GPU Terrains

Intoduction

“A picture is worth a thousand words” so I suppose a video should be much better

The real-time erosion has gained a lot from the latest optimization work, the number of FPS is passed from 1.8 to 71.4 for my first thermal erosion and from 3.1 to 71.4 for my second thermal erosion, that means that the first erosion is about 40 times faster and the second one is about 23 times faster, a huge improvement for a real-time program!

Even if the second algorithm is faster than the first one, using a small heightmap (256×256) gives the same execution time for both.

First thermal erosion

This video shows a terrain generated by the sum of 6 octaves of Perlin Noise and eroded by 100 iterations (double the number of the previous video) of my first thermal erosion algorithm.

The video is available on:

• vimeo
• youtube

this erosion algorithm allows an average frame rate (computation + visualization) of 71.4 FPS using a 256×256 16-bits floating-point texture as heightmap.

Second thermal erosion

This video shows the same terrain generated by the sum of 6 octaves of Perlin Noise and eroded by 100 (double the number of the previous video) iterations of my second thermal erosion algorithm.

The video is available on:

• vimeo
• youtube

this erosion algorithm allows an average frame rate (computation + visualization) of 71.4 FPS using a 256×256 16-bits floating-point texture as heightmap.

Introduction

I’ve improved the terrain engine adding my thermal erosion shaders, now it’s possible to see a real-time erosion (from computer graphic point of view, a real erosion would take thousands years :-P) just pressing a key!

The erosion is managed in a different way respect the previous applications I’ve made, now after every iteration, the result is shown by the terrain engine, so it’s possible to see how the ground changes during the whole process.

I’ve made a couple of videos to show this new feature, enjoy.

First thermal erosion

This video shows a terrain generated by the sum of 6 octaves of Perlin Noise and eroded by 50 iterations of my first thermal erosion algorithm.

The video is available on:

• vimeo
• youtube

this erosion algorithm allows an average frame rate (computation + visualization) of 1.8 FPS using a 256×256 16-bits floating-point texture as heightmap.

Second thermal erosion

This video shows the same terrain generated by the sum of 6 octaves of Perlin Noise and eroded by 50 iterations of my second thermal erosion algorithm.

The video is available on:

• vimeo
• youtube

this erosion algorithm allows an average frame rate (computation + visualization) of 3.1 FPS using a 256×256 16-bits floating-point texture as heightmap.

Introduction

Thanks to my friend Encelo and to some online tutorials, I’ve made my first animations with Blender.

The animations are quite simple, the only object moving around is the camera that rotates around the 3D scene, I’m planning to do some more interesting animations, but these are the first ones and I like them enjoy!

Fault Formation

The terrain has been generated by 1500 iterations of Fault Formation algorithm and eroded by 100 iterations of my thermal erosion algorithm using the default parameters: T = 0.005, c = 0.5

The video is available on:

• vimeo
• youtube

Circles

The terrain has been generated by 1000 iterations of Circles Algorithm setting r = 100 and eroded by 100 iterations of my thermal erosion algorithm using the following parameters: T = 0.005, c = 0.25

The video is available on:

• vimeo
• youtube

Perlin Noise

the terrain has been generated by a Perlin Noise made summing 6 octaves and eroded by 100 iterations of my thermal erosion algorithm using the following parameters: T = 0.0025, c = 0.25

The video is available on:

• vimeo
• youtube