How to achieve a more playable surface for a planet?

[dev-bre]

Hi, I stumbled upon this project and looks amazing. I am spending some time on it and trying to come up with a planet with a more playable surface.

If you think about astroneer, there are parts of the planet that are are more like valleys or a bit more flatten instead of having mountains and caves everywhere.

Can you give me some advice on how to achieve this?

[josebasierra]

Hello Andy,

I'm glad you like the project. About how to achieve more variety in the generated terrain, it's something I didn't explore in much depth. You would need to play with different noise functions, and perhaps override some specific zones with unique shapes. A simple example: You generate the basic terrain with something as Perlin Noise. At some location you want a hole or big depression, so you can intersect / subtract the data there with a deformed sphere (sphere + some noise), so you will have a deformed hole there.

Taking this idea, instead of using Perlin Noise 3D as of now, which generates as you say a lot of caves, holes etc. You could just use Perlin Noise 2D to modify just the 'elevation'/mountains of the sphere/planet, without creating holes. Then add randomly different shapes or 3D noise over the planet to generate caves or whatever. At some specific zones/biomes, you can use different noise functions if you want to achieve something more flattened, etc.

In summary:

• 2D noise projected on the planet surface (this can be different in different zones/biomes of the planet), and adjusting this is what you can use to achieve the 'flattened' surface at some places.
• 3D noise at specific planet zones to generate 3D data, such as holes, cave ramifications, etc.
• Intersect shapes at specific locations to create other cool patterns. You can deform these shapes with noise too. Here you have some examples of shapes you can define with Signed Distance Fields ( https://iquilezles.org/articles/distfunctions/)

El jue, 31 ago 2023 a las 17:38, Andy @.***>) escribió:

Hi, I stumbled upon this project and looks amazing. I am spending some time on it and trying to come up with a planet with a more playable surface.

If you think about astroneer, there are parts of the planet that are are more like valleys or a bit more flatten instead of having mountains and caves everywhere.

Can you give me some advice on how to achieve this?

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/josebasierra/voxel-planets/issues/1, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ALOLU36S54RFORUXQBZNGZLXYCVYZANCNFSM6AAAAAA4GIXRBE . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: @.***>

[dev-bre]

Thank you so much for your reply.

Let's assume I would go with the simpler approach if using multiple noise functions for now.

This is something I am trying to do at the moment, with poor results. 😁

I am currently applying noise in this line: https://github.com/josebasierra/voxel-planets/blob/b5e9c1d64a059561be2c08b60ae017c8726b2a0e/Assets/Scripts/VoxelPlanet/ProceduralGeneration/SignedDistanceField.cs#L50

First question is, is this the right place where I should apply my "new" noise?

If yes:

Assuming I would like to apply a very flat noise as base terrain, with low freq. and call it N1.

Assuming I will also create another noise with higher freq for the mountains, and call it N2.

Finally a control noise NC, which will decide when to apply N2 and when not.

I was thinking to lerp between N1 and N2 using NC.. but the result is really bad and mostly broken.

Any chance you could guide me on this maybe with a code snippet? I think it would be really good for your project in general as well.

Tha ks again for your time on this. I think you should consider selling this on the unity store. I am sure ppl will buy this asset. I would.

[dev-bre]

Any suggestion about the above? :)

I am currently trying to lerp noises together, even though it does something, the result is far from interesting to see:

  float noiseValueFlat = ComputeNoise(projectedPointToSphere, new NoiseSettings { type = Noise.Type.perlin, frequency = 0.005f, octaveCount = 5, amplitude = 10f });
  float noiseValueMountains = ComputeNoise(projectedPointToSphere, new NoiseSettings { type = Noise.Type.perlin, frequency = 0.007f, octaveCount = 0, amplitude = 200f }); 

  noiseValue = Mathf.Lerp(noiseValueFlat, noiseValueMountains, 0.3f); 

I am really interested in what you said about:

"At some location you want a hole or big depression, so you can intersect / subtract the data there with a deformed sphere (sphere + some noise), so you will have a deformed hole there."

which also refers to:

"3D noise at specific planet zones to generate 3D data, such as holes, cave ramifications, etc."

Any chance you could expend a bit on this? I am pretty new with SDF and I would like to learn more on how to achive good results.