Procedurally Playful Facebook Page is Operational!

I have a new "like" page on Facebook:

Link - Procedurally Playful

On a side note, I also have 3 new tools in the works. One is a fun little script, the other is a full blown Blender Addon, and the THIRD, well... the third is something I think every procedural generation enthusiast, game developer, environment developer, machine learning enthusiast, and 3D developer and/or animator should be excited about.

You'll see. ;)

As for that, here's a few pics of one of the tools I made doing what it does best:

Procedural Biome Generator - Update (Plus Download Link)

I've finished the first draft of my biome generator! (Without foliage thus far.)

Part of the work need to be completed was the ground color generator and a lot of math behind the temperature vs. rainfall biome selector. All of these things are finished, the first draft is ready for recreational release, and I will now move on to the foliage generation. This will be released in V2 of the Biome Generator.

If look closely you can see the ground color change slightly from dark to bright. These are two forest based biomes.

As you can see, there's a bit of variety in color added to create slightly more complex (Yet low polygon) groundscape. The shrubbery will be added in version 2.

The generator works by taking any selected landscape, and starting from the top descending to the bottom, it begins to assign a biome to each individual face. This generator works via individual faces instead of a more complex blending algorithm simply because this is a proof-of-concept tool, AND a cool excuse to make low-poly artwork.

Just remember this is version 1, and there's a lot I could clean up, but for now, I'm just trying to get this out there, and I'll try to clean my code up around V.3.

You can use it by doing the following:

Copy/Paste the following code into Blender 3D's Python Interpreter:


def create_biome(temp1,temp2,rain1=40,rain2=40): #Rainfall is default 40 cm. temp in C.
    land = bpy.context.object
    temperature_range = abs(temp1-temp2)
    rainfall_range = abs(rain1-rain2)
    height = land.dimensions.z
    material0 = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Cold Red Grass')
    material0.diffuse_color = (0.67, 0.14, 0.07)
    land.data.materials.append(material0)
    material1 = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Rocks and Gravel')
    material1.diffuse_color = (0.52, 0.43, 0.22)
    land.data.materials.append(material1)
    material2 = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Desert Shrub')
    material2.diffuse_color = (0.18, 0.34, 0.22)
    land.data.materials.append(material2)
    material3 = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Dead Grass')
    material3.diffuse_color = (0.53, 0.26, 0.16)
    land.data.materials.append(material3)
    material4 = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Rocks/Leaves/Sticks')
    material4.diffuse_color = (0.51, 0.28, 0.14)
    land.data.materials.append(material4)
    material5 = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Light Foliage/Moss')
    material5.diffuse_color = (0.13, 0.38, 0.03)
    land.data.materials.append(material5)
    material6 = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Desert Sand')
    material6.diffuse_color = (1, 0.37, 0.13)
    land.data.materials.append(material6)
    material7 = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Dense Grass/Shrub')
    material7.diffuse_color = (0.16, 0.48, 0.02)
    land.data.materials.append(material7)
    material8 = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Dense Shrub')
    material8.diffuse_color = (0.03, 0.30, 0)
    land.data.materials.append(material8)
    material9 = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Charred Earth')
    material9.diffuse_color = (0.49, 0.15, 0.07)
    land.data.materials.append(material9)
    materialsnow = bpy.data.materials.new(name='Snow')
    materialsnow.diffuse_color = (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
    land.data.materials.append(materialsnow)
    for x in land.data.polygons:    #Begins to assign materials to polygons from top to bottom.
        m = x.center.z + (height / 2) + 0.01 #math modifiers to find temperature at point.
        j = height / m
        if temp1 >= temp2:
            temp_proxy = (temperature_range / j) + min(temp1,temp2) #determines temperature at specified height.
        elif temp1 < temp2:    #GET THIS WORKING HERE.
            temp_proxy = temperature_range - (temperature_range / j) + min(temp1,temp2)
            #temp_proxy = (temperature_range / j) + min(temp1,temp2) #determines temperature at
        if rain1 >= rain2:
            rainfall = (rainfall_range / j) + min(rain1,rain2)
        if rain1 < rain2:
            rainfall = rainfall_range - (rainfall_range / j) + min(rain1,rain2)
        graphline = 165+(temp_proxy*10) #This is to cut the diagonal line on the biome graph.
        if rainfall > graphline:    #This corrects any rainfall above what is actually realistic.
            rainfall == graphline-1
        """ -------------------Begin material assignment-------------- """
        if temp_proxy < -5: # and (temp_proxy > graphline): #Tundra
            sl = 15 * abs(temp_proxy + 5)
            snow = ranyn(sl)        #This math causes more snow for lower temperature.
            if snow == 1:
                x.material_index = 10
            elif snow == 0:
                x.material_index = choice([0,1])    #Assign proper Biome Color to polygon
        if (temp_proxy >= -5) and (temp_proxy < 3) and (rainfall >= 30): #taiga.
            x.material_index = choice([1,7,7,7])
            plant(x,1,'Pine')  """ THIS IS A TEST """
        if (temp_proxy >= -5) and (temp_proxy < 13) and (rainfall < 30): #Desert and Grassland
            x.material_index = choice([1,2,3])
        if (temp_proxy >= 3) and (temp_proxy < 20) and (rainfall >= 30) and (rainfall < 85): #Woodland/Shrubland
            x.material_index = choice([7,3])
        if (temp_proxy >= 3) and (temp_proxy < 20) and (rainfall >= 85): #Temperate Deciduous Forest
            x.material_index = choice([7,4])
        if (temp_proxy >= 3) and (temp_proxy < 20) and (rainfall >= 215) and (rainfall < 215): #Temperate Rain Forest
            x.material_index = choice([4,5,5])
        if (temp_proxy >= 13) and (temp_proxy < 28) and (rainfall < 30): #Subtropical Desert
            x.material_index = choice([6,6,6,2])
        if (temp_proxy >= 20) and (temp_proxy < 28) and (rainfall >= 30) and (rainfall < 265): #Tropical Seasonal Forest
            x.material_index = choice([7,7,4])
        if (temp_proxy >= 20) and (temp_proxy < 28) and (rainfall >= 265): #Tropical Rain Forest
            x.material_index = choice([8,8,8,4])
        if temp_proxy >= 28: #Mars.
            x.material_index = choice([1,9])

