[Freeciv-Dev] Re: I have written a new terrain generator

[Gregory Berkolaiko <Gregory.Berkolaiko@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wow, man!

You should also send your program to "Science Today" or "Nature" or 
something ;)

G.


On Fri, 26 Apr 2002, Helge Hafting wrote:

> I have written a new terrain generator, and wonder
> if there's any interest in testing it,
> and where I should send the files.
> 
> My terrain generator tries create a natural terrain by
> simulating global weather.  The simulation has
> lots of adjustable parameters, currently stored in a
> file of its own.
> 
> The first step is creating a height map.
> That is, each tile  gets some height or depth.
> Heights are averaged to simulate erosion.
> 
> The next step is to assign tile temperatures, depending
> on latitude and wether the tile is land or sea.
> And high tiles are colder than low ones.
> Temperatures are then averaged, i.e. sea tiles
> influence nearby land and vice versa.
> 
> The third step is a simulation of weather.  
> Water evaporates from sea (and tiles wet from
> previous passes) and form clouds that rain down
> on neighbour tiles.  You get more rain
> over cold and high tiles, as in real life.
> Tiles end up with different wetness after this.
> 
> The fourth step is to run excess water down
> to lower tiles until it reaches the sea.  
> Any tile with sufficient waterflow becomes
> river.
> 
> The final step is to map the generated terrain
> to freeciv tile types.  This is done by using
> a ruleset that specify a height range, a
> temperature range, and a wetness range for
> each freeciv tile type.  These rules
> are in the config file too, so they can
> be tuned easily.  And new tiletypes may
> be added without changing the program code.
> 
> The generated terrain have rivers flowing 
> from mountains to sea, and mountains
> mostly in the middle of continents.
> 
> The program is currently standalone, it
> reads a savegame to get some 
> parameters like land percentage and
> then rewrites the terrain.  I wonder if it is
> interest in having it merged as another
> way of generating terrain?
> 
> I can do it, but I will probably need some
> advice.  I haven't used CVS before, and
> there are some issues.  The current terrain
> generator do stuff like deleting small islands.
> I don't know why, it is easy enough to put
> the players on larger islands or perhaps
> give the "unlucky" ones a free trireme
> or something.
> 
> Helge Hafting
> 
>