When completely still the height map is a constant shade, ripples are concentric circles or lines of several shades. To represent water on a height map that has topology I need two height maps. The first is the height map for the terrain and the second is the height map for the water. The height map for the water should be the same size as the terrain height map(a little lower down) to begin with and adds water to it as it goes on to increase its height above the original. Water is a secondary height map that determines location, distribution and route through the first height map.

Plant Notes

Plants are agents that grow and evolve over time, they are constrained by weather type, gradient and water accessibility.

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20/02 - temperature map

This is working, I have temperature according to height, however I am not sure which temperatures correlate to which colours

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17/02 - Testing Research

Testing in unity, a post on textures and code https://www.raywenderlich.com/9454-introduction-to-unity-unit-testing this is a tutorial on how to set up unity’s “test runner”, which essentially is a Unit test that uses scripts or pieces of code through a ‘test suite’, a gui that aids in test creation. The tests are written in a separate file and has green check boxes if they succeed or will remain greyed out if they have failed. This test runner that unity offers can provide both unit and integration testing.

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16/02

Code commented and redundant code pointed out for later refactoring. The value of the height map is between 0 and 1 because when it is being applied to a mesh the mesh doesn’t rise 255 units into the air. InverseLerp keeps the mesh in a more usable scale. The noise map contains height at vertices, I need to create a new mode, climate map, that takes these vertices and applies a temperature to them. The temperature can be displayed in colour but numbers may be preferred

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next step(post wip)

Now that my landscape is at a state that can be considered modular I have decided to move onto the plant-life. I will be using a/n L-system(s) and Poisson disc sampling to create a plant-life simulation. To Do: Refactor posts Diagrams and descriptions of methodologies set of requirements https://www.jasondavies.com/poisson-disc/

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Current State 9th Feb

This is a picture of the Unity Scene for my project, The upper plane is a noise height map and the one underneath is a mesh with collision that extrapolates from the height map. The colours are representative of different height elevations. To Do: I would like a more realistic feel for my terrain however this will do for now. There is an issue with size proportions, I would like a more zoomed in approach. They are planes and don’t have anything underneath them. There is a zero sized array error somewhere, Unity refuses to tell me where. Though I suspect it is the array I use to blend the boundaries. Code documentation. Done: Mesh created from height map Generate a height map Generate a vertex map Colour representation Colour picker Preset; shaders, noise and terrain files that can be changed (by hand for now)

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Thoughts on climate change

I plan to create multiple shaders to give colour to represent climates and different environments, these can be selected and should correspond with selected values. 3 values for 4 seasons, some presets, user can change them. These will be used to denote time passing and ���update stages” if I can’t figure out how to get the simulation to run smoothly and fuzzily

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Glub Glub(water thoughts)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watershed_%28image_processing%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_foresting_transform I have a map that contains the heights of all points, and a matrix that shows to positions of every node that affects my mesh. So I have two maps, one of location and another of height, I can use these to determine the values of one area and compare to the others around them to determine whether or not water will accumulate there. Watershed can also use height maps. I can use a combination of all three to create a working flooding system? The foresting transform is a path selction algorithm proposed by Dijkstra that can be used in combination with the watershed to provide a map of optimal flow. Combined with another map to show things like trees, or in this case anything that causes an incline, and avoid or go around it. Issues: a tiny incline will stop the river styx with this method :) potential fix: Assign a value to flooding depending on the volume potential fix 2: Do something that isn’t computed onto a shader potential fix 3: If the higher the value of the water(quantity) the more the value of the incline is ignored

The foresting algorithm talks about *cost* for the routes taken, if it is affordable then the water should take all routes starting from the cheapest and working up

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Tasks 3rd Feb

Watershed algorithm computer vision

Flow out

Complete landscape

Think about the other waters

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Tasks, 31st Jan

Complete a generated 1km squared area Implement some sort of water system

Think about how the tools I use will be interacting for the project Clean up my previous posts with more descriptions

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The topics and plans(WIP)

Sections:

1)Landscape 1.1)Height map 1.2)Colour/Climate map

2)Flora 2.1)placement decision 2.2)Life Cycle / Growth Patterns 3.3)Types

3)Water 3.1)Gravity 3.2)Push back force 3.3)precipitation and evaporation

4)weather 4.1) Air, Precipitation 4.2) How topology affects patterns and rainfall

5)Fauna 5.1)Resources 5.2)life cycle 5.3)predators?

1) Landscape is a 3d map of varying heights, this can be an imported height map or procedurally generated. The main considerations are consistency and colour.  Will size of the area be conveyed by the height map? Resolution? Colour may be a weird one to do, perhaps do something based on climate and temp maps or have it auto generate.

2) Flora should be placed based on the Landscape and absence of water, this can use an L-system for both the generation and placement of flora. They should have a life cycle.  Factors to consider; whether the type can survive(conifer vs deciduous vs evergreen), conditions to grow(temp, slope, water, access to light etc)

3) Water, water should follow the path down to the local minimum it can find, it may be possible to use boids to simulate this. An exact number of boids and the first to be made is the first to disappear, reappearing at sources(rivers, rain, etc). Factors should affect the maximum number, such as temp, weather etc. should have push back against not water

4) Weather, Considering boids, should have a weight value great enough to avoid sinking, affected by terrain and flora, apply small force.

5) Fauna, the last thing to be implemented, requires resources and management, potentially affect all previous sections but weather

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List of possible Assets and Similar projects

Assets: A height map of the entire world https://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper/#1.80907/-2.1/7.2 Climate map of certain areas https://www.weather.gov/sjt/climate-climatemaps Similar: A very high quality terrain editor https://www.world-creator.com/features/#PERFORMANCE A Game that focuses around placing various plants and animals https://store.steampowered.com/app/853550/Equilinox/

Papers/Articles: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinknudson/2016/05/28/how-topology-affects-the-weather/ http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/35/ https://sciencing.com/water-affect-weather-patterns-21177.html https://www.reference.com/science/mountains-affect-climate-733bcb87980449f6 https://blog.weatherops.com/how-do-mountains-affect-precipitation http://worldlandforms.com/landforms/how-landforms-affect-global-temperature-and-weather/ https://ownyourweather.com/how-does-altitude-affect-climate/ Suggestions: Either use a climate map or adjustable values for temperature and variables such as wind direction and climate type over elevation An import method for height, displacement and colour maps (All my terrain might be in black and white? Maybe invest in an AI colour scheme)