Posted November 3, 2015 (edited) Now that I've seen the custom map generation tools and new skins on animals, I'll toss out an idea and see if anyone smarter than me wants to try making it happen. The reason for the idea is to add additional realism to an already beautiful (and impressive) set of custom maps. 1a. Blending of biomes in map generation. Today, we see too much of a hard line, when going from sand, to tundra, to forest. I'd like to see more blending happening between them. Call it a hybrid zone that looks part one type and part the other. For instance, if Steppe and Forest connect, have a buffer zone that is grassier than tundra & has smaller versions of trees and shrubs (force them to never mature and limit how many can spawn in that buffer zone?1b. Making a special "wet look" tile of each landscape type, that helps add a touch of realism. 2. New rock & dirt skins, based on the dominant concentration of ore types below ground. If there is a higher percentage of iron in the area, make the dirt and rock more reddish. I'm not a geologist, so I'll let smarter people figure out what rock types and dirt colors go best with our other ores. 3. Elevation based snow. Is it possible to set the winter skin permanently for certain elevations? Better yet, it is possible to set it to move the snow line to higher and lower elevations, based on season changes, automatically? Finally, is it possible to add one more factor into the snow line: North vs south locations of the map? Winter is coming!!! 4. When generating a map, can different flora and fauna be auto generated as more likely at different elevations, near or far from water, etc? Not a huge deal, as we can just use our artistic ability to plant where we want. (?). Link to an idea for making some skinning changes to mines... http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/133971-mining-update-the-look-of-walls-floors-and-veins/ Edited November 3, 2015 by Wurmhole 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted November 4, 2015 (edited) 1. is already possible as that it just conventional dithering of color boundaries algorithms that are known science. I already do this in my own code. You could probably use any paint processing tool, as color dithering for limited palettes dates back to the days of limited CGA/VGA graphics formats. The problem is some people prefer not to have sand in their grass and grass in their sand because Wurm has always had the cleaner biome lines. I personally prefer the more organic boundaries that are more realistic. 2. requires new terrain types, graphically it is just as easy as shading the rock and dirt just like the ores are tinted. But this not not something a map maker could do, since they only define where exposed rock and dirt is. Instead the game engine would have to search the ore map and tint player exposed rock and dirt with the ore shades. No need to be a fancy geologist, it is a video game so just use the same tints already on the ores. The information already needed to do this is already there with the prospect mapping. 3. There already is a snow tile that could be used for elevations, but seasons are global in Wurm because it is a texture pack change so the trees would be out of sync. Not a problem if the snow line is above the tree line. You cannot have spring trees combined with snowy trees without a major engine change to how seasons are done as a simple texture swap. It would require the ability to load more textures than it does now. 4. I already am doing wet/dry biomes in my code. There is a problem doing conventional biome mapping though as that depends temp maps as well. Wurm has it's own idea of what that temp map is, so anything you do will disagree with what the game thinks the temp is. Does not stop anyone from from putting in arctic circles and tropics latitudes if it does not bother you that the game thinks it snows in the desert. My generator is currently for my personal entertainment, so I guess your plea is to all the budda Wgenerator variants which is using RNG biomes. They are just doing that to mimic what Wurm does. Use a third party terrain generator and many of them will do more intelligent biome selections - for example World Painter from Minecraft now has a Wurm converter. Edited November 4, 2015 by yarnevk 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
