Procedural Landscape Generation:

Fractal Errata

Some of the particularly sharp/anal ones amongst you might have noticed that while the technique for generating fractal lanscapes I previously described works (and works well), it’s not 100% correct. Specifically, the fact that it uses the the same scaling factor for nodes created by the diamond and square steps isn’t quite right. Why is this... Read more
22 Oct 2010 / 2 minute read / hacker

Procedural Landscape Generation:

Now In Eye Popping 3D!

It took a little bit of fighting with bugs that weren’t showing up in the 2D view, and a bit of time to figure out what was going on with the lighting system in JME, but I finally got the 3D display of the fractal working. The first stage was just displaying each node as a discrete point so I could see that each was in about the right place. It... Read more
22 Oct 2010 / 4 minute read / hacker

Procedural Landscape Generation:

Some Random Landscapes

I don’t have any 3D views of the fractal landscapes I’ve been making to show you yet, as I’m still working through the different implementation options. I did get a little distracted with the 2D views of the landscape this morning, though, and play with the colouring scheme. First of all, let’s start again with the example landscape used in y... Read more
20 Oct 2010 / 1 minute read / hacker

Procedural Landscape Generation:

You're Speaking My Landscape, Baby.

No, that isn’t a typo… but yes, it is a bad play on words. That’s the bad news. The good news: finally! A Clockwork Aphid implementation post! If you’re building something which relates in some way to virtual worlds, then the first thing you’re going to need is a virtual world. This gives you two options: Use a ready made one; Roll your o... Read more
19 Oct 2010 / 7 minute read / hacker

Epic Googleyep and Other Stories

I’m currently doing some tests on a couple of different data structure implementations for Clockwork Aphid, so while they’re running I thought I’d a bit of time to write a music related post, since I haven’t done one in a while. So, contained within are three music related mini posts for your viewing pleasure. Epic Googleyep As you may or ma... Read more
17 Oct 2010 / 3 minute read / audiophile

Procedural Landscape Generation:

Language Post Mortem and Some Other Notes

A couple nuggets of knowledge came out of my “You’re Speaking My Language, Baby” series of posts, so I though I’d just take a quick moment to talk about them. The first two are perhaps the most obvious by far. Firstly: if you actually write blog posts, people are more likely to read your blog. Funny that, huh? While my post on installing Celtx ... Read more
16 Oct 2010 / 4 minute read / hacker

Procedural Landscape Generation:

There Can be Only... Several...

As I’ve previously mentioned, my project (Clockwork Aphid) has been bubbling away in the bearded cauldron that is my head for quite some time. As a result, I have quite a bit I want to say about it. I want to blog about the process of building it because I think it might be a good exercise to go through, and also because I think it might help me... Read more
14 Oct 2010 / 3 minute read / geek

Procedural Landscape Generation:

You're Speaking my Language, Baby. Part 5: Conclusion

So… what’s the conclusion? It mostly comes back to the fact that I’m doing this mainly for fun (though you may have trouble believing it). That being the case I’m going to start working in Java. In fact I already have started working in Java, and I’ve already written the first bits of code. I’ll talk about and make them available soon. I just... Read more
13 Oct 2010 / 3 minute read / hacker

Procedural Landscape Generation:

Youre Speaking My Language Baby Part 4: Objective-C

The last language I’m considering is Objective-C. I know this language the least of three (which is to say: I don’t know it at all). To make matters worse, while Java and C++ share a similar syntax, Objective-C is completely different in places. That being said, it’s semantically very similar to Java (more so than C++) and people who know it wel... Read more
11 Oct 2010 / 2 minute read / hacker

Procedural Landscape Generation:

You're Speaking my Language, Baby. Part 3: C++

The second language I’m considering is C++. This is the language that I use the most at my day job. It’s also the language that’s used to build the vast majority of computer games and one hell of a lot of commercial software. I’m not as familiar with it as I am with Java, but I know it well enough to be productive with it. I’m also familiar enou... Read more
11 Oct 2010 / 1 minute read / hacker