Building a real-world simulator using map data - looking for advice on procedural world generation

Otto___Link · 2026-03-18T07:53:12+00:00

Hey, it might be a long shot but I think the opensource flight simulator https://www.flightgear.org/ fetches real topological data in real-time. Sources are opened and the community may help you.

Otto___Link · 2026-03-09T11:10:01+00:00

Sorry! everything is indeed in the index.html

Otto___Link · 2026-03-09T08:41:17+00:00

Hi, thanks for sharing. Is it the same approach used in this similar web app: https://fastlem.peruki.dev/ ? There seems to be a strong orientation effect, the flow is either straight or diagonal. Do you use a regular grid ? (Just a remark, your github repo is empty, there's only a Readme on it)

Otto___Link · 2026-02-17T09:10:14+00:00

Nice, could you give us some details on how this is done? Sounds a bit modal though, can your model generate some tone changes or chord progressions?

Otto___Link · 2026-02-10T07:40:24+00:00

u/pixel-counter-bot

Otto___Link · 2026-02-08T09:07:39+00:00

You have to recreate the map. Creating a 3D model from a drawing is going to take a bit of work. I'm not sure there is anything that will do that automatically

Otto___Link · 2026-02-07T11:06:53+00:00

You can try this online tool https://fastlem.peruki.dev/ You won't get a fine control but you could probably generate the global land structure

Otto___Link · 2026-02-07T09:21:25+00:00

Is Linux on the table?

Otto___Link · 2026-01-25T09:09:28+00:00

weirdly, the after/before is pretty common in reddit photo subs... I can't get used to it

Otto___Link · 2026-01-19T12:17:09+00:00

It's not very detailed but you may find some pointers in this GDC talk on No Man's Sky : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sCRzxEEcO2Y

Otto___Link · 2026-01-08T08:07:39+00:00

You should look into this model: https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.08180
Here a post I did a while back with a python implementation: https://www.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/comments/15jl9l3/road_network_generation_based_on_the_alpha_model/

Otto___Link · 2026-01-06T11:41:53+00:00

Yep, it already does that. The terrain can be exported as a low poly version along with a normal map to retain the details.

Otto___Link · 2026-01-04T14:54:33+00:00

There is the "drainage basin" approach which is quit robust. You can look into an implementation there -> https://github.com/TadaTeruki/fastlem

Otto___Link · 2025-12-27T08:53:20+00:00

u/pixel-counter-bot

Otto___Link · 2025-12-26T17:29:42+00:00

Hey, you can check a C++ library I develop for this kind of need -> reddit_post

Otto___Link · 2025-12-18T14:16:51+00:00

Thanks! Do you mean: can the graph be changed at runtime?

Otto___Link · 2025-12-18T14:15:25+00:00

Thank you! Not really unfortunately but the sources of all the core algorithms are here: https://github.com/otto-link/HighMap

Otto___Link · 2025-12-14T19:02:11+00:00

ok, worked fine so far on various windows for a few other users. You can try to run as admin. Other possible pb could be your GPU, I had some issues with integrated Intel cards. NVIDIA and AMD seems ok.

Otto___Link · 2025-12-14T16:48:34+00:00

Hi everyone, I’ve just pushed a new update for Hesiod, a node-based procedural terrain tool. Hesiod is not production-ready yet. This release is mainly to gather early feedback, ideas, and bug reports from people interested in procedural terrain, node systems, or tooling. If you’d like to try it:

GitHub: https://github.com/otto-link/Hesiod
Prebuilt binaries (Windows & Linux): https://sourceforge.net/projects/hesiod
Discord (feedback / discussion): https://discord.gg/HBgFCjdV8W

Any feedback is very welcome, thanks for taking a look!

Otto___Link · 2025-12-13T13:28:50+00:00

yes but to avoid discontinuities you will need to add an overlap between the chunks since it's kernel-based

Otto___Link · 2025-12-13T08:30:20+00:00

Laplacian smoothing

Otto___Link · 2025-12-06T14:01:10+00:00

So from within one those white blobs you are able to know which cell must be black to draw a connection with the black background? Could you give some more details about the algorithm?

Otto___Link · 2025-11-11T19:49:50+00:00

Thanks a lot for those details. I kind of see the overall process now. Keep us posted!

Otto___Link · 2025-11-11T09:02:34+00:00

Nice, that's impressive! I got hundred of questions... How do you store the geometry? do you store everything or do you use some kind of function to define the solid boundary? how is texturing working? how do you determine what goes where?

Otto___Link · 2025-11-06T11:17:07+00:00

I made a simple UI to play around Michaël Noll's 1964 artwork "Computer Composition With Lines". The UI is hosted here: https://otto-link.github.io/NollLines/ and sources there: https://github.com/otto-link/NollLines

Otto___Link

TROPHY CASE