11 November 2009

Yet another discrete level of detail



The picture shows my first attempt on generating a terrain height map. It's a non normalized Fractional Brownian motion applied over Value noise, rendered by using color gradients and fake shadows.
Indeed, this shot comes from an interactive prototype I coded not for generating terrains but for testing an idea for a DLOD system. This is different than previous DLODs I developed before, since this one handles unbound models, doesn't need much precalculation and also performs a nice computational complexity of O(log2(N)). I've also found out that it is someway similar with what is known in literature as Chunked LOD. Though it is in practice quite different than that, I didn't find any valid reason to think at it with a different name, because it is still actually a chunked LOD.
The prototype is a 2D viewer, written in plain Java, fast enough to allow exploration and... roaming around that infinite world, I couldn't avoid of fantasizing about an imaginary procedural doungeon master. Of course missing a number of advisable features. But the terrain it depicts, though still monotonous, has not much to envy to those its human counterparts may conceive. And it's still a prototype.
I have to stuff all this into the engine, in C++, using VBO and shaders, otherwise I won't believe myself either. I will do this right after cleaning up the framework, rearranging those parts I neglected by months.