Just another update to my adventure

whtemple1959

Hello,

Time for an update. I want to again thank Megalomaniak for their insight and of course TwistedTwigleg and kryzmak for their warm welcome. This will be a long post as I have some examples to present. In my education I am really struggling with creating terrains using bump/height maps so I am exploring continued education in the area. One other aspect of my game is the use of randomly generated terrains Here is a flow chart of what I am attempting to create …

Opening Splash Screen A- Fade in game controls B- Game controls 1) Game options 2) Natural map 3) Random map 4) Load saved game C- Game options 1) Language 2) Currency 3) Screen Resolution D- Natural map options 1) Terrain and cities based on real world data E- Random maps 1) Terrain generation a) Noise generated Height maps b) Terrain textures created based on height map c) Noise generated rivers 2) City generation a) Noise generated location b) Noise generated size c) Noise generated composition 1- Small houses 2- Townhouses 3- Apartment Towers 4- Office buildings 5- Retail buildings

I hope that makes sense to everyone. At the risk of dropping names or some one recognizing my example here is a screen shot of the Game control and Game options GUI I want to create …

On YouTube, Nuno Donato has some excellent examples of his work …. This one appears to show a voxel based terrain …

This one appears to show that same voxel terrain smoothed ….

This one appears to show that voxel terrain smoothed even more ….

And, this one appears the voxel terrain completely smooth ….

For my game I will be happy with any level of this “smoothness I have attempted to communicate with Mr. Donato on YouTube for advice on how to generate the landscape in his example but unfortunately at this time have not gotten a response.

In this screen shot is a few examples of what I desire to be able to do in my game and one which I do not want I do want to be able to create random cities even if they are placed on hills and rivers, I do want to be able to build industries, I do want to be able to terra-form, and I do want to be able to build tunnels. I do not want to have “Manhattan” style roads but roads more along the style in the below YouTube.

Although this is done in Unity I am sure there is a way to create it in Godot ….

So, as you can see I have a lot to learn. I am also in Tutorial purgatory as some promising tutorials result in disappointing dead ends. But, as Napoleon Hill suggests I will surround myself with smarter people than I am and as my horoscope says for today “asking for support is a mark of inner strength, not weakness.” So I will be patient, seek help for where ever it comes from and enjoy this particular adventure

Thanks for reading my rant Until later Bill

Ace_Dragon

Hi, and welcome to the Godot community.

Godot is capable of generating a lot of content procedurally and that will only improve with version 3.1. However, the math and the algorithms involved means a person new to game development will have a difficult time doing a game of this level with any engine.

If you insist on doing something this grand, you might need to start small and simple with your procedural generation and work up to higher levels of complexity (as you might end up with unworkable code otherwise). You also might find it helpful to compartmentalize your code into functions and/or discrete steps to make it easier to follow.

whtemple1959

Ace, Thanks for the welcome. Yes, as an Aries I do tend to take a big picture of things making large brush strokes. But, then the rational side of me seeps in and I begin to seek the finer details of a project. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld ... there are things I do not know I do not know ... I do have a lot to learn and I am making many "false starts" wasting time on "tutorials" that ultimately are of no value. Currently I am teaching myself about sprites what they are capable of and how to use them. So, hang around I know I will be good for some laughs Bill

Ace_Dragon

I understand the feeling of having these mass-scale ambitions when starting out in the game developing world, but many will eventually realize they don't have the skills and will scale down immensely as a result. Many others who do try to go big on their first go quickly burn out from their struggle to make everything work and give up.

When I started out, I wanted to make these big 3D games. However, I didn't know anything about compilers and programming and had to start small and simple with a 2D game engine. Keep in mind though that easy to use 3D indie engines like Godot either did not exist or were very limited and/or expensive (but the whole balance between your dreams and what you can do still applies as it only allowed big ideas to become bigger).