PPG- Procedural Planet Generator

~sciocont wrote:

InvaderZim wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

He's talking about computer crashes, I think.

Oh. Why would your computer crash from entering the atmosphere? I guess from all the planet loading at one time?

He said "When visiting a planet"

Well, yeah... Now, I beleive the obvious answer is to load the planet quality in layers, slowly getting more detailed as you get closer to the ground, rather than just BANG! Full quality! Would most likely be easiest on the 'puter.


Just statin' the obvious.

InvaderZim wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

InvaderZim wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

He's talking about computer crashes, I think.

Oh. Why would your computer crash from entering the atmosphere? I guess from all the planet loading at one time?

He said "When visiting a planet"

Well, yeah... Now, I beleive the obvious answer is to load the planet quality in layers, slowly getting more detailed as you get closer to the ground, rather than just BANG! Full quality! Would most likely be easiest on the 'puter.


Just statin' the obvious.

We are discussing exactly this in

Planetary coordinates

PPG:
Plants, pollen and Biomes. (Crossed over from a thread in Programming.)
1) Biome is determined by environment factors (temp/temp variation, precipitation, geographical location.)
2) Different types of biomes will have different categories of autotrophs. Extremely quick-growing autotrophs will thrive in areas frequently disturbed. (By fire, avalanche, whatever.) Whereas if there is an opportunity for longer-growth organisms and greater biodiversity, it will be taken.
3) Airborne pollination (or pollination in general) is pretty darn important for terrestrial plants, and, along with the other things, will be getting it's own thread over here when I get around to it.

Why do we need to keep track of pollen?

~sciocont wrote:

Why do we need to keep track of pollen?

I don't think it needs tracking, but we are going to have to simulate it, probably something random, but more likely in areas of trees (possibly taking into account wind, too, which should already exist for flying organisms).

Pollen should also have effects on creatures sometimes.

The Uteen wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Why do we need to keep track of pollen?

I don't think it needs tracking, but we are going to have to simulate it, probably something random, but more likely in areas of trees (possibly taking into account wind, too, which should already exist for flying organisms).

Pollen should also have effects on creatures sometimes.

I don't think we need to actually simulate indirect insemination processes such as pollination.

~sciocont wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Why do we need to keep track of pollen?

I don't think it needs tracking, but we are going to have to simulate it, probably something random, but more likely in areas of trees (possibly taking into account wind, too, which should already exist for flying organisms).

Pollen should also have effects on creatures sometimes.

I don't think we need to actually simulate indirect insemination processes such as pollination.

So what about pollination organisms like bees? Would we allow those to evolve?

Poisson wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Why do we need to keep track of pollen?

I don't think it needs tracking, but we are going to have to simulate it, probably something random, but more likely in areas of trees (possibly taking into account wind, too, which should already exist for flying organisms).

Pollen should also have effects on creatures sometimes.

I don't think we need to actually simulate indirect insemination processes such as pollination.

So what about pollination organisms like bees? Would we allow those to evolve?

We can have a pollinator slot in every biome with flowering plants.

That's the beauty of the niche system

Anyway, have we come up with how will planets be stored? It's hard to store spherical data without artifacts.

I've actually recently downloaded a program called space engine that procedural generates the universe. Before I continue I would like to make it clear that I don't intend for thrive to simply use this program. I wanted to bring it up because its an open source program, so if we want to work out our PPG we may want to consult the one programmer of space engine. If you do a quick google you should find it quickly, I wish I could post the direct link but I can't yet. (although the url is eu(dot) spaceengine(dot)org) Its a new program in terms of development, so it requires a mostly decent comp to run due to a lack of efficiency.

It has a bit less to do with planet generation then it does celestial generation, however I thought it may be a good starting point. ( I can create a separate thread for this if you all want.) The man behind this program has expanded a bit on planet surface generation for the next update of the program so it may not be too much out of question to look at Space engine's programming as a starting point.

