Procedural approach to volumetric terrain generation

作者：Santamaria Ibirika Aitor^*; Cantero Xabier; Salazar Mikel; Devesa Jaime; Santos Igor; Huerta Sergio; Bringas Pablo G

来源：Visual Computer, 2014, 30(9): 997-1007.

DOI：10.1007/s00371-013-0909-y

• Procedural generation
• Virtual worlds
• Volumetric terrain
• Terrain modeling

The recent outbreak of indie games has popularized volumetric terrains to a new level, although video games have used them for decades. These terrains contain geological data, such as materials or cave systems. To improve the exploration experience and due to the large amount of data needed to construct volumetric terrains, industry uses procedural methods to generate them. However, they use their own methods, which are focused on their specific problem domains, lacking customization features. Besides, the evaluation of the procedural terrain generators remains an open issue in this field since no standard metrics have been established yet. In this paper, we propose a new approach to procedural volumetric terrains. It generates completely customizable volumetric terrains with layered materials and other features (e.g., mineral veins, underground caves, material mixtures and underground material flow). The method allows the designer to specify the characteristics of the terrain using intuitive parameters. Additionally, it uses a specific representation for the terrain based on stacked material structures, reducing memory requirements. To overcome the problem in the evaluation of the generators, we propose a new set of metrics for the generated content.

• 出版日期2014-9