(no subject)
I've still been playing around with video game stuff in some of my spare time, and am close to being able to generate 3d game terrain using actual topographical data of the United States. Or anywhere else, but the U.S. government website has free data of excellent quality and most other places don't. I'm very impressed with the level of detail you can get - a resolution of 10 meters, with the tops of trees and buildings somehow removed by the satellites so you just get the ground.
If I do start working on a real game, I already know I want to use the landscape of central California, where I'm living now. Driving around through the hills and flatlands is very inspiring; I could take a walk on the actual land and then go work with it in the game. It has the requisite ocean, mountains, and desert (if I extend the map to western Nevada). For some reason every RPG-esque video game landscape must have those three things. I was thinking it would be a monster raising / breeding / battling game, since those are my favorites to play. Anyway, that's far in the future, and for now I'm just enjoying getting the land set up.
A setup with that much landmass (even if I have to cut it back somewhat for data storage reasons) will definitely require procedural generation for vegetation, which is another fun thing I'd like to do. Procedural generation in gaming means you write the rules for what goes where (with some randomness thrown in), and then the program does it for you. Variations among invidividual plants of the same species are done in the same way.
I have several things in life that are higher priority than this project, mostly family visiting, job hunting and setting up the apartment for a new housemate, but if I get anything interesting done I'll be sure to post it.
Here are some photos of the yellow hills that are my favorite landscape ever, and happen to be a half hour drive from my place. They're very peaceful and look like the perfect place for a picnic.
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If I do start working on a real game, I already know I want to use the landscape of central California, where I'm living now. Driving around through the hills and flatlands is very inspiring; I could take a walk on the actual land and then go work with it in the game. It has the requisite ocean, mountains, and desert (if I extend the map to western Nevada). For some reason every RPG-esque video game landscape must have those three things. I was thinking it would be a monster raising / breeding / battling game, since those are my favorites to play. Anyway, that's far in the future, and for now I'm just enjoying getting the land set up.
A setup with that much landmass (even if I have to cut it back somewhat for data storage reasons) will definitely require procedural generation for vegetation, which is another fun thing I'd like to do. Procedural generation in gaming means you write the rules for what goes where (with some randomness thrown in), and then the program does it for you. Variations among invidividual plants of the same species are done in the same way.
I have several things in life that are higher priority than this project, mostly family visiting, job hunting and setting up the apartment for a new housemate, but if I get anything interesting done I'll be sure to post it.
Here are some photos of the yellow hills that are my favorite landscape ever, and happen to be a half hour drive from my place. They're very peaceful and look like the perfect place for a picnic.
.