New And Interesting Landscape Generation

[Lightonfoot 58]

This post is more about Idea than Suggestion.

I was inspired to make this post by this link:

http://woogley.net/misc/wurm/

Compare this to the map for Freedom-Independence:

http://s3.amazonaws....lhost/51042.png

Here is the map for Elevation:

http://s3.amazonaws....lhost/7c7e7.png

The Elevation map is very similar to the other PvP maps.

Notice how in the first link, from 2005, there're many more small lakes and there's quite a bit of ridging. You can compare a small chunk of it to the Freedom-Independence link here:

http://img506.images.../newtown1li.jpg

There're differences between all the maps. Personally, I don't care much for the way some of the mountains look. And I don't like the flat look of some of the maps - too smooth. I also think some of the islands look artificial (like circles) and, overall, some of the maps, for that matter, look artificial. it's a turn off, sort of.

How do you think it could be made better on a new server map?

One thing that interests me is characteristics of the terrain and how this impacts the game. Ridgy terrain would require more use of the climbing skill and thus slow down travel. Players would have to spend more time digging through ridges to create more level roads to increase speed. Same thing applies to mountainous terrain being hard to navigate. Instead of digging through the entire mountain, players would have to build roads around them. More flat terrain could be more easily crossed, of course. Landscapes with large areas of water are easier to cross with boats. Lots of lakes create a necessary need for easy access to boats, but depending on how it's done, walking across land might be faster. A large map fills us with possibility, but also separates the key resources that we need to build and maintain our empires, thus putting strain on things. Too many dangerous creatures will kill players if they travel a lot. And boredom from travel can be an issue, especially if players are caught traveling the same routes and never seen new sights.

Then there're the more technical aspects of terrain generation...

When making fractal landscapes one thing that characteristics flat/smooth landscapes is high persistence. Jagged landscapes are low persistence. This has to do with how random numbers are adjusted to give the appearance of a persisting terrain. Raw random numbers are extremely jagged with sharp thin features that do not appear to be interrelated. By blending them together in different ways (by using formulas) you can create a relationship between them. The more persisting it's, the more smooth it becomes and flatter too. Think of a bullet shot from a gun. The more persisting it's, the less it deviates from its flight path.

Heightmaps are popular for 3d game map. One limitation is that they're actually 2d, not 3d. They can represent a 90-degree cliff, but they cannot represent a cliff that falls inward. They can't do caves. To do all of that, you need a true 3d index of values that's really just a bunch of heightmaps stacked on top of each other.

How the random values between different points persist together is really what determines how realistic it will be. Different formulas and algorithms can be used to create this persistence. Without the persistence what you have is essentially random noise filling the heightmap(s). And pure noise is kind of boring to look at.

I wonder if Wurm will ever improve its maps to be more realistic? And could it find a way to have some parts of the map be more realistic than others? For example, there could be connecting "veins" between large areas of the map that could facilitate quicker travel from one end of the map to the other. This would be smoother and quicker to build roads on. On the outskirts of these "veins" the land would be rougher and more treacherous.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Lightonfoot

[Lightonfoot 58]

Here're two good examples of different generation schemes:

Chaos (formerly the wild server):

http://s3.amazonaws....lhost/895c9.png

Celebration (newest pve server, launched this year):

http://wlhost.net/images/53a03.png

Obviously, Chaos is a larger map, about 4 times bigger. However, they're roughly at the same scale in the images, so you can compare their features to each other. The Chaos map is much more ragged and has deeper, more numerous valleys. In fact, the Celebration map looks handmade, as opposed to generated by a fractal algorithm.

Almost all of the server maps look like the Celebration map. The only map that somewhat resembles the Chaos map is independence, but not very much. In fact, I'd have to say that Independence is a hybrid of the the more common maps and the chaos map.

What does all this mean? Why is the Chaos map so different? I went over there and and was surpsied at how much more varried the landscape was. For example, it has a lot more cliffs. In-game, this has the effect of causing the player to use the climbing skill more often. Another thing it does is make players think more about where they put roads. Rugged terrain encourages you to scout the topography to find the best route. Perhaps most of the maps are flatter and look more artificial because somebody thought it would make travel and building roads easier?

In any case, I like that at least one map is more rugged and less touched up. I just wish there was a map like that on one of hte epic servers so both freedom and epic had one. The common map generation scheme - handmade or not - just isn't very attention grabbing to me. It doesn't give me that magical feeling like the chaos map does. The chaos map makes me feel like a frontier man. The other maps... well... umm... like makeup on a pig.

