Chapter 26.   Fractal Land

The FractalLand3D application creates a landscape using a plasma fractal to generate height values for the landscape's component quads. The flatness/roughness of the terrain is controlled by a number entered at the command line which affects the fractal.

The quads are covered with textures, which vary depending on the the quad's average height. They are affected by lighting, and can be cast into a foggy gloom.

The user navigates with the usual FPS key controls, and automatically follows the lie of the land, moving up hills, and down into valleys.

This page contains two screenshots: one with the default flatness value, the other with increased roughness. No fog is present in these runs.

Other features:

• picking is used to implement terrain following;
• the component quads of the landscape are grouped together based on their average heights to reduce the number of Shape3D nodes in the scene;
• textures are minified to reduce shimmering when seen at a distance;
• normals are generated for the quads automatically, with the aid of the GeometryInfo and NormalGenerator classes;
• the geometry is optimised with the Stripifier utility;
• a linear fog reduces visibility.

Downloads

• The PDF file for the draft chapter (the old ch.17) (287 KB). Last updated: 16th May 2003.
  
• Zipped Source code (32 KB). Last updated: 19th April 2005. The book's code.
  

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• Back to Chapter 25. A 3D Maze
• On to Chapter 27. Terrain Generation with Terragen