(like I said, not saying we should use this program exactly as it is, but learning from it would be better then making one from scratch. And take a look at some youtube videos of it, which I can't post links of them, but I can't sorry.)

Dr_Chillgood wrote:

so if we want to work out our PPG we may want to consult the one programmer of space engine.

Maybe We can Offer Him to join The Team.
I think He can Help.

So basically this space engine contains astronomical preset data for the know universe, and procedurally generates everywhere else, including planetary surfaces? Wow. It does so with impressive visuals too, take a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68YK2FHkFjw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpnucN12uBQ

Pezzalis wrote:

So basically this space engine contains astronomical preset data for the know universe, and procedurally generates everywhere else, including planetary surfaces? Wow. It does so with impressive visuals too, take a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68YK2FHkFjw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpnucN12uBQ

That is immensely impressive. They've built basically everything we would need for large scale simulation of the milky way, I'm going to look into this.

edit:
THIS IS ABSOULTELY FANTASTIC. Thrive is essentially an extrapolation of this, since we're adding life into the universe. The beautiful graphics and high levels of detail are really getting me excited. With thrive, we can essentially just add localized details to a planet as you keep zooming in. We can basically base our game off of this engine. In fact, we could essentially give every player a different galaxy to live in. Which would be utterly, stupefyingly cool.

also, 2000 posts

~sciocont wrote:

Pezzalis wrote:

So basically this space engine contains astronomical preset data for the know universe, and procedurally generates everywhere else, including planetary surfaces? Wow. It does so with impressive visuals too, take a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68YK2FHkFjw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpnucN12uBQ

That is immensely impressive. They've built basically everything we would need for large scale simulation of the milky way, I'm going to look into this.

edit:
THIS IS ABSOULTELY FANTASTIC. Thrive is essentially an extrapolation of this, since we're adding life into the universe. The beautiful graphics and high levels of detail are really getting me excited. With thrive, we can essentially just add localized details to a planet as you keep zooming in. We can basically base our game off of this engine. In fact, we could essentially give every player a different galaxy to live in. Which would be utterly, stupefyingly cool.

also, 2000 posts

Can't agree more,
Its open source isn't it? I think you should contact the creator(s) and see if he/she could join us or allow us to take a look at some of the juicy code. The specs are quite demanding but by the time we are done they will be the norm.
I've downloaded it and have been browsing a few galaxies

I shot the developer a PM. I'll be checking in on the site regularly for his reply.

As impressive as this is, remember that buy end-game we'll be asking it to remember where the player parked his car. Can it handle it?

Probibily can, the enginge works like the file browser on your computer. Galaxy>star>planet>planet mesh. As long as we're careful what we render all at once, there should be no problem what so ever. (At least that's what I assume.)

Tenebrarum wrote:

As impressive as this is, remember that buy end-game we'll be asking it to remember where the player parked his car. Can it handle it?

Considering that we're only making one galaxy, complexity is reduced. After all, since everything is procedurally generated in space engine, we'd only need to keep track of things you've already seen. For most of the game you'll be in one biome, on one planet, so there will be much less complexity on the large scale.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

It's plausible, and it will make the game quite interesting.

It may be plausible, but would they really return the same results? i mean, anything that has to photosynthesize to survive could only survive in the goldilocks zone, a Gas Giant moon would be too far from the sun and would have a long period of being eclipsed.

Even out of the goldilocks zone, life can photosynthesize. Europa is outside it, yet there is a range where plants can photosynthesize without getting blasted with radiation.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

But will planets have similar materials if they are next to each other, or is that more 'in the next ten years' realisticness of programming?

We can probably define likely materials through position, but it doesn't really matter that much. Theoretically, any planet could get any element, and therefore make just about any sort of material.

I think it's important for us to stick to the generally accepted science of star systems, being that more dense, rocky planets are closer to the star than the large gas giants.

STOP USING KINDERGARTEN ASTRONOMY! You're wrong, our star is actually the exception to the rule, normally gas giants are closer.