Here's a map with the villages/roads for Chaos:

http://wurmpedia.com...Village_Roadmap

Edited July 30, 2012 by Lightonfoot

[Keldun 335]

The older Maps were made by a different artist (afaik Notch) than the newer ones (afaik Rolf)

It's natural that they look different, simply because of different experience and techniques.

That said, the older ones have a lot more detail that is independant of the general layout.

[Joanavon 553]

Also from ground level people have been altering/tearing up/doing whatever to chaos for literally years now versus the much shorter lifespan of Celebration.

[Keldun 335]

Even after all that time the changes don't mean much to the basic landscape.

But comparing the natural features of the maps there is a significant difference:

While the plains of celebration are easier to travel, chaos simply has more character, plus the mountains and hills are actually easier to climb as you have ridges to rest on.

Edited July 30, 2012 by Keldun

[atazs 966]

Chaos was made by notch while all the other maps were made by rolf. I have to agree that it still needs a bit improvement but we are getting there. Id really love wurm to have similiar maps like the ones you can generate in dwarf fortress.

[Lightonfoot 58]

Bottom line, I don't like flat smooth terrain. I don't like low resolution terrain.

Neither do I like too much water. But I think some maps should have more of it than others.

Easy travel matters less to me. It's too simple. Too cutdown.

I like travel that makes me think and work hard at it. For example, if all terrain was flat then all you'd have to do is pick a destination and move towards it. The only thing you'd have to think about are the animals you might come across and the tiles you're running on. However, with ridgy terrain, you also have to think about the slope and you should also be aware of the regional topography so you can use shortcuts around the steeper areas. And when you build a home you're more likely to have to dig or flatten the soil. And there's more variation in the land around you. I like to look around me and see differences in the terrain. It adds to the scene. Flat smooth terrain is too bland.

I like bumps and valleys and cliffs and so on. It makes the whole experience interesting to me.

If you feel similarly, think more about creating a character on the Independence or Chaos servers.

I hope someday that Wurm has true 3d terrain, with caves and inward falling cliffs even. With something like that, we could dig into the terrain and have it morph correctly no matter how far we dig. No separate layers.

But true 3d terrain may not ever happen in Wurm. It's probably too much to ask for now. For one, something like that requires more processing and memory. It doesn't scale very well. This may be one reason why minecraft uses blocks as opposed to higher resolution units of space. Doing that reduces the processing/memory load. And for another, it's hard to change code that's several years old. Switching to true 3d would be a monumental task for Wurm.

I wish there were creeks and springs and rivers and mountain lakes to break up the land a bit. This would help to alleviate some of the complaints people have about too much land.

But too much water is unattractive to me. I like having lots of land so that I can find a nice cozy place and build my house. I don't like being too close to other players either. I like virgin land and exploring too. As it's, there's not much to see on the seas. But on the land there're abandoned ruins and treasures to discover. And beautiful scenery.

We just have to appreciate what's available now. That's why I'm on Chaos.

(Call me a noob that's a minority. But as it's, there're about 10 servers. Only 2 have what I would call ridgy terrain. The rest look like they've been flattened or smoothened (or otherwise normalized). They look like a map that has fewer octaves applied to it. So that results in smoother output with less ridges/cliffs.)

Edited August 1, 2012 by Lightonfoot

[Lightonfoot 58]

Chaos was made by notch while all the other maps were made by rolf. I have to agree that it still needs a bit improvement but we are getting there. Id really love wurm to have similiar maps like the ones you can generate in dwarf fortress.

Dwarf fortress uses a very developed terrain generation algorithm.

Check this out:

http://www.gamasutra...rf_.php?print=1

The real cool part is the Fluid Dynamics section.

However, even Dwarf Fortress "fakes" mining slightly by using a sort of 2D arrangement of minerals. This might not be entirely accurate or it might be outdated, but the developer of DF has said that true 3d mining would require too much time since it's like trying to "find a string in a haystack," as opposed to finding a string on a table! This might have been developer-speak for "I was too lazy to figure it out!" or it might have been an honest to god truth.

The way I imagine 3d mining is you would just greatly increase the probability of minerals, as opposed to plain ol' rock. This way, players are more likely to find it. However, if you can fake it by using 2d mineral maps, won't you? I guess it depends if players are content with it. I imagine you can fool a lot of them, but not all of them.