Once you've done that, you can use the tool by selecting the landscape you want biome-ified and calling the following function: (Just copy paste this into your interpreter if you don't understand what I'm talking about.)

create_biome(-15,10,40,60)
 
The function works using the following parameters:

create_biome(
    Starting_Temperature, 
    Ending_Temperature, 
    Starting_Rainfall,
    Ending_Rainfall
    )

#Temperature in celcius and Rainfall in centimeters. 

You can use the following chart as a sort of cheat sheet:

Enjoy the first draft! Feel free to modify or make it your own! (This version anyway!)

Click the link below for download link: 
  
Download Here
 

Procedural Landscape Update - Biome Generator

I'm creating a new tool for the landscape generator, surnamed the Biome Generator.

What it does is assign a biome or range of biomes to a selected landscape. (Or whatever is selected really.)

I haven't created the meshes for the trees, shrubs and grass yet, but all it does now is assign a floor material. (Assigns each face with the specified biomes floor or ground color, such as dirt, sand, moss, or swamp shrubs.)

Looks cool right?

Here's one with a much more realistic biome range. (Tundra to taiga)

The green is supposed to be a (plantless) taiga floor, while the grey is tundra dirt.

Now obviously I need to add meshes to represent plant life and snow for the tundra, and you probably noticed I didn't use actual ground textures, just basic solid colors. This is because this is considered low-poly artwork, and though I could use real textures, this is only a proof of concept, so shading each polygon a single solid color is a good start for me.

Now what is a biome?

A biome is a group or neighborhood of a specific range of plants and animals within a certain region, climate, or temperature.

The how the biome generator works is based off of this diagram:

In the generator, you input a range of temperature vs. a range of rainfall, and (Although those aren't the ONLY things that determine biome, I wanted to give developers some degree of imaginative freedom.) based on the combination of the two, it creates a range of biomes starting from the top of a landscape to the bottom. You can make it unrealistic or not.

It's still a work-in-progress, and I'll post the code and much better images when I DO make more progress, (Trees, shrubs, rocks, snow, etc...) but stay tuned!