Deathbite42 wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

But will planets have similar materials if they are next to each other, or is that more 'in the next ten years' realisticness of programming?

We can probably define likely materials through position, but it doesn't really matter that much. Theoretically, any planet could get any element, and therefore make just about any sort of material.

I think it's important for us to stick to the generally accepted science of star systems, being that more dense, rocky planets are closer to the star than the large gas giants.

STOP USING KINDERGARTEN ASTRONOMY! You're wrong, our star is actually the exception to the rule, normally gas giants are closer.

Not necessarily, many of the close orbiting gas giants we have found are only located because they cause more of the effect that allows us to find extrasolar planets. For all we know, these Hot Jupiters may be relatively rare and only appear common because that's all we could find for many years.

GamerXA wrote:

Deathbite42 wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

But will planets have similar materials if they are next to each other, or is that more 'in the next ten years' realisticness of programming?

We can probably define likely materials through position, but it doesn't really matter that much. Theoretically, any planet could get any element, and therefore make just about any sort of material.

I think it's important for us to stick to the generally accepted science of star systems, being that more dense, rocky planets are closer to the star than the large gas giants.

STOP USING KINDERGARTEN ASTRONOMY! You're wrong, our star is actually the exception to the rule, normally gas giants are closer.

Not necessarily, many of the close orbiting gas giants we have found are only located because they cause more of the effect that allows us to find extrasolar planets. For all we know, these Hot Jupiters may be relatively rare and only appear common because that's all we could find for many years.

Wouldn't far away gas giants produce a better effect due to a bigger orbit?

Deathbite42 wrote:

GamerXA wrote:

Deathbite42 wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

But will planets have similar materials if they are next to each other, or is that more 'in the next ten years' realisticness of programming?

We can probably define likely materials through position, but it doesn't really matter that much. Theoretically, any planet could get any element, and therefore make just about any sort of material.

I think it's important for us to stick to the generally accepted science of star systems, being that more dense, rocky planets are closer to the star than the large gas giants.

STOP USING KINDERGARTEN ASTRONOMY! You're wrong, our star is actually the exception to the rule, normally gas giants are closer.

Not necessarily, many of the close orbiting gas giants we have found are only located because they cause more of the effect that allows us to find extrasolar planets. For all we know, these Hot Jupiters may be relatively rare and only appear common because that's all we could find for many years.

Wouldn't far away gas giants produce a better effect due to a bigger orbit?

I am not an expert on this subject, however I believe that the method used is the amount of wobble a star has because of the gas giant's gravity. Which is greater the closer it is to the star, in accordance with F_g = Gm₁m₂ / r².

GamerXA wrote:

Deathbite42 wrote:

GamerXA wrote:

Deathbite42 wrote:

US_of_Alaska wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

But will planets have similar materials if they are next to each other, or is that more 'in the next ten years' realisticness of programming?

We can probably define likely materials through position, but it doesn't really matter that much. Theoretically, any planet could get any element, and therefore make just about any sort of material.

I think it's important for us to stick to the generally accepted science of star systems, being that more dense, rocky planets are closer to the star than the large gas giants.

STOP USING KINDERGARTEN ASTRONOMY! You're wrong, our star is actually the exception to the rule, normally gas giants are closer.

Not necessarily, many of the close orbiting gas giants we have found are only located because they cause more of the effect that allows us to find extrasolar planets. For all we know, these Hot Jupiters may be relatively rare and only appear common because that's all we could find for many years.

Wouldn't far away gas giants produce a better effect due to a bigger orbit?

I am not an expert on this subject, however I believe that the method used is the amount of wobble a star has because of the gas giant's gravity. Which is greater the closer it is to the star, in accordance with F_g = Gm₁m₂ / r².

But the farther it is, the farther it'll "try" to pull.

Incorrect, its pull is weaker, and the star exerts a much larger force than any planet orbiting it will.
the closer the planet is, the more force it exerts. It's some of the most basic physics out there.