Biome and how to set them up

Game Mechanics
#1

I’m working with perlin noise to get my random map generation working and i have seen some people use polygons along side perlin noise to get biome, any ideas/suggestions?

#2

Biome*
Perlin* (actually Simplex most likely)

So you seem to have done some research, but yet are asking the nebulous question “any ideas/suggestions?”
What, game design ideas or suggestions? I don’t see how the question is relevant.

There are many ways in which one can simulate biomes.
I would start with the definition of what they are so you can understand what exactly it is you are trying to simulate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biome

Then a quick google search reveals some techniques:

Elevation (from height map) + rainfall graph, grouped by polygonal regions:
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/game-programming/polygon-map-generation/

Minecraft uses rainfall + temperature (similar to elevation): http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Biome#Technical_Details
More conversation here, plus insight of using another noise function to create the biome regions (instead of say, polygons): http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/26531/how-do-minecraft-biomes-work

#3

Thanks, thats great, im using the average hight of land to get rainfall and then using a heat map to get the other factor to work out the biomes

#4

Sounds like you already have it figured out.

#5

Just worked it out on what you said and i have started implementing it. Thanks man

#6

What I plan to do is to make a method called genDesert() right and have it return a Tile[][] array and merge that array to where it should be in the map that is being drawn. Like this:


public Tile[][] genDesert(int width, int height) {
    // return a new random tile array
}

public void generateWorld() {
     for(int x = 0; x < map.WIDTH; x++) {
          for(int y = 0; y < map.HEIGHT; y++) {
               // Generate a desert
               if(new Random().nextInt(2) == 0) {
                    Tile[][] desert = genDesert(5, 5);
                    for(int xx = x; xx < x+5; xx++) { // 5 Being the width of the biome
                         for(int yy = y; yy < y+5; yy++) { // 5 Being the height of the biome
                              map[x][y] = desert[xx][yy]; // Sets the game's map to the corresponding desert tile.
                         }
                    }
               }
          }
     }
}

Other than that I wouldn’t know.

#7

Yeah that would work but not for my game, i run on many tens of thousands of chunks in my random gen and the only way i could get it working is using heat maps and altitude maps to determine what biome there in

#8

If you don’t mind could I see your source sometime? I’m really interested in all of this random generation stuff, and I’d love to learn from your code.

#9

The trick to get easy procedural generation is totality and structuring things as functions of location.
Instead of your map being “an array of tiles”, it’s a function (which can be a composition of smaller functions, such as heat and elevation) from coordinates to tiles.

E.g.


fn terrain (x, y) -> Tile {
    elevation = heightFunction(x, y); // has totality; not backed by an array or anything
                                      // creating a constraint for only positive numbers or something
    temp = heatFunction(x, y);        // same here
    biome = biomeMapping(elevation, temp);
    tileType = tileTypeMapping(biome, elevation, temp); // grass? dirt? snow? etc.
    return new Tile(tileType);
}

This is much nicer and easier to express in a functional language, but is still quite possible here and leads to highly extensible ways to create stuff like terrain.
You might notice that an array is a function from location to tiles, but it’s not easily extensible, and certainly not total.
Pay attention in math class kids!

#10

Sure, im almost done with the tree gen and then ill send you the git info

#11

Ok my git is https://github.com/4H1Z1/Horizon have fun! in the new build there is a bug where when the trees gen it will invoke chunks to be created but excuse that

#12

Nomater what i try i cant seem to get the biomes right, i have looked and expended every reference i can find but i cant get it -.- so far this is what i have

#13

whats not right about them? you might want to try adding some higher frequency noise to make the edges less smooth and more natural looking.

#14

Yeah im still experimenting with the frequencies because atm it dose not look very…well natural

#15

Do a search for something relevant to perturbation and turbulence. Theres some pages on marble and wood grain textures that might be of interest too.