I have worked a bit on generating real-time landscapes with perlin noise. I'm not an expert. I've been encouraging myself lately to use codeblock and allegro to work on a project some more, but I'm just too lazy to get myself to do it. However, the idea of doing true 3d landscapes is intriguing. I picture a porous semi-solid liquid. When viewed from the surface, it looks like a conventional landscape. But dig underneath it and you find pockets of minerals of different hardness and/or properties. Making it all reflect some standard set of physics would be very difficult, though. My knowledge of how to mimic nature in a real-time algorithm is very elementary and I need to work on it. And worse, being able to process all that in real-time seems very implausible to me, unless units of space are large. I think that volumetric clouds in games are very much similar to how big the processing demands are for true 3d things.

See here:

http://software.inte...core-platforms/

At the end of the day, a lot of this is limited by hardware and software limitations.

Lastly, here's the wiki on Fractal Landscapes:

http://en.wikipedia....actal_landscape

I like this section of it:

Real landscapes also have varying statistical behaviour from place to place, so for example sandy beaches don't exhibit the same fractal properties as mountain ranges. A fractal function, however, is statistically stationary, meaning that its bulk statistical properties are the same everywhere. Thus, any real approach to modeling landscapes requires the ability to modulate fractal behaviour spatially. Additionally real landscapes have very few natural minima (most of these are lakes), whereas a fractal function has as many minima as maxima, on average. Real landscapes also have features originating with the flow of water and ice over their surface, which simple fractals cannot model.

I interpret this as meaning that:

1) the coherence (persistence) between different values depends on the material that they represent (water: flat and wavy, sand: rolling and smooth, dirt: flatter than sand and rolling, rock: jagged and flat and rolling, etc).

2) the map is weighted towards high values more than low values - this means that for each equal and opposite value there'll be more positive values than negative values.

3) the coherence between different values also depends on the physics that have acted on the materials over-time that they represent (physics: wind erosion, water erosion, ice erosion, etc).

Edited August 1, 2012 by Lightonfoot

[Lightonfoot 58]

Even after all that time the changes don't mean much to the basic landscape.

But comparing the natural features of the maps there is a significant difference:

While the plains of celebration are easier to travel, chaos simply has more character, plus the mountains and hills are actually easier to climb as you have ridges to rest on.

Very clever point about the ridges on ridges where you can rest. However, this really only applies to areas where your stamina is going to hurt. In other areas it'll be harder on chaos since ridges are prevalent. This causes a greater need on Chaos/Independence to landscape the terrain (when you build roads) to smoothen it.

I mean, shortest distance between two points is a straight line. So if a line between you and your destination is consistently intersected by sharp ridges then you're having to walk further to get there. You have to add up the time spent climbing up and down on ridgy terrain and the time spent running on a smoother surface.

Personally, I like it because it gives me more things to do with the shovel. I like to take damage when running down a slope because it makes me think more about where I'm traveling and whether it's safe or not.

I guess for me the realism has an immersion and risk value. The challenge of surviving in Wurm isn't just about knowing the recipes and grinding your skills, it's about knowing the creatures and knowing how to escape them or kill them. It's also about knowing the landscape and knowing what you can and can't do. There're all sorts of things to know in Wurm and that will help you survive better. I like the game to be rich with detail and obstacles.

I experienced this the other day while climbing on a steep hill. It was steeper and steeper. Soon my stamina was almost empty. I had to find a foothold so I could rest it and recover. I was worried that if I didn't I would fall down because climbing requires stamina. If I logged out my character would still remain there for 60 seconds so I might not be able to use that trick to restore it. It requires an intangible skill to do this and I like it. It's not just numbers.

I almost felt like a climber. I loved the challenge. I wouldn't like it to be made easy.

It adds another dimension to Wurm. Just like monsters or animals. Or crafting. Or healing.

Climbing gear might help to satiate some of the complaining, though. That way currently impassable slopes can still be passed and give high climbers an optional route than through a mine or around the mountain. We could also hypothetically put a pin into the ground and tie a rope from us to it and prevent falling. Or perhaps we could have climbing spurs in our boots and could lock ourselves into position with them by using a command so we could rest.

Ultimately, there needs to be enough players to appreciate this (possible) dimension of Wurm. If not enough do then the number of maps with these topographic features will dwindle or movement penalties will be gone. When that happens, travel becomes so simple that it's -only- a matter of time, not knowledge or skill. When things become a matter of time and little else then it's as good as gone from the game. Another dimension lost. Time eventually shrinks to 0 and whatever gameplay feature it was is long forgotten. That's sad, but happens all the time.

We as players need to come to accept that we shouldn't all be equal. We shouldn't all be good at everything. We have to learn to cooperate some way to preserve the dimensions in our game world so they're not lost to time. If you like a particular dimension, you've got to fight for it! You've got to be vocal and share your thoughts. Don't despair.

Edited August 1, 2012 by Lightonfoot