Real-time fractal landscape project

[cbuchner1]

Any chance for you to publish new binaries, so we can run this on our superclocked, liquid-cooled triple and quadruple GPU machines?

[DaveH]

New foliage video:-

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/SXg9yiqXvWs&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/SXg9yiqXvWs&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>
(apologies for the crazy music! )

All trees are unique, but with 3 varieties.
Also I've implemented a fractal streaming algorithm that only creates the height map normals when needed. This sped up the renderer by 2 times!  

[Tglad]

Wow very impressive!!!     

[eiffie]

I like the waving grass - very nice!

[DaveH]

Thanks for the comments, last week I added some more animation:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/aPL4OW4juDg&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/aPL4OW4juDg&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>
A quick demo of localised wind and leaf effects.
The grass is effected by the same local gusts.
The sound is a contribution of all the wind effected branches.

[John Smith]

Brilliant work so far.  All kinds of possibilities.  What are the chances you could add caves and caverns?  I guess it would depend on how the terrain was generated, but if you could manage it, I would love to see what you come up with.

[DaveH]

Thanks, the next step is going to be game objects and physics, which goes away from fractals a little bit, apart from how they look of course.
Caves are possible but with the height map terrain i would have to have holes cut in it, and addition polygons inserted, which might be better looking if man/player made...

Although I do need to get on with my real job for bit instead of working on this, but it's great fun playing with organised random numbers, and I'm completely addicted.

Dave.

[David Makin]

Just to add - great project, though myself rather than adding caves etc. I'd prefer something that's probably even more difficult i.e. "correct" rivers and lakes

[DaveH]

Well, it can go on forever! Such is nature.

[DaveH]

Wow, nearly two years ago I was doing this.
Well, I'm clearly obsessed! Oh well,  
I've recently decided to rewrite the code entirely in the Unity game engine. Once completed, adding other elements to it becomes very easy.
Here I'm demoing a simple physics objects, which took about an hour to put in!
Unity allows me to pass 1D textures for gradiented colours, which enabled some great surface angle variations:-

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/Jx5nFnzI74c&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/v/Jx5nFnzI74c&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>

And one for 3D TVs, which also has better contrast and ambient shaded colours:-

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/gxJ-mvIoRIU&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/v/gxJ-mvIoRIU&rel=1&fs=1&hd=1</a>

Cheers,
Dave.