Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bricks]

Woah, not trying to piss you off.  I'm saying the size of one world tile in DF takes up a mighty large area, and it makes for a rather blah experience trying to hike through nondescript forests just to get to a cave that might contain four socks and a hobbled giant.  Obviously you aren't planning on the same experience as DF, but vast swaths of undeveloped wilderness are boring.  I'm not saying the screen shouldn't scroll; in fact, I don't think that makes sense for games with overworlds (though I know it has been done).  You haven't really described the ground-level gameplay, so it's not shocking that suggestions are vague or so far off the mark that they don't apply.

[Hippoman]

I found it on the internet, where most avatars tend to be found.

Who's Gwen?

ETA:

There, new avatar, since I apparently picked an already-used one.

(By the way, that's kind of a rude accusation to make, when it could have been an accident (it was).)

Yeah I'm just messing with ya, although this one is much better than your second, and much less better than your first.

[Lord Dullard]

Woah, not trying to piss you off.  I'm saying the size of one world tile in DF takes up a mighty large area, and it makes for a rather blah experience trying to hike through nondescript forests just to get to a cave that might contain four socks and a hobbled giant.  Obviously you aren't planning on the same experience as DF, but vast swaths of undeveloped wilderness are boring.  I'm not saying the screen shouldn't scroll; in fact, I don't think that makes sense for games with overworlds (though I know it has been done).  You haven't really described the ground-level gameplay, so it's not shocking that suggestions are vague or so far off the mark that they don't apply.

No worries - I've been having an awful day, so I'm sorry if I seem frazzled.

However, now that you've explained it, your suggestion makes a lot more sense. I'll just say this: don't worry, this isn't just going to be a vast wilderness. And the entire map will be revealed from the beginning of the game (which is not to say that individual squares won't hold secrets), so you won't be wandering around in darkness all the time.

But this will be a game where you'll literally be leading armies around, as well as sailing ships, in real-time. A tiny world map probably wouldn't jive with that.

[Lord Dullard]

Wooh. Finally, after a day of struggling with an incredibly pain-in-the-arse lake-finding algorithm, I've got it working. Victory!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Islands will be easy now that lakes are done (it'll use the exact same algorithm only in reverse), but I'll do it tomorrow - I need to hit the sack.

[Outcast Orange]

Woah!!

That is epic. XD
So much in so little time.
You're showing me up!

[Lord Dullard]

Announcement: Cult Tech Demo v0.15 out!

Download it here!

New features include varied forest types, several types of scrubland, mountain, desert, forest, and lake names, and a few other minor visual improvements.

To anyone who is going to test the tech demo, be aware that the lake-finding algorithm does take a moment. On my fairly modest rig, it lasts anywhere from five seconds to upwards of a minute. When lake finding and naming is complete, a 'Finished!' message will appear to let you know you can move the viewfinder around again.

Viewfinder movement during the actual worldgen process has been disabled due to the fact that it seemed to be bugging a couple of the functions. However, you can still move around after terrain gen and then again after history gen, and you still get to watch worldgen happening (you are merely constrained to viewing one 80 x 60 square, so pick somewhere interesting after terrain gen!).

There may be a bug or two lurking in the background that I don't know about yet, so if you get one, please post what happened and at what point in the process it took place. Some problems may be OS-related, which I can't do anything about.

ETA:

You're showing me up!

Hardly - I don't know the first thing about coding 3D objects. You'd program circles around me if it ever came to that. 

ETA II:

Unfortunately, it appears that named islands *might* be a no-go, unless I can figure out a better algorithm for locating them. I'll spend some time on this tonight. However, named oceans and seas will definitely be in.

[Willfor]

Will there ever be a way to dump the entire post-named map image to an image file? The first thing I thought of when I saw the world being generated was "man, this would be great for generating a world image for a homebrew D&D setting"...

I haven't run into any bugs so far, so it's all clear here.

[Lord Dullard]

Will there ever be a way to dump the entire post-named map image to an image file? The first thing I thought of when I saw the world being generated was "man, this would be great for generating a world image for a homebrew D&D setting"...

I haven't run into any bugs so far, so it's all clear here.

Ironically, it already does this for you each time you do a terrain gen.

Just go to the 'art\gfx' folder.

ETA:

Whoops, and I totally missed 'post-named'.

Yes, I'll be adding that soon-ish - but I'd like to get history gen finished first.

[Willfor]

Oh, awesome. Thanks! :3

[FluffyToast J]

This is awesome. Only criticism I have right now is that islands look a little unrealistic. Theyre just circles in the middle of nowhere.

[Lord Dullard]

Could you be more specific about what you'd like to see?

I.e., what do you think islands SHOULD look like? Saying 'they're circles in the middle of nowhere' is a bit like saying 'the forests are like big masses of trees' - it doesn't help me much. If you can be more specific, I can try to improve their appearance.

Thanks!

[FluffyToast J]

Screenshots of what I mean:



These arent as bad as the other one I found but didnt take a screen shot of. That one was just two circles slightly intersecting about 10 tiles off land. Besides, one of those ones up there looks a little... phallic.

[Lord Dullard]

Ah, okay - formations like that are a result of the way voronoi diagrams are translated on to a heightmap.

I might be able to do something about it, though. We'll see.

[FluffyToast J]

Perhaps a noise modifier? Would that be possible? Maybe moving one in every three tiles or so towards the ocean, then filling in the space that is left with more land?

Im not sure, I dont program very well.

[Lord Dullard]

Well, it's not quite that easy - in order to even start modifying islands post-terrain-gen, I'd need to implement an island-finding algorithm. Every island-finding algorithm I've written so far (at least all the ones that have worked with 90%+ accuracy) has been horribly computationally expensive to the point of hanging up the game for a period of minutes. So I'm not too keen on going that route.

I think what you're asking for is more 'pointy' islands, which is kind of tough. Noise generators do curves pretty decently, but they don't do pointy very well at all.

But, I have a couple of ideas that might do the trick. I have a few hours to fiddle around with things tonight, so I might make some progress, although I'll be devoting most of my time to getting the last bits of ocean and bay name generation hammered out.