Steady researching and trying to figure out how to fix my terrain issues. As far as I can find it seems like the majority of procedural terrain generation algorithms previously approached attempt to create locally realistic terrain. Yes, the mountains look believable, the plains, waterways, etc to some degree or another however the major problem is that as the view zooms further and further out the terrain seems to degrade to nothing more than random noise again. What I would like to accomplish is a way of generating large plausible areas complete with all the necessary pseudo-random terrain details but which accomplishes more than just feeling realistic locally. While massive mountain areas and rugged natural terrain look beautiful in artistic renderings I don’t feel they hold up quite as well when it comes to realistic placement of civilization. These algorithms generate the untouched wilderness. The thing is that the wilderness they create is untouched for a fairly good reason; it’s not suitable for large scale civilizations. I need to find a happy medium and if anyone is reading this that might know of one please feel free to pass the suggestion along.
Until then, I’m still looking for a suitable middle ground. I’m thinking that perhaps I’ll arrange the code so that I can attempt to begin development on the city generation while keeping the terrain easily modifiable at a later date as researching it continues. All I know is that this aspect has been holding up my progress for far too long already and I need to move past it and continue on with the project before I hit a developmental standstill.
Day 11: Little to no progress. Moving past this for the next update, I’ve got a stockpile of Mountain Dew that needs to be made use of!
AvalonX 
Posted on September 23, 2